by submission | Aug 23, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
A little problem, she’d reported. Fatima was a master of understatement. In some ways, Jorge felt she’d deserved to be eaten by his monstrous spawn.
Though, it probably wasn’t the time to be reflecting on Fatima’s missteps. Explosions still rocked the installation. Acrid smoke was filling the lab, and Jorge’s left hand was so badly burned the bones were visible. It throbbed painfully in alarming rhythm to the pounding on the barricaded door where the vicious things were trying to get in to devour him. Their creator.
Jorge should have been concentrating on how to save himself, but, as he sat on the floor leaning against the desk that he’d shoved against the door under furious assault, he couldn’t put aside the literally gnawing question of what had turned his micro soldiers into zombies.
Was it the final cellular enhancement process? An atavistic retrovirus? Something to do with the genetic re-rendering in the incubation vats? Or the hemlock? To know that answer, Jorge prayed, might somehow lessen the disappointment of being savaged by their ferocious little teeth.
The GNOMES had been so promising. When he’d been brought into the initial briefings on the project, he’d been skeptical. Creating tiny genetically modified soldiers to be used for special ops struck him as incredibly unethical. But, he’d been won over by the sheer scale and wicked audacity of the scheme.
In a half-crazed world, where savage regional conflict regularly erupted with only middle school cafeteria provocation, we needed a half-crazed solution. It was time to bite the bad guys below the kneecaps. A tactical shift from predator drones to predator GNOMES.
Jorge had come up with the acronym himself: General Noncom Operative Micro Enhanced Soldiers. Not quite Tennyson, but it caught on with the techs in the lab. And the generals soon grimaced with satisfaction when they toured their multi-billion dollar investments twitching in the milky brew of the incubation vats.
It was so easy for Jorge to reflect on the glory of those first GNOMES. Sturdy, stocky, pliable, completely obedient micro soldiers. A half meter tall with the ability to tactically deploy for three weeks without the need of food or sleep. Perfect for espionage and sabotage.
They’d turned out just as planned, until they ate Fatima.
That had been a complicated day. Fatima calling him in the morning from the training field to say she was having a little problem. And two hours later, he was directed to the obstacle course to be shown his bloody-mouthed GNOMES and his half devoured chief lab technician.
Jorge still shuddered at the thought of the mountains of paperwork Fatima’s “little problem” had created. It took him two weeks to convince the brass that it was not a fault in their genetic recoding. It had been an oversight in feeding the GNOMES. As part of their stamina testing, they’d gone almost a month without a meal. On a scientific level, their devouring Fatima was quite understandable, almost predictable.
Then they ate Fatima’s replacement. Jorge wasn’t able to placate the top brass. They insisted he euthanize all GNOMES. Jorge fought to salvage his pet project, but the generals prevailed, and he’d personally administered a lethal hemlock cocktail to his micro-mutants. It killed them all.
But not for long. Within a day all the GNOMES reanimated, noticeably paler and ranker, and all his lab technicians disappeared.
At that juncture, the top brass locked down the installation, trapping Jorge and giving him plenty of time to reflect. So strange. Zombiefication posed all kinds of theoretical and practical pitfalls. Jorge could’ve worked a thousand lifetimes and never intentionally created zombies such as these. But here they were. That much was clear. Very clear. Just a few feet away, his GNOMES were clamoring to get through the lab door and feast on his baffled brain.
With such a mystery hanging over his head, Jorge did not want to die. His options were indeed limited, but he could still think like a scientist. Control for variables. Reason out a solution. Create a workaround.
The hemlock? He considered it, though half-heartedly. Still, it was an option. He had a flask of the cocktail in his desk drawer. It would eliminate one variable. One personally painful possibility.
As he struggled to open the drawer with his good hand, he felt the desk and himself incrementally slide as the pounding increased on the lab door. The GNOMES were relentless problem solvers. Maybe they would solve their own riddle.
Jorge found the flask, fumbled it open and stared down its mouth, just as one of his GNOMES wriggled through the door. Pale and proud it approached, its coldly concentrated eyes locked on his. It stomped on his burned hand, hopped astride his trembling torso, snatched the flask of hemlock and bared its sharp, precision teeth.
Such a little problem, the creator admitted.
by submission | Aug 22, 2023 | Story |
Author: David Barber
The final part of the plan involved capturing a Jirt Princess.
Morgan led one assault team, a band of Earthers who took terrible losses before the Jirt security swarm was destroyed.
A last Jirt warrior blocked the way down into the palace. Evolution had selected the soldier caste for single combat with armoured opponents. This one was a nightmare of spikes, pincers and serrated blades.
It staggered as bullets sparkled on its isolation field, but each time it returned fire, another of the human fighters died.
Morgan dragged a captured Jirt weapon. He had only the sketchiest notion how to use it. He wiped spattered blood from his face and yelled for his people to keep down.
Whether the energy yield was set low or high he could not tell, but when he fired, the Jirt convulsed into fragments.
