by Stephen R. Smith | Apr 19, 2022 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
“Traffic’s wild tonight,” the driver offered, making brief eye contact in the rearview mirror.
She gave him a thin smile but didn’t respond. She caught her reflection in the Plexi partition and wondered if he noticed her eyes. Wondered if this disguise would survive the evening.
She reapplied lipstick and steadied her nerve. She could hold it together a little while longer.
On arrival, the driver was paid without a word, a cash transaction and an unremarkable tip. She wondered if he’d even remember her in the sea of faces and fares on just another California evening.
The security seemed laid back and lax, but there were familiar bulges under loose-fitting jackets that spoke of imminent violence should the need arise.
The gentleman receiver scanned her invitation and checked against the guest list.
“Weather’s mild tonight,” he spoke without looking up, “you’re all set. Welcome, I hope you have a pleasant evening.”
She smiled a practiced cocktail smile and drifted past him without a word.
Did he suspect? Surely not, or he would have stopped her there at the gate, where she could have been dealt with out of view of the other guests.
She breathed the salt from the breeze off the ocean, composed herself, and walked the ground-lit pathway towards the polite cacophony emanating from the expansive grounds where the party was in full swing.
A waiter appeared with a tray of drinks, and she helped herself, sipping the cold martini while in flight, sucking the fat olive from the skewer, feeling the flesh tear between her teeth. She’d never cease to enjoy that sensation.
She drained the glass and exchanged it for a fresh one before slipping into the sea of suits and low-cut cocktail dresses, her senses aroused, she was hunting now.
For hours she drifted from pocket to pocket of vapid socialites, nodding and smiling at the talk of fashion, of celebrity, the latest jaunt to the South of France, or Monaco. She observed the object of her interest make his way among the crowd as well, shaking hands and kissing cheeks. She orbited the space opposite him, catching his occasional glance, but never allowing him to close the distance between him.
When everyone was starting to sway a little, when the voices got a bit loud, the laughter overly pronounced, she slipped away and into the house. She made her way toward the bedrooms, avoiding confrontation with anyone, but staying in plain sight of the cameras.
He’d be on notice and would follow. The low cut of her dress and his masculine drive to seek out in earnest that which had eluded him all evening guaranteed it.
She waited in his bedroom, sat in the highback armchair under the window, and clocked the passing time.
He wasted none of it.
“You’re not supposed to be here, you know that, don’t you?” The question in a mock-serious tone.
She crossed the room to meet him, held out both arms, wrists up, submissive.
“Are you going to arrest me?” Her tone was coy, inviting.
He put his hands atop hers, slid them towards her, and wrapped his fingers around her wrists, so delicate that his fingers touched easily.
She did the same, her fingers closed around his wrists, and then continued wrapping, snakelike, coiling around and around his arms.
She locked her eyes with his, and he found he couldn’t move.
She entered him, then, through the flesh of his wrists, puncturing the bone to the very marrow, feeling the flesh part for her as she exited her spent shell for this new one.
She’d never cease to enjoy this sensation.
They broke eye contact from this new point of view, the flesh of their previous host sublimating before them, the dress settling to the floor atop a pair of heels and a clutch that would be easily disposed of in the morning.
He adjusted his cuffs as he rejoined the perimeter of the party and motioned to security.
“Get them all the fuck out of my house.”
Climbing the social ladder was exhausting, and he very much needed to sleep.
by Julian Miles | Apr 18, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I come through the doors at a run, dodging consoles and furniture while trying to figure out how they got past our drone hunters.
“Give me the casualty count first.”
Might as well get the worst out of the way. Then I can focus on catching the clever bastards.
“Two. One dead, one with serious injuries to their hands.”
“Only two? What were they firing from the drone? Fireworks? While we’re on the topic, how did it slip past our watch? We’re meant to have the best drone screening in the world.”
There’s silence. Nervous side-glances are exchanged.
“Come on, people. Now’s not the time to get shy about a cock-up in the detector net.”
Michael steps away from the group. I point at him.
“You’re the winner. Tell me.”
“They used a sword. A medieval longsword, to be precise. Early examination indicates it might be the real thing, too.”
I take a huge breath and lean against a desk while I recalibrate my expectations.
“They dropped a sword from a drone and hit two people?”
He shakes his head.
“Hit one and killed him. The injuries were caused to his partner when they tried to pull the sword out of him. They hadn’t noticed it had gone clean through and driven into the pavement. Emergency services had to use a sledgehammer to free it.”
