by submission | Mar 11, 2009 | Story
Author : Q.B. Fox
When we broke down, it left me with some time to kill, so I slipped into a little café near the port and bought a latte and a muffin. The breakfast rush had long gone and it was still too soon for an early lunch, so I was the only customer apart from a casually dressed fellow, sat against the wall and lost behind that day’s paper.
I idled away the minutes as the coffee cooled, breaking pieces off the muffin and staring dreamily out of the large windows at the beautiful people filling the sun drenched streets; amazingly perfect, colourfully dressed, beautiful people.
Of course, if you know nothing else about the place, and to be honest I knew very little more, you’d have heard about the accident. When was it? Five years ago? Ten?
Anyway, it was a funny thought, to think that all these perfect people had been made that way; remade that way, really.
It was so unexpected I jumped when he spoke. Perhaps I’d mumbled something of my thoughts out loud (I do that sometimes), perhaps he’d just guessed what I was thinking.
“You ever been to the aquarium, ever seen the reef exhibit?” he asked, a disembodied voice from behind the headlines.
I confessed I’d not seen anymore of the city than what I could see through this window.
“If you go during the day,” he explained, “and look into the tank, it’s filled with beautiful fish, all different colours and shapes and patterns, but each one as beautiful as the next.”
I crumbled a raisin out of the sponge, popped it in my mouth, turning to face him.
“But if you go in the evening,” he continued casually, half his attention apparently still focused on the news print, “they dim the lights, make it night time, and that’s when the ugly fish come out; grey and brown fish with bug eyes and pointy, sticky-out teeth; funny looking, bloated fish, with round bodies and stubby fins; freak show fish not meant to be out in the light of day.”
He paused; and I waited, waited to see where he was going.
“It’s not like those fish are put into the tank at night, they’re there all along, hiding in the crevices in the coral, waiting for it to be safe to go out.”
And then he did something that shocked me, made me see the whole world differently.
He lowered his paper.
by submission | Mar 9, 2009 | Story
Author : mjcast
I toss and turn trying to log on to the sleep server. By myself in my bed, my apartment, yet never alone. The endless chatter of the web constantly bombarding my consciousness with pictures, messages and update streams. I am unable to tune it out, log in and get much needed sleep.
My doctor says that I need to relax and try and get a good rest.
“In the past it had taken a while for someone who wasn’t born into the MindLine experience to adapt and tune out the streaming, however that was ages ago. You were born and immediately implanted with MindShare, you should have developed the coping patch within your mind to merge seamlessly with the software, and be able to filter out when you need to. Update your links to the sleep server and check those connections throughout the day.”
Thanks for the advice…but I can’t anymore. Damn doc wouldn’t even prescribe anything to help. Not since the Emphino Virus, were they able to prescribe anti-nets for fear of virus’ becoming drug resistant.
I had made it through 30 years of connected life then I lapsed on a Delta wave patch and I hit a midlife crisis, hard. It didn’t take long for things to come crashing down around me; with the level of connectedness everyone knows pretty quickly when something is wrong. Pretty soon my boss was calling me in for ‘special talks’ and recommending a pysch eval.
“The eval will help you get back on track. I looked at your entire avatar post history, you have no irregularities aside from the usual teenage stuff,” he had said.
However, I haven’t slept in two months. I can’t escape.
I lay here staring at the ceiling, viewing updates flashed from people on the other side of the world waking up and messaging to their avatars. Stream after stream, some from people I know in the flesh however mostly from contacts and associates across the wires. Thoughts, feelings, ideas instantly relayed through MindShare for all to see and peruse.
I had done it casually at first, bought the drill gun with plans to put in a half wall in my office. Left it charging in the garage for a couple of days till I knew for certain it was necessary. I hadn’t even allowed myself the ability to formulate the idea lest it be posted to my avatar.
That didn’t matter; I had leaked a post unknowingly. As soon as I tried to bore out MindShare and destroy my connection permanently, my hand froze and I got a post from the MindLine Security Authority that they were sending an ambulance to pick me up. A nice room had been reserved for my avatar at Ion Systems Hospital, a few weeks ago according to the post date.
I had been deemed a virus and am subject to be quarantined from the system. I look forward to the silence of life and the embrace of a systemless sleep…
by submission | Mar 8, 2009 | Story
Author : A. Munck
Man claims a bad joy. He has his hand on the radar. The oil, sweat sheen on his palm reacts with chemicals on the screen and reveals ships in the darkness. Man has waited a long time alone in the dark.
“Stasis… two-thirds.”
The new planet spun serenely below. Man woke up one by one to see which children, parents, brothers, sisters had died in their sleep. They gathered at windows, murmurous, tugging on crosses, pocket Qu’rans, rosaries, the Wiccan Rede on a Kindle, staring into the oceans and continents of another Earth.
Landing went well. Nearly all the equipment had come through intact. Man found trees in his new home. Cabins went up. A mill burdened the river. Maize and beans wed alien soil and children made pets of tiny tri-legged beetles. When the necessities of life had been established, joint town meetings were held in the new sister cities of Armstrong and Aldrin.
“We’ll build the First Unitarian Church of Terra Nova,” Man said. “We’ll build it between our two cities, and thank God for saving us all.”
Man put his back into it. The heavy ridge beam went up, made of unnamed wood, which Man called oak. The spine of the church was long and sturdy, the rafters straight. Walls rose. Glass was melted and a window stained; Man carved four altars, a cross, a star, a pentagon, a crescent.
