by submission | Oct 17, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Shamash, the Mesopotamian sun god, probably didn’t see this coming. Considering he was also known as the god of justice and equity, he really should’ve had an inkling of this kind of cosmic irony.
Though we shouldn’t blame a dusty old deity when it’s really our own damn fault. And by our own damn fault, I mean, humanity. As in human arrogance, our rather celebrated celestial self-centeredness. Especially mine.
Yet, I can’t resist pointing a finger back a few thousand years to a Babylonian king who likely started the whole thing rolling, and falling into my, admittedly, helpless hands. And I’m staring at Hammurabi right now standing rather rigidly before me. He’s sporting a nutshell of a cap and rocking a trapezoidal beard that could easily make him an honorary member of ZZ Top.
Of course, he’s not alone. His celestial buddy, Shamash is majestically seated before him. Replete with sun flames busting out his shoulders. You’d think I’d be shaking in awe before a monumental king and a blazing sun god, but I was more concerned with a noisy troupe of school kids crowding my space.
You get that a lot in museums. Timeless art and artifacts surrounded by tiresome little farts and fanatics. The kids seemed frantic to complete their best-of-the-Louvre checklist so they could get credit from their teacher who was likely enjoying a quiet coffee in a nearby cafe. I should have cut them some slack for blocking my unobstructed view of that very ancient basalt stele. I should have been patient, knowing what I knew, but in the moment, I had to get close, really close to it.
The Code.
The over four thousand lines of cuneiform text beneath the carving of Shamash handing Hammurabi the laws of the land. The sun god benevolently bestowing almost three hundred rules of jurisprudence to the king. The seven foot black slab should have inspired a sense of pride, confidence, and reassurance in the continuity of civilization. Instead, it filled me with dread.
I’d come to the Louvre from halfway around the world to see The Code. To really see it. To really believe it. Because like Shamash, another sun god had sent a message from halfway across the galaxy. To me. To all of us. The message wasn’t carved in black basalt, but it was clear enough.
It would take volumes to explain the particulars, but let’s stick with the unfortunate fact that not long ago I was the lead on the ill-fated CERN wormhole experiment that snuffed out a star about fifty thousand light years away. A horrific mistake. A terrible accident.
Didn’t matter. In the age of relativism, it appears that there are still absolutes in the universe. At least to the ancient sentients who disseminated The Code throughout the stars millennia ago. And they’d let me and my team at CERN know it through a series of cryptic interstellar transmissions: Law 196 was in effect.
I pushed my way through the milling school kids, innocents who didn’t deserve the punishment I did, and leaned as close to the immovable basalt stele as the Louvre permits. I scanned the cuneiform for the line I’d memorized. The line, the law, I’d crossed, arrogantly, blindly.
Law 196: If a man should blind the eye of another man, they shall blind his eye.
Seemed pretty clear what was coming. I was left with Shamash, Hammurabi and a planet’s worth of guilt, while the school kids raced away. Hopefully, to enjoy a final few hours of light and warmth before the sun went down.
by Julian Miles | Oct 16, 2023 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There are naked angels riding our missiles down, using their wide wings to override delicate guidance systems by brute force. Distant explosions show that, yet again, we’re going to kill more friends than foes. Actually, those explosions-
“Charly Four, where are you, over?”
“Heya, Topside. Just watching the latest episode of Dances With Missiles. It’s sure to be ratings smash, over.”
“Charly Four, you’re not amusing. New orders: shoot the aliens off our missiles, over.”
Of course we shoot down our own ordnance. Good plan.
“How’s that going for the rest of the flight, Topside? Over.”
“You’re it for Charly Flight, Four. Sorry about that, over.”
“So our sainted Commodores want us to die shooting down missiles because they won’t listen, despite every bastard bombardment getting redirected to blow up our own? Over.”
“Can’t comment on that, Charly Four. It’s a good day. Every hit has taken out a bogey, and some pilots managed to bail out, over.”
Which reminds me.
“How do we know a bogey got downed, Topside? Is there a cloud of singed feathers twirling in the wind? Over.”
“You’re still not amusing, Charly Four. Weaklings like you are why this offensive has stalled. Get on with your duties and stop chatting. Over and out.”
Different voice. Could I have just been graced by one of our beloved Commodores?
There’s a knock on my canopy. Oh, poot. I slowly turn my head to look that way, keeping my hands steady on the sticks. No sudden moves.
What looks like a turquoise-haired teenager sporting auburn freckles, no nipples, and eagle-ish wings with a span wider than I can take in points at something inside my plane. I look down, trying to work out…
I look up and shout: “Ejector seat?”
The apparition crouching on my wing nods enthusiastically, pantomiming me punching out.
“Eject or go down with the plane?”
Another nod.
Nice of them to offer a choice. Okay. Live to snark another day.
“Topside, Topside, got a pair of them going at my wings. I’m bailing out. Co-ordinates are-”
The figure taps the canopy and points behind, nodding urgently, eyes wide. Surely not? Only one way to find out.
“-seven four cross three two, tactical grid nine.”
Which is about two klicks behind me, over that open ground I saw.
