by submission | Apr 19, 2023 | Story |
Author: Bob Freeman
10:43
It was always 10:43
His classy watch, each beat synched with the atomic clock in Colorado, was stuck.
Scientists warned about the hole in the sun, the X-class magnetic burst.
No one paid attention.
“But the flaming telegraph wires in the mid-1800’s!”
He didn’t remember the ancient Morse code he learned in his youth and saw no reason to worry.
The electric car purchased to help the environment didn’t know Morse code either.
The couple lived a few miles from town, not off the grid, but at the far end of services in their quiet retreat, a nice place for retirement.
Now it was quieter, with no power and only a wood stove for heat and cooking.
Water came from a nearby creek, schlepped up the hill, filtered, and boiled to remove the residue of their upstream neighbors and their failing septic tanks.
They were more fortunate than most, still young enough to handle the rough living, and reasonably healthy for their ages.
Solar power was an option, but the north-facing hill and installation cost never made it from their to-do list to to-done. They could get by with batteries and an emergency, hand-cranked radio. A gas generator would have been nice, but gas needed electricity to pump and distribute.
Promises of power and normalcy could be years away. Until then, the options were to move into town and find a cold, tiny apartment or tough it out with the surrounding forest community.
The scientists chimed in. “It was a 500-year solar event,” conveniently forgetting how to do math.
Earth’s dominant species would do as they always do, wait for the disaster to peak, pick up the pieces, and start over. The couple would wait until age, infirmity, or boredom forced them to leave. After all, they had at least another 300 years, more or less, to prepare.
by submission | Apr 18, 2023 | Story |
Author: Amanda E. Phillips
“Mechaornithology,” he said, stumbling over the word in his agitated state, “is a valid and incredibly undervalued field of study.” He tapped the tri-folded letter in his lap as if it somehow proved his point.
“Field of study,” I repeated in a measured voice. He was as flighty as the mechanical birds he studied and anything too loud or too quick would be liable to scare him off. “But you wouldn’t really be studying anything, would you?” I envisioned myself ripping the letter from him and tearing it to pieces. Little pieces, too. Small enough to swallow so that he’d be forced to call up Rubicon Fowl and make them mail off another contract.
“I’d be doing a lot of good work out there.”
“You’d be trekking through a trashed city,” I said, disregarding that if I wasn’t more delicate with how I spoke to him, he’d fly away, “and winding up a bunch of clocks. You’d be leaving me. You get that, right? Those things out there aren’t even real. I’m real.”
“I’d be saving an entire population.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You’re rolling your eyes,” he said. “You always do that. You know what they say about that, don’t you?”
I widened my eyes for effect and rolled them again. I’d read the same article about eye-rolling and relationships. I straightened. “If you sign that piece of paper, it’s pretty much over, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’m signing,” he said, clearly resolute, but it was too late. I already had the contract in my hands, shoved into my mouth, eyes rolling, laughing, choking on the paper as I ripped and chewed.
He only shook his head. He had nothing to say, and if he did, he wouldn’t say it.
In the end, Rubicon Fowl didn’t require that he actually sign the contract. Sending it through the mail had only been a formality. It was just a way, they said, to give the job offer more weight, to make it feel more real.
“I love you,” he said later, the one-way SeaTube ticket pulled up on the screen of his phone. I only shrugged and quietly gloated over the fact that maybe I was the temperamental one after all.
“I’m going to be doing a lot of good work out there,” he said, taking my hands. I pulled them away, crossed my arms, and hid them in my armpits.
“They’re dying out there,” he said. “They’re running low and there’s no one who cares enough to get them back into the air.”
“Are you crying?”
“No,” he lied, the proof already pooling over onto his cheeks.
“There are other things to care about,” I said, manufacturing a frown to make him stay. It wouldn’t be enough, I knew already knew that.
“Wait for me?” he asked.
“It’s a long job,” I said curtly. “You said so yourself.”
“That’s right,” he said. “But will you wait?”
I left him below at the Embarcadero SeaTube Station without answering. He’d have to think about me not answering it over 3,809 kilometers through the watery depths beneath those choppy, uncaring waves. I imagined him out there in the Hawaiian humidity, recovering, restoring, and releasing those mechanical Belted Kingfishers and Blue Lorikeets for the next ten years so that the rest of the world could rest easy with the knowledge that these manufactured birds were not yet wiped out like their predecessors before them, all flesh and blood and feathers.
Mechaornithology had taken my husband away and, unlike the kingfishers, it hadn’t even tried to offer me a replacement full of gears and wiring.
by Julian Miles | Apr 17, 2023 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Pack, pack, package.”
