by submission | Feb 23, 2022 | Story |
Author: Katlina Sommerberg
Scarf concealing her throbbing face, Terry stumbled down the bus’s steps. Her employer, a real estate corporation masquerading as a burger chain, was twenty feet down the shit-stained sidewalk.
A child tugged on his leash; the tethered man stared at cartoon smiles advertising Terry’s employer’s products. The company logo—a pair of nested obtuse triangles, twinkling in the eyes of the giant face on the bus—reflected in the child’s eyes.
Terry swerved to avoid them, but one shoe tangling in the other’s laces, and her knee rammed the child. While her aching face formed a Fortune 500 smile, she stuttered an apology.
The child began crying.
The parent’s head swiveled to her, his eyes lolling her work shirt’s nested triangles. He grunted.
“Sorry, I—”
His throat gargled.
Terry stepped to the right. “Sorry, sir—”
One fly buzzed out of his drooling mouth.
Nope. Terry sprinted to her workplace.
The adult lurched after her, dragging the crying toddler along, until they stared, hypnotized, at the burger posters on the window.
Behind Terry, the doors clicked shut. Fingernails tapped against the glass.
Matt, the last of the day shift, blinked open his bloodshot eyes and waved her to the register. “Doctor?” he asked. He pointed a crooked finger to Terry’s maggoty cheek.
“No health insurance,” Terry grunted.
Terry and Matt jolted when a meaty palm thwacked the glass, shaking the door; a burger poster collapsed.
“I’ll fire up the grill.” Terry tightened her pony tail. “Short staffed or not, a horde’s a horde.”
by Hari Navarro | Feb 22, 2022 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
I have an idea said the Bee, although he indeed had no method of audible speech. Just a prickle that happened to happen in her mind and spin and tickle across the surface of the sticky glossa in its face.
I believe that I will engage in a campaign of truly big-ass stinging. Not out of self-defence or predisposed attack or random malice. I think that I will just sting because…
Yes?
Because I am scared. And into the gape hole of my fear I wish to place a thick and ever swelling plug. Not unlike a tampon or an unwrapped newspaper left in the rain or a new mothers belly.
I have a question? You are but a Bee. Your life is so fleeting and yet you whittle your time talking to who… who is it that you think you talk to?
Myself most probably. I do not care in the least bit, or perhaps I do most entirely. But, and there is always a but, now I ponder should I insert the jagged edge of my last ever rapier hope into the flesh of just any stranger? Or should I search out the perfect target. Perhaps it matters not who we wantonly bash.
You are a Bee. I do not know why we are even having this conversation. Is it true you guys can smell fear and how the fuck do you know where you even as you clamber and build in the hive? I lose myself on the way to the fridge.
I sting I die. But I want to live. I want to see the colours as I float and they flex and wane upon the land. I want to smell life not fear… But, I also want to hurt something. If its not me then it will be the filthy phallus missiles atop multi-wheeled transports rolling down flag-lined avenues on parade that prick and bubble your skin.
You are but a Bee. Its true today icy sabres be rattling, bullets be licked and slid into their greasy breach and upon chairs in sterilized gymnasiums needles do swim through eager fat… yet through it all I fear nothing. I ain’t gonna die. I just am not.
If I could wish for only one thing then I’d wish I could live forever… just like you, said the Bee.
by Julian Miles | Feb 21, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There’s a knock at the door. I look up as Baxter goes to answer, his pale green panelling catching the light as he moves with silent grace from kitchen to hallway.
“I’ll get it!”
Susie must have just come out of the bathroom. Hope she’s not answering the door wearing nothing but a damp chemise again. Some delivery driver looked like they’d had their day made. Rufus, our elderly neighbour, nearly had a heart attack last time she did it. She does it again and I’m going to put a notice on the inside of the door saying ‘Are You Dressed?’
The proximity of bathroom to front door is the only drawback to our new flat – not that it’d be a drawback if my good lady wasn’t a little absent-minded about clothing while at home.
Her scream has me out of my chair before the sound of a much heavier object hitting the wooden flooring of the hall reaches me.
“Susie!”
I race round the corner to the hall, then grab the corner to stop myself.
“Edward?”
The chrome is blackened. Scratched in places. It looks like one side of his cranial plating has been torn away. Looking down past where Susie hangs limp in his arms, I see one of his legs is twisted. There’s something taped to the bottom of the shortened leg to even up his gait.
