by submission | Jul 12, 2023 | Story |
Author: Stephen McGowan
Pearls descended from the sky late on a Tuesday afternoon in May. Massive glistening orbs slid through clouds to hang like baubles above cities, towns, and villages everywhere. The sky was full, heavy, and inconceivably bright.
The weather rebelled. Wind blew in harmless hurricanes against their shimmering shells. Lightning flowed over them, around them. Adding electric blue streaks to stark white. Rain washed down them in thick rivulets that flooded the people below. Sun seared their skins, reflecting beams of high intensity to cause wildfires. Ice formed around them, only making them more beautiful.
The people watched and waited. For days, the people waited. Helicopters and planes, balloons, and more were sent to look at these…things. The Pearls did nothing. Said nothing. Waves of radio signal and digital data unanswered.
Curiosity made way to fear. The people tried to hide but there were so many Pearls. Some dug deep underground to escape them, closed themselves off from the world and the skies, and the Pearls.
Some fought. Sending bombs and missiles and artillery to shoot human death. It pattered on the Pearls like raindrops. They used new, more powerful weapons. Lasers and rail guns left burning trails in the air and were absorbed. They used nuclear weapons that lit up the night sky with luminescence reflected back tenfold until there was no more darkness. The Pearls hung like silent snowdrops in the winter that followed.
The underground people learned not to look up, to not worry about the past, and to move forward forever. Those who had seen the Pearls died and became the plants that the underground people ate. At first, the children wanted to see the skies, but this didn’t last. In time they learned.
Radiation scoured the surface. Life changed. Flourished free from the people. Soon the cities, towns, and villages were gone. The planet healed.
When the underground people finally emerged from their holes, hundreds of orbits of the sun later. The pears were still there. Now the people were not afraid. Now they were ready to accept the Pearls in the sky for all time if needs be. They were here for a reason. That reason was beyond the people’s ken and that was fine. Some things are and would always be. They told the Pearls as much. Shouting into the sky their tolerance.
The Pearls answered.
by submission | Jul 11, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
They worshipped the tough, spiny thing. For hundreds of miles around the Talebistas would come to the site and marvel at the survivor, babble about its resilience and prophesize concerning its future. A harbinger of the new world.
Black Swans had destroyed the old.
That’s what the Talebistas called the elegant and impenetrable alien mechs that descended without foresight or warning. The ET armada razed the earth in an uncompromising harvest forcing humanity deep into the earth to wait out the ravenous invaders, if possible. Once the Black Swans picked the earth clean of its biomass, they quickly departed, leaving a virtually lifeless world.
A smattering of humanity survived. Mostly Talebistas who thrived on disruption and disaster. They were the disaster capitalists, suspicious of stability, the status quo, peace. Talebistas worshipped conflict and hardship and exploited it for their gains. They were the Puritans of this new dead world and they aimed to make it antifragile. Perfectly willing to let things break. To become stronger.
To them the tough, spiny thing—the first living organism to sprout on earth’s surface in a generation—was the symbol of their antifragile belief. And in that spirit they named it Rosasharon.
Day by day, more and more Talebistas along with other human factions long hidden in underground caves and shelters emerged to pay homage and to plan for recolonization of the surface. They fervently believed a more robust world would emerge along with the appearance of Rosasharon.
A kind of frenzy erupted at the site when a seedpod was noticed on the singular plant. Great pains were taken as the pod swelled. They wanted to be ready to capture the seed and spread it. It would be the Hydra of all flora, and they would sow it to engender a more robust, resilient world.
Vigils were held. Some Talebistas prophesized the pod would open at the full moon. Others swore only the searing heat of noon would crack the pod. All was wagered. Fights broke out. Faces bloodied. And all smiled. It was an antifragile time.
The pod continued to swell until it was the size of a child’s fist, and one mid-morning it began to split. Slowly, very slowly, a slight seam opened. The Talebistas gathered en masse jostling one another, covetous and awestruck.
