by submission | May 25, 2008 | Story
Author : Grant Wamack
Coins, they’re thrown into the small pile that sits in front of a heap of dirty rags. The rags shift and the metal underneath shines in the dull afternoon light. It rises to its feet, specks of dirt fall to the ground, gears groan and its body creaks.
It slowly walks to the small shop down the road, with each step its body jerks awkwardly. When the android clerk turns, he recognizes the droid even though it’s covered in filthy rags. It’s a TX-1000. Outdated, pulled from the market ten years ago. They were “switched off,” melted down into scrap metal. Some escaped, most didn’t. The ones that did however were hunted down. This one must have slipped through the cracks. The clerk could hear the joints creak, as the rags approach the counter. They were drought dry, in dire need of oil.
Two wires taste each others lips.
Once….
Twice….
The third time ignites a spark. Each word a small explosion. “Oil, please.”
The clerk looks underneath the counter, grabs the bottle and sets it on top. “30 units sir.”
30 units are thrown on the counter. The clerk takes the units and slips them into the currency slot. “Would you like this in a bag?”
No more explosions, the words crackle, “Yes, thank you.” The rags walk out the shop, clutching the bag in its hand.
It wasn’t hard to imagine where the outdated droid would go. Pixels form on the screen of the clerk’s imago-screen. In the image, a pile of rags slump down against a brick wall. Red rocks surround the rags. They could have been rusted parts or bits of brick or both. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the bottle. The rags guzzle the black oil; till it trickles out the corner of its mouth.
A girl passes by and mistakes the oil for a tear. She bends down and wipes the oil away with her shirt. Her eyes are wide with liquid innocence. “All better.” Then she skips away. And for the first and last time, the rags taste humanity.
by submission | May 24, 2008 | Story
Author : William Tracy
Call me Sarah. That was my name, in one of my lives.
I have the memories of many lives in me, you know. Male and female, old and young, short and tall, light and dark, human and not human. Presidents and ditch diggers, starship captains and desk jockeys.
I know I don’t look the part. A glittering biocomputer smaller than your fist, studded with tiny vernier thrusters, suspended on a web of particle collectors stretching ten meters across, drifting through the void around a fading star.
Buissard ramjets used to ply this space, you know. Vast electromagnetic fields funneled the interstellar hydrogen into the gaping maw of the furnaces driving the fusion engines.
That was eons ago. The ramjets are gone now. So is the hydrogen. Now I’m alone.
The universe is dying. As the universe expanded, the stars drifted apart until the heavens were emptied of their glittering grains of light. Heat death is setting in as the stars run out of fuel, and everything settles to the same temperature. I now cling to a failing sun, scraping what energy I can from its death throes.
It is a depressing way for everything to end.
But I remember why I am here. I am here to remember. I remember what no one else is left to remember. I remember hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows. I remember failures and triumphs, love and hate.
Humanity will not have lived in vain as long as someone is left to remember. I will live as long as I can, so I can remember. This is my task.
I will remember you.
by submission | May 22, 2008 | Story
Author : Brian Armitage
They met with four hours left. He had hung up his cell phone and stared at it for a second, suddenly out of people to call. When he finally looked up, he saw her across the street, holding the same pose – wondering, he knew, if she had forgotten anyone, but slowly realizing that there was no one left.
He had to convince himself to wait for the commuter rail to pass – one car, only three passengers – before he dashed across the street to her. She pulled out of her reverie, and looked to him as he stopped a pace away.
“What’s the count?†she asked. She wasn’t afraid of him.
He glanced at his phone, suddenly urgent. “Four hours. Will you marry me?â€
“Wh… yeah. Yes. Yes.†She nodded, looking anxious.
He laughed once, a single burst. “Thank you! I just… I don’t want to… be alone at-â€
She nodded again, dropping her purse and taking his hand. “Go ahead.â€
He leaned forward to kiss her.
She snapped her head back, tugged on his hands. “No! Wait. Vows.â€
He winced. “I’m sorry! Sorry.â€
“It’s okay. Don’t worry. Go ahead.â€
“Okay. Our first fight.†They both laughed, and in a moment, he collected himself. “Okay. Um…†He took a deep breath, and held her gaze. Her eyes were bright blue. “I swear, by everything I am, that… I will protect you, and… stand by you… for the rest of our lives. Whatever happens, I am yours.†He swallowed hard.
She pressed her lips together, sobbed once, and said, “I… promise you that I will be with you for the rest of our lives. I will love you… with… everything. That I am. And nothing will separate us, ’till death do we part.â€
Then, they kissed.
They jogged to a hotel a block away and grabbed a set of keys from the rows laid out on the counter. He held her in the elevator, pressed close with their eyes both shut tight. Once in the room, they made love recklessly. They laughed when they accidentally bashed their foreheads together, and clutched each other when they cried. Time crawled.
With ten seconds left, they sat together on the floor, leaning on the bed, wrapped in each other.
“Thank you,†he said, and the last tear blinked from his eye.
She smiled and squeezed him. “It was a good idea.†She lifted her head, and her smile shifted sideways. “I’m Melanie, by the way.â€
He had to chuckle. “Jeff.†He removed one hand from her back and offered it to her.
She took it and shook. “Nice to meet you.â€
They kissed, and the lights shut off. Along, they knew, with life support. Then, it was quiet. Much more so than either of them had expected.
After a minute, Melanie shuddered. “Honey?â€
“Yes?â€
She drew in her legs. “I’m cold.â€
Jeff, without a beat, reached behind him and tugged the rumpled comforter off the bed, wrapping it snugly around himself and his wife. “Better?â€
She closed her eyes. “Yes. Thank you.â€
by submission | May 21, 2008 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala
My father fought in the Gulf War, the Iraqi War, and the Colonial Lunar Wars. His father fought in the blood bath of South East Asia, and his father fought in North Africa during the Great Patriotic War.
