by submission | Nov 19, 2008 | Story
Author : Carter Lee
-flash-
There was no one else, anymore. Something had happened, and I am all that is left. Here on this empty, dusty stretch of nothingness. Grey plane stretched out on all sides, merging with the grey sky, lit only by a dim sun. There was no one, there was nothing, just me, and the plain, and the sky.
I had walked, for a while. However, nothing and no one existed here, except me, and so I just sat. I looked at the plain, and at the sky, and breathed the still air in and out.
All alone. I closed my eyes.
-flash-
I woke as the helmet lifted off my head, and the safety bars retracted. I slid out as the next user slid in, our chests brushing and our breath mixing as we changed places. She didn’t look at me, but at the alcove, her eyes filled with hunger and anticipation. No doubt, my eyes held the same hunger, but now that my time was up, the hunger would be replaced with regret.
I pulled my gaze away, and looked at the mass of people passing in front of me. The corridor was filled with a never-ending mass of hurrying men and women, their eyes fixed on the back in front of them as they sped past, endlessly, without pause. God help the person who came out of step with the person behind or in front of them. Just yesterday, more than 200 hundred people had died in one of the North6LevDown corridors, trampled when the Hall Monitors hadn’t been able to divert the flow fast enough.
I slid into the flow, and over the next mile, pressed from the right side to the left side of the corridor. I made it across just in time to spin myself into the downstream line for my local elevator.
I just managed to squeeze into the ‘Vator, pressed tight against the inner safety mesh. For just a second, I saw the resigned expression of the person who was now at the head of the downstream line, saw his shoulder hunch down to fight the pushing of the mass streaming past, rubbing and bumping him as his hands, white-knuckled, gripped the support bar. Head of the line, fighting the flow, it’s a tough spot to be in.
The ride was interminable, creeping upward while constantly moving, sliding this way and that to get out of the way of those leaving at the next level, then pressing forward myself as my level neared. Sliding out, into the flow, across the hallway, navigating the tricky left at Junc. 317, crossing the corridor again, and finally, miles later, joining the flow into my section. Finally, I slid into my niche just as my predecessor left. Good timing, I thought as I got comfortable, leaning back slightly. Eight hours of full sleep before the next shift arrived, and I would have to have eight hours of ‘recreation’ before work.
I closed my eyes.
-flash-
I woke to the sound of electricity crackling, smelling smoke, eyes filled with the destroyed world I hated so much. The machine had malfunctioned again. And I was cast out of my lovely, barely remembered dream. Cast back into my personal hell of devastation and loneliness.
The machine is broken, and I do not know if I can fix it, this time. Here, in the city of destroyed buildings and rotting corpses, I found myself alone, again. In despair, I began to cry, feeling more tired than was possible, and sank to the ground, eyes closed. Against my wishes, I slept.
-flash-
by submission | Nov 18, 2008 | Story
Author : Asher Wismer
The Boast sat on the hill and watched the man-things playing with fire. They burned themselves, each other, and finally set the forest alight. The fire didn’t reach the Boast, so it just watched.
The Boast sat on the hill and watched the man-things hunt. They used rocks and sticks, the former for throwing, the latter burned to a point in their fire. The Boast was inedible, so it just watched.
The Boast sat on the hill and watched the man-things farm. They used domesticated horses to till the land, domesticated cattle for manure and meat, domesticated sheep for clothing. The Boast could not be domesticated, so it just watched.
The Boast watched the man-things discover electricity, and wire the forest with lights. The Boast didn’t sleep, so it just watched.
The Boast watched the man-things create shooting weapons and wage war for gold and oil. The Boast had neither, so it just watched.
The Boast watched the man-things create bombs, and destroy millions of themselves in seconds. The Boast moved to a different hill.
The Boast watched the man-things unleash terrible biological weapons, decimating life on the planet, sickening crops, cattle, fish, trees. The forest disappeared. The rivers dried up. The man-things came to the Boast and screamed, “Why didn’t you stop us? Why won’t you help? Why can’t you come down from your hill and dictate peace and prosperity?”