The Earthers cheered and charged inside. Jirt workers fled but it was a slaughter.
#
The Naal were frail, flightless avians who used songs instead of names. Morgan called this one Plato, because he talked a lot and was a useless soldier.
Plato had cautiously led the Naal assault. They were still exchanging shots with Jirt drones when the Earthers arrived.
Afterwards, Plato counted how few humans remained.
“The Princess was captured trying to escape,” said the Naal. “But she is unwilling to negotiate.”
Morgan cursed when he saw the Jirt still wore her isolation field.
“She will not turn it off.” That bobbing of the head was a Naal shrug. “Jirt say we seethe with pollution.”
The Princess loomed over Morgan. “Can you understand me?” he demanded.
“I have a translator. The Queen is coming. Release me and I will petition Her to make your deaths quick.”
With the Jirt weapon set to the lowest yield, Morgan burned off a leg and the Princess shrieked like a whistling kettle.
“Did you need to do that?” Plato whispered.
Morgan studied the Naal. Centuries of Jirt rule had made them submissive and accustomed to defeat.
“Observe,” Morgan told the Princess. A screen showed the vast Jirt Hiveship entering orbit above them.
The Naal pleaded with him to wait, but Morgan had already sent the signal.
“But many of our kinds work on that ship.”
“They know what sacrifice is.”
Abruptly the Hiveship detonated.
“A smuggled fusion device. They underestimate us.”
All around, Naal were touching their faces to the floor.
“What’s happening?”
“We mourn our people, and yours.”
“The Queen!” The Jirt Princess chattered her mouthparts. “What have you done?”
Morgan smiled bitterly. “You are alive because the Naal think you will negotiate.”
“Other Queens will come to claim this star system. Negotiate with them.”
“This is being repeated everywhere that humans can reach,” Morgan cried triumphantly.
Later, Plato spoke with the Princess. “Your Highness, you have no one to advise you—”
The Naal glanced around. The humans were busy elsewhere.
“They cannot defeat you, but you destroyed their homeworld. They will never forgive.”
The Princess remained silent. Morgan had ordered her chained by one leg. Perhaps forgiveness was just a Naal concept.
“We accepted conquest, but these humans—”
“Yet you betray us.”
Plato made the gesture of contrition. “We thought to curb their excesses, but…”
But you are both utterly alien, the Naal might have said. Incomprehension on all sides.
“Nothing will bring Earth back. Instead they sustain themselves by a notion they call revenge. The bombs, the killing, it will never stop. Unless—”
The Naal had more to say, but the Jirt Princess had turned her translator off.
by Julian Miles | Aug 21, 2023 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I thought the skinny functionary nodded my way. The two of them are approaching, all eager smiles, curious glances, and whispered asides.
“Are these seats taken? The server said they weren’t, but you know, they sometimes get things wrong. So, are they?”
At least there’s two of them. Hopefully they’ll amuse each other like a pair of Charni cubs. I nod.
“Thank you so much, it’s so crowded and people like their space, so it’s really nice of you. Isn’t it, Cassie?”
So the red-maned quieter one is Cassie.
“Oh, it so is. Those are really interesting tattoos. Do they mean anything? My brother has a whole back of fighting eagles over the Appalachians.”
Eagle?
My interlace vibrates and an answer arrives: large avian raptor.
Not quiet, just needed a cue. I shrug.
“I just liked the patterns in the book the tattooist showed me.”
Forgive me, Ettunershal, but telling these innocents they depict the history of my kills for the eyes of my peers is one of those ‘outside chance risks’ always spoken of, but so rarely encountered.
My reply seems to have stalled Cassie’s attempt at conversation.
Not so her companion.
“I can see why you chose them. They’re amazing. Must have cost a fortune.”
I nod.
Cassie puts a hand on her friend’s arm.
“He’s not interested in talking to us, Kath.”
Kath pulls her arm away and leans towards me.
“Why not? Three beautiful people thrown together by chance, but he can’t or won’t look up from his black whatever to flirt with us?”
“I’m waiting for someone. A meeting. It’s very important.”
Cassie nods.
“You need to focus. I can understand that.”
Kath makes a gesture I presume to be dismissive.
“Oh, come on. It’s not like it’s life or death, now is it?”
Not in the way you’re inferring.
On the other side of the open area, a door opens. At last.
I drain my cup in one long pull.
“How did you do that without swallowing?”
Cassie is also very observant.
I smile at her as I stand up.
“Practice.”
All Nundargih consume fluids this way. Goes in through the vents in the roof of our mouths.
Grantom steps through the doorway, pausing to close it carefully. I squeeze the weapon cartridge in my hand as I raise my arm.
The javelin flickers into being with a muted tone. I hurl it with relaxed poise, as learned so very long ago. In another echo of my training days, it leaves a perfectly straight vapour trail as it crosses the distance and hits Grantom just below his armoured hearts and passes clean through, tearing out his aortic junction on the way. It ends its flight by exploding against the wall behind in a shower of sparks and a noise like distant thunder.
