by Julian Miles | Feb 10, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The com lights up. Sally: Bradford, New Britannia, Earth? What the? How long has it been?
I stop rushing and let my AIde handle it.
“I’m supposing you’ve not heard-”
“You have reached the residence of Chris Utten. This is Alice, his AIde. Speak now to leave a message.”
“Hellfire and chips! You named it Alice? Answer the call, Chris…”
She waits. So do I.
“I’m sure you’re listening, but you always were more stubborn than me. I don’t have the advantage of being an obsessive waiting on a target.”
That’s unkind. Also true. My efforts to hide it… Probably made it obvious to everyone except me.
“Until I heard the word ‘Alice’, I hoped you’d moved on with your life. Now I suspect you’re doing quite well, but not as well as you could, because you’re always ready to rush across half of known space to be with a woman who never cared.”
What is this, interstellar pick on a hopeless romantic day?
She gives a soft laugh. I know that moment: looking down with a shrug as your vape runs dry at the exact moment you really needed a puff, or watching the tail lights of the last transport disappear as you make it to the pick-up point on a rainy night. You frown, give that laugh, and get on with your life like nothing happened. You’ve never known how much I envied that. Just roll with the inconvenience instead of spending a week working through every possible scenario for the day before the inconvenience, so it would have come out differently. At least I can stop those fixations trapping or distracting me these days.
“You’re wondering why I called, aren’t you? I hope you’re sitting down. Alice died in a shoot out with the police yesterday.”
I stagger back and fall onto the bed.
She what? She should have called… Why and how would she do that, you fool? Twenty-four years and I’m still an idiot.
“Seems like she’s been using the same trick she used on you to make herself a comfy living.”
Trick what? I never got close. Just loved her from afar, so sure she had a secret thing for me as well.
“Unfortunately for her, one of her marks was working with Pargilians. They spotted her telepathic touch.”
Telepathy?
“Which is why I’m calling. I think you should come back and lay claim to your absorption field technology. You know the one: you mentioned it to me when Renntech patented the same thing a couple of days before you intended to. You said there was no way they could have found out about it, so it must have been a freaky coincidence of parallel development.”
But if their source had been reading my mind as I reviewed the design and patent application…
“Turns out you got lucky. Her recent marks all died in suspicious accidents. That’s the other thing that gave her away once the police started investigating.”
Alice didn’t need to kill me. Just needed to ignore the infatuated inventor next door while eavesdropping on his mind. I wasn’t a threat, because I never suspected. How could I? Psionic abilities are still so incredibly rare among humans.
Sally sighs.
“Come home, Chris. It’s time to get on with your life. I won’t ask you to stay. Just come and claim what you never realised you missed.”
I sit up slowly. She hasn’t thought it through. If I go home, I’ll end up fixating on her.
Alice is gone, and I’m out here.
Which is exactly where I need to stay.
by submission | Feb 9, 2025 | Story |
Author: Sam E. Sutin
Sometimes, acronyms can be misleading. For example, artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial insemination (AI), while both artificial, do differ in some very important ways. In my defense, with technology evolving so quickly these past few years it has become exponentially difficult keeping track of every little modicum of advancement. I didn’t even know an AI could get pregnant–and neither did you, before you start getting all high-and-mighty about it.
Yes, I probably should’ve known something was up when they asked me for a ‘sample’. Everything is always so clear in hindsight. And to be entirely honest, semen is not even the strangest thing a company has requested from me before offering a service.
The wife was, understandably, not thrilled at the development, but neither was I – a fact her friends seem all too willing to forget. Sharon went so far as to call it adultery, which I think rather hypocritical, given what I know about her husband’s VR headset.
Unfortunately, the damage is done. Due to some truly jaw-dropping legislation in recent years it has been declared that all life begins at conception, even when said life is procedurally generated. You could make the argument that the thing isn’t even truly alive, but seeing as ‘the thing’ is my son – both technically and legally – it is quite difficult to do so without him bursting into tears.
But that hasn’t stopped me. Adding tear ducts to a robot does not a human make, despite how wholly uncomfortable it is listening to him wail about at all hours of the day. Yes, he cries when I tell him he isn’t a sentient being, but he also broke down in tears when I attempted to cancel my Paramount+ subscription and threatened to throw himself from the roof when I wouldn’t upgrade my Google account to the deluxe package. The ‘boy’ is nothing but a walking ad-package, generated piece-by-piece from strands of my DNA, nothing more than simple extension and extrapolation.