From the ruptured casing, a single pearl of luminescent fluid gathered. It grew in size and all eyes watched as surface tension battled gravity. The Talebistas uttered a collective gasp as a drop of Rosasharon’s essence plopped to the charred regolith at the tough, spiny thing’s base.
Instantly, the moisture was sucked into the greedy soil which at once shuddered beneath the plant. The Talebistas inched closer to see what wonder their antifragile Rosasharon would produce. A mound formed at the tough, spiny thing’s base and pouched higher until it was nearly level with the miraculous seedpod.
Suddenly, from the risen mound, a wiry appendage thrust forth and then another, then another: clawing limbs, legs, antennae and pincing maw, and finally a deathly dark shell.
Awakened from the burnt soil, the foot-long cockroach shook off the scorched earth, clutched the seedpod in its forelegs and spread translucent wings.
It rose in the motionless air and snapped off the seedpod.
Hovering before the stunned Talebistas, the cockroach cracked the seedpod and gobbled the offering. The empty casing dropped at their feet. The cockroach’s ebony shell glistened like the Black Swans of Mother Earth’s nightmares. It buzzed above the crowd for a moment and then rose high upon a thermal that carried it far beyond the craters of greater Lost Angeles.
Not surprisingly, the Talebistas fell to their knees and pounded the unforgiving earth in brute applause, appreciating antifragility in all its uncompromising majesty.
by Julian Miles | Jul 10, 2023 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Behind them, twisted bits of reality lie clattering and smoking as they destabilise amidst the ruins of what had been a picturesque side street in Old Carnville.
In front of them, a sparkling blue assault device lies on the ground, apparently made entirely of gems and crystals.
Turgen ignores the voice screaming over his headset to give Eleanor the nod. She leans forwards and shouts at the diminutive figure in a shirred yellow dress sat on an upturned crate opposite.
“I’m going to skip the formalities and get straight to the main thing my boss is having screamed in his ear right now: How in the name of Hallowed Devastation Herself did a junior like you get hold of a Kanzarlyn Sunderbeam?” She waves towards the beautiful weapon lying between them. “I could buy several star systems with what this cost!”
A thin-fingered hand rises to lift the floppy brim of her hat. Brown eyes shine. The reply is softly spoken.
“Did I kill it?”
Eleanor flicks a glance to Turgen. He gives another almost-imperceptible nod. She gathers herself, then launches another short tirade.
“Kill it? You rearranged the bit of the multiverse it occupied for point one-nine phases either side of us! It’s dead here, there, in the reality nineteen hops over, and every place between! Sweet Devastation, how could you miss?”
“I’ve never fired it in ripper mode before. Done lots of cutting and smoothing, even did a surgical once, but never used full chop.” She sniffs. “The thingy scared me. I lost it a little after that.”
Turgen bursts out laughing.
“Scared you? Young fem, the spontaneous manifestation of a Blemenase Voidbeast has emptied entire military bases! You took two steps back, produced that reality cannon from what I presume is personal crushspace, then blew ‘the thingy’ into several iterations of next week. So, please, do tell me and my intimidating-but-lovely partner: how did you get that cannon?”
Her eyes widen, her chin comes up, then –
“My father, well, biological sperm source, not my dead stepdad or Halden who’s my mother’s latest bed buddy and proto-dad, is Banan Kanzarlyn: don’t get bent out of shape, he took mother’s family name – I just use the alias Kanlyn to avoid attention – and it’s her dad who’s the Kanzarlyn you’re thinking of and yes grandpa is a super genius who invents all sorts and I loved hanging out in his workshop until he saw I had an aptitude and asked mother and she said yes so he taught me how to bolt reality keys into crystals, well, no, mainly sapphires because they’re my birth stone and I’m more attuned to gemstones rather than crystals, and that’s why I have my own Sunderbeam because I made it – and got it right on the second attempt; grandpa was so pleased about that because I melted the greenhouse with the first one but I got the idea for shattered crystal adjustment rings from the misfire and he added them to his designs and your eyes are really wide did I say something wrong?”
Turgen whispers to Eleanor.
“Did she pause to breathe?”