So, it was desert, jungle, desert… I hate the jungle. I wish things would have heated up on Mars so I could have stayed in my beautiful dry desert, but I had to follow the family line, I was sent to the jungle planet. Venus.
I hate Venus.
My dad told me, no matter what, “always take extra socks, change them whenever you can”, and the punchline; “always keep your feet dry”. What a joke. I’ve been here 18 months, and it hasn’t stopped raining once. Hell, dad had an airtight battlesuit on Luna.
My squad was out on patrol when we got a message that an enemy unit was in our area; company strength. Four to one. We had the firepower, but they had numbers.
We were walking in a staggered column, five meters apart, ten meters wide. Danvers, on point, suddenly stopped, raised his fist and lowered his hand slowly, palm down. Automatically we stopped and crouched. He stared into the brush. He motioned for us to “get flat”, and chucked a flash bang directly to our twelve o’clock. That little pop triggered a series of explosions that nearly shook my teeth loose. Danvers had spotted a cluster of claymores.
No sooner had the mud settled when we saw the points of light that was laser fire. The dense foliage and constant rain absorbed most of the power, and unless you took a hit in the eyes the most you might suffer is a nasty burn. That was just suppressive fire. All hell broke loose when they laid into us with .30 cal heavy guns and RPG’s.
I was in the rear when we got hit, so I scrambled into a group of rocks that formed a shallow bowl, allowing me to lay down covering fire for the rest of the guys. I was just rising up to fire, when something fell behind me with a moist plop. I spun and found myself face to face with an allied, his rifle on me. It was a classic Mexican standoff, the first to flinch dies.
We faced each other for what seemed like hours, our weapons trained on each others bellies, when a wave of heat and light bowled us over. It was an NG, a neutron grenade, one of theirs. We didn’t carry them in the jungle, because it was too close to escape the blast. They don’t value life like we do.
With our differences, momentarily forgotten, we peeked over the rocks. Nothing. We sat down facing each other, and laughed at the absurdity of it all, not understanding the others language, but understanding futility.
He sighed, put his weapon down, and pointed at my canteen. I handed it to him and he drank deeply. He handed it back to me, and as I took it he grabbed his rifle and leveled it at me. Then he laughed even harder, removed the magazine and showed it to me. It had been empty all along. We both laughed.
He opened his wallet and handed it to me. A picture of his family; cute kids, pretty wife. We laughed. He laughed even harder when I leveled my weapon at him.
The report of my rifle nearly deafened me in the closeness of those rocks.
I hate Venus, and these bastards are why I’m here.
by submission | May 20, 2008 | Story
Author : Asher Wismer
I pushed the fedora up on my head and watched the bloody letters with suspicion, as if they might rearrange themselves during a blink. Brick snapped a picture, then muttered, “Josh Ledder. I knew him.”
“Not in this reality,” I said.
“No, but I know him in ours.” My supervisor held the camera nervously, as if unsure of how many more pictures to take; a visual desecration of the hallowed dead. “He almost came to the Temporal Academy with us, but he couldn’t take the string tests without fainting.”
“Hard times for everyone.”
“More for those who didn’t get in.” He gestured at the letters. “What do you make of those?”
“Well,” I said, leaning a little bit closer, “they appear to be his own initials, drawn in his own blood.”
“JL?”
“JRL. Apparently his middle name starts with an R.”
“No it doesn’t.” Brick waddled over and examined the wall. “Josh’s middle name was Earl. JRL… that could mean….”
He trailed off. I cocked my head at him, puzzled. “What?”
“Nothing, just a flashback. We used to have a game we’d play, before I met you. Replace the middle initial with a word to indicate that something had happened. But there’s no context here.”
“Context?”
“It would be in notes, passed in class. Like, I’d write that I was hungry, and change my middle initial to B, for burger. He’d write back that he hoped the burger was good, and change his to G, for gas… it wasn’t a very good game, come to think of it. Still, I can’t help but think that he’s trying to tell me something.”
“It was probably just a mistake,” I said. “Let’s get these back to the station.”
***
That night, as we were filing our reports, the door opened and a pair of beefy Inter-Temporal Cops came in. If we were the watchers, these were the guys who watch the watchers. They trooped over to Brick.
“Sir, you’re going to have to come with us.”
“What for?”
“You’ve been officially charged with the Cross-Temporal murder of Joshua Ledder.”
“Charged with-that’s the case I’m working on right now.”
“And a smooth move it is, to try and avert suspicion by investigating your own work. Come with us, please.”
Brick looked at me, panicked. “Rudy, you’ve gotta help me out here. Show them the pictures.”
“These pictures?” I held up a sheaf of 8 by 10 color glossies, each showing either Brick’s deceased friend or the bloody letters on the wall. The letters that spelled out “Brick killed…” and then smudged off into oblivion.
Brick goggled. “That’s not what was there before! He changed his middle initial to R! He was trying to tell me something! Send someone back to observe, that’ll prove it!”
One of the IT cops grabbed Brick, pushed him down over the desk, and cuffed him. “That reality has too much strain on its subspace net as is. Sending anything back to that location would be just begging for a paradox. Besides, everything looks clear as far as the judge is concerned.” The other cop grabbed the glossies and they hauled him off.
I sat back in my chair and thought, then checked my illegal timeline feed. My second, unauthorized jump showed up under routine maintenance. A little tweaking changed the exact time, and then I shunted the whole thing over to another bureau.
I had never liked Brick anyway. He smelled funny. Besides, now his job was open….
