by submission | Dec 2, 2020 | Story |
Author: Robert Beech
The corpse had a handsome face. He had a strong jaw with a two-day stubble of beard, a straight somewhat aquiline nose, high cheeks, and full eyebrows over steel-blue eyes, now half-lidded in death. There was only one thing wrong with the corpse’s face. It was mine.
The revolver in his outstretched hand was mine, too, and the driver’s license in the stolen wallet in his pants pocket. Even his DNA was mine. He hadn’t stolen that though, it came with the clone.
The question was, how was I going to convince the police that it was the clone that was lying dead on the kitchen floor and not me? The laws against clones trying to harm their originals were clear and unforgiving. A clone that killed his original was terminated immediately; even the attempt was considered a capital offense. So, I hadn’t really committed murder when I got rid of him, I was just getting rid of a piece of malfunctioning hardware.
The problem is that the hardware had the same DNA I did. Blood tests weren’t going to help here, so how could I prove that I was me, and not some rogue piece of hardware that had just killed his original? Asking me something about my childhood, some half-remembered incident that I would know about and the clone wouldn’t, that might help, except that all my memories were backed up to the clone. That was the main point of having a clone after all so that if something irreversible happened to me, they could activate the clone and start over. Like backing your hard drive up to the cloud. I might lose a couple of days, memories of whatever had happened between the time I was killed and the last time the clone had been backed up, but essentially I could go on as though nothing had happened. Except for this time, something had happened. Somehow the clone had been activated prematurely, and it had decided to do away with the original, i.e. me. I don’t know how it had gotten ahold of my revolver. I keep that thing locked up securely in the gun cabinet, with the ammunition locked securely in a separate location. Of course, the locations of both the gun cabinet and the ammunition locker and the keys to both are among the memories that have been backed up to the clone, so he would have known where to find them. But you’d think I would have heard him prowling around through the house and loading the gun. I hadn’t.
The first thing I knew of the clone awakening was when I saw him standing over me with the big .44 magnum pointed in my direction, telling me to put my hands up, and calling me a damn clone!
I don’t know what made him hesitate, but thank God he did. Just the briefest hesitation before he fired, but long enough for me to dive for cover. Long enough for me to roll into the kitchen and then grab the kitchen knife and plunge it into his chest when he came running into the kitchen behind me.
And now, there he is, dead on the kitchen floor, my clone, wearing my clothes and with my driver’s license in the wallet in his pants pocket. I should take it out and put it in my pocket before the police get here. It’ll look more natural that way. Maybe switch shoes, too, his look a little more worn.
by submission | Dec 1, 2020 | Story |
Author: Brian Maycock
The sound of sirens rising and falling as they pass by outside his room at night makes him feel alive. Someone, somewhere is fighting crime.
He falls asleep around 5 am.
When he sees it is Jell-O for breakfast he wonders if the plastic gloop he begins to scoop into his mouth is actually for supper. Has he lost a day? Not, he thinks, that there is much to lose. TV in the communal lounge, blaring and loud and yet still inaudible. Tablets and watery juice and waking with a start in a stale smelling armchair.
He puts down his spoon and looks up. Someone is talking to him. “You have a visitor.”
The orderly who spoke is already fading away. The visitor is a giant compared to everyone else in here. The man’s bulky frame seems to be blocking out the light. The smile which is now appearing is shot through with silver. Not someone to be forgotten.
Racing through the night, bones breaking underfoot. Looking back. Corpses scattered across the street. Scum, every single one of them. In a city that is bursting at the seams with criminals, there is no time to rest and already a new assignment is crackling into their ears. A warehouse, drugs.
He answers the smile with a cautious nod. “Mitchell,” he says, and his own voice sounds strange. He can’t remember the last time he had a conversation. “I never thought I would see you again, never-”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get syrupy on me Crabbe.” The voice is synthetic, the coldness genuine. His partner was always all about the business, with modifications more machine than flesh and blood.
Ex-partner. He bites down the urge to ask how long it’s been. Thirty years? Forty?
