by submission | Mar 21, 2008 | Story
Author : Ian Rennie
I sit alone in the dark, the birthday boy. I could have left the lights on, but with only a couple of minutes to go it hadn’t seemed worth it. Typical, really.
Well, this is it. Or this was it, at least. They had taken the neural snapshot four minutes ago, and they were already at work reviving me.
“Me”, funny word to use about someone I’ll never be. Was it always like this? I suppose I’ll never know.
This was a conscious choice, as little comfort as that gives me now. Most people did the refresh on a five or ten year cycle, but not me. I wanted to be twenty one forever, never see the slow spread of age reminding me of how mortal I was. A perfect year after a perfect year, that’s what I was after, and that’s what I’ve got, sort of. Every year on my birthday, they make a perfect digital copy of my brain and put it in the new body. To stop there being two of me running round, they send a shutdown signal to the old body’s brain. It takes exactly ten minutes to propagate, by which time the new me is up and about and 21 again.
Only I’m six minutes the wrong side of that copy, now. I can’t see much any more. Everything’s starting to fade.
I’d never been on this side before, clearly. This was an experience I – or he – will never learn from. Shame, really, because all I want to do is grab myself by the shoulders and yell in my face, telling myself it’s not worth it, living forever by dying every year.
Too late now. It will always be too late, I expect.
I can just make out the digital display on the clock. 30 seconds left.
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday
To…
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by submission | Mar 16, 2008 | Story
Author : M.S. Smith
The sun sinks in the west like a heart as I row towards the city of lights.
I do not know what the city is called. I have been rowing for so long that names have become vulgar sounds, meaningless and wild; not just the names of places, but also my own. Each droplet of water that passes over my oar is as easily identifiable as a person, and the voice of the water is the call of a multitude, giving and taking names. But I cannot recognize what the water says. I can only understand how it feels, and that it has something I lack.
As I come closer to the city, my world brightens. My watch flares to life, letting me know that it has detected a wireless signal. The sun succumbs to the turn of the world and is replaced not by stars, but by a vast blanket of artificial light, dotted by the shimmering streaks of orbital craft re-entering the atmosphere. I navigate around a tangle of soda cans, old toys, and plastic wrap which has hung itself around the rim of a drainage pipe, and begin to row more vigorously as I approach what looks to be a canal. I am wrong. It is not a canal, but another natural stream. Its banks are gentle and its flows quickly. I am swept inwards, towards the city, and I pass through a gated community. A couple enjoying drinks on their deck notice me and stare. I wave at them, but they do not wave back.
There is a bend in the stream, and then I am out of the community, floating between a factory and a highway. There is a surprising absence of sound; all the cars are new, electric models, made by brands like Audi and Lexus, and they make no noise except for their tires, which whistle like breeze whipping through trees. The highway bridges over me, and I find myself in an older part of town, where the buildings are close together and made of brick. The stream suddenly reaches a man-made U-turn, redirected by the force of concrete. Rapids spring before me, and as I wrestle them I find they are not caused by rocks, or even concrete ruins, but by old appliances, refrigerators the size of a man, washers and dryers as hard as boulders. I become wet from the rapids, and the objects in my path have sharp, unexpected edges, but my clothing repels water like wax and protects my limbs from sharp edges like armor.
Eventually, the water calms, and I enter a fog of dense chemicals that I cannot identify by smell, but which do not seem to harm me. A pier emerges from this mist, and the eyes of a small robotic creature glow at me from the pier’s edge. I row up to it, and it offers, in its awkward, mechanical voice, to tie my canoe up to the pier. There are no other boats in sight, and no evidence any other vessel has ever docked here, but I accept its offer. My watch notifies me that ten dollars have been deducted from my bank account.
I get out of my canoe and stand up on the pier. The first solid object I’ve stood on since nightfall. I ask the robot to watch my canoe for me, but it does not respond. I’m not worried about the canoe. No one would know what to do with it. I walk off the pier, up a small embankment, and suddenly I am in the city of lights. An advertisement flashes at me from a wall across the street. I still refuse to acknowledge my name, but I do not need to. I will soon be given one.
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by submission | Mar 8, 2008 | Story
Author : V.L.Ilian
“Linda Kroen! 155013! Report for duty”
Linda didn’t exactly know why the crystalline voice of the ship AI was blaring her name but she wasn’t going to answer. It’s her day off.
“Linda Kroen! It is estimated you only have 135 minutes until you expire. Report for duty!”
The impulses signaling the importance of the message and the impulse signaling that her mouth is full of blood were simultaneously received by Linda’s brain.
Stumbling out of bed she fell on the cold metal floor. She had sprayed blood all over while gasping for air but the room still looked sterile.
“WHAT? Why?”
Her radiation meter tattoo was black. The little patch of skin almost looked burned with a laser.
“You’ve been exposed to lethal doses of radiation. You must make your way to the auxiliary bridge”
“WHY? Where’s the captain?”
“You are acting captain”
“I’m a level 2 tech!”
“Linda Kroen 155013: promoted to acting field captain by automated succession order on 27 Feb ‘47”
“That’s today. Wher…” As she stood up her lungs filled and she coughed another spray of blood on the wall.
“Ok… Situation report.”
“Aces..Ac…Ac” The voice of the AI reverbed as if caught in an infinite loop. “Information limited. Data corruption. Sensor data shows extreme radiation spike approximately 2 hours ago. Uncorrupted log information begins 27 minutes ago as follows:
– Cpt. Musa deceased, replacement not mentioned
– automated succession order comes into effect. Linda Kroen 155013 selected.
– Cpt. Kroen’s lifesigns fluctuating. Life expectancy: 14 minutes. Medical staff not available. Stimulants administered through ventilation. Massive internal bleeding probable. New life expectancy: 160 minutes
– assessment of ship status begins
Current situation:
– large sections of hull missing”
“You pumped me full of damn stims to wake me up? That’s why I’m bleeding from every pore.”
“Your condition was critical captain”
“This doesn’t make sense… the succession order goes by rank there are hundreds of people above me and… everybody’s dead.”
“Linda Kroen 155013 is the highest ranking living crewmember. You must proceed to the auxiliary bridge to enable the main cannon.”
The new captain had already stepped out of the room leaving bloody footprints on the cold floor. Her heart was pounding, her eyes were sore but she was unfazed. Bodies littered the corridors.
“Why am I still alive?”
“You requested sick leave. That automatically creates a septic field in your quarters. Combined with your documented higher resistance to radiation it was enough to lower your exposure to the event. Next corridor, enter the lift.”
As Linda neared the lift its vents hissed open and flooded her senses with an electric feeling. The lift whirred down.
“Who…?”
“Data corrupted”
The doors opened and a body fell. The sound of his head hitting the metal floor seemed interesting to Linda. Vents hissed again in the corridor making her feel better.
Skipping her way to the next lift she started thinking how cool it will be to tell her friends how fast she made captain. Rubbing the black tattoo on her arm and seeing everyone else’s was the same she spit out some blood.
The lift took her directly to auxiliary command. As soon as the doors opened she jumped into the swivel chair of the captain. Something snapped at landing but Linda was enjoying too much to notice.
“Take a note! Effective tomorrow everybody can customize his or her tattoo.”
“Acknowledged. Please authorize AI control of main canon.”
“Who are we firing at again?”
“Data corrupted”
Linda logged into the console and switched all control options to AI.
“…Good.”
The vents hissed loudly letting in welcomed euphoria. Captain Linda Kroen reclined, twirling, with a smirk on her face, as tears of blood ran from her eyes.
“Stims are great…”
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by submission | Mar 5, 2008 | Story
Author : Jacinta A. Meyers
A man lay limp in my arms. The body of a little boy was sprawled a few feet away from us, his young face motionless against the blood-stained earth.
“I will stay with you through this.” I said, stroking the man’s face very gently. “I won’t leave you.”
He coughed a little, grit his teeth.
This was my least favorite part. I had only seen an unmaking twice before this. It’s different from death. In an unmaking, the body disintegrates before your very eyes. The DNA in every cell actually unwinds, each reverting to a more primitive state until they cannot hold a recognizable form, cannot continue to function as a complex whole organism. It’s a relatively quick process compared to the amount of time it takes a human being to develop over the course of a lifetime. The rate of change is comparable to the development of a fetus, only in reverse. I watched the wrinkles fading from his face.Very soon this man would be nothing more than a puddle of inert, inorganic matter.
His eyes roved slowly over to the boy still lying in the grass. “Why?” He managed.
“Because I had to.”
He sputtered a bit. “I only came back to tell myself I had a future to be hopeful for. I can remember being so… so despondent then…”
“I had to kill you. That is our job. The past must be protected at all costs.” I said it as I had been trained to. “Through it, we are protecting our future.” He would understand, if he still could.
He was shrinking in my arms. Growing lighter, growing limper. A small trail of saliva ran down his chin. He shuddered. But something in his eyes hardened. “You…are wrong. There is… no way you can be sure.” He was fighting it. “You… may have damaged the future worse… than I might have. Worse… than you could ever know.”
But I was smiling. I held his diminishing body close. “There will still be a future for us to be hopeful for.” I said. “Shhh, it will be over soon.”
“You… you broke the rules… you and your kind…”
“Perhaps we did.” I whispered gently to what was left of his ear. “But you broke them first.”
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by submission | Mar 2, 2008 | Story
Author : Christopher Kueffner
“I thought you didn’t smoke,†she asked.
“I did, and I quit,†he replied through a bluish cloud, “but it seems an appropriate time to pick up the habit again.â€
“Really,†she drew the word out as if stretching it like taffy. “That could very well be the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever heard from you, and that’s saying something.†She got out of the bed and walked over to the kitchenette. She filled a glass with water and drank it, unworried by her nakedness.
The man, also naked, took another drag from his cigarette. “A cigarette after sex is nice.†He contemplated the little pillar of ash at its end. “I’ve found something.â€
“Oh?†She absently picked a feather from the bed off of her right breast.
“Yup.â€
“What?â€
“An asteroid.â€
“Oh, come on,†she sniffed. “Ever since that asteroid missed us a couple of years ago, everybody’s talking about asteroids.†She sat down on the edge of the bed and handed him the glass. He sipped, looked fondly at her body and handed the glass back to her.
“Well, I found one, nevertheless.†He stubbed out the cigarette in a saucer on the nightstand. He leaned over and kissed her side where the waistband of pants would normally be. He kissed his way up her ribcage.
“What was it called, Aprophis or something?†she asked.
“Apophis was the one that just barely missed us in 2029,†he stopped kissing her body and lay back. “This one is not Apophis; it’s a different one.â€
“What, is it going to hit us or something?â€
“Well, yes.†He drew another cigarette out of the pack.
“You’re kidding, right?â€
“I’m sorry, but I’m not.†He lit the cigarette and dragged deeply on it.
She put the water glass on the nightstand and rested her hand on his chest. “What will it do? They said that last one, Aprophis, I mean Apophis, would have wiped out a big city.â€
“Yes, but life on Earth would have continued. This one gives every appearance of being bigger, denser and faster.â€
“I thought they were looking out for these things,†she furrowed her brow, “I thought they had all these asteroids charted out.â€
“There’s an awful lot of space out there, and an awful lot of stuff flying around. The prevailing theory around the office is that this is a charted asteroid, but it got close enough to another one for its orbit to change.â€
“Around the office!†she blurted incredulously, “You mean other people know about this?â€
“Yes. We’ve all checked and rechecked the data. The Director has been informed, too.â€
“So the government knows, too,†she got up and grabbed the robe from its hook on the bathroom door. She wrapped it around her body and held it close as if it were woven of asteroid-proof cotton. She looked at him again. “You’re not bullshitting me, are you?†Her tone had acquired a bewildered, accusatory edge.
“No,†he shook his head and sat up.
“Well, what are they doing about it?â€
“I’m not sure anything can be done. There wouldn’t be much point, other than to cause mass hysteria.â€
“You mean they can’t shove it out of the way or dig some shelters underground?†She paced and gestured sharply with her hands.
“Not in six hours, no.†He put out the cigarette. “Would you take that robe off and come here?â€
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