by submission | Jul 29, 2008 | Story
Author : Pete Hayward
Wading through the long grass, her eyes and nose prickled by pollen, Erin could hear the thrum of helicopters in the distance. She knew they would soon catch her. As she approached the wire fence, she knew there was no escape; that she had lead them to her hideout.
Reaching the gate, she quickly turned the key and unhooked the padlock. She pushed the gate open and left it to swing behind her. She carried the padlock with her, the weight in her left hand some small comfort. Hideout, she thought to herself. Bunker, compound, whatever she called it, it was really just a wooden shed surrounded by a flimsy fence and some barbed wire. At least, that was all that was visible. She crossed the yard briskly, and pushed open the wooden door with a rusty whine into a dusty hallway.
Her stride unbroken, she dropped the padlock with a hefty clonk. She scooped up a brown paper package from a shelf to her left and continued to march. At the end of the hallway, a creaking wooden staircase led her underground. Above the soft foot-thumps of her sneakers on the steps, she could hear the rapidly approaching helicopters.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Erin tapped in her keycode to unlock the enormous steel doors there. As the mechanism clanked and swhooshed, she idly slid a fingernail under one of the folded corners of the paper-wrapped oblong she held in her hands.
How could she have been so careless?
Honey was big money on the black market. The bee trade was perhaps now the most illegal global market. It was certainly the most dangerous and expensive. Due to their near extinction some eighty years previous, and the threat this had posed to mankind, live bees had been replaced by tiny, sophisticated robots, for the sole purpose of pollenation. Private ownership of bees was criminalised, and, as the years turned into decades, honey and beeswax became the forbidden luxuries of the wildly decadent über-elite.
Erin allowed the paper wrapping to fall to the ground and stared at the waxy block in her hands. A comb like this would be worth seven grand. The cost of constructing and maintaining vast underground gardens in secret, and the expenses involved in smuggling produce and livestock, meant bee traders needed to mark their products up significantly to make anything like a profit. The sorts of people that bought honey didn’t care. The higher the price, the better; they were buying a golden spoonful of status.
Erin’s mother had been a canny trader, but one thing she had that Erin lacked was a deep and murky reservoir of paranoia. She reflected on this as the commotion of barked orders and heavy bootstomps filled the shack above her. Erin held the comb to her mouth and inhaled deeply. Her resolve momentarily strengthened, she tightened a fist around the waxy block, and entered the apiary.
by submission | Jul 27, 2008 | Story
Author : Leslie Smith
Hi there. Oh..you have a question? Someone at school said we were going somewhere? After dinner honey. No? Now? Okay, sit very still and I will tell you a story…….
Once, very long ago, we lived with our mother. She was large and round. She fed and gave us a place to sleep. She sang us songs when the wind blew through her hair. She showed us pretty pictures when the sun shined on her face. And we loved her. She asked nothing of us, but we gave anyway. For a long time, everything was at peace.
But sometimes, people forget. They forget about love. When something is given freely, they start taking it for granted. And that’s what we did, we took our mother for granted.
We stopped listening to her. We forgot about everything that she gave us without asking. We just took. We threw things wherever we wanted, like when you don’t want to clean your room sometimes. We did what we wanted. And just like you, we had people who said that what we did was wrong. They told us how to fix things. How to make things right again. But we didn’t listen. We wanted to do things our own way. We thought we were grown up. We were wrong.
Mother got sick from all of our ickyness. Pretty soon, we couldn’t be near her without getting sick too. So, since we thought that we were so grown up, we did the only thing that we could do, we left.
We sailed away on big mountains of metal and crystal. We sailed across oceans of blackness and time. We found new places to live. But they were never quite the same as living with our mother. Why? Because she made us. She molded us. She held our hands when we cried. She let us rest our heads on her great shoulders when we had bad dreams. It hurt to leave her, but we did.
Only…we didn’t leave her behind….not all the way. We gave her a kind of telephone. See, we knew that no matter how sick she got, that one day she would get better.
Yesterday we got a phone call. And you know what? She called to say she’s feeling a lot better and wants to meet you. You feel up for a family visit?
by submission | Jul 26, 2008 | Story
Author : John Kuhn
Bata stood beside Danny and held out his soda. The game blared in front of him.
Danny glanced at her.
“Thanks,” he smiled, wondering if the smile really mattered.
“You’re welcome.”
He took the drink and relished the sound of ice cubes clinking against the glass. His gaze reverted instantly to the game; kindness lingered in his eyes even after he’d forgotten she was there.
“Danny?”
She was hesitant to interrupt, but this was important. Danny looked at her.
“Danny, I want to learn to paint.”
Danny’s world stopped. “What?”
“I want–”
The man dropped his drink on the floor.
He swore, but not about the spill.
Danny stood and squeezed Bata’s shoulder, and she slept. He lay the lithe creature in a heap in the back seat of his car and set the navigator on a course for the Ministry building.
###
Danny stood outside the double doors holding her in his arms. She was lighter than a human her size. A man in blue coveralls came out.
“What’s the problem, sir?” he asked.
“Desire,” Danny replied sadly.
The man nodded and seized a radio from his belt. “We have a 504 in the front,” he said.
“Take it on back to the processor,” crackled an androgynous reply.
“Can I watch?” Danny asked before the man could take her away.
The man looked him in the eyes. He had gone through a customer sensitivity update the day before.
“Sure,” he said softly.
