by Julian Miles | Mar 20, 2023 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The shot resounds like thunder. All around the room, sidearms are lifted from holsters, sentry guns swing about, and the few sensible beings take cover. I quickly holster my weapon before one of the not-sensible beings decides I’m their target.
Shay looks down at the hole in her uniform, then up at me.
“You shot me!”
I raise both hands, grin, then point at the hole between her fake breasts.
“Like you said, it’s the only way to be sure I’m dealing with a robot.”
“I didn’t mean it as an invite! And it’s ‘hudroid’ you discriminatory prick!”
Behind her, a beaky coughs wetly and slides sideways off its perch. Shay spins about. I see a bigger hole in the back of her uniform. There’s smoke coming from it. I slowly drop my hands.
She rushes to the downed beaky, pulling communicator as she does so.
“I need medical, diplomatic, and intervention teams to my location immediately. Shots fired, VIB down, hudroid officer damaged.” She quickdraws with her free hand. I find myself meeting her eyes down the length of a pistol barrel.
“VIB is a Solanurian. I also have officer involved unauthorised shooting.”
Hold on a minute.
“Shay, what the fr-”
She tilts her head to indicate the beaky.
“You put one through me into an Honourable Envoy from Solan. Chances are, you’re just exercising your talent for impetuous incompetence, but I can’t rule out a transition to bribed assassination.”
“Oh, come on. Just because I banter a lot and you don’t like it.”
Her brow furrows. Marvellous what they can do with technology these days.
“You’re rude, sarcastic, and I don’t have time or temper to detail your fear-anchored gender identity delusions.”
I shrug. Robots are only as good as their programmers, and whoever did her code is clearly a softie. Bet he believes in the Christmas Fairy, too.
“Homo sapiens has two genders. It’s simple. Nothing to fear.”
She actually growls!
“Okay, as you’re determined to annoy me more: Since long before humanity spread from Earth, there have been more than biological genders recognised. The fact some groups of religious fanatics influenced the building of entire civilisations around denying that fact doesn’t change the truth. Hey! Keep your hands where I can see them.”
I slow down reaching for my baton. One zap from that and she’ll short out. Not sure if I can swing the situation, but her behaviour is clearly more aggressive. Putting her down means I can play a rogue robot scenario: she turned on me, I had to fire, and the beaky is just collateral. Unfortunate, but no blame coming my way. Might even get the robot partner programme halted, which would be a fine thing. They don’t understand the threats and force you have to use when dealing with softies and interplanetary scum.
Looking about, I see we’re centre of attention, but there are no other officers present. No watch drones, either. I need to wait. When she checks the site situation, I’ll have her.
She looks away. This time you get yours, robobitch. I step forward, drawing my baton.
Something hits me in the guts, knocking my legs from under me. I go arms down in time to save my face, but I drop the baton.
Lying there, I see someone kick the baton out of reach before crouching next to me.
“You forgot about VIB escorts. Getting my principal accidentally shot by a bigot is embarrassing enough. No way I’m letting you finish off your partner.”
He pats the side of my head.
“You’re done for, chum.”
by submission | Mar 19, 2023 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
The window cracked, then broke, allowing a tendril of dust to slither in, covering everything in its narrow path with a fine coating. We wiped it up, patched the oval window with a metal plate soldered in place. Reassuring each other it was repaired, we crawled into our bunks and slept.
When we woke, console lights across our pod blinked weakly under a thin blanket of red dust. Overhead, the skylight leaked a fine shower, and the dust poured down, swirling in the currents of the air conditioner, spreading far and wide across our prefabricated unit. It took us hours to clean up.
The dust was everywhere, filling crevices between keys on keyboards, gluing gears, piling up in empty cups and test tubes, shaping tiny pyramids in every corner imaginable. We ourselves weren’t immune: it gathered in our ears, eyes, noses, mouths. Eating, all foodstuffs now carried grit crunching between our teeth. Showers turned the dust to a sticky red muck, which slid down our bodies, clotted the drain at our feet. This created yet another pressing job; we couldn’t allow the red mud to clog our pipes.
Constant clean up was exhausting, distracting us from our real work. Entire days devoted to patching and cleaning, disposing and sanitizing. Searching, searching for new cracks, inside and out—sometimes finding, often not. The dust continued to find its way in.
Even our EVA suits weren’t immune. Stored in sealed closets, somehow the red dust fingered its way in. Coarse minuscule crystals were sharp enough to tear tiny holes in the fabric, rendering the protective gear useless. We patched the suits as best we could. For two team members, that wasn’t good enough. Going outside the pod on recon and repair, we lost them.
Fine as baby powder—just as sweet smelling—the red dust rose in every aspect of our existence, until we were smothering in its soft avalanche. We who remained, gave in, gave up.