He congratulated himself on his new tolerance. He came to worship – there were no Saturdays or Sundays, just days – and to sit for once together in peace.
“Brothers and Sisters,” he said. “Let us pray.”
Our Father Allah Mother-Goddess Yahweh,
Thou who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy Kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On Earth as it is in Heaven…
Man stopped praying and raised his head to gaze on the length of the high ridge beam, white with unleaded paint. There was nothing above him. The beam stared blankly at the floor.
“God, wilt thou not speak to me?” he cried, each brother, sister, child and parent separately, silently, in his own breast. The prayer went on without resonance. No sentience had grown on Nova Terra, and no sacredness felt. Though maize stretched high in the light of a red sun, some necessities of life had not survived the grafting.
Man was alone in his church.
by submission | Mar 7, 2009 | Story
Author : Gavin Raine
A small child came up to me while I waited in the park. Came right up to me, touched my colourless hair and ran his fat little fingers over the wrinkles on my face. When he asked me what they were, I told him that old father time had carved them with his knife, and then I laughed at his wondrous expression.
I would have talked with the boy for longer, but his worthless mother showed-up to snatch him away. She gave me a look that was pure hatred, though I’d done nothing wrong. Obviously, she understood what an old man is and why one would exist in the world of the young. There was no need to worry though, because it’s not the children that draw me here.
I come to the park to watch for Angela. I’ve been spending most of my afternoons here, since I found her again. She was my first and, in a way, she was the genesis of all my troubles.
All those years ago, our first date was a triumph. She laughed at my jokes, searched my eyes and seemed to like what she found, and even held my hand as I walked her home. When we got there, she invited me in for coffee. It was all perfect, right up to the point where the little bitch asked me to leave.
I was so angry! You don’t play the tease, invite a guy up, and then go cold on him at the last possible moment. So, what she’d attempted to deny to me, I took by force. I tried to say sorry later, but when I left in the morning, she called the police.
Now, they tell me that I’m a serial sex offender. I’ve served four jail terms, each longer than the last and all for the same offence – with various women. Through the last two sentences, my youth preserving treatments have been withheld. The last judge claimed that I’d left her with no choice. That the law didn’t give her the opportunity to impose a death sentence, but she couldn’t let me go on living and re-offending forever. She was another bitch.
Just after five pm, I spotted Angela walking back to her apartment building. I cut across the park and timed my arrival to catch the door as it swung behind her.
She was waiting for the elevator and I marvelled at how little she’d changed. Her trim figure, that lovely solemn face and the shine on her cropped black hair were all exactly as I remembered. I walked over to stand behind her and she caught my reflection in the elevator doors. There was a telltale widening of the eyes, some shock I think, perhaps even a little fear, but no recognition – not yet anyway.
Then the elevator doors opened and the connection between us was broken. Angela stepped forward and I followed.
by submission | Mar 5, 2009 | Story
Author : Todd Hammrich
The first thing to hit him upon waking was the metallic taste in his mouth. Every morning it was the same taste. It told him the machines inside his body had been working again; cleaning, scrubbing, scraping and sterilizing. It was the symbol of his life. Sterile.
He got out of bed and admired his physique. His body was muscled and smooth. He was the ideal image of man, someone’s ideal anyway. It amazed him how fluid-like his movements were as he strolled across the room. It was the machines again, always the machines. They had sculpted his body to look like this so he could do the work required of him. Their work.
“Good morning. The time is 8:05. It is time for breakfast. Your nutrition solution is awaiting you at the table.” The sound issued forth from hidden speakers all around the room and followed him as he went into the dining room. “Today’s schedule is full. You must work quickly to fulfill your quota.”
His nutritive solution tasted slightly bitter to him this morning. A clear sign his body was in need of some essential materials for the maintenance of the machines that scoured his body of all ailments. It occurred to him then that maybe they weren’t ingestible by humans, but he knew that none of the material would get through his body. The machines would undoubtedly absorb all the harmful material before it got through his stomach.
On a whim he decided to take the day off. “I don’t feel like working today computer. Please re-schedule today’s activities for another time.” His voice sounded like the rasping of tissue paper, not because anything was wrong with him, that would not have been permitted, but because he used it so rarely. He would go out walking he decided. It wasn’t necessary, he knew, but it brought him pleasure to see natural world outside his small habitation complex. He liked the thought that Mother Nature was reclaiming her world without the aid of any machinery.
“If you are certain. We will carry on tomorrow then. Do not go out of range of the transmitters. Enjoy your walk.” The computer knew him all too well. It had probably already known he would not be working that day anyway. He knew that it had when he found his hiking pack by the door already prepared.
The outside air was clean and lacked the bite of reprocessing chemicals permeating his enclosure. A perfect circle of plant life surrounded his dwelling, exactly 10 meters from the walls. Machines were very precise. His complex sat on a small hill overlooking a ruined city, the walls and streets of the ancient world decomposing at an accelerated rate because no one was there to stop them.
It was a strange thought that struck him then, a sadness that threatened to overwhelm him. “I am the last. The last of the human race.” It was so terrible that he knew he would not be able to bear it. Immediately he dashed across the open space and through the trees trying to get out of the receivers range so that the machines inside would lose power and he could die.
Before he made it even halfway there the machines released a wave of chemicals into his blood stream that calmed him. He stopped, forgetting what he was doing. After many long minutes striving to remember he made his way back to the enclosure and decided he would work after all. The computer made a silent tally: Attempt number 3650. The machines kept track of everything.