Grantom coughs and collapses, yellow blood surging from the hole through him.
I nod to the two females, then leave them staring. Kath at the body, Cassie at me.
Rounding a corner, I duck through a doorway I prepared earlier. The supplies cupboard is cramped, but there’s a narrow path to the end, and the thin section of visible wall is all I need. Pulling a gate cartridge, I drive it into a brick, then squeeze.
The tall oval portal opens silently. I’ve just stepped through when the cupboard door opens and Cassie looks in.
“Hiding in the janitor’s cup- Oh.”
Her eyes widen on seeing the yellow trees behind me.
I give her another nod. The portal collapses.
She’s a smart being. I hope her life goes well.
by submission | Aug 20, 2023 | Story |
Author: Rainbow Heartshine
“Internet porn is succubi terraforming. Is what you’re telling me with this.”
“We embrace all kinks and fetishes that can be worked out with love,” Dylan typed as if in response to himself, though he couldn’t really say it was either ‘typing’, or him doing it, even though it was his body twitching and fidgeting the sensors in his outfit to tell his phone his keystrokes without having to do anything as crass as taking it out or poking at buttons on its screen.
“…but as you can see, sexy demons who want you to emit lots of yummy sexual energy are quite overrepresented,” the being manipulating him so subtly went on.
This would look insane, if someone looked at his text logs, talking to himself this way, especially since most of the conversation so far was what you’d expect from an ’emosynthesizing person’, as the being said the proper technical term was, but insane didn’t let you know your both know coworkers’ backup passwords and type them with the correct haptic profile so you could be shown everyone else in the company was having an equally interesting “lunch hour” (this being why he could be sure doing all this literally-horny “resarch” wouldn’t result in a talk with HR).
Of course, it was the code they’d spent all morning “typing” that was scary. He hadn’t been able to follow most of it, but if it was what he was thinking, and they could access the production servers as easily as his coworkers’ chatlogs…
“It’s funny you should think of the term Human Resources,” the being typed in response to his thoughts, “but don’t be scared. Sadness doesn’t taste very good, and depression puts out the light we’re trying to feed on. You’ll have the best of care. Look at this now.”
ESP BODILY RESPONSES did seem like an obvious thing to search for next, but the results were a lot more academic than he was expecting. All the stories were apocryphal, of course, but almost every “medium” reported some form of—
“Okay wait,” he blurted. “VV said the idea of the Fidgetboard came to him in a dream—“
“Very yes!,” came the reply with a weird feeling he was starting to recognize as the psychic perception of the being’s giggling. ”Making you twitch and jump is as easy as breathing for us, and we can be very coordinated, if you only practice the neural pathways that make it possible a little.”
“Fidgetboards have been standard for a decade, though. Why only now?”
“I think you know the answer to that, sweetie,” the being answered with a scary gentleness.
Dylan did, as he tried to think of where in the building—or city—he would find a phone that still had a touchscreen.
“it’s very helpful. You all practice all day long! It makes it so easy, we can do just about anything, even mimic haptic profiles.”
“People will just take their sensors off—“
His voice cut off.
“I think you know the answer to that too, sweetie,” the demon typed.
Dylan gulped, though he couldn’t say it was him doing it.
by submission | Aug 19, 2023 | Story |
Author: David Broz
There is plenty of time to think out in space, in the middle of nowhere, just me and the dark and the pinpricks of the stars.
And I think about how I miss you. I want to ask you, do you ever think of me?
My mind is wandering.
What if I was given just one wish? Anything I wanted, it would be mine. Anything at all. My mind wanders.
Of everything I could possibly have, I have everything I need. Maybe there are a few things I’ve had and lost, but do I need them again? I really don’t need anything else at all.
But you, you’re still searching for something.
My mind wanders. A moment of peace and truth and timelessness and love and all of the universe washes over and through me. I become one.
I would wish for your happiness, that you would find whatever you are looking for, and that you would have the time to enjoy it. But would that be two wishes? Happiness and time?
My mind wanders.
A star twinkles and I make my wish.
I hope you have time to enjoy it, because space genies sometimes run late.
by submission | Aug 18, 2023 | Story |
Author: Kristen Henderson
Her right hand was so chewed up by the churning machine at the mill that she was left with little choice. Little choice but to have a dowdy female surgeon attach a claw-like contraption to what straggly shattered pieces were left behind. If only she’d been left handed, but she was so right.
She wished she could blame someone else for her plight, but really she should have paid closer attention to the machine’s mechanisms.
Knowing she had no hope for normalcy — the mill had been everything — all she’d ever known — she found a yurt, advertised as a left-handed one, whatever that meant, and moved in with a cot, a hot plate, and three wool blankets. It does get frigid in North Dakota.
A docile deer she was able to stab with her clunky, yet graceful, artificial claw made for ample fare.
*
After two months, she thought about going back, back to people, but the deer, the ones she let live, where her kin now. Along with the squirrels and robins and the occasional eagle … and they never stared.