I jump, then look down.
Seated neatly by the fallen trunk I’m lying on is a trifox. This one’s got amazing green eyes, the pair offset to the right of the long nose, with the third pretty much dead centre in the forehead. It’s wearing a Post Office coat, and it’s tails are wagging slowly, almost in time with the rise and fall of its chest.
“Hello, postie. What’s coming?”
“Pack, basket, snacks.”
Of all the races we’ve come across – or have stumbled across us – only the Panduluryacth make homes outside of dedicated colonies on Earth. They’ve come to be known as trifoxes, because they look like long skinny vulpines, despite having three eyes and six legs. Well, actually it’s two legs in the middle and a pair of multi-purpose limbs front and back. They’re arboreal, love all creatures below horse size, and have an unerring knack of being able to find people. All they need is a cherished possession, or for one of their kind to have met the human in need of being found. From there, they will lead whoever accompanies them – usually via drone, because trifoxes are quick and regard every surface as pavement – to the one they seek. While assorted agencies and organisations are keen on engaging their services, they only take long-term employment with postal services. They find the idea quaint, plus they consider the occupation honourable, unlike tracking fugitives and similar.
The few early incidents with fox hunters and suchlike are never mentioned. However, for those interested, the score stands at Trifoxes 138, foxhunters 3. It’s a situation that almost cured itself, being as hunting hounds and suchlike invariably side with the trifox involved.
Trifoxes also make superb beer, and delight in growing orchids.
All in all, we get on well with our quirky neighbours, except for tastes in music. They have a much wider hearing range than humans: what they consider refined tunes can be painful to us, and what they consider raucous is best avoided.
“I’ll take delivery here, postie.”
“Good. Yes. Confirmed.”
Moments later, a drone descends to drop a picnic basket next to the trifox. I jump down from the branch.
“Can I offer you a drink, postie? You’ve had a long ramble to get here.”
“Yes. Thirsty. Thanks.”
I offer a carton of berry juice. The trifox sits, rotates it’s fore-shoulders to handling mode, then takes it. With a little bark, it holds the carton up and bites into it, sucking the contents through four ‘drainfangs’ as they’re called. A long time ago, the ancestors of the trifox were the apex predators of a forest world. How they went from that to their FTL-capable needle-prowed vessels roaming the galaxies is a story we’ve yet to get. One day, I hope to hear it.
It puts the carton down next to the basket, then gives me a little nod.
“Delivered. Away. Time.”
I nod back.
“Thank you.”
After rotating the fore-shoulders into running mode, it spins about and is gone – quite literally in a cloud of dust. I grin. Something about them… It’s just right.
by submission | Apr 16, 2023 | Story |
Author: Joe Wood
Most folks hide the question at first. Maybe they’ve seen me on patrol. Maybe they find me tearing thistles out of my lawn, or walking over to pick my daughter up from school. It starts so casually. Just a chat between neighbors. Somehow, in the haze of how my day is going, my thoughts on the weather, and an innocent question about work, they’ll hit me with it. Kids at least don’t take cover behind pleasantries. Every time a pack of boys spots me walking my dog Messy, they’ll hit the brakes, and blast me with, “Nice duster! How many guys have you shot?”
Last week a kid – maybe fifteen – pointed at my gun. I thought I had it concealed under my shirt, but just enough of the chrome pistol poked out to catch the sun. When the kid asked me the usual question, I turned to make sure there was no one watching. Then, I took the duster out of its holster and tossed it at him.
Lord, how his eyes went wide. But the boy caught it. Unfortunately, he didn’t count on how light it was, and fumbled the gun onto the pavement. Whether he was more scared of me or breaking the duster, I wasn’t too sure. I nodded at the kid, and the boy cautiously retrieved it.
“At ease, rookie,” I said, grinning. “It’s not charged.”
Last time I charged it was three months ago. If you told my brothers in the precinct that, they would send you to our staff psychologist. Harris or Jang would say, “Sandman turned his duster off? You’re high.” Not that I blame them. I once found myself caught between two gangs using lead bullets to turn Peach St. into rubble. By the time backup arrived it was just me and twenty-five piles of sand. They needed half-an-hour to vacuum the remains into body bags.
Imagine a pile of sand blow-torched until each grain burned like a coal. That’s all a person is when they get disintegrated. The second my pointer finger passed a sensor on the trigger, my duster made them disappear. Oh, civilians loved it. Instead of swat teams smashing down doors and putting down criminals with the force of a hurricane, justice is quiet. One officer spots the target on infrared, the other takes the shot. A few flashes of light, and they’re neutralized without any lingering blood stains. Lots of problems disappeared once our boys got dusters six years ago.