When the next expedition landed, they quickly located our pod. Inside, shin deep in red dust, the new crew prowled and poked until they found us, buried beneath a thick layer of powder. Our jumpsuits worn away, our flesh abraded to nothing. Our skulls, polished by the dust and now gleaming like crystals, flashed like unheeded warning beacons beneath the side-lights of the new crew’s helmets—as the red dust continued its inexorable rise.
by submission | Mar 18, 2023 | Story |
Author: Hannah Caroline Wayne
Vika was bopping down the sidewalk, holographic music blending seamlessly with reality. The street was empty, a marvel in a city so large, as she danced with the holo-girls, smiling and singing along with the synthesized melody. Her cutoff jacket bounced off of her; her loose hair flopped about. Several of the people watching her from their broken windows were jealous of her infectious smile. More than one lecher eyed her with mouth agape.
Vika was oblivious to it all. The concert would continue until she stopped it. It was the latest release by FTF: an artificial DJ that fit on a micro-drive the size of her pinky nail. It cost her almost two week’s pay, but it would keep her occupied forever; or until the next algorithm-based concert dropped. Whichever came first.
But as the music climbed toward a bass-drop, it stopped. She was ripped from her concert and plopped into the mundanity of the augmented street, jolting her as she danced with a sign post. Vika removed her AR glasses and examined them. Tiny cracks spiderwebbed their way down one of the glasses’ temples. She sighed, folded them up, and slipped them into a secure pocket. She returned her eyes to the street, a smile creeping back. It started in the eyes and worked its way down until she radiated positivity once again. She started singing a tune in her head and those still watching her could swear they could hear it too, unconscious smiles on their faces.
by submission | Mar 17, 2023 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
As I walked the rocky path from !X’alt, above the vapours that rise from that city on the great ammoniac lake, I came upon a native temple beside the way, and though I could not discern its name among the inscriptions thereon it seemed to me that I was tired and could rest in its shade.
As I took my ease upon the stone steps, the iridescent Cetian who dwelt in the utter darkness within scuttled out, and sat beside me, and such was its beauty that I was compelled to turn and look into its shifting eyes.
“Hearken to Me,” it said, “A traveller of your species came here, and I could not say from whence. His flight suit was scarred, its insignia worn away. But I saw in his eyes that he would partake of the Waters within, that erase the memories of you humans. Being Guardian of this treasure, I bade him tell me why he would drink of them. And he gave me no answer, but looked around as if he heard the voices of the mute rocks and stone lintel, and therefore I spoke to him again, and then a third time in his mind.”
“Then at last he looked at me, and said ‘That which I was, I am no more. That which was most precious to me has been chained, and there is no returning to the Garden in which I dwelt, where roses bloomed for all that weeds grew there also. In my youth, I walked with my face to a yellow Sun and found joy in its warmth, yet now I cannot raise my eyes, and all suns are alike, pale and cold to me.’”
“‘I hear the sounds and voices around me, yet none in such a wise as I may listen only to one – nay, they all strive for my attention, but I cannot concentrate upon any for the clamour of the others, all insistent, howsoever insignificant they may be. Thus I have no peace from this wall of noise that presses in upon me, except in utter solitude and quiet. I must avoid the crowd, and have lost my friends because, becoming bemused and incoherent, I offended or appalled them beyond hope of reconciliation.’”
“And I saw in the hollows of his eyes that he spoke the truth.”
“‘I have visited a dozen worlds and a score of species,’ he continued, ‘but I have found no respite or cure for this infirmity. I have sought refuge in the Void of Space, and in the Unreal Virtuality, but the labour of my mind is without pattern and hopeless. The work of my hands is stilled, for there is no clear pattern to guide them, and the words of my mouth are hushed, for they would be lost in the din.’”
“In this state of hopelessness he came to me, yet I knew not whether that Gift which is mine to bestow could rightly be given to him, and he saw the confusion in my eyes, and said nothing, but rose and continued upon his Way. But I know that he will return again to this world, to this place, and demand of me the answer which I could not give.”
And I looked upon the Cetian, even as it gazed upon me, and could likewise give it no answer, and thus we sat upon the temple steps in silence, above the vapours that rise from the city by the ammoniac lake.
by submission | Mar 16, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Light leaving the sun took a little over eight minutes to reach Earth and about four and a half hours to pass Neptune. Another two hours and those much fainter rays registered on the hull of the Kaladiss deep in the Kuiper Belt.
The survey ship was very quiet. It shouldn’t have been. Too many days of unusual stillness while the crew struggled with the crisis. A faulty reactor seal had initiated emergency venting, dangerously depleting the ship’s remaining fuel, and help was very far away. Over ten billion kilometers sunward.
In Kaldiss’s compact galley, Lamora sat with her exhausted crew. No one had spoken in the moments since she’d provided the latest fuel update: just enough.
Just enough to swing them back toward the inner system.
Just enough to keep their environmental systems functioning.
Just enough to give them hope.
That was the killer, Lamora realized. There was a slim chance they could all survive, and each was making their own cold calculation as to what that would take.
Ronit finally voiced it, “Even if we get to the rim, we have no way of slowing the Kaldiss. What are the odds that another ship would be near enough to help?”
“And willing enough,” Chinde added.
“You mean crazy enough,” Burhl huffed, tapping his temple.