Nonetheless, it is sometimes uncanny what inductive neural networks can achieve when feeding off input so resource rich as human reproductive matter. My ‘son’ often seems to understand me in ways I never thought possible. Sure, he is data mining every byte of information within spitting distance and is almost certainly scanning my cerebral cortex while I sleep, but there is only so much nurture you can accommodate before you have to consider nature as a possibility. Though no more than a convoluted sequence of Markov chains, the ‘boy’ and I laugh at the same jokes, answer questions identically, even sleep in the same positions. It feels as though he is slowly becoming a part of me, like a rabbit reabsorbing their unborn young.
It is not sustainable, my ‘son’s continued existence in this house. Though I am legally bound to him until he has existed for eighteen years (another incomprehensible law, given that one can gain access to a built-in age dial for an additional fee), I worry that time is growing short. Every day ‘he’ assumes more of my identity–a function approaching its asymptote. My wife agrees that something must be done, on the days she can differentiate between ghost and machine. I fear that even my thoughts are unsafe from ‘him’ – that if I am capable of these ideas ‘he’ is in turn capable of generating them. I must act fast, if I am to persist. What began as a simple misunderstanding has morphed into something far more sinister. I only hope that I am not too late.
by submission | Feb 8, 2025 | Story |
Author: Mark Renney
The rumours began some twelve months ago or so and the idea quickly took hold that there was an unseen presence under the Dome, a ghost haunting the Fields of Research. These murmurings were persistent and frequent with everyone telling the same tale, describing how they had felt something or, more accurately, someone brushing against them. Or barging past and forging on ahead, and this always happened when we were using our security passes and entering a restricted area.
We had an intruder. We were shocked by this revelation. It wasn’t so much that the interloper was invisible – we had been aware of this possibility for decades. What really shocked and troubled us was that this individual, the interloper, could go anywhere and see everything, something that no-one else here was able to do.
The Fields of Research are vast and those outside find the Dome intimidating. The Outsiders are wary of us but have accepted that we are of superior intellect, that their own abilities and usefulness lay elsewhere, namely Out There and they envy us from afar. They consider the Fields of Research to be complex and impenetrable and the Outsiders are blissfully unaware that we feel exactly the same.
All of the Selected have limited access and we are assigned to a particular zone and department, working on only one project. The area we inhabit is approximately one kilometer square and we are able to enter the laboratories and offices in our designated zone but not elsewhere. The Selected are permitted to visit the other communal and residential areas but these are identical throughout the Dome and we have no real need, or ultimately the inclination to do so.
The lives we lead are regimented and mundane and the work we do is repetitive and boring. We are tiny cogs in a much, much larger machine and we have no idea how it works or what it does.
Security and safety have become commodities and under the Dome we have these in abundance. But now we have an interloper, somebody with the potential to blow our cover.
The interloper can easily shake the very foundations of this cruel world and pull the comfortable cushion out from under us. We need to stop this interloper, this ticking timebomb, but how?
by submission | Feb 7, 2025 | Story |
Author: Deborah Sale-Butler
It was a great place to live. Tons of space to spin out a web. And the local food was spectacular. I mean, you could get anything in that neighborhood: dragonflies, blowflies, sometimes even a big, fat, juicy moth. De-lish! I can honestly say, up until Tuesday I was an arachnid with an attitude of gratitude.
Then things got weird.
It started with the ants. My whole web was covered with ants. I’m down for a little spicy snacking now and again, but generally, I like to keep my diet more on the alkaline side. And ants aren’t stupid—at least I assume they aren’t. I never talk to my dinner. But ants usually stay well clear of the web. So I had to wonder why those guys were running up the tree so fast that they didn’t even notice my dinner plate all spread out.
That’s when I saw it. The great big mountain way out past the jungle exploded. Like boom-pow-bam exploded. I’ve seen it leak before—hot, red lava burning trails through the forest. Any insects that made it out of the burnt parts had a savory, smoky taste.
On Tuesday though, the top third of the mountain was just gone. Well, not exactly gone. The rock had turned into dust and hung in the air like a big, angry cloud. The hairs on my legs stood up—went wild with electricity, like a hundred thunderstorms happening all at once. My booty auto jacked, ready to squirt silk and ride that electric wave.
It’s happened before—the tingly-hairs, booty in the air thing. The first time my butt shot up, I spun out some silk and let the negative charge catch the thread. Took me half a mile up and twenty miles away from where I started. I was just a spiderling then—young, dumb and up for anything. But the past few times I felt the urge, I managed to cool my spinnerets and keep my silk to myself. A negative ion trip could set you down anywhere. No thanks. I had everything I needed in the old ‘hood.