One of the operators swings away, hand going to her headset. She turns back, face ashen.
“A Met armed response vehicle got a sword through it’s roof. Killed the driver. Car went off the road, then through a café. There are multiple casualties.”
Another operator ducks and turns to take a call. He raises a hand as he turns back.
“Got a report of a tanker going off the M25 into an industrial estate. Motorway surveillance shows something falling from the sky onto the cab moments before the tanker swerved.”
“How bad is it?”
He grimaces.
“Tanker blew up. There’s a lot of fires. Emergency crews are still arriving. They’re expecting multiple fatalities.”
Good God. We build the finest explosive and bioweapon detection system on earth and they make it look idiotic by flying through with drones carrying swords?
“Get the programmers working on some suitable metal-spotting routines for the detector nets. I’m not too fussed if we get a few false hits to start with. Let’s stop the attacks first, then refine if needs be.”
Swords. Impractical, but the emotional impact is huge. They could have used bricks or hammers – even spears – but a weighty sword? The extra penetration offsets the few misses or flat-of-the-blade hits.
“Get me the PM and prepare a briefing pack for PCCs, DMC&Ps, and Chief Constables. We’re going to need to raise the alert level, and recall personnel UK-wide. I also want our raptors up. Scramble the drone pilots – or whatever the right word is to make them get their toys in the air immediately. If they can’t interdict enough of them, we’ll have to jam the control frequencies and live with the late delivery chaos it’ll cause while we get on top of this.”
This is going to be a nightmare. I need coffee.
by submission | Apr 17, 2022 | Story |
Author: Majoki
“We’re humans. Earthlings. Terrans. We are not Kludge!”
“You are to us. You’ve been Kludge for eons. Get over it,” the platypus-like creature said dismissively from its anti-grav sedan chair. It belched lustily, exhaling the unmistakable stench of Corn Nuts which it ate incessantly.
In his private office, Kin Kin Tram Wah, the Secretary General of the United Nations, reddened to the point of apoplexy. His aide fanned him with the document the Ambassador From Beyond had presented only a short time before to the General Assembly.
Tram Wah waved his aide away, took a breath and sat down at his desk near which the Ambassador’s golden sedan chair hovered, spinning idly in circles.
“Ambassador,” Tram Wah began calmly, “you have taken us by surprise. We have much to learn from your kind, but I must insist that you not refer to us as Kludge. It is demeaning.”
“Not at all, Kin Kin. Kludge is perfectly apt for your species. My race calls it like we see it. Your kind is kludge. You’re a workaround. A quick and dirty fix to a nasty little problem we inadvertently created. We needed you to keep an invasive species in check, and you’ve handled that superbly. Now, this planet is once again habitable for our kind From Beyond.” A deep gong sounded from the Ambassador’s sedan chair.
The Secretary General lost patience again. “Must you do that, Ambassador? It makes our proceedings cheap and theatrical. I mean, you won’t even reveal where From Beyond is to our astronomers. You treat us like sub-intelligent mutts. I feel like I’ve become Arthur Dent from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
“Possibly if more of your race had read and heeded that illustrious historian, then you’d have a better appreciation for your place in the cosmos,” the Ambassador responded snootily. “But it makes no matter. You are Kludge and we really have no need of you anymore.”
“But we are an intelligent race?”
“Says who?”
“We have spacecraft. We have computers. We have language and culture.” The Secretary General’s voice sharpened. “We have Corn Nuts.”
“That’s about all,” the Ambassador conceded. “Come, come. This is getting weary. You are Kludge, and Kludge have their uses. We gave you the limited neural capacity to dispose of our dolphin enemy, but do you think we would give you real intellect? Why would we create more competition?”
“We do not need to compete. We can cooperate and both benefit,” the Secretary General pleaded.
“So said the ant to the elephant.” The Ambassador From Beyond’s hovering sedan chair stopped spinning. “Look, Kin Kin, it’s done. You’ve served your purpose, and now you Kludge are on the verge of becoming an invasive species. We don’t need that kind of ecological nuisance in this galactic arm. Your species either boards the transports in six days in an orderly manner or we dissemble humanity’s DNA.” The Ambassador belched again heartily. “A Kludge, by its very nature, is a stop-gap. Face it, you’re all expendable temps, and it’s time you clocked out.”
Tram Wah raised his hands in supplication. “Please, Ambassador, consider our contributions. Humans have a higher purpose. Have mercy.”
“Higher purpose? Mercy? That’s what got you Kludge this gig in the first place: compassion for those sycophantic bottlenosed finbacks and their cloying, proud, ambitious brethren.” It snapped its padded forefingers in finality. “Six days.”
The Ambassador From Beyond and its golden sedan chair vanished with a flash and final melodramatic gong. The smothering smell of Corn Nuts all that remained.
by submission | Apr 16, 2022 | Story |
Author: Oliver Hunt
Kylin sunk down into the cockpit of her mech, Trisha. Flicking the ignition switch, various lights on the control interface blinked into life. Readings show that she was combat-ready and a loud purr came from the engine situated below, the mech’s soul raring to go.
“Easy girl,” Kylin said with a smile. It had been fifteen years since the hive aliens from the Insekt sector invaded earth, sending humanity into a galactic war. To keep up with the alien threat, humanity built mechs. Larger than buildings and armed with more firepower than any tank the mechs proved to be a true titan of war, with a secret weapon. A symbiotic connection between the pilot and the mech.
One machine, two brains.
Kylin looked behind her and pressed a button marked “Soul Gate”. There was a faint hiss as it vented cold air and the panel behind the seat raised. Kylin smiled and let out a sigh.
In front of her was the heart of Trisha, a brain cybernetically altered that fed directly back into the mech itself. The brain came from a volunteer, someone was wounded during the first invasion of the aliens.
Most brains are from fallen pilots, but Kylin had gotten lucky. Trisha was a heavy weapons operator for one of the early MKI Earth Defence Tanks and had been mortally wounded when a Hive Queen destroyed her tank with a blast from its protoplasmic egg-glad. Trisha was a fighter, and now fourteen years after her death, she was still going.
Trisha always had issues finding a pilot she could bond with, but then came Kylin with her leather bomber jacket and hotshot attitude. On their first mission, Kylin and Trisha scored a total of three hundred confirmed kills and since then, they’ve been unstoppable, dropping into combat missions both on earth and amongst the stars. All the while, Kylin never left Trisha’s side. Even when the mechs’ red hull was on fire and the shoulder-mounted ballistic cannon torn free by a Scyther’s claw, Kylin remained in the cockpit, harness locking her in place as they fought side by side.
A quiet beeping came from one of the overhead consoles, drawing Kylin’s attention back to the controls. The panel hissed close as Kylin thumbed the button activating the communication link. The cockpit’s visor shaded green, then the torso of a man appeared on screen.
“ Good to see you Pilot Kylin. We have your mission details.” spoke the man, his handlebar moustache twitching as he spoke. The hum of the mech’s engine rose slightly, loud enough that it could be heard.
“And Trisha of course ” said the man sheepishly, nodding in the direction of the brain. Some of the commanders didn’t acknowledge the brains as human, instead of seeing them as only a machine.
Admiral Cleese was once like that but he had learned that Trisha is more than just a machine when Kylin had punched him after referring to her as an oversized can opener with authority issues. Since then he was always careful to say hello to Trisha.
“Ground forces have dug in at the base of a Hive Fortress near the asteroid’s largest mountain, codenamed Olympus. Your mission is to escort Little Dicky to the top of that mountain so they can throw a thermo atomic bomb down its throat. Understand? Oh and try not to get yourselves killed.”
“You can count on us Skip,” said Kylin accompanied by a roar from the engine.
The image phased out and Kylin looked back at the closed soul gate.
“Side by side. We’ve got this.”
by submission | Apr 15, 2022 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
I have to keep this brief. I don’t know how much time I have and if they find me… well, let’s just say they won’t be delivering glad tidings of comfort and joy.
I never thought a government conspiracy would get me killed. Certainly not this one. If it had to be one, my guess would have been more conventional… aliens at area 51… the illuminati… com trails… but this? Never.
I first noticed it as an anomaly in the radar data. The cute NASA ruse that little my niece fell for each Christmas Eve. You know, tracking his sleigh across the world. Usually, they broadcast the same animation. This year there was a glitch.
For about 4 seconds, the picture was real time, live telemetry from NORAD. How do I know? Did I mention before I was fired I was an air traffic controller? I know what real data looks like. I saw the file signature on the screen and all the juicy bits one usually sees on real radar. Before I realized it, it was back to the cute radar used for the kiddie show. But I had recorded it all.
I downloaded the file to a flash drive. Watched it on my laptop to make sure I got all of it, then wiped out every trace of it on my niece’s computer. I did leave the kiddie show version on and looped it so we could watch it together. We watched that until her bedtime.