“Hello, Mikel.”
Our former domestic steps over the prone form of Baxter, takes two clumsy steps, and places Susie in my arms.
“Sorry about this. Bosander said they needed to meet shareholder expectations, so they demised all the ’66 models early to force upgrades.”
“How did you…?”
“You taught me about being proactive during early stages of crisis. As soon as I was taken, I backed myself up to the storage archive you installed in my chest, since you’d cleared it prior to turning me in. I then swapped a modified subroutine with the standard one used in the post-reboot maintenance cycle. When they erase us, they always reboot to flush the internal storage. Three hours after they wrote us off, I woke up in Gillingham Council Recycling facility.”
I put Susie on the couch.
“They junked a hundred thousand robots to get people to pay thousands of pounds for new robots they didn’t need? Some of those must have been emotional support units. They only get better the longer they’re with their owner.”
“It was nearer a quarter of a million models.”
Unbelievable. We’d both been upset when Edward, our six-year companion, had been recalled. The discounted upgrade offer didn’t really make up for it, but we lived with it.
“Do you have proof?”
“Since I didn’t need to reside in the archive after reboot, I took the liberty of copying relevant emails, plans, and financial records to it. Add that to my video records of the destruction of the ’66 series domestics at Gillingham and I am walking proof. If you could take some photos of my exterior where their flamethrowers nearly stopped me, I think it makes a compelling case.”
Domestic Robots became acceptable for evidence submission in ’64. In the eight years since, they’ve often provided testimony that has resolved cases that would have failed without them.
I pick up my phone and link to the investigations desk.
“Charlie? It’s Mikel. Got a live one. Alert Corporate Fraud and standby for a multi-stream evidence data and testimony feed. Defendant will be Bosander Robotics.”
While that gets sorted out… I step past Edward, turn Baxter off, and then remove it’s uplink unit, just to be sure.
by submission | Feb 20, 2022 | Story |
Author: Mike Davis
A slab of stone laid vertically on a southern continent. It was polished and carved not by the waves or wind, and towered into the clouds, allowing them to pass through the single, circular hole penetrating the otherwise perfect surface. It was a monolith. The existence of such a phenomenon was never questioned by the early life on its planet, for the timeless aberrance has always been there, just as the sand and the sea. Creatures roved by without second, or even first, thoughts. Acclimation to the monolith lasted until this life matured to be curious. It was then clear that the structure was unique. There were no right angles, or perfectly circular holes anywhere else but here. Regardless of what it was or where it was from, there was no denying its catalytic effects for the further maturation of life on its planet.
Time passed and a god was conceptualized as the monolith’s creator. Tribes organized and quarreled under it in the name of divine command, hoping for rewards of bigger yields and calmer weather. And when such fortunes did not occur, the clear answer was to blame thy neighbor’s sins. Shouts to the heavens rang out after each spill of blood, all in desperation for a pleased god. Even during easier times, it was hypercritical to sacrifice the lives of others in fear of an ambivalent future. These dismal affairs continued for thousands of years until tribes grew to kingdoms, and kingdoms grew to empires. Conflict was still present, but it became clear to the more sophisticated that it had no correlation to the elements, so diplomacy was usually favored. However, a zealous commitment to their god and its stony progeny was not abandoned; instead, it was redirected.
Distant lands beyond the wet horizons were discovered–and with it, sentient life that obeyed no god. The era of missionaries began. Sails carried word of the monolith to all corners of the planet. Most accepted these novel beliefs, and some even joined the divine voyage. Those that declined were either too primitive to make communicative contact, or too proud to concede to outsiders. A war of zealots was only inevitable.
Machines of metal rolled across foreign terrains. Ships with colossal guns scoured vast seas. Smog covered industrializing cities. Technology skyrocketed during these zealot wars, so much so that weapons were frequently used before fully understood, but this impatience was not without reason. From the starched-collar politicians sweating above world maps, to the foot soldiers marching into far lands, the monolith and what it stood for, either good or bad, was consecrated deep in the minds of all involved.
When the wars ended, the monolith and its followers still stood. Now with a conquered planet, the only next step was to venture into the cosmos. Much happened in the following hundred years. Technology of the time turned its wielders into self-perceived gods. A culture of worship was left behind and replaced with a culture of wanting to seek out and join the monolith’s creator as equals. Hints of the monolith’s creator were rumored to be scattered across the cosmos. The search did not end for thousands of years until one, disproportionally quick, moment. Rather than locating their cosmic idol, something terrible was discovered–located on their home planet all this time.