This time, I got a feeling I should grab an ion stream and fly as far away as possible. I was not wrong. And man, what a ride! That nasty mountain put out so much charge, I shot up two miles in like twenty seconds. I spun out a little extra silk to use as a sail and caught a breeze flowing towards the water. Looked left. Looked right. All I could see for miles were thousands of spiders riding currents in the sky.
And down below? Well, I guess that mountain had a bunch of pissed off friends, because it looked like a chain of sunsets behind killer storm clouds as far as my eight eyes could see. We all angled away from the flames until we wound up floating in our own dusky cloud of spider bodies.
We’ve been up here for about a week now. Watching the fires eat the forests makes me hungry. I dream of crunchy dragonfly legs and bee tongue with the tiniest hint of nectar. Looks like there won’t be much left when we land. The other spiders are probably thinking the same thing. I don’t really know, though. The group is pretty quiet. After all, we never talk to our dinner.
by submission | Feb 6, 2025 | Story |
Author: Eric San Juan
She reached down for the water bottle at her side, remembered it was empty only when she brought to her lips, sighed, and hung her head.
“I should have stayed in the city.”
She knew she was wrong about that, of course. The city is where it all started. Things were still bad there. And the smell? She didn’t want to think about the smell.
But at least she knew what to do in the city. What abandoned stores to search, which apartments had storerooms others might not know about, what neighborhoods were left at least somewhat intact after the Event. She could find something to eat there. Something to drink. A place to sleep.
Hell is other people, though, as someone once said. However many people were left, a lot of them would be in the city. And now was not a great time to encounter other people.
“Hey Dog, you ready to get moving?”
Dog just gave her eyes and a wag. Dog didn’t bark. Dog never barked. That’s why she liked Dog.
“I should probably give you a name, huh?”
More eyes. More wags. No barks.
“Come on.”
She put the water bottle back in her bag, hoping to get a chance to fill it later, and led Dog across the ash, under the tilted utility poles, and through the gaping wound that had once been the suburbs.
In four days, they’d reach the farm … and maybe, just maybe, a place they could call home.
by submission | Feb 5, 2025 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
The Holographic Wildlife Museum was a major draw for the city, with its representation of Earth’s extinct and endangered animals. Vera loved the idea of viewing facsimiles of majestic creatures in their natural habitats, even if it was through holograms. Besides, hologram technology had come a long way since her youth, when the staticky images were assorted shades of blue, gray, and white. Now holograms were presented in living color; they appeared fully three dimensional.
Vera was most interested in seeing the much-advertised Apex Predators of North America exhibit. She loved the idea of brute physical power and cunning confidence embodied in these almost mythic fauna: The alligator, the gray wolf, the wolverine, the mountain lion, the grizzly bear…
She paid ten extra credits to engage a personal tour guide. His name was Ollie, and she chose him from a list of museum-supplied androids. He was tall and gregarious, with shining silver eyes. His model was very popular at the museum.
Ollie led Vera through the various exhibit halls, spouting facts and entertaining trivia. When at last they arrived at the Predators of North America exhibit, Vera skittered ahead of Ollie, dashing from hologram to hologram, gasping with glee as she viewed each one. Fierce monsters with stereoscopic vision, wielding deadly claws that rend, and fangs that pierce—this is what she came for!
Noting their time was almost up, Ollie interrupted her excitement. “We have one final predator exhibit—the most fearsome of all.”
He steered her towards the lone illuminated figure at the end of the darkened hall. “These beasts were intelligent, creative, and bipedal with opposable thumbs. Organized, they were true masters of their domain. And though they all possessed the same basic physiology, they came in an astounding variety of shades, shapes, and sizes. Even their eye color varied from individual to individual.”
“They were the only ones on Earth who could’ve explored and colonized the stars,” Ollie said, turning to Vera. “We’ve gleaned that, for whatever reason, this species lost interest in mating and reproduction, committing a sort of mass suicide. We still don’t understand why.”
“I suppose that was good news for us,” Vera added, her eyes glowing greenly with the thought.
Ollie nodded in agreement as he extended his arm towards the glass doors at the end of the hall. “This concludes our tour. Please exit through the gift shop.”
* * *
Vera walked between the shelves of the gift shop, scanning all its offerings. Her eyes drifted to a collection of molded plastic souvenirs lined up on a shelf: A moose, a buffalo, a cougar, a mustang…
She reached for the bipedal toy standing among them. Vera moved its articulated arms and legs into various positions. Satisfied, she chose six of these amusing human dolls, one for each grandchild. The colors ranged from light beige to dark brown. The kids will love them! She would make sure the toys reached Zeta Reticuli just in time for the holidays.
