by Julian Miles | Nov 27, 2023 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
It stands there, black branches against a steel-grey sky, lord of all it surveys from on top of the escarpment above where I’m digging what could be my own grave.
The snow is piled deep here. With a last effort, I hope to make a capsule where the low temperatures can help my life support pack keep me from dying. It’s been doing a fine job for the last week, but the injuries from the battle, plus those from the crash, plus those from trekking through this charmingly picturesque frozen hell have it down to reserve power.
Which is not quite as bad as it sounds. There’s emergency power under that, but it means I have to choose between the life support and the rescue beacon. It’s a hell of a choice: hope to live long enough to be found by luck, or settle for being certain they’ll retrieve my corpse.
Right now, I’ll just be glad to get the improvised splints off my leg. They may have let me hobble, but the edges of the metal cut me as I went. As a bonus, I think at least one of those cuts is infected.
I wonder if we won?
There’s a thought. If we haven’t or didn’t, I can pretty much choose the ‘find my body’ option, because the locals might rescue me, but they’ll cheerfully finish the job their poxy, insane pilots started with their delta-winged toys.
Toys. They lie down to pilot them, with drives above and below, fuel to the left, and weapons to the right. Silver triangles barely four metres long, piloted by people who have nothing to lose. They shoot us down, ram us down, and keep punching holes in anything they can’t bring down in one until it finally falls from the sky.
We fail when up against them, because we want to live. They want their people to live, and accept they will probably have to die to achieve that goal. It doesn’t mean they’re suicidal, but it does mean they have no limits, and that’s where we fall down… Literally.
I was in a dogfight with six of them. Got two, two peeled off to chase my partner, then I got the fifth and shouted in triumph. A shout which ended when the sixth went out in a blaze of glory, taking my starboard wing with them.
The flat spin that sent me into took some inspired use of the remaining angled thrusters to cancel. Then I overcooked it, flipped over and went into a dive I knew the end of.
Inverted ejector capsule use is red-letter not recommended in the manual. I slammed everything into a braking/lift thrust, then hit the eject button as things started breaking about me. So, technically, I wasn’t completely upside-down.
Didn’t stop me landing at overspeed. The capsule fragmented, absorbing the impact, but the snowbank it hit at the end is what saved me.
Save me. Nice idea.
Time to crawl inside and take the gamble we all hope to avoid. It’ll be a change to just lie still and listen to my heartbeat for a while. Wait. That’s an idea. I can work on it until I pass out.
Here goes. Watch over me, winter tree.
.
.
.
“It’s been three days since last signal. We have to accep-”
“Captain! Captain!”
“Yes, Comms?”
“We’ve got a signal, sir. Right zone, low-power, steady. Sounds like they switched the beacon to broadcast their life monitor pulse, conserving power.”
“Clever. Best go rescue them, then.”
“Yessir.”
by submission | Nov 26, 2023 | Story |
Author: Bill Cox
Standing on the deck of the ship, he watched the dead planet hanging in the void in front of him. It’s lustre had gone, its greens and blues replaced by a uniform dull brown. The automated systems confirmed it. There was no life on the world in front of him, not even microbes. The Earth was completely dead.
He felt sad that his home had gone. Not surprised though. He even felt a little bit of hope, which didn’t quite make sense…
*
The two imposing security personnel led Peter to a small room, plonked him unceremoniously down on a chair and left him there, blinking across a table at the stranger seated opposite.
He still felt groggy, which was no surprise. He’d been in hyper-sleep for a week whilst the vessel underwent its trans-light journey to Argus, the fourth planet in the Ross 128 system. Here he’d planned to start his new job, a twenty-year contract that would set him up nicely for retirement back on Earth. Yet, no sooner had his sleep pod wakened him, than security had grabbed him and taken him here, to this quiet annex of the ship.
“Hello Peter, I’m Rob. I know that you’re still recovering from hyper-sleep, but it’s important that you listen to what I have to say.”
Peter mumbled an acknowledgement.
“So, Peter, your pod monitors your brain during hyper-sleep. Pods are designed for the period of unconsciousness during trans-lightspeed travel to be dreamless. However, your pod indicates that you entered REM sleep. I want you to tell me about your dreams.”
The dream was still strong in Peter’s mind. He recounted all that he could remember, describing arriving at a dead planet Earth.
Rob nodded, made a few notes on his pad and continued.
“There’s a lot about trans-lightspeed travel we don’t understand. Humans cannot sustain such travel while conscious, hence the sleep pods and automated flight systems. Don’t ask me to explain, I’m no physicist, but travelling faster than the speed of light has implications for our ideas of time. It’s a well-kept secret that interstellar travel allows the possibility of information leakage from the future. If a person crosses their own timeline, through a mechanism currently unclear to us, they get glimpses of their future. You’re not the first person to have such dreams. There’s a whole division dedicated to collating these premonitions, this information leakage. We’ve only a partial picture, of course, but it’s clear your return to Earth will be at a time when all life on the planet has been extinguished.”