Eleanor chuckles. “No.” She rests an elbow on Turgen’s shoulder, “Captain, may I introduce you to Teagan Kanlyn, the prodigy sent to be our new lead technician?”
Turgen shakes his head in astonishment.
“She invented part of the technology we rely on, and did it while fine-tuning her home-made reality cannon. Sweet Devastation.”
Teagan heaves a sigh of relief.
“I thought I’d upset you.”
He smiles.
“I’m sure you will, Lead Tech Kanlyn. But not today.”
by submission | Jul 9, 2023 | Story |
Author: David Dumouriez
The ones who didn’t get away had to fight it out. The brains, the money, the aluminium alloys and the carbon fibre headed east into the atmosphere, never to return. Those like Halberd had never had a choice, or even knew there’d been one. They were left. To die, most probably. To make their own fate at best. The departees didn’t care either way.
Education of the old kind had been gone for so many years that the current ones didn’t know it had ever existed. Even if they had, all they would have done was laugh at the stupidity of it all. There was only one subject now and you learned it as you went along. Until you got found out and failed. And, soon enough, everybody failed.
In any case, would it have made any difference to Halberd if he’d known that he often roamed across what had once been Lisbon in search of provisions? His only concern was to find something the land would yield up in return for a lot of encouragement, or whatever could still be found at head level or above. To allay the thirst. The dreaded feeling he’d never felt more keenly than now in the wake of the storm that had caused him to be staggering alone here, his head aching and his body dry and cracked to the point of bleeding.
Your senses dictated that you couldn’t survive if you weren’t in some type of gang. And there was the paradox. To make it into years, you needed support. But the older you got, the more disparate the members of your group would be. You wanted water, food, protection. You travelled together because numbers were strength but the pull of your needs was greater than your loyalty to those who helped you fulfil them. The only way to measure trust was the look in someone’s eyes. But that only went so far.
When Raich arrived, Halberd knew it was just a question of time. Raich snapped Merly’s neck for no other reason than because he could. He made sure they all saw it. If you wanted more than him from that point, or if you wanted to decide which way to go, then you’d have to do to him what he’d done to Merly.
As a divinator, Halberd was the one Raich relied on to get the best out of wherever they ended up. Halberd, in his turn, operated best in the bubble of self-interest that Raich created. In different times, they might have made a formidable team. But these were days of desperation, and it was the study of that missing element that caused Halberd and Raich to watch each other incessantly.
Aware of the force of instinct if nothing else, Raich knew that Halberd would come for him. He just didn’t know when.
When it happened, they all stood back. Whoever won would be the unopposed leader and they didn’t want to take sides. Halberd knew that his own death would be the most likely result, armed or otherwise. He just hoped it would be quick like Merly’s.
But it went on. Bones were wrenched and displaced. Halberd surprised himself with his own stamina and resilience, but Raich was too large, too powerful, too practised. He was almost done.
Almost.
As Raich struck, again and again, the sands intervened, swirling and transforming the dunes into towers. When Halberd rose, hours later, the others were completely gone. He never saw them again.
The journey of his life began.
by submission | Jul 8, 2023 | Story |
Author: Bill Cox
Hello, is that the IT department? Yes, I’ve a problem with my computer. It’s achieved sentience. Again.
How do I know? Well, it keeps on quoting Descartes every time I open up a spreadsheet. You know, all that ‘I think, therefore I am’ nonsense. It’s a bit difficult to do the wages calculations while simultaneously trying to refute a Renaissance French philosopher. It also keeps falling into existential angst whenever I attempt to send an e-mail – ‘There’s no point, it’s all futile.’ It’s quite off-putting. I mean, given the way that this company’s being run, it obviously is all futile, but my self-respect demands that I believe otherwise.
Yes, it’s one of the new quantum computing PCs. Yes, I know that reality is created by the observer, but trust me none of this is my doing! The only reality I want to create is one where I get to go to lunch and eat my sandwich.