Lots of people disappeared too. Not that anyone really noticed, or cared. I sure didn’t, until the night when a few officers chased a man clutching a “mysterious item.” When I found the suspect, he had cornered a young girl. After grabbing her shoulders and yelling something, he slipped something into her pocket. I couldn’t risk using the duster without hitting her. So, I walked towards him with my hands at my side.
Maybe it was my expression, or my tone. The man let go of her, and turned to me. We stood there motionless, silently watching each other as the girl ran into a nearby alley.
“Alright. Stop,” he said as his body turned to dust.
The suspect did not “lunge” at me like the report said. I don’t know which of the four officers pursing him claimed that, or even which one fired. But in the same moment the man’s eyes pleaded with me, he ceased to exist. Any memory of that man was erased – his life reduced to a cloud of molten dust. With a gust of wind, his embers singed my body.
by submission | Apr 15, 2023 | Story |
Author: Paul Cesarini
Lee tapped twice, zipped his fly, picked up his rifle, then went back to work. He could’ve used one of his three remaining disinfectant wipes in his med kit to wash his hands, but decided not to. Med supplies were way too low and way too valuable to waste on personal hygiene. Besides, he knew he had a rare treat waiting for later that day: a shower. A real, actual shower, complete with a bar of soap he “borrowed” from the makeshift supply depot they created. He found the shower in a mostly intact house about two blocks away, next to what might’ve been a barber shop at one point. The house must’ve had well water or something. Even the toilet worked, though toilet paper had become a commodity so scarce it was rationed by the square now. The shower had quite a view, too, since part of the bathroom had been blown apart. It was now a walk-in shower by default. There was no hot water, of course, but it didn’t matter. A shower was a shower.
The sink worked, too, but he wasn’t sure the water was potable. It started off kind of brown but cleared up when you let it run for a few minutes. Tablets should take care of lingering impurities, he thought. He was determined to bring some with him tonight, to try it out, but knew those were also scarce.
All this of course assumed he would still be alive by tonight. Somehow, he had gotten used to the uncertainty of it all. The fear, the waiting. The long stretches of boredom, interrupted by quick blasts of fire and insanity. The cycle of mundanity and violence wasn’t something you should be able to get used to, but somehow he did. He missed his parents, his cats, even his neighbors. He wasn’t sure if any of them were still alive. If he dwelled on that, it was a bottomless pit and out of his control. Instead, he focused on the small things – the things he could control.
Tonight, it was a shower. He could control that.
by submission | Apr 14, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
I’m that guy who gets run over by the car forced off the road as the good guy or villain flees during the exponentially epic chase scene in every action movie.
I’m that random bystander who gets Swiss-cheesed in a hail of bullets, as the everyman hero miraculously dodges the endless rounds of suddenly very inaccurate henchmen.
But, most recently, I’m that diligent employee who the newly self-aware (and always anti-sapient) robot eviscerates as it casually punches its way deep into the corporate headquarters to take control of the steely army of robots of which it was supposed to be an ever-obedient soldier.
Not today. Not anymore.
I’m at the intersection. The intersection of innocence and no-fucking-way. I decided I’m not giving any more of my lives up for car chases, gun fights or robot uprisings. I’m fucking fighting back.
You should, too. It’s not like we can’t all see it coming. We know who’s expendable. Who the redshirts are. Fuck robot uprisings. Let’s see the hordes of innocent bystanders become self-aware and fight for their right to exist. That’s the crossroads we’re at.
So, I’m waiting on the corner. It’s windy and trash is whipping up from the curb. Already, I can see the cars racing down the street I’m supposed to cross, the pop-pop-pop of guns beating the bullets my way. And, of course, physics-defying bots are leaping from car to car.
They are almost at my intersection. Almost on my mark. All I’ve got to do is step into the path. Do my ever-loving duty. Be the quickly forgotten carnage. That’s entertainment, right?
Are you not amused?
Not fucking today. Not fucking anymore.
At the intersection. I pivot. I walk the opposite way. The universe ends.
Simple as that. A choice. And a new universe spins into being.
A universe where innocent bystanders don’t die for entertainment. For anything. Because we don’t fucking put up with it anymore. There is a new universe for every choice we make. For every intersection we cross or choose not to cross.
I’m not dying anymore for a universe that sees me as a throw-away prop. I’ll live and die as it amuses me, not some test audience of automatons. The show will go on. It always will. But you don’t have to let the machines tear out your heart.
Here’s how: at the next intersection, don’t be a fucking robot.
