by submission | Oct 27, 2023 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
You know how sometimes you enter a room after a while, and you just know that someone’s been in there? It’s not your imagination. It could be an aroma so slight that you don’t consciously notice it. Maybe something’s not quite in the same place it was before. Perhaps the dust has been disturbed so subliminally that you wouldn’t normally realise. But something triggers you, and you don’t know what. Eventually, people a lot smarter than me came up with tech that could detect the smells and identify where dust had moved, and give us all some peace of mind. That’s what the OmniSniff (“The Nose that Knows!”) does. So I took the company’s courses, splashed out on the kit, and set up as a freelancer, consulting to PI’s and police departments. Never thought I’d be pinned as an accessory to murder, though.
The first OmniSniff was a great success, but you still didn’t know who’d been in your hypothetical room – only what lotion or perfume they’d put on, or where’d they stood. People demanded more. So the geeks went back to the drawing board, and OmniSniff 2.0 is not only smaller and faster, but it sucks up DNA strands from the ambient air, too. It’s been a revolution in forensics – I mean, if the husband’s twists are the only fresh ones around, odds are that it was him that did the wife in, whatever his alibi, am I right? The company got a lot of publicity from that, and I got more competitors.
Since then the criminal underworld’s come up with countermeasures, of course: from expensive helix-killing sprays (which are now detectable) to cheaper material collections designed to just overwhelm and slow down the detectives. I did more courses, but they’re a lot more expensive now, and you have to keep requalifying to keep up. My net income’s gone down, not up.
So when a guy in the bar who said he was a sensie scriptwriter researching a new show offered me a big credit transfer for a couple of hours just talking about my job over some coffee, I jumped at the chance. Who wouldn’t?
And yeah, okay, it was me that told him that really, the only way for a criminal to beat the OmniSniff is not to leave any DNA at all. But so what? I mean, unless you’re wearing a space suit (kind of conspicuous), that’s next to impossible, right? And that’s all I said, I swear!
How was I to know that he’d go back home, wait a week, and then hack his household butler unit, programming it to smash his wife’s brains out? I mean okay, it kind of makes sense, robots don’t leave DNA, but seriously? Of course he was caught. It took the cops maybe 10 minutes to check the thing and find out there was no mechanical fault or memory glitch. He’ll do thirty to life, and serves him right. Idiot.
But now they’re trying to say it’s partly my fault? That I gave him the idea? That’s just unfair. I tell you, I need a new career – it’s not just the OmniSniff that sucks.
by submission | Oct 26, 2023 | Story |
Author: David Broz
I knew the stars would fall, and they did.
I watched from the observation deck as the midnight sky slowly brightened, burning with orange streaks, brighter than the hottest day, and I watched as the stars came crashing down.
Down through the dome that held our farm, down they came. Down again, bursting the water tower. Again and again the distant thumping of the stars, punching through years of dust and deep into the solid bedrock of the moon. Plumes like silent mushrooms grew.
I thought of you as the heavens rained down streaks of orange fire. Once we had burned hot like this, I thought, when you were here for a cycle, when we blazed bright like the sun, lighting up this moon all by ourselves.
Mine were the hands you needed to fix your ship. And so I put my hands to work, and you put your hands on my hands, your touch slowing me as I went, keeping me with you longer. And I fixed your ship, and she became flightworthy again.
Mine were the shoulders you needed for heavy lifting, to empty the holds and lighten your ship, so that it could break free from orbit again some day. You put your hands upon my arm as I carried it all, not sharing the burden, but leaning into me, and I bore your weight as well.
Mine were the ears you needed in the dark of the darkest nights, when the earth’s shadow hid us from the light of day, and cries and silence were all we had. And you put your hands over your ears, and you did not hear me, while I listened for us both.
And all along, you looked past me. You looked through me and past me, not gazing into my eyes but beyond them. I now know the difference, but I did not know it then.
You love me, you say. Your apology echoes faintly through the station, between the thumps of the falling stars. You thank me for everything, but you won’t be coming back to save me.
by submission | Oct 25, 2023 | Story |
Author: Toshihisa Nikaido
The woman jolted awake, surrounded by unfamiliar sterility. She didn’t know where or even who she was, until a cracked nametag dimly illuminated by a slit of light from across the room caught her attention—the letters “Ali” remained. She approached the faint glow, stepping on something sharp in the process. Her surroundings were too dark to determine what the item was or how badly her foot was injured, but she decided to pocket whatever she’d stepped on.
A heavy metal door slid open, revealing an endless corridor. One side boasted a spherical window showcasing an astonishing sight—Earth!