The Boast didn’t understand English, so it just watched.
Later, the Boast sat on the hill and watched the roach-things playing with fire.
by submission | Nov 16, 2008 | Story
Author : Ryan Somma
Wyndallo took an unexpected breath of cold, sterile air. He opened his eyes and saw his exhale condense against the glass door to the capsule, which was smoothly lifting away from him. He registered the air outside the capsule was colder than inside, but his brain was too removed from the otherly sensation to induce shivering.
Last thing he remembered, Wyndallo was enjoying braised antelope with a rich pesto side dish. He was just about to enjoy a sip of a 1986 Chateau Mouton Rothschild Pauillac, when the system had crashed. Now that he was here in the real world, the world of continuity, he could remember that the system always crashed when he tried to taste that particular vintage. The system would automatically report the bug, but it was obvious after all these years that no one remained out there to work on it.
Even if he had wanted to get up from the bed, his muscles had grown stiff and inflexible from decades of disuse. The capsule could overcome this, get him on his feet again, but the process would take months. Just the act of propping him up a few degrees would induce nausea so severe it might kill him. He was content to wait for the software to reboot and welcome him back into its warm embrace.
He could see his surroundings reflected in the capsule’s glass door. Rows of glowing capsules, their occupants obfuscated behind cloudy glass, stretched off into the distance in either direction. His own reflection was laid out in the center of them all, his naked body pale and emaciated. He felt no connection to it at all. It wasn’t his anymore.
His eyes wandered to the ceiling, where a skylight revealed a bit of night sky that was full of stars. It was so uninspiring compared to the night skies the VR software rendered, these were just bland white twinkling points of light.
The night sky the system rendered was full of geometric shapes and patterns, clear proof of a galaxy brimming with intelligent life. Wyndallo’s civilization had wasted centuries searching the skies for even a hint of life beyond their world to no avail.
The system mercifully whirred to life again and the capsule door descended to enclose him. Before the psi-field wrapped his consciousness in its warm illusion, Wyndallo had a moment to wonder if no civilization had ever left its mark on the stars because they were all fated to the same prison of introspection.
by submission | Nov 15, 2008 | Story
Author : Glenn Blakeslee
Janie and I sat on the rocks in the afternoon sun, overlooking the shallow valley and, beyond it, Gordon’s face on the mountainside. We waited until the sightseer buses left the parking lot, and walked down the path to the viewing area.
It was impressive. Gordon’s face was a quarter-mile across, set amid slabs of granite, tilted back at a forty-five degree angle. Foreshortening made his brows appear heavy, his nose overbearing. His eyes were closed but it was still obviously Gordon.
Janie stopped almost to the interaction kiosk, her hands clenched on her chest, but I continued. I stood for a while, and called Gordon’s name.
The eyes slowly opened, gimbaled up to the sky and then down at the viewing area. They blinked, slowly. The lips on the mountain moved, and the sound of his voice came from all over, rumbled through the rocks at my feet. Gordon said “James?”
“Yeah,” I said, “It’s me,” and the lips on the mountain smiled.
“And Janie, too,” Gordon said. Janie stood on the path, still, her hands clenched.
“You look… amazing,” I said, and it was true. “Your skin looks so real.”
“It is real. It’s my actual skin, cloned into a macro-analog, tougher, more durable.”
“Cool,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.
“My eyes are amazing,” Gordon rumbled from the rocks. “They’re like real eyes, liquid-filled, with a billion charge-couple devices close-packed where the optic disk would be. I can see forever.”
“We’ve just heard about this, and came to see you,” I said. I moved from behind the kiosk, to make sure he saw me. “We wanted to know that you were happy.”
“I am happy. It’s wonderful,” the rocks rumbled. “Janie?” She raised her face to his. “I still love you,” Gordon said.
I could see tears streaming down her face. I started to walk to her, but she ran up the path. I followed.
“Janie?” Gordon said.
#
I came back a year later, alone. There were no sightseers, no buses or cars. Gordon’s eyes were open, staring up into the midday sun. His skin looked cracked and leathery, eroded around the sides of his nose. Crows sat on the expanse of his face, cawing, picking at loose pieces of skin.