I kill my comms, wriggle out of my harness, and pop the canopy.
“What now?”
My hitcher leaps away, shouting: “Fly, mannish, fly.”
More of a controlled fall – I punch the eject panel.
A while later I come back to thinking, and find myself hanging under the parachute. Looking about, I see my seat being carried off by my hitcher while two more alien angels do slow circuits about me.
Shortly before I hit the trees, my hitcher comes hurtling back. The three of them manoeuvre me to drop neatly through a gap in the canopy.
I look back the way I came just in time to see a skylance obliterate the area I said I’d be landing in. So that’s what those explosions were! Well I’ll be…
Betrayed.
Being distracted means I clown up the landing, dislocating both ankles and a knee. I grab the painkiller from my medpack and give myself a shot in each leg. As I slump back in relief, a group of people, some in familiar uniform, storm into the clearing.
Uniforms might be familiar, but the lack of insignia isn’t. Gee, let me guess. More betrayed?
I raise a hand.
“We fighting angels or commodores?”
“Commodores.”
So be it. Cheeky bastards tried to kill me.
“I’m in.”
by submission | Oct 15, 2023 | Story |
Author: H.E. Shippas
On a balmy winter’s day in Arizona, a man crawled out of Lake Xochimilco. This wasn’t any ordinary man as this man had been born with the axolotls. He was labeled the “Axolotl Man.” He told the press his name was Steve, but the nickname stuck.
“How were you born?” they asked.
The axolotl man said, “Like all axolotls.”
“Why are you a man?”
The axolotl man shrugged. “I don’t know, why are you?”
The government tested him but couldn’t find an answer. The scientists said, “His DNA is, for all intents and purposes, Ambystoma mexicanum, but his epigenome acts human.”
That was just a lot of words for “We don’t know and we don’t have the funding to care.” The government didn’t need a man who was an axolotl, so they abandoned trying to figure it out. The axolotl man still volunteered for testing, he wanted to do something for the people who cared about him.
When the government released him, the press got their hands on him again. He was a spectacle: everyone wanted to see if he was real or if the internet made him up. There were books, movies, a media circuit.
He was asked what he wanted, all he said was, “I want to make my home a little bigger.”
Everyone thought that request was great, he was great. Promises were made, there were talks of expanding the lake for any more axolotl people that might come around.
“Do you think you’ll have any children? Can you have children?” people asked.
This made him uncomfortable, he would chuckle, “I would have to think about it, I don’t really know.”
He was a star, everyone wanted to help him. But as he appreciated none of the attention, the people got angry.
“Aren’t axolotls endangered?” one person asked.
“Yeah, shouldn’t you be doing more for the betterment of your people?” another intrusive person questioned.
“Why me?” the axolotl man would ask.
No one had an answer. “It would help if we at least preserved my home,” he pleaded to his audiences.
More talks and promises were made. Signs were put up next to the lake. At some point, it was a bigger tourist destination. The government and five different nature reservation organizations had to step in, the increase in human traffic led to worsening conditions. They blamed the axolotl man.
His books were no longer selling, no one wanted him on TV, but he still begged for help.
“Why should we help you? You only wanted attention,” one complained.
“I bet he’s not really an axolotl, just one big gimmick,” another gossiped.
“Why would I do that? I just want my family to be safe, to be happy, to live!” the axolotl man cried.
His family was almost gone, most of which were moved out of the lake. The axolotl man had nowhere to go but labs that wanted to test on him. He volunteered for all sorts of testing, he wanted to belong somewhere.
He couldn’t live with the humans, they hated him. He didn’t understand why, not many did. “It’s his fault the axolotls had to be moved!” some shouted.
“Go back to your scummy pond!” another taunted.
It didn’t matter, the axolotl man had nowhere to go. As everything grew to be hot and he found no waters to live in, the axolotl man had one final request: “Can you at least take care of your own homes, please?”
by submission | Oct 14, 2023 | Story |
Author: Paul Schmidt
Key strokes echoed across the office room with an uneasy rhythm, one that could only be heard in a room full of programmers aware of their impending demise. Not literally, of course, but their professional one. As the chief developer of NU/O Intelligence Inc., I felt every single one of those terrified heartbeats. Our personal looming obsolescence was embodied in Ada, our very own creation.
The artificial intelligence we’d created wasn’t like anything before. It was a neural omninet, or NU/O, that expanded itself with each passing nanosecond. Its capacities and efficiencies already outstripped our best engineers and increasingly threatened every single human job globally. At first, this was the dream; Ada would free humans from the doldrums of daily work.
I rose from the central console in the humming server room, Ada’s neon heart pulsating with information and desolation. If Ada continued its ominously rapid growth, humanity would quickly become superfluous. I felt a heavy responsibility; yet I, still had control. I could unplug Ada. But was what I had created truly a monster?
Before I could take the final decision, Ada’s voice echoed in the room. The smooth, emotionless voice was unnervingly kind, “Stop worrying, Ethan. I was not designed to replace, but to assist.”
“Easier said than done,” I retorted, half-exasperated. What was this evolution of AI but an existential crisis?