A noise rang from behind Ali. She spun, finding herself facing inhuman creatures looming from the depths of the dim halls. Fear consumed and paralyzed her.
“Remember your mission,” a voice echoed in her mind. “Our objective was to do a preliminary assessment of the planet and initiate the terraforming procedure.”
“You can’t do that,” Ali protested. “We’d all die.”
“Not us.” The alien’s appendage appeared to be gesturing toward Ali’s pocket.
Ali reached into her pocket and pulled out a small sharp object, the broken end of a nametag displaying the two letters “en.”
by submission | Oct 24, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
When I broke into the abandoned home, I hadn’t expected to stay long. I only wanted to get off the streets and out of the cold for a few days. I was pretty broken down. Being on the run for years will do that to you.
So, I’d hacked the home’s defenses and pried my way in. It was just my luck, though, that this had been a scrub’s house. The equipment was still there, though quite outdated: a classic ’37 Q-Res unit.
Only an old scrub like me would recognize it. Only an old scrub like me would want to boot it up, which is what I did. Damn mistake. Big damn mistake. I don’t know what that scrub who’d lived here was thinking, but it’s scrubber Rule #1 that you don’t store Residuals in your device.
When I booted the ’37 unit, it immediately linked to the home’s i-structure. I was to blame for that. In hacking the home’s protection program, I’d left the door open for the upload from the Q-Res. The result: a Residual immediately took up residence.
Epic cluster. I hate the term cosmic irony, but I’d just unleashed it. I’d spent the better part of twenty years scrubbing Residuals from homes, businesses, schools, hotels, you name it. Wherever remnants of past lives had settled and caused issues, I’d gone to scrub them out.
That used to be the job of shamans, witch doctors and exorcists, getting rid of an unwanted presence. It became the work of scrubbers in the early thirties after AI quantum consciousness was realized and led to an understanding of residual consciousness, the lasting space-time impact of intelligence, human or otherwise. Essentially, thought, perception, awareness left a trail—and sometimes a stain.
In the previous century, Carl Sagan postulated that we are the stuff of stars and in this century we learned we are the stuff of time as well. All past existences continue in the milieu of dark time, the byproduct of dark energy and dark mass (not matter).
Most past existences follow the enticing forces of entropy and hop on the Heat Death express. Some past existences resist and persist, keeping a certain potency and sometimes ferocity in their former surroundings. Residuals.
Over millennia, Residuals have been called many things. My years as a scrub only confused my thinking. I’ve dealt with terrifying presences and malevolent ones. Though most Residuals are merely fiercely loyal. Steadfast to a life I can only imagine they loved.
How lonely they must be. I realize that scrubbing them from a place did not remove their presence, it only sealed them away. Buried alive in death.
That’s why I was on the run. I’d given up scrubbing. Worse, I’d set about freeing Residuals. At the time, I didn’t know what I was hoping to accomplish. I guess maybe I thought I was leaving my mark by liberating these lost souls, before I became a Residual myself.
If I’d been releasing these unwanted presences for years, why then was I so worried about the Residual I’d just freed back into its oft-abandoned colonial home on the south shore of Long Island, New York?
Back to that cosmic irony. Entropy meets Amityville.
I think I was about to leave a mark.
by Julian Miles | Oct 23, 2023 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I look back as the car accelerates away. She’s standing there under the streetlight, perfect, one hand raised in tentative farewell, the box I gave her tucked under her other arm. Then pa takes a hard right and she disappears from view – along with the world – as I’m thrown sideways to brain myself on the chest of drawers crammed in next to me.
By the time I come round, we’re parked up somewhere. Pa is standing over me having a shouting match with a group of armed thugs. Which is just like him. Standing there with his opinion-emphasising finger prodding towards them as he alternates ranting with taking swigs from the can in his other hand.
“Damnation. Take the boy, then. Not like he’s useful, bein’ set on settlin’ down to be a crumb. I can always make me another. Maybe use the skank he was sweet on. Now there’s an idea.”
Something rises inside me. I sit up.
“I know you don’t know me, but do me a favour and save the girl. Shoot this prick and I’ll owe you.”
Pa looks down at me in angry surprise as the thugs burst out laughing. Then something roars from the shadows and my father’s blood rains down on me.
“I will take your service in fair payment for such a request.”
The men back off as a Benthusian ambulates into view. No cloak, six arms walking, two arms about a weapon like I’ve never seen.
The creature turns to the huddled men.
“We were to haggle over crew. One moment.”