He feels trapped in this place, that time has been stretched out into something that is so thin and fragile it could equally break at any moment or stretch on uselessly forever.
Once, moments were overflowing with life and death. He feels tears well in his eyes. Some superhero now, he thinks.
Mitchell scowls, says “Work sent me. Housekeeping. Sweeping a last few dirty secrets under the carpet” Fingers unfold. The pill in the man’s palm looks tiny.
“Poison?” he asks.
“It will look like natural causes,” is Mitchell’s only answer and the next moment is gone.
Now, he is holding the pill in his hand. Natural. He never thought that is a word he would use again.
Crabbe was all genetic. A twist on a theme. A willing volunteer once, until everything became blurred.
And now they were asking him to call it a day to help keep the peace one last time.
Memories of the bloodlust that rose within him flash clear, the excitement at fighting crime that spilled over into a darkness that enveloped him. He wondered then, wonders now if he was a hero or a freak. A saviour or a monster. Was it possible to be both?
He pushes himself upright, shuffles down the corridor, and lets himself into his room. He opens the window, turns the light out, and lies on the bed. When Mitchell comes back to check, he will say he forgot to take the tablet. He wants to listen to the sirens rise and fall one more time.
by submission | Nov 30, 2020 | Story |
Author: I.W.Ray
I don’t know what I am anymore. My river is the Styx but am I a ferryman, a passenger, or a trespasser? I fear no coins will ever pass through these hands. I am alone, the singular soul who has devoted an eternity to this endeavor. No, that’s not the right word. Eternity implies a purpose and a direction.
[Captain, calculations for DF456A in progress. 5 percent complete.]
Every time I try to capture it and start the multi-dimensional folding process, I trigger something. The star and I are reset and get tossed in time and space. Sometimes I’m close to it and other times I’m light-years away. I eventually find it and start the process all over. It is possible. This time I will get it right. Even the improbable can favor a fool.
[Captain, calculations for DF456A in progress. 20 percent complete.]
I folded other stars into gems and sold them for the price of a small galaxy. It is a dangerous, illegal, and vulgar profession. If you made only one you were a legend. It’s even better if you didn’t slaughter multiple planetary systems to get it. I had three. Then I happen upon it by accident. A star that moved through time and space. A star that would never know old age or death. A miracle that will be a trophy for me, the greatest star hunter in the known universe.
[Captain, calculations for DF456A in progress. 60 percent complete.]
I imagine that it is laughing at me but the truth is I’m an insect trying to capture a deity. In my dreams, I talk to it. I threatened it. I bargain and plea with it but it never answers me. It doesn’t matter for I will win this battle of wills. I too can be everlasting.
[Captain, You have multiple incoming messages and one call.]
I heard. The news was a foreign body that lodged in my ear. The computer repeated itself. I didn’t answer but raced to the panels to check my status. I was right back in my original timeline and part of space. The star brought me home? I’ve been home all this time? My fresh young planet was close enough to be on the view screen.
“You’re coming home now my baby. It’s been too long.”
“…Mo…ther? Mother?”
“Yes, it’s me. I haven’t heard from you in years. Please come home. I want to see you. You promised.”
[Captain, calculations for DF456A are 100 percent complete. Initializing protocol on your command.]
“Baby?”
“Just one more job mother, then I’ll be home forever.”
by submission | Nov 29, 2020 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
My sister’s eyes would never be warm or human again, now showing only metallic, sparkling haze from a Tantalus Worm wriggling in her infected body. She could walk, again, after agonizing, bone-breaking seizures evaporated from the powers of her disgusting, infesting companion. There is no cure…no treatment for Plyon’s Syndrome, outside of becoming host to a parasitic alien worm found on forbidden Allo-23.
“Can you understand, Celia? Can you hear?” I whispered. She struggled forward under her physical therapist’s guidance while navigating padded hand posts over a trying recovery exercise.
“We know you, Bruce.” A warbled response made me shudder– a trilling commingling of high and low pitches—but not Celia. There was shared distress in the message.