Gordon was slow to answer. He recognized my voice but wouldn’t move his eyes from the sky. “I can see forever but there’s nothing to see,” he said, his voice lower than before. “We’re all alone here, I’m all alone,” he said, and then wouldn’t speak any more.
#
I made my third and last visit to Gordon three days after Janie’s death. It was dusk, the light gone from the valley, the stars rising at my back. I could see his profile, and glints of starlight reflecting off his eyes. He didn’t respond to me, but spoke continually in a rumbling growl. “I am your master,” he said, “Kneel to me. I am the lord of this land, you are my creation. Kneel to me.”
I stood there for an hour, and then started up the path.
“Hands!” Gordon screamed. “Give me my hands!”
The next morning I found four laborers in town. We used garden tools to chop and hoe the square mile of Gordon’s face to pieces. I severed the cable to his cold-fusion power supply. I split the aqueous humor of his eyes with a pike, widened the gap until the liquid ran down his cheeks. We dug to the embedded center of his analog-brain, and I crushed it.
It took hours. The crows came by the thousands.
by submission | Nov 13, 2008 | Story
Author : Tony Pacitti
“You ever hear of a fellow named, Jules Verne?” the man asked me.
“Sure I heard of him. Frenchman. Done borrowed an idea or two from him from time to time.”
“It’s funny you should say that,” he said.
The man smiled such that it didn’t do much in the way of makin’ me feel at ease. It was the kind of smile that said he knew a secret I wouldn’t guess in a million years.
Now the only thing to rival the number of notes these fingers of mine have plucked are the number of miles these feet have carried me. I done walked my fair share across this great nation, I’ll tell you what. From Kennebunk to Salinas and from there right on back to Macon. Hell, I didn’t even stop once the entire way and I done it to prove that there ain’t nothin’ a man can’t accomplish when he’s got the gumption.
I have however made plenty of stop in plenty of towns on plenty other voyages across these forty-eight states. As a result I’ve got myself something of a reputation as a raconteur. A wanderin’, song singin’ story teller like they used to have in the old world. I tell it all, tales of heroism and horror, rags and riches. The people of this country have a thirst for the sweet drink of Someplace Else, especially during these dark times, and I’m happy to be the bar man fillin’ their empty glasses. In some places my services aren’t as appreciated as they once were, thanks to my only mortal enemy, The Radio, but there’s still a personal connection to a crowd that no gizmo can ever make, especially not when old Fin’s around.
It’s because I’m a storyteller that this here man in black approached me. He said that as known as I am I can disappear without any suspicion.
“It won’t matter how long it’s been since anyone seen you last,” he told me, “They’ll all just assume you’re someplace else.”
He took me to a large steel mill where I was told a group of men were waiting to make my acquaintance. The first of the other recruited men I met was an ancient lookin’ Englishman named Barkley. His hands were like twisted, knotty branches and his face barely visible through a bramble of yellowing gray hair. All that showed through it was a fat, pockmarked nose and two sunken, stitched shut eyelids. His eyes themselves where kept in a jar he carried and I’ll be struck dead by God Almighty if they didn’t follow me as I moved passed him. The man in black told me that Barkley here had studied under a man named Crowley and had spent years in places powerful in black magics such as the Far East and the voodoo swamps of Louisiana.
After leaving Barley to his mumblin’ in tongues, the man in black was met by a clean-cut gentleman wearing glasses and a strange suit that looked more like a machine than a garment. They spoke at length about timetables, trajectories, heavy explosives and, unless I misheard, alchemy. Almost as if he’d forgotten I was there, the man in black introduced me to the iron and hose clad Captain Stewart.
The busy Captain stomped off, fast as his heavy suit would allow and it was at this point that I finally demanded to know what was going on.
“Why Mr. Sassafrass,” he said with that wicked smile again, “We’re releasing you gentlemen of your terrestrial tether.”
Jules Verne—these old boys were breakin’ for the stars!