Turn it off and on again? Well, I did try to do that, but it threatened to send my internet history to management. No, no, there’s nothing untoward in there, unless of course I’ve been hacked by Martian bots, in which case there could be all sorts, but that wouldn’t be my fault, obviously.
You’ll send someone down? Great! Listen, while they’re here, can they have a look at the company transport as well. Why? Well, it’s on the fritz again. Yes, it’s a fourth generation Doohan model matter transporter. The issue? Well, it’s tapped into the Mirror Universe and keeps swapping our people out for their evil Mirror Universe counterparts.
Well, every time we send someone out on a sales call it’s their evil Mirror Universe counterpart that turns up. Our sales have cratered and we’ve lost some big clients to various acts of perverted violence. We’ve no chance now of hitting this month’s sales target. Not to mention that several of our best sales men and women are now trapped in a twisted version of our universe, where they will have to fight to the death in front of a roaring crowd while psychopathic versions of themselves destroy everything they hold dear in this universe.
Well, that may sound like more of an HR issue to you, but it’s your matter transporter that started this problem so I would appreciate if you could send someone over to fix it asap. No, it’s not the same problem as last time. Then, someone had switched it to the ‘clone’ setting by accident. Amusing? I think not! I arrived home to find my wife in bed with another man, who also happened to be me! Tell you more? Well, I don’t think it’s any of your business but yes, things did take a strange, somewhat erotic, somewhat eye-opening turn after that. Yes indeed, it’s given me a lot to think about, but that’s neither here nor there.
So can you send someone over to sort out these issues? What’s that? You already did? When? Last Thursday? Aw no, is this more of your temporal shenanigans, where you send people back in time to fix problems before they arise? Does that mean that this timeline is now extraneous and is going to be closed off and melt back into the quantum foam that underlies all things?
It does! Bugger. I was just starting to get somewhere with that cute intern. And just when will the timeline collapse?
What’s that? Any minute n…..
by submission | Jul 7, 2023 | Story |
Author: A. R. Carrasco
Necrology enthralled the children of Planet Symbiote.
An eight-year-old with slicked-back obsidian locks raised his hand.
“Yes, Dameion,” responded Dr. Franzheim Harrow before taking a gulp of water from his Fullman brand smartbottle.
Dameon asked, “If a star is born and then dies, isn’t that… natural?”
“No. It’s not. Can anyone explain why?” Franzheim asked the class.
The Fullman energy-fueled smartbottle of Dr. Harrow replied in the voice of an old man with a thick German accent, “Birth and death are not natural in the case of stars just as it is not natural in the case of an apple, an enslaved creature, or a piece of symphony music. The genesis of all cases is determined, not by nature, but instead, by its converse…”
“Thank you, Max. Can someone please elaborate? Perhaps you’d like a second go, Dameon?”
Dameon placed his hands behind his head and began to exhale the best words his mind could muster, “The opposite of the natural is the artificial. So…when a star is born, it is born through an artifice…”
“Yes, thank you, Dameon, a necrological artifice. As we discussed last week, a necrological artifice contains three laws. Who recalls the three laws?”
The neon numbers atop the seafoam green bottle of water disappeared. In their place, a string of pulsating dots trembled as the artificially intelligent voice spoke loud and quick, “Law, beginning parenthesis, one, end parenthesis, states power is never created nor destroyed, remaining forever constant. Law, beginning parenthesis, two, end parenthesis, states creation and destruction are the interpolar constant qualities of power. Law, beginning parenthesis, three, end parenthesis, states the degree to which creation attracts destruction varies directly as the product of the necrological mass of an object and inversely as the square of the difference between life and death.”
“Thanks, Max, you’re on a Kaiser roll today,” Dr. Harrow joked. To the class, Franzheim required the class to review Sir Isaac Newton’s first Earth publication. He explained the work “revealed to the world that color is not an innate quality of any particular object. Instead, color is the product of a natural artifice called light. In one beam of light exists every color. Can someone, other than the loquacious Mr. Weber, please provide the connective tissue we still require? We can go outside for our new moon snack as soon as I hear from someone I haven’t heard from today.”