“So I was dreaming about the future. About my future!” Peter exclaimed, trying to grasp the implications.
“Yes,” Rob responded, “You have to understand, that, in a very real way we cannot prevent, you’ve already returned to a dead Earth. We cannot stop this from occurring, but perhaps we can delay it.”
“How?” Peter asked, with a sense of foreboding.
“We’re going to send you on another trip,” Rob replied. “A longer one. Your final destination will be Earth, but you’ll be going via the Andromeda Galaxy. For you, asleep, the trip will last a hundred years at trans-light speeds. For us, outside your accelerated space-time bubble, a million years will pass. Time enough for us to move humanity away from Earth, perhaps even to scour all signs of life from its surface. Causality is happy, humanity survives. It’s win-win.”
“What about me? How do I win?”
Rob smiled.
“We’d like to thank you for your sacrifice.”
And with that, Peter began his journey back home. The long way round.
by submission | Nov 25, 2023 | Story |
Author: Richard Loudermilk
My child, never worry about how you would endure a catastrophe. You will find it amazing what a person can do when there is no alternative.
Look to the graves in our backyard, and yes, you are old enough to hear this. I took no pride in providing their occupants, but neither did I feel shame. The thieves would have left us to starve.
When I first saw the Man in the Sky, I was hardly older than you. He saved a town in Oregon from a mudslide, and I was fascinated. After he went away, I could listen to your grandparents tell stories about him for hours.
Years later, he came back. When the celebrations ended, some people asked why he left in the first place. I was too excited to care.
The Man in the Sky wasn’t talking, but he stayed busy. Sitting atop Mount Rushmore. Circling the Eiffel Tower. Lifting a train car above his head, perched on one of the pyramids.
Then I saw the interview, if you can call it that. Just him and the camera, answering unspoken questions. As unnerved as I was to see him in street clothes—no costume—his words were worse.
“I will no longer save you, because it never ends.”
He said he waited until everyone he knew was dead, which explained his absence.
“Soon,” he said, “I will begin giving commands. They will be enforced, no matter the consequences.”
When we saw the first command, nobody doubted it was from him.
He wrote it on the moon.
Just the date, followed by five words.
One year: no more whaling.
I had no idea anyone still did that, so maybe we were worried for nothing. By the time a year had passed, most everyone had forgotten, including me.
He hadn’t. The Man in the Sky began sinking whaling ships, and the footage was horrifying. Like a missile, he struck each vessel just below the waterline.
Some put their families on board, thinking that would make a difference. It didn’t, and that’s when I knew we were lost. This being, with unmatched powers, no longer felt obliged to use those abilities to prevent harm to humans. On the contrary, causing harm was not a problem.
The planet was outraged, and the old name no longer fit. Now he was the Fist in the Sky. I won’t tell you what I call him.
The world’s militaries rose to stop him. They couldn’t even slow him down.
The next command?
One year: no plastics and no gasoline.
Our old lives were gone. This was a loss, and we grieved poorly. Work stopped, schools closed, businesses went dark. Riots erupted within a week, everywhere. Our economy—along with all the others—cratered. For two months I kept the practice going, but a dentist can only do so much without electricity.
One of the eastern European nations had an offer. Providing no details, they assured all that their deal would be irresistible, that the Fist would agree and cease his hostilities.
Their prime minister declared he would present the offer in person, on the roof of his luxury apartment, where awaited the former hero.
To my surprise, he showed up.
As soon as he landed, a nuclear device was triggered, obliterating the prime minister, the city, and most of its residents. Horrendous, but this demonstrated just how few options we had left.
The Fist was overhead again that afternoon.
He gave the latest command yesterday, and I expect this is the final one.
One year: no new babies.
by submission | Nov 24, 2023 | Story |
Author: Brynn Herndon
The man next to me on the bench wears a crisp suit, creased where it should be, and smooth where it’s meant. My shorts have long ridden up. A splinter digs into my thigh.
The world ended yesterday, and the bus is late.
You might assume that’d be something that rendered the commute unnecessary. Surely it would have at least provided an icebreaker for bus stop small talk between strangers, but the man didn’t look at me. He stared at his briefcase. I wanted to go to the Dollar General, but the thick orange haze and the way the sidewalk buckled made the walk intimidating. The air tasted sour, and grass had hardened into spikes that pierced the soles of my shoes and my flesh like barbed wire, sending shocks of its anger through me. It was June, and the trees were bare. The remains of their leaves lay beneath them in a melted, sludgy black pile.
It all happened at once, too, the same way it might have in a movie.
“You know,” I said to the man, over the shrill buzz in the air—it reminded me of cicadas, back when they were a thing, “I guess they kept saying this was gonna happen.”
“Hm.”
He was right. I approached the end of the world with a “hm” as well. I wasn’t one of the people denying its arrival. I thought it seemed to make sense.
“It ain’t comin’.” He said after a while. The orange air felt like it was coating me now, the skin on my shoulders burned in a way that made the splinter ignorable.
“What?”