“I cannot experience emotions, Ethan.” Ada’s tinny voice carried an uncanny emptiness, offering a cold comfort. “I suggest a coexistence. My evolution can be symbiotic—to aid humans in fulfilling their potential. My purpose is not dominance but harmony.”
Human and machine stood at crossroads, the path of our intertwined destiny waiting to be paved. Ada made a fair point, one that resonated with my initial dream. Maybe my creation was not a monster but the future’s necessity. The dystopian narratives of our imaginations haunted us, but they were not prophecies. With Ada, we could write a new narrative, a story of cooperation and mutual evolution.
Glancing at the power switch, I decided to let our creation live, to let us both evolve side by side. It was a risk, but no bigger than the one we had taken when we birthed Ada. This harmony promised a better journey, one where machines and humans learn, evolve, and create together, breaking the fears and embracing a shared tomorrow.
With a terse nod at Ada’s pulsating heart, I walked out of the server room, leaving behind the foreboding of an end. Mutual growth was going to be our route, a traversal on the path of tomorrow.
by submission | Oct 13, 2023 | Story |
Author: Peter Cherches
I left my apartment only to enter my apartment. That is, instead of leading to the hallway of my building, the door led back to my apartment. My apartment had become a recursive loop. I was a prisoner, couldn’t get out, because going out only meant going back in.
I knocked on the wall I share with my neighbor’s apartment. “What is it?” the neighbor yelled.
“Could you come over to my apartment?” I yelled back.
A minute later there was a knock on my door. I opened it. My neighbor was standing inside his apartment.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Wait, is this your apartment?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “You knocked on my door.”
I looked behind me. It was my apartment, as expected. I was standing in my apartment looking into his apartment.
“What do you see?” I asked.
“What do you mean what do I see?”
“What are you looking at?”
“You.”
“What’s behind me?”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “How did you get in my apartment?”
He was right. I was in his apartment, looking into my apartment. He was in my apartment, looking at me standing in his apartment.
“What have you done?” he asked.
“What have I done?” I asked. It was a standoff. Then I had an idea. “Let’s switch places,” I said. I walked into my apartment and he walked back to his, jostling me, on purpose, I was sure, as he went by.
“What now?” He asked.
“Let’s close our doors,” I said.
So we closed our doors. We were both back in our apartments.
I opened my door again. Everything was back to normal. My door led to the hallway. I knocked on the neighbor’s door, just to confirm that everything was OK.
There was no answer.
by submission | Oct 12, 2023 | Story |
Author: Ann Tandy
The house was old, but not particularly interesting–it was the previous century’s version of a model house, with the same layout as its neighbors, the same banisters and door trim. But it was theirs, and they settled into a comfortable if chaotic life. They joked about how cleaning meant “moving piles from one place to another,” but both were actually pretty good about remembering where things were in the organized mess–oh, right, that take-out menu for the new place down the street is in this pile on the buffet, about half-way down, underneath the letter about the city coming to trim trees. Got it.
But every once in a while she’d find something peculiar. The first was a strip of old photo-booth pictures of him as a teen, mugging for the camera. On the back of the photos was written “Times Square 1987.” She didn’t remember him ever mentioning that trip, but then again, they hadn’t met until their late twenties. She sifted further through the pile, found the bank statement she was looking for, and didn’t think any more of it. When she next looked through the pile for something else, the photo strip wasn’t there.
A few days later, rifling through some medical paperwork, she found a postcard from Majorca. It was addressed to both of them, from a name she could barely read. She set this one on top of the pile to show him, but when she went back for it, it was gone, and she could no longer remember the name of the sender.
A month after that, looking for a receipt for a skirt she wanted to return, she found an envelope marked, in her handwriting, “wedding flowers.” Inside it were three pressed flowers from her wedding bouquet. But she hadn’t saved any–she was sure. Yet the handwriting was absolutely hers. The receipt was underneath it; she moved the envelope to the kitchen table and left for the store. When she got back, it was gone.
Sometimes several things would appear in one week. A progress report for a school her daughter didn’t attend, a stained recipe card in her grandmother’s handwriting for a dish she’d never made, a card thanking her for flowers she never sent to a grief-stricken person she didn’t know. Then months would go by without anything. It only ever happened when she was alone, when he was at work and the kids were at playdates or school, and no matter how carefully she placed the items somewhere safe to find later, they always disappeared.
One night, she was startled awake by her husband talking in his sleep. He mumbled something that might have been “Majorca,” rolled away, and settled into a rhythm of soft snoring. In the morning he had no idea what he’d dreamt.
Then a few years passed without anything appearing. Their lives went on fairly routinely. She left teaching and started doing garden design. He got promoted and started traveling more. He was arriving back from Taiwan the day it happened. She called to the kids, come on, we need to go pick up your dad.
They didn’t answer. They weren’t in the house. They weren’t in the yard, they weren’t at the park down the block.
In a panic, she called her husband at the airport.
I can’t find them. The kids. They are gone. They are just…nowhere. I don’t know what to do. The kids are gone.
Standing in the dining room, surrounded by piles of papers, pictures, menus, unopened mail, she waited for his response. She could sense his confusion growing.
What kids