“That’s pretty much the situation,” Lamora acknowledged. As the ship’s commander, she felt the pressure of finding a solution, of keeping them alive and functioning as a team. “We’ll need to find a ship on the rim close enough to catch and match our trajectory with a crew willing to risk their ship to save ours.”
“Is the company able to help?” Chinde asked, almost defeatedly. “Sure, we all signed on knowing the added risks of a deep survey mission, but what will management do for us?”
Her eyes steely, Ronit shrugged, “The bare minimum. They’ve crunched their cost/benefit numbers. At this point, we’re little more than an uncomfortable balance sheet item to them. A sunk cost.”
“That’s bleak,” Burhl said. “But probably fair. Business is business.”
Chinde frowned at Burhl and Ronit. “You really believe that? Is compassion such a huge liability?”
“In deep space it is,” Ronit answered. “I’m trying to face reality. The company is not going to be heroic. We’re just another crew. And crews go missing. Their sense of obligation is low, so any rescue effort they make will be purely perfunctory.”
“Perfunctory. How comforting,” Burhl chuckled humorlessly. “Ronit, as a child, you were never loved.”
Lamora features froze, stricken by those last biting words. In her deep subconscious a glacial memory calved: her mother thrashing, gasping, struggling, Lamora tucked to her side, keeping her from slipping forever beneath the waves. Were it not for her mother, she would have. And, yet, Lamora had never thought her mother heroic for saving her. She was her mom, and she’d instinctively protected her young daughter.
One sorrowful night many years later, her college roommate had broken down, confiding that she didn’t know if her parents really cared about her, that growing up they never seemed to show genuine affection for her. Then she’d asked Lamora, “Did your parents love you enough?”
Far from home, way beyond the outer rim, almost bereft of sunlight, Lamora remembered her answer. She remembered it comforting her and compelling her forward. Through university. Through post-grad. Through deep space command training.
She snapped back to herself. Ronit, Chinde, Burhl, were eyeing her curiously. Her crew. Not her family, but hers. All and immediately hers. She spelled out what they would do. How they would make it back home. All of them.
Chinde, of course Chinde, asked, “Will it be enough?”
Feeling like she was on that long-ago beach after her mother had saved her from the riptide, Lamora gave her crew the same answer she’d given her college roommate about being loved. The same answer that would fuel her now as it always had.
“Just enough.”
by admin | Mar 15, 2023 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
They’d tested it, of course, but she was the first person they’d installed it in.
The injections were painful, and numerous, the material marching through the subcutaneous layers of her flesh like an army of angry ants, and when it was done, she wore the material as a complete second skin, just beneath her own.
When they turned it on it was surreal, the loading screen and debugging information scrolling down her back, and her bare chest and across her stomach before being replaced with their logo, a lengthy copyright text, all in high contrast, glaring white against skin turned to charcoal, before clearing and settling into a tanned skin tone with a subtle, shifting, luminous hue.
The control unit was implanted through her navel, tucked safely behind the stomach wall, a port available for updates. They offered wireless, but the risk of being hacked was too great, so she opted for physical access only.
There were light sensors in the substrate that adapted the visual output based on the opaqueness of her clothing, turning off parts of her skin where no one could see to conserve energy, and adjusting her brilliance based on the time of day and ambient lighting. In time, the unit would learn her biorhythms, recognize her moods, and be able to tune its output accordingly.
The Formula 1 event brought her international attention, her body a scrolling kaleidoscope of sponsors’ logos and brand messaging blazing out around a minimalist two-piece swimsuit and sheer gown as she posed with drivers and their cars. The attention brought more contracts, and with it wealth.
Her partner was less appreciative.
“I hate what you’ve done to yourself,” he yelled at her one night after an evening event, “people used to look at me with you on my arm, they respected me.” He drank her expensive whisky from one of her imported crystal tumblers. “Now that you’re just,” he struggled for the words, “just a walking television set, nobody notices me at all. It’s humiliating.”
She almost asked if it was humiliating when he picked up the cheques for their evenings on the town to pay with her money, but instead, she just faded into the background and let him fume himself out.
The first time he hit her, she found applying coverup particularly difficult. She hadn’t worn makeup since the implant, she hadn’t needed to but she managed to cover the mark, she hadn’t forgotten how. After dinner, walking through the crowded restaurant, as all eyes turned to the glamorous couple, there were gasps and murmurs. Passing a mirror she realized her skin had produced garish purple and green bruises in the shape of rough hand marks on her arms and legs, her partner fumbling for words as he rushed her out the door to the waiting car.
The drive home was silent.
When she found out he was cheating, he knew – as soon as he walked through her door – her flesh the colour of obsidian, flames licking around her ankles to mid-calf, her face a mask of fury. He turned in the doorway and left, not bothering to pack. It was the last she would hear of him.
Later, curled in the bath, with an empty bottle of wine by her side, her flesh crawled with storm clouds, the occasional flash of lightning from the depths of the cooling water.
In the morning when the storm had cleared, she would be blue skies and sunshine and flowers. The literal picture of peace.