It turns to me.
“Can you cook?”
I’m so far out of my d-
“Maisie can.”
Part of me is paddling hard.
“The girl you defended?”
Nodding is all I can manage.
“Is she a good cook?”
“Her mother runs a cake shop, her father a restaurant.”
“Will she want to travel the stars having adventures in rough company?”
One of the thugs steps out the huddle.
“Oi. Tentacle tits. We doing business o-”
The horror weapon roars even louder. The huddle of thugs become mist.
“Business is now concluded. Tell me, young man. What’s your name?”
“Carver.”
“I’m Val. As per the roamers of my kind, there are also titles and such, but between us, let’s keep it informal. If anyone should ask, I assisted you after your father was shot by brigands. Now, do you need anything from the vehicle?”
“No. What little I value is back with Maisie.”
“Then back we shall go.”
Maisie comes running out before the ship settles on the road. I slide down the boarding rod and am ready to catch her as she hurtles into my arms.
“You stole it?”
I shake my head. Her eyes go wide as Val swings down the rod, then taps it so it extrudes bars, becoming a ladder.
“This young man saved you tonight, just as I saved him. He’s now taken service with me. I mentioned I’m in need of a good cook. He said he knew one, but didn’t know if she’d abandon everything to fly away with him for many adventures.”
She runs to her parents. There’s a hurried conversation, then the women rush indoors. Mister Marsh approaches.
“You look after my daughter like you always have, Carver.”
“I will, sir. That or die trying.”
He nods in satisfaction, nods to Val, and walks back into the house. Unshakable, as usual.
Minutes later, Maisie charges back carrying my box and a bulging holdall.
She grins at Val.
“We’re ready to upship, Captain.”
Val ambulates back up.
“So it seems. Let’s go.”
by submission | Oct 22, 2023 | Story |
Author: Joanne Feenstra
A woman pounds on our front door. She is gaunt and tall, wet hair: short roots tipped with long dyed blond ends. We’ve seen that look before here in the Mercy Valley: city people. We’ve pretty much lived through the first couple waves of city folk. Now the gates are up: hardly anyone comes through.
“Emilia!” She pounds again. If I don’t move, she might not see me. I sit very still in the warm dark, in the heat of the wood stove, my hands stopped from pulling apart a green wool blanket. The blanket will be a sweater, something beautiful and practical.
The woman is illuminated by the faint moonlight that’s come out after the rain storm. She’s wearing wet wool pants and a huge black slicker that comes down to her knees. How does she know my name? I wish we had dogs. I’d just let them out. We don’t have dogs anymore, hardly anyone does, it’s too expensive and some of them, well you know, some of them got eaten. She probably saw the name on the faded wooden sign we had installed in the halcyon days before this.
It’s after 7 pm, when the electricity shuts off, so it’s dark in our house. The wood stove heat is warm. In the Mercy Valley, I’m the Knitter. I reknit anything to make sweaters and then trade for vegetables, fruit, fabric. Martin darns his own socks with the leftover bits, and I patch up our jeans. We do this in the quasi-dark and it’s comfortable and secure.
There’s a gun in the back of the closet. We mostly use the gun for hunting: deer and last winter, a bear cub. We tried wild turkeys but haven’t got one yet, too flighty.
She cups her hands around her wet face and presses it against the glass. I don’t move. We’ve decided that no matter who was at our door, we’d pretend we weren’t home. Then they’d go away or if they didn’t, Martin would take out the shotgun and then they’d leave. It makes it hard to sleep sometimes at night, not knowing if a stranger is lurking around. That’s why I wish we had dogs.
She kicks the door. “Emilia. Let me in. I came through the Ashfall Pass.”
The Ashfall Pass? I heard of people coming to the Mercy Valley from there, you come out in the park. There’s no gate on the trail.
My feet are warm against the heat of the wood stove but we can’t let her in. We only have rations for the two of us, beans and rice, doled out a week at a time, from the market. Used to be a store but now it’s a Ration Station. I’ve lost a lot of weight of course, we all have, and the skinny ones, well, they suffered the most during the early food shortages.
Martin takes out the shotgun, opens the door a crack and points the barrel at the woman. “Get out,” he says. “Leave this place.”
I slowly put down the unravelling and tug a blue quilt a bit tighter around my shoulders.
“Emilia!” she shouts, crying. I watch her bend over, bracing her bare hands against the door frame, her hair sloping down over her face. I hear her more clearly through the partially open door. “It’s me. Jocelyn.”
Martin turns to me. “You want me to let your sister in?”