“Is…is it painful?” I shadowed her staccato struggling. Her head swiveled to me, eyes glittering in phases from gold to silver.
“Be thankful,” it bellowed. “We ancient races abandoned warrior bodies and violence before your inner worlds had life. We devolved, never again to harm. Our purpose is to serve in healing. We give no pain– only hope.”
“I want to speak to Celia, not you,” I snapped back at the remnant. Her dragging bare heels left trails of blue liquid. Doctors warned how parasites released toxins as a permanent aftereffect.
“Bruce…don’t be upset, please.”
Her voice soothed. Listening to recordings for years, as disease ravished her capacities, failed to calm his anger over a paralyzed ballerina. Politicians promised Mars’ soils were safe. Children frolicked barefooted on resurrected sea beaches. Celia was the lone survivor of a generation now remembered only in night skies as dry Deimos catacombs circled a dying Mars colony.
“No, dear Celia…never…forgive my impatience. I despise this dark dwarf planet in the Kyper Belt becoming your dreary home, as our last hope. Do you understand you must stay? No going back?”
Celia nodded.
“You discovered us,” the deep voice returned. “We did not seek you. It is agonizing to enter your forms, but we do it, relieving her terrible curse. She will thrive here…even dance again. You will see, but she must remain. Your governments will never let us leave this planet. They fear us.”
I turned, wondering what punishments I would face returning to my red planet. The death penalty for visiting Allo-23 was still enforceable. Outposts on Saturn’s moons might accept me, but they were cold, hostile environments far from terraformed gentle summers on Mars.
“I can’t stay. I used all my influence to get this far. I’ll have to leave my rank and status behind. How will I keep in touch? How will I know you are safe and recovering?”
“Touch her hand, for just a moment,” the therapist whispered. I noticed the assistant’s gloved hands. I wondered. A trick?
“Go ahead, Bruce. It’s okay,” Celia said quietly.
I lightly pressed her dry, bruised skin on top of her hand gripping the bars. It was electric…startling. I blinked hard, pulling away, flashing lights pulsing in my eyes. Tinnitus deafened me and then receded.
“What!” I blurted out before my vision cleared. I saw myself, and the therapist, as if viewing outside my body. I was looking through Celia’s new eyes.
Words appeared in my head, in her voice, clear and sweet from childhood. “We can see each other and talk when you think of me, no matter how far away. It is the Old One’s gift. Now we will always share without interference from Mars’ oversight. This is our love that can never be quarantined.”
by submission | Nov 28, 2020 | Story |
Author: Adam McDaniel
In the world, there are many secrets–those that bare themselves to the mighty, those that bare themselves to the wise, and those that bare themselves to the fool.
The mighty find the will to lead. The wise find the strength to rule. The fool only finds himself.
And on the night the breeze fell down the mountain to tempt the moon’s light to bed, there were no mighty armies making camp in the glen. Nor pilgrim or sage waiting for divine whispers on the night wind. There was only a fool.
A fool, lost and lonely.
It is a fact that the many earthen spirits of the valley, the mountain, and the sky revel in the revelation of the fool. Some think this because none would believe them should they reveal it to others. Others say the mind of the fool, unconditioned by the bulwark of reason, is particularly open to the lessons of the otherworld. Or, that the foolish possess the disposition of children, whom many spirits envy and appreciate.
These are only partial truths, some (depending on the otherfolk) more true than others. But there is a truth that is pervasive enough throughout that it bears mention:
Though you may stare at the naked nymph and watch as her thin and creeping fingers course through her hair and down her neck as it stretches–do not think yourself unseen.
For she sees through the eyes of every beast in the forest and knows from the gossip of the trees and stones the location of any wanderer in her domain. And if she did not wish to be seen, you would not see her. And if she did not want you to watch, she would not bathe.
The fool bridles himself with the guilt of the watcher, without the fear of being watched. For if the fool were aware of her sight, there would be no secret to be revealed.