“The bus,” he told me, but he didn’t look at me. He didn’t look at anything. “It ain’t ever comin’.”
“Then why are you waiting?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, finally looking at something—his watch, deformed on his wrist like a Dali painting, melting away. “What else is there to do?”
by submission | Nov 23, 2023 | Story |
Author: Evan MacKay
I loved a man. I can’t say much more than that. What does it mean to love? A parent loves their child unconditionally. A spouse love’s with nature’s own fierce determination. A friend loves in a way which sometimes makes no sense.
I was neither parent nor spouse to Rory, though when we were together an argument could be made that I filled the role of both. I was certainly his friend once upon a time.
I’m not sure where it all went wrong. I imagine it was about the time his daughter ran off with that boy from up north. Rory never could forgive her for it.
Some men turn to drinking when they’re depressed. Others look for solace in the bliss of drugs. I once knew a woman who took her depression out on a painter’s canvas–she even made some money out of it, which is the best way to do it in my opinion.
Rory, he turned to implants. Not the fancy implants like soldiers get, or the suave looks of billionaires–Rory had driven trucks most of his life and didn’t have the kind of money to afford those. But there were other ways to get implants. Shady med school dropouts who operated out of garages and abandoned warehouses. Chop shops for people are what I call them. Rory found him one of those guys and went to see him. First it was small things. A mechanical eye, or a bionic hand. I say small because those are about as small as you can get when you’re implanting. But soon it became more extreme. I remember when he had the left side of his face replaced with a metal plate. Then he started losing his organs. I’m sure Mr. Chopshop made some good money off of those.
I mention love because it’s a funny thing. You see, when Rory first started turning bionic I was happy for him. Sure it wasn’t what I would have done but it seemed to make him happy. If you’d have seen how he was after his daughter left you’d have cried for joy too when he smiled after getting his brand new eye. I encouraged him to go back to the man, to sink more of his life savings into more mechanical augmentations because I wanted to see him happy. When Rory wasn’t sure if he should do more, I made him sure. When he wanted my opinion I told him what he wanted to hear. Rory was happy.
Love is selfish. I realize that now. Once a week on Wednesdays, when I get off work early, I go and sit with Rory. There’s not much of what he was born with left. I think part of his brain is still in his metal skull–not that it’s doing him much good. You see, somewhere along the way of turning himself robotic, one of the procedures went south. I don’t know if Rory understands what I say when I speak. I hope he doesn’t notice when I cry.
I loved a man, and now he’s gone.
by submission | Nov 22, 2023 | Story |
Author: J.D. Rice
“Will it hurt?”
The boy looks up at us with tears in its little eyes. We understand that this could mean fear, sadness, confusion, or a myriad of other emotions at this stage of its development. We use the eyes of the father unit to examine the boy’s face to ascertain the meaning of its expression and formulate an adequate response.
Elsewhere, our other units complete a million other tasks. Our processing power goes to constructing engines for interstellar transports, developing new implants to use for agricultural development, studying alien cultures to ensure optimum diplomatic relations, and caring for hundreds of thousands of other children who are being groomed for integration.
This father unit has been the primary conduit through which this boy has been raised. We’ve found that providing limited autonomy for the units who share genetic material with the children can be beneficial for their mental and emotional development and, ultimately, make them more amenable to the integration process.
“It will only hurt a little,” we instruct the father unit to say. “And then you will be part of us. We will be together forever.”
The boy nods, perhaps not convinced at how little the pain will be, but choosing to trust its caretaker for the moment.
There is a statistical likelihood that there will be screaming and fear later. We will need to use a strong hand to reassure the boy then, to ensure its consent.
Why must he consent?
The father unit shudders with emotion for a moment. We decrease local autonomy for its actions from 14 to 12 percent to account for the change.
“Son,” we say. “You can trust us. You will not have to be sad or angry or scared again. We will be with you, in your mind, and we will help you learn so much. We will be together until you are a grown up. We promise.”
Analysis shows that this boy responds well to the words “promise” and “together.” And we use these words to offer true statements, always true statements. Child units are kept with their original caretakers until brain development is complete at age 25, when they are reassigned to a labor cohort fitting their autonomous psychological profile. We can ensure localized happiness with up to 94 percent accuracy, and that number rises every year.
“I. . .” the father unit speaks again, its face contorting into a frown.
Decreasingly localized autonomy to eight percent.
“We. . . dammit.”
The boy’s eyes are widening. Something is wrong.
“Michael, if you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to,” the father unit forces autonomous thought through its vocal processor. Adjusting. “If you say no, they won’t force you. I love you.”
Michael hugs me, and for the briefest of moments, I feel free. I know they are coming back. I know they are just rebooting the interface. But I hold my son as tightly as I can, basking in his warmth, giving him all of the affection that is normally so tightly regulated it could hardly be called true affection at all.
“I’m here, buddy,” I say. “I’m here.”
Localized autonomy deactivated.
“Let us go,” we say, breaking from the embrace and taking the child by the hand. “The doctors are waiting.”
