by submission | Jun 17, 2021 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
“Whoa! I can’t believe I am actually sitting with Carter John, famous author, inventor, rock guitar god, and former vice-president of the USA!”
Carter John shifted in his chair uneasily. “Umm… yeah that’s me.” Carter John read the woman’s ID. “Vonni” was the name he saw.
All dreamy smiles Vonni put her head in her hands and leaned forward “What can we do for you today Mr. John?” By her tone alone he knew his cause was lost.
Carter cleared his throat. “Well, I know this might seem crazy… but I want a job.”
Vonni leaned back. She knitted her eyebrows together but still kept the voice used for pets and small children. “Now Mr. John, you know that can’t happen. You are permanently retired. In fact, by your IRS record I see you’ve worked well past your retirement age and are currently drawing no less than five, no six, pensions. You have no need to work.”
Carter became agitated “That’s just it, I do have a need to work. I want to work. Physically in my twenties, mentally acute and all I have to look forward to is nostalgia?”
Vonni shook her head “Now, now, you know the rules! All of you who have worked and contributed must make way for those just starting out. What chance would a fresh-out-of-school child of 22 have if they came up against Carter John for a job, hm? Even if it was menial labor they wouldn’t stand a chance. That’s why the nanite adjustment act of 2130 was passed- so it could give the up-and-coming generation a chance to compete-”
Carter interrupted, ”-but that’s just it! I am not allowed to compete at all! Hell, I’m not even allowed to donate my time or talent to charity.”
Vonni nodded her head. Carter supposed it was meant to be a gesture of sympathy, but it came off as condescending. “I wish I could sympathize, but I’m sure you’re set financially. Why don’t you spend time visiting your descendants… I’m sure you must have hundreds by now.”
Carter clenched his teeth “You can only spend so much time with your family.”
Vonni sighed “OK, let me be frank. No one is going to sympathize with your plight.”
“What about getting a slot on the work brigades for Mars?”
Vonni nodded. “You know it’s a one-way ticket right?”
Carter nodded. “I do.”
Vonni leaned in “And you know you have to divest all of your wealth and property, right?”
Carter nodded “I do.”
Vonni reached into a drawer and pulled out a sheath of papers. “Take these home, talk it over with whomever you have to, and be back here next Tuesday for in-processing.”
Carter eagerly accepted the packet. As he took the packet from the employment counselor he smiled. “You were waiting for me to suggest the Mars option.”
Vonni nodded. “We are prohibited by federal law to actively ‘recruit, influence, or suggest’ the Mars option to any citizen, especially citizens in your demographic. All you over 300’s get to it eventually, some quicker than others.”
Carter John chuckled. “Let me guess, the Mars option is almost all my so-called demographic.”
Vonni smiled “Almost exclusively.”
Carter John sighed “For the first time in nearly 200 years I won’t have to explain any references.”
Vonni smiled as Carter stood. They shook hands. “If it’s not too premature for me to say so, ‘Bon Voyage’.”
Carter John smiled and nodded and feeling younger than he had in centuries, said to no one in particular “Out with the old, in with the new.”
by submission | Jun 16, 2021 | Story |
Author: Joseph Rosa
The old enchanter’s body dripped tangerine as black spots floated on his liquid skin like water lilies. The Leopard Warlock had long forgotten why he’d cast this appearance onto himself, morphing his body into a walking neon pond. His arm rippled as he tossed twigs onto the small fire and a goldfish blurped from his cheek, then resubmerged under the surface of his face. He removed his curled leather tophat to pick at the fraying. A tangle of black hair fell out as an ecosystem of crawling critters grumbled over being disturbed. The rare headpiece’s material had been stitched together from the hide of a seabull, complete with one horn tipping the end of its coil. A much scarcer and more aggressive member of the manatee species. The Sorcerer had bartered for it in the very market in which he made camp, only many decades prior. For the fine hat, he’d offered an elixir that caused the desired target to become impervious to embarrassment. Or had it been a knife in the shape of a rose that could sing? He couldn’t recall, it’d been so long ago. Now the market was barren, a collection of rotten wooden framing and tattered banners dangling from the interior. Sporadic sunrays breached parts of the fractured ceiling. The halls of columns still maintained most of the roof, which is why the dead market made for such a fine shelter. He was the only remaining anything, just him and the insects in his hair were gods of the nothing space. Yet the Warlock and his little fire were paled in comparison to the vastness of the empty corridors and abandoned shops.
Spitting sunflower seeds into the fire, he eased into a sitting sleep. For the most part, it had been a good day. He’d found enough food to get him back home. His seacove den called to him and the tide would soon be in. His feline eyes reflected the flames as he secured the brim of his hat, silencing a city of bustling bugs. He listened to the stillness of the deserted market and it stirred his nostalgia, having seen all kinds of magic in this now magicless world. His heart ached for the peak of his adventures in the distant past. The Eye hummed from his satchel and he groaned because he didn’t want to disappoint his mute sidekick anymore. There was nothing to see that it hadn’t already taken it. Yet still, it yelped, beckoning to be let out. He retrieved the glowing black sphere, resting it in the palm of his hand. In the center, a pupil frantically dilated and inflated, observing the somber surroundings. But there was nobody peddling their wares, or lively chatter of negotiation, or toasts made over deals done, or the encompassing sounds of buyers trying their eccentric new purchase, or the stirring and sizzling of the meal hall, or the giggling of children zapping each other with spark spells, or the popping of nightly fireworks, or the melody of courtyard bands. There was only silence and the maddening slow running water of the Leopard Warlock’s tangerine skin draining onto the floor.
Why? he ruminated, endlessly tormenting himself. Why had he banished himself to this purgatory? To this thin phantom realm where everyone else had disappeared, and why couldn’t he find his way back?
by submission | Jun 15, 2021 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
Marcus had witnessed several incarnations of himself in the course of his forty-one years—a guarded child, a romantic teenager, a tired tutor, and a tolerant husband of Madeline. She barged into his study, upset about their quartet of preadolescents and the dishes she wanted him to do.
“But I’m going through some formulations, Madeline,” he said from his desk.
“You and your inane formulations,” she retorted. “Always your formulations. When are you going to start working again?”
“Madeline, I worked straight for fifteen years. I need a break now.”
“A break indeed, while I’m here with the little terrors and the bills.”
“You can go out for a walk, Madeline.”
“With this pandemic raging? You want me to get killed? And who will look after the children when I’m gone? You? Why, you can’t even put the spoons back in order.”
“Please, Madeline, I’m burned out. I just want a little rest.”
“Two months, and you want a little rest. Why—”
He refocused on the formulations he had been working on for the past four and a half years. They were difficult years, with his anemia, indigestion, sinusitis, and Medusian supervisor who had no care for illness. And then the contract ended.
He looked up. Madeline was red. He turned to a montage of photographs he had arranged on the study wall, Hockney like, photos of himself and Madeline when they were exchange students living together in North America twenty-two years ago. The couple had known better days, even if they were not always the best of times.
Ah, Madeline, he thought to himself, if we only knew what we’d become.
She left the room. A crepuscular ray poured through a window. He reached under the desk, brought out a complicated device with a solar panel and a chronometer, activated the mechanