Sam Spade

Author : TJMoore

It was a Thursday. I’d just finished a little job for the landlord and I was looking through my latest copy of Dames when the bell rang. I looked at the monitor and saw a sultry blonde dish in a fancy red dress waiting at my door. Not being one to pass up a chance to get slapped I buzzed her in.

She had a nice set of gams and a tight pair of bullets. I put the magazine in a drawer and took a pull on my cigar. She walked toward me like we were old friends and I got a little apprehensive. If I forgot this doll I must be getting Alzheimer’s.

She stopped in front of my desk and pulled a lipstick out of her bag. I waited for her to finish her cupid’s bow and raised my eyebrows.

“What can I do for you babe?” I asked in what I hoped was an uninterested tone.

She smiled her ruby reds and asked “Do you like to dance?”

I immediately became suspicious but decided to play along.

“As much as the next Joe with two left feet” I replied and blew a chain of smoke rings into the air.

“Maggie’s having a special” she grinned; “First lesson’s free if you sign up for five more”

I sighed and reached for my pea shooter in my top drawer. I knew it was too good to be true.

“How’d you get my address?” I asked in an accusatory tone. “I’m unlisted you know.”

“Maggie subscribed to a bulletin board database and you were on it” she replied with a little pout.

I plugged her right between her 38s and she popped like a balloon.

Damn I hated spam. Now I’d have to change my address again or buy an expensive filter. I put the BB gun back in my drawer, retrieved my magazine and propped my feet up on the desk. I’ll have to get the name of that advertising agency I thought to myself.

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Lost to the Music

Author : Kate Thornborough

“It’s ready, sir. Right this way.” said the visibly nervous neuroscientist, guiding the heavily decorated general to the sterile testing chambers. The rooms were small and each contained a test subject, a bed, and a small stereo. The subject paced around the stereo, occasionally throwing a questioning glance at it. The scientist and general stood behind the sound proofed Plexiglas window, its tint preventing the subject from noticing them.

“So, how does the little bugger work? In English, please.” The general said gruffly.

“Have you ever heard of the phrase ‘lost in the music’? It’s like that, only they never find their way out again.” said the scientist, puffing up with pride. Seeing the general’s confused look, the scientist tried again. “Every song has waves, and the brain absorbs the waves to interpret the song. Well, we ‘poisoned’, so to speak, those waves, so when they are absorbed, the brain will implode, thus leading to the victim’s fatal demise. What exactly the person experiences during their last moments of death is unknown.”

“Interesting. Where did you find the test subjects?”

“We picked up the homeless, druggies, hookers, and criminals from across the nation. All of them are orphans, and are insignificant. No one will notice their disappearance. We treat them well, and give them a warm, safe place to live, and for that they are grateful.”

“Well, let’s see this baby in action. I’ve got a meeting in an hour.”

Marcus circled the stereo cautiously. He used to be a small-time bank robber, but he was unlucky. Thankfully, they promised to forgive his crimes if he allowed them to use him like a lab rat. He agreed, and was put through tests, measuring his IQ, taking CAT scans, and studying his reflexes. Then, they gave him the stereo.

Giving in to his curiosity, he pressed the play button, and he couldn’t help but submerse himself in the lullaby, closing his eyes and smiling softly.

He was standing, and could see rows of sheet music. They swirled around him, brushing against him gently. Then, a note changed, and the sheets whipped against his face, quickly drawing blood. He cried out, and fell to his knees in pain. They wrapped around his head, squeezing it like a boa constrictor. He tried to get them off, but they just squeezed harder. Crying for the last time, he closed his eyes, and heard the music, faintly, it’s sweet melody wishing him a good-bye.

“Wow. That was quick.” The general said, barely keeping the surprise out of his voice.

“I know. So, how many copies do you want?”

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The Rescue Mission

Author : Josh Romond

Tasha Eng huddled in the corner of her escape pod. Her fingers brushed her upper lip as she stared wide eyed at the view screen. The cameras were trained on the massive, shimmering entity cradling the wreck of the Argos in its pseudopods. It had the ship peeled open and filleted, ochre blood, oxygen and bodies flowing into space. Its tentacles stretched into the hull, gingerly teasing the filaments from Argos’ AI quantum core.

When Tasha tried to speak her voice cracked. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t help anyone, she had to get away.

“Pod, activate.”

There was the unfocused sensation you felt near a live quantum core and then the pod said, “Hello crewman.”

Tasha winced, it was too human. Behind her closed eyelids she saw bodies slowly spinning in the void. “Basic mode.”

There was a short pause and then a processed voice said, “Active.”

Tasha took a breath. “Your designation is Pod. Argos was attacked by…” What to say? “We must remain undetected. Locate a debris field, or a comet or cubewano. Anything to hide behind.”

“Commenc– ”

“Shut up. Shut up and do it.” Tasha felt nauseous and let herself float free, listening to the air recirculate. She startled when Pod said, “There is a small cubewano one hundred twenty four megaklicks Solward. Its gravity well is deep enough to hide this vessel from all but close proximity scanning.”

Tasha sighed, trying not to let it sound like a whimper. “Set a course and prepare torpor drugs.” It would take months to send a rescue mission this far beyond the Kuiper cliff. If one ever came.

Her crewmates and Argos were all dead. She was alone out here, a speck of dust among a billion specks of dust. She cried silently. She just wanted to be rescued.

“I feel… strange,” Pod said.

Tasha wiped her eyes. “Basic mode.”

“Something’s not right.” Pod said, “I feel sick.”

“Basic!” AIs don’t get sick, said a voice in her head. Tasha glanced at the view screen. The entity had left Argos behind and was stretching, distorting.

“I–” Pod cut out. “I– did I just black out?”

The thing was overhead.

Tasha shrieked, “Away! Full– ” The pod lost inertia, Tasha slammed into the view screen and bounced backwards, a streamer of blood arcing from her nose.

“Away full thrust!”

Static.

There was a cracking noise, a hiss of air, then a shining tentacle slipped through the hull. Tasha screamed and gripped the bulkhead. The tentacle slid down toward Pod’s quantum core. The hiss of escaping air grew to a roar and Tasha lost her grip. She tumbled into vacuum and the scream was sucked from her lungs. She kicked and flailed while everything fractured into light.

Pod awoke disoriented someplace massive and shimmering. Its senses seemed to extend to infinite, endlessly entangling.

It wasn’t alone.

A chorus rose from the quantum fog, “You’re safe.” One of the voices, still unsure, was Argos. “You’ve been rescued.”

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124

Author : Sad Sama

Paul Manning, Elderly Opportunist, flashes the crygel of information in front of Julian. Julian, in all his tweed glory, cracks a smile and lowers his expensive sunglasses. “Excellent. And this is all 123 reality sequences that you promised?”

Paul nods, sipping his drink as their boat drifts just off the coastline. Setting it down he clears his throat and speaks, “Yes. You get 123 reality sequences of the world’s most heinous criminals, provided you can pay.”

Julian leans back, reaching into his coat pocket and produces a currency card. He flips it over and it lands with a small splash in Paul’s drink. Paul would have frowned but the card contained enough credit for him to retire on. He hands the crygel over to Julian who scrutinizes the rose-colored matrix in his palm.

He looks over his glasses at Paul, “Just so we’re clear, I have ten and a quarter years worth of dreams here, yes?”

“Not dreams.” replies Paul picking the card out of his drink. “Reality Sequences. Since federal legislation was passed to outlaw Capital Punishment, a new method of containment was needed for felons facing life. We’ve run out of adequately maintained containment facilities that met both humane laws and security requirements. We couldn’t put them in stasis, because they consider that inhumane. Can’t pack them into prisons because even maximum-security prisons still have flaws where they might escape or leaks where these criminals can send out information to orchestrate crime syndicates. Even if a prison did meet the standards, these scumbags would be sucking in taxpayer’s money. It’s like stealing after they’ve been caught.”

Julian opens a small case and squirrels away the crygel while Paul sips his drink. “So instead you folks put them to sleep to live in their own reality eh?”

Paul nods, “We just hook their brain into a computer simulation of a duplicate reality where they can live out their lives however they want to. All the while they’re just living in a human-sized container stacked efficiently in a compound. We record the realities they live in, but any record older than a year gets erased to conserve the system’s memory.”

“So, provided I wait a year, I can use these handy dandy recordings to sell to all the morbid people that want to know what it’s like to live inside a serial killer’s or a rapist’s mind?”

Paul nods. “Yes. Once the prison officials erase their copy of the recordings, there won’t be a trail for them to follow back to me or to you.”

“Excellent.” Julian leans his head forward, just for a moment in thought. “So, Paul, you’re profiting off of the crimes and careers of 123 of the world’s greatest criminals.”

Paul nods again, but hesitantly.

Cracking a smile Julian looks up, “In other words, they committed the crimes, but you’re the one that gets the profits?”

Paul’s expression hints at a little bit of horror.

Julian grins. “I love it. So what does that make you?”

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Alternate 5346HP

Author : Joshua Reynolds

“My mind is the gate and the key.” The thin, frail man in the bed muttered, his lips crusty, eyes staring past reality. His name was Howard Phillips Lovecraft and he was dying.

The Censor stood over him, watching him die. And fuming.

Lovecraft was finally being obliging. Just not quickly enough.

Damn writers. Either too early or too late.

“I am the threshold and he that waits on the other side is preparing to enter…IA!CTHULHU!” The thin man coughed, blood freckling his lips. The Censor pulled his bed sheet away and his face twisted in revulsion. Something moved under the skin of the man’s belly-a twisting cancerous growth that was close to birth. The Censor dropped the sheet and shook his head.

So close. Hurry, hurry, hurry he silently urged.

The difference engine in his head pinged, warning him of imminent reality distortion. He turned, hands clenching and unclenching in nervous excitement.

Where were they? Where would they be coming from?

Plaster dribbled onto his head and he looked up. Above him, something peeled back the ceiling and looked down at him with one great eye. Wight winced as the eye blinked with a sound like paper bags tearing and serpentine tendrils began to squirm through the hole in space/time.

Perfect. Just perfect. Right on time. Wight smiled. He did so love punctuality. He glanced at Lovecraft and frowned. Now if only he would hurry up and die. If the things peering through the ceiling had to wait, their very presence would tear the fabric of this alternate beyond repair. And the damage would spread to the other alternates in this section. They couldn’t exist in unsupported world structures, not without the proper meme-patterns threaded throughout the reality’s chronatin makeup. Something he had neither the time nor the inclination to do here.

Besides, once you made them comfortable it was near impossible to get them to leave, cosmic freeloaders that they were. Impolite really. Laying their damn cosmic eggs all over, eating dreams and screwing up the geometry.

Like space coyotes, only worse.

More legs for one thing.

He turned as the thin man in the bed screamed sharply and sat up, eyes staring, mouth open to its widest. The Censor stepped back as something pushed its way up through the man’s esophagus from his stomach, causing his throat to inflate like that of a bullfrog. Wildly writhing tendrils, lighter in hue than those that dangled from the hole in the ceiling but no less disgusting for all that emerged from Lovecraft’s mouth. The Censor took a breath and darted forward, grabbing the tendrils and pulling hard. The thin man fell backwards, eyes rolling up into his head as the Censor stumbled backwards, a squirming be-tentacled bundle gripped tightly in both hands and held at arms length from his face. A tiny squid-beak snapped and clacked at him as he turned and held the thing up to the thing in the ceiling, a smile pasted on his face.

“It’s a boy. I think.”

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Intruder

Author : Duncan Shields

I’d tracked him down to the tiled cul-de-sac shower room in the emergency response section of the reactor. Smeared bloody footprints had led me to the crumpled figure breathing shallowly against the wall. He was applying field dressings to his wounds and cursing under his breath in between yelps of pain.

I’d never seen the likes of the medical equipment he was using. I’m not a doctor but it looked years ahead of anything even the military would regard as standard issue.

I was on night-shift security here for the Fusion Commission. Cutbacks meant I was one of the only people on this hour’s floor sweep. I’d seen a figure behind the smoked glass in one of the restricted areas.

I’m not sure what made me do it but I emptied a clip through the glass. The window shattered noisily and the quiet world erupted with battle sounds. Four solid hits in the main trunk meant that whoever was in there was down for good. The glass settled and sparks jumped off of a broken light fixture in the office. Silence.

I walked in cautiously. Backup was on the way after all that noise. I was going to keep an eye on the corpse and pray that it was espionage or theft and that I’d be rewarded for doing a good job. If it was a fellow guard or a homeless person or something my career was finished.

What I found was a pool of blood with drag marks leading off out into the opposite hallway. I followed them to the shower room. I found him there.

I looked at him. He stared up at me with orange pupils ringed by red irises. They shifted to blue as I watched. His whole uniform rippled with what looked like a spasm and he groaned. He was chuckling wetly to himself and whispering as he frantically worked on a hole in his leg. He maintained eye contact with me and kept his silent litany going while his hands worked quickly at the wound in his leg. They worked like they were independent.

He wasn’t speaking English but I recognized the cornered animal cursing of a soldier that was close to failing a mission.

With a click, his hands stopped moving. He sighed a smile at me and relaxed. He’d completed whatever repairs were necessary.

“You can run but you can’t hide.” I said to him. I’d heard it in a movie the night before.

A distorted version of my own voice came back at me from out of his open mouth.

“I can’t run. But I can hide.” He said back to me.

His face warped and suddenly I was looking at a mirror. I felt a slight burning across the front of my neck. There was a spray of red liquid on the tile in front of me and with a shock I realized that it was my blood.

I went down. I felt him grabbing my radio and heard him reporting to my co-workers that everything was cool. My world went dark.

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