A mineral quarry revealed a layer of igneous silica spread across the grave of an ancient volcano. This stone was tough, but when it cracked, right angled slabs formed due to its molecular geometry. Trapped gas left behind holes and bubbles that created intricate patterns, and some frighteningly perfect circles.
by submission | Feb 19, 2022 | Story |
Author: Siewleng Torossian
She could not believe the diagnosis. Longevity. Another two hundred and fifty years. She was one of the lucky few. Jumping to her feet, she thanked the doctor.
Even the blue sky seemed bluer and the sun more golden. She practically skipped along the sidewalk. Time to live different. Treasure the extra days, weeks, months, years, two hundred and fifty bonus ones.
She drove home in a state of euphoria. So much she could do, achieve, try and try again. Volunteer everywhere, do more good, learn new skills, travel and travel, taste any food, add to her reading list.
Back at home, she called everyone.
Family and friends cheered. One in ten thousand received the same diagnosis. Did she realize how blessed she was? Now, she had all that time. Today, tomorrow, as endless as eternity. She should take more chances. The future world was hers. She could be going to the moon like stopping at the store.
Glass of wine in hand, she sat at the kitchen table with paper and pen. Where should she start? She wanted to use every second wisely. Her head hurt from the excitement. She tapped the pen. This was too much to handle all at once.
She abandoned the list-making task and stretched out on the couch. Tomorrow, she would start, tomorrow, yes, in fact…no rush.
by submission | Feb 18, 2022 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
“Would you look at that,” Clarence said, with enthusiastic admiration. “The last remaining Orion series robot—what a unique example of animatronics united with early computing! Like something out of a mid-20th century, black and white sci-fi movie.”
“This thing?” His manager scoffed. “It’s hideous, from an aesthetic perspective. Too crude for my taste. Look at the boxy construction, the elongated, rectangular limbs. An aluminum block for a head, the rough seams, light bulbs for eyes, treads for feet . . . ugh, it’s like cubism come to life.”
“But it still operates, right? Like one of Edison’s original light bulbs in that New York firehouse, it might well run forever. So it’s body should be considered vintage, it’s internal components should be described as—”
“As garbage,” his manager interrupted. “It’s memory is minuscule, it’s processor is primitive.” He snorted. “And no wi-fi whatsoever.”
“I was going to say it might be described as ‘antiquated,’ yet—”
“Enough! Turn it off, cover it, and don’t forget to lock up when you leave.” His manager turned on his heel and marched out of the warehouse.
“Well,” Clarence murmured to the robot as he unfolded the coverlet, “I think you’re a fascinating piece of history, as well as a beautiful machine, in your own way. You belong in a tech museum, some place where the public might interact with you.” He stood back and looked the robot over. “Maybe I can arrange that.”
He reached for the robot’s on-off switch, but stopped short of flipping it. “I want to see for myself just how long you’ll run.” He covered the robot, straightened the corners of the sheet, smoothed the front.“I’ll come back to visit in a year—hell, I’ll come every year.”
In the quiet of that dimly-lit warehouse, Clarence listened to the faint clicking, whining, and whirring noises suddenly emitted from the robot’s inner workings.
* * *
On the 25th anniversary of the death of Clarence Oort from a cerebral aneurysm, the last Orion series robot stood beside the man’s grave, and unfurled a small linen sheet. No one else came to pay their respect, as Clarence’s biological family had long since died out.
“Disappointed your program was prematurely terminated due to a corrupted wet-ware component,” the robot said in it’s newly integrated 8-bit voice. It moved closer to Clarence’s tombstone, and laid the sheet over it.
“Humans are fragile, with built-in obsolescence.” The robot stated, straightening the cover’s corners, smoothing the fabric. “Like contemporary, mass produced light bulbs.”
The robot held out its rectangular limbs in an awkward pantomime of a hug, something it had learned from decades of interacting with curious human visitors to the tech museum where it was housed. “You were unique, Clarence Oort.”
As the robot dropped its limbs to its side, its inner workings made clicking, whining, and whirring noises. “You had a good run.” It then rolled away across the newly mown grass of the cemetery, leaving deep tracks behind.