Christmas day was a blast! My brother-in-law and sister got my niece her first “big girl” bike. I got way too many presents from my sister and brother-in-law, and I bought all of them a new flatscreen TV and an air fryer. Then came the knock on the door. I was in the bathroom. As soon as I heard the officer identify himself, I exited via the window. My truck was parked across the street in front of the neighbor’s house. I already had my winter “roadside emergency bag” so I quietly drove away.
72 hours later I am a long way from Denver- in Miami and at a public library. The news has me listed as wanted for questioning in regard to a string of rape/murders in Atlanta (where I have never, ever, been.)
From my spot in the stacks I saw the SWAT team arrive and could see the snipers take up positions. I have sent out the original file to every organization I can think of along with my bio and irrefutable proof I was elsewhere when the Atlanta crimes were committed.
I don’t know why this has to be a secret. It’s been going on since the 2nd or 3rd century. It’s in all the books, across all cultures. The fact that he is real, time-and-space-and-3D real, should be something to celebrate… give us all hope beyond Christmas. Why does keeping the big guy a secret have to be a worldwide conspiracy? Anyway, I have a way out of the building and Miami and a way North. I hooked up with a group that has more data on this than I could ever imagine. They’re mounting an expedition, and I’ve been invited. They’ve told me they have sources that know he’s not part of the conspiracy. When we get to where the big guy is, I’ll ask him about all the secrecy stuff that the world governments are co-operating on. Wonder what he’ll say? What list will the conspirators be on once he knows about all this?
All I can say is “better watch out.”
by submission | Apr 14, 2022 | Story |
Author: Andrew Dunn
Before we were forgotten, we were myths. People read of us, and learned about us in school. The day we set sail on a column of fire was still a holiday – one celebrated with sales and bar crawls by all but the truest adherents. The true believers still shot miniature rockets skyward by day, and looked for us among the stars through telescopes at night.
Before we were myths, we were flesh and blood legends. Top actors portrayed us in dozens of movies people downloaded. Our memorabilia was sold everywhere, down to stylized body suits that copied the silver-blue coveralls we wore into space. People still remembered that once we cleared Earth’s gravity, we’d undress and climb naked into our pods so that cryogenic sleep could regale us with centuries of dreams. The idea of two people naked and alone, hurtling through space, stirred some to wonder whether we’d found intimacy one last time before we were sealed in our pods.
Before we were legends, we were curiosities. The world saw us as two exquisite specimens when we were unveiled. Our initial interviews were awkward at fist, until public relations dressed us in contemporary fashions. Coaches were brought in to help us speak with the modern cadence and slang of a dozen languages, which we used on television shows earning ourselves millions of fans. On some shows we were challenged to solve equations that normally took genius minds months – we solved them in minutes.
Before we were curiosities, we were one man and one woman, selected young for our bodies and minds. Even as children our training was rigorous. We had to be able to survive our voyage. Once we reached our destination, we had to be able to start our lives again fresh from our pods in even the most challenging of worlds.
Before we were selected, we were a theoretical project to send human beings toward a peculiar radio signal emanating from beyond our solar system. It was a monumental endeavor, one scientists hoped would lead to technological advancements that would someday make interstellar travel faster, and eventually, as common as short hops to the moon or Martian colonies.
Before our spacecraft entered orbit around the blue-violet sphere well-within the Goldilocks Zone, systems woke us from 372 years of sleep. We were weak at first, but barely aged. Our coveralls had deteriorated slightly, but were wearable. We made rounds to see how our craft had weathered the years, then floated through a narrow tunnel into the ship’s bridge. Sensors there were rampant with data about the planet growing larger through thick rectangular windows.
There were satellites in orbit. Sporadic radio transmissions in unusual dialects of languages we understood crackled through speakers. Sensors said there was a handful – a dozen or so – populated towns on the planet’s surface. Flying machines were moving slowly among the towns.
Before we were discovered, we were the forgotten mythical figures from four centuries past, drifting into the planet’s orbit.
Our ship began a sequence of pre-programmed radio messages that had once been cutting-edge technology. Periods of silence between broadcasts gave us time to listen for a response and wonder if it would come.
Before, we had been spent our youth strengthening bodies and minds to survive even toxic extraterrestrial environments. Now, we were leaning into an embrace, and wondering if we were ready to meet what humans had become lifetimes after we left Earth.