It is the secret of nakedness which drives foolish men to watch. In the guilt of their watching, such fools act as beasts. Their eyes smolder and burn at the sight of the mistress of the forest, and she bends herself to tease the gaze until the guilt of society is superseded by the furious lusting of a beast.
Thus her wonder dances ‘round the fool’s bestial want, and just as she sees through the fox, the meadowlark, or the bear, so too does she see through the eyes of the fool.
There is nothing more powerful than a secret. And there is nothing more costly than power.
And it is perhaps the greatest secret of all, that which leads the fool to believe he has seen something which is not meant to be seen. For anything put before a fool’s eyes is to be looked at, yet not everything a fool sees is to be believed.
The spirits who would sell their secrets to fools often demand a price much more steep than those pandering to the mighty or wise. For both the commander and the king seek the spirits’ audience fully aware of what they have to lose, yet the fool barely knows what they have to gain.
So when the breeze proceeded down the face of An Mhangarta to follow suit with the moon in its disrobing, and happened upon a lonesome fool… in the breeze, it’s said, howled the cry of a hungry wolf.
by submission | Nov 27, 2020 | Story |
Author: Stephen Dougherty
The four-month voyage to The Mirror came to an end when the faintest light of the instruments filled Navigator TwoJade’s eyes with figures. The engines fell silent and a barely perceptible feeling of fulfillment bathed the deck of the Excitation. The other Jades allowed themselves to open their eyes but quickly closed them again at the sight of the instruments’ glow. Raised towards the only window of the small craft lay OneAngel, her hands flat on the communicators. It was her job to make the Excitation talk.
The trip from the Dark Earth was uneventful and seemed only a few hours to the crew who slept through it in dreamless suspension. The worlds and wonders passed them by until they reached a point beyond Pluto. Ten thousand miles ahead of them lay an object of unknown origin. Nearly two hundred miles across and forty miles high it was almost completely flat and just a few feet in depth. Its highly reflective surface had reflected the feeble light from the sun and caught the attention of the observatories on moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Just beyond the fringes of the solar system, it waited in silence.
The Excitation also now waited, tantalizingly close. OneAngel, lying before the long oval window, moved her head ever so slightly and thought “Run your preliminary checks before we move into place.” And the craft shared the thought instantly with the others.
Each touched their screens, imagined commands, and influenced numbers with their cool quick eyes. The machineries within the Excitation pulsed and breathed, the engines glowed, and the small dark ship started to move.
At the same moment, a flash of white light shone brilliantly for a fraction of a second from the surface of The Mirror. From its surface, thousands upon thousands of small spheres rose and moved slowly outward, like bubbles in water. The window on the Excitation reacted to dim the light and the crew moved quickly to respond. Once again, eyes darted, thoughts influenced, fingers danced. As they acted to understand this unexpected development the small spheres turned a deep green, stopped in their courses and started to vibrate violently. The crew of the tiny vessel fell unconscious. When they awoke, they found that the spheres had gone, and valuable time had been lost.
OneJade skimmed her instruments. Her sharp mind deciphered the data and projected her conclusion to the Excitation: “We have been unconscious for nearly twenty minutes. Scans suggest the vibrating spheres were a method of communication. She opened her eyes wide. There is a message.”
OneAngel looked through the window instinctively to see if The Mirror was still there. It was. Its liquid-like surface seemed to ripple and flicker. Connected together via their ship, the tiny crew all knew there was a message. And it was now displayed on their monitors:
WE ARE COMING. WE WILL ALTER YOUR SUN.
OneAngel transmitted a thought to the Excitation and her eyes flashed around her displays invoking commands to the ship. The engines glowed once again, and it moved gracefully towards The Mirror. A few minutes was all it took until Excitation stared directly at the center of the giant instrument. OneAngel faced forward, lying flat in her berth, and gave the command to transmit. She looked on as the message was sent into the heart of the device. Her heartbeat rose ever so slightly. This message too was displayed across their screens. It read:
THANK YOU