###
Danny followed the man in blue coveralls through a powered gate to the back of the building, onto a cracked cement parking lot punctuated with hardscrabble weeds. The processor hummed in the center of the lot–it was a huge tin box with a conveyor belt jutting in front and a rusting bin in the back. Danny showed no emotion, lest the laborer think him an idiot.
The man in blue lay Bata on the conveyor belt and flipped a switch. The box came to life and Danny watched as the conveyor pulled her into its gnashing teeth. The titanium under her artificial skin squealed, and glinting sparks dove in arcing flight away from the destruction.
He drove home in brokenhearted silence.
“Bata,” he whispered over the soft music playing in the car.
###
The house welcomed him by echoing his every footstep across the cold kitchen tiles, its emptiness exaggerated by her missing standard welcome.
by submission | Jul 25, 2008 | Story
Author : Luke Chmelik
We were about to set in for refitting in the drydocks of Neptune when Capitaine Merroux of the Frégate Royaux Joyeuse came forth with a grand announcement. There would be a night of revelry in her private quarters, a formal ball to commemorate the engagement of le Prince du Sang Amelanchier le Troisième de Lucannes to the Lady Celène Sauvette. All officers were to attend in full dress uniform. As a lowly officier subalterne, this was a rare chance to rub shoulders with the upper echelons of la noblesse militaire, and an even rarer chance to see the beautiful Capitaine Isabelle Merroux. I simply hoped not to be dazzled into foolishness by a flagship’s complement of polished brass.
The enlisted crew had also been infected by the electric atmosphere. Notices were posted, giving an evening’s leave to all non-essential staff, and parties were rapidly organized, far from the eyes and ears of the officers. Certain elements of the rank and file, the ones with musical talent, had even been given special dispensation to perform as a chamber ensemble for the officers. The sounds of viola and harpsichord drifted through the corridors long into the night as each would-be virtuoso sought to outdo the others. It was a rare privilege for them to be allowed to dine with la belle capitaine, and they knew it may never be extended again.
At last the evening came and, resplendent in the indigo serge and gold brocade of an officer of le Marine Solaire, I arrived at the Capitaine’s quarters. The band was playing La Marseillaise, and my chest swelled with pride at what we had achieved this year: The English and Dutch routed, the Spaniards banished to the Kuiper Belt, and the inner planets brought under the control of Amelanchier le Deuxième de Lucannes, le Roi Solaire. With the love of King and country burning in my heart, I cast my eyes upon Capitaine Isabelle Merroux.
She was standing before a vast window opening out onto space, the blue orb of Neptune rising behind her, and the stars glowed like faerie fire amongst her copper curls. She wore a gown of burgundy satin, lavish beyond all compare, and white satin gloves to her shoulders. Our eyes met, across the milling crowd, and I thought I saw her smile before an eddy of fellow subalternes swept me away. I tried to find her throughout the night, but too soon it grew late, and I began to despair.
It was past midnight when I made to leave. The band had struck up a waltz, a slow, sweet song by a Hungarian named Liszt from centuries before. As I turned to go, a satin-gloved hand lit upon my shoulder, and I looked up into the face of Isabelle Merroux. She smiled at me, her face aglow, and words I shall never forget slipped from her crimson lips:
“Danser avec moi, Monsieur Beaujolais?”
Time seemed to stand still. I was enthralled, enraptured by the very closeness of her. The song neared its end, and I groaned inwardly, wishing it would go on forever. As the last melodies faded away, I heard a bustle from the doorway. Turning, I saw a cadre of enlisted men as they broke through the door. Their leader leveled a meson rifle at the Capitaine and hissed through clenched teeth, “Pour la révolution!”
Automatically I pushed Isabelle away, my hand traveling to my hip. Full dress uniform included an epée. There were many of them, and better armed, but some things are worth dying for.
by submission | Jul 22, 2008 | Story
Author : Ian Rennie
The puddles of rainwater reflected neon and sodium up from the streets as the two men stood at the taxi rank. One waited, the other waited with him.
“Shame you have to leave so early, Tom. The evening was just getting started.”
“Sorry Jake, it’s Barney’s storytime, you know how it is with kids.”
Jake looked uncomfortable for a moment, but continued.
“You coming out this weekend? Tanya is having a party at her house. Marie’s going to be there. You know, she really likes you. All week she was asking about you and making sure you would be here tonight. I don’t think she expected you to duck out after an hour.”
“I can’t. It’s Barney’s birthday this weekend.”
The discomfort turned to dismay on Jake’s face and he put a gentle hand on Tom’s shoulder.
“Tom, mate, it’s been six years. You have to let it go. You never come out any more. I know what happened, and it’s a tragedy, but you’re letting it eat your life up.”
Tom shook the hand off. Before Jake could say any more, the next cab arrived. Tom got into it without a word, as if Jake had simply been switched off.
When he got home, the lights were off throughout the house. He stood in the dark hall and looked for a moment at the shadows lacing through the open doors of the other rooms. He tried to remember the last time he had had visitors here, then shook the thought off as irrelevant, and headed upstairs to Barney’s room.
Barney was already lying on his bed. Tom was used to the lack of blanket by now. It didn’t break the scene for him any more.
“Hi, Barney-bear”
“Hi, daddy”
The voice was perfect, a computer recreation based on five years of recordings the house had made. In fact, everything about the projection was as close to perfect as he could get. He upgraded the software every time something better came out, and had even had some parts of it custom written. The result was as close as he could get to what he had lost.
Barney was five. He had been five for six years, now. He couldn’t get any older and Tom didn’t want him to. He pulled the book from the bedside table and started reading.
“Once upon a time,” he said, “There was a little boy…”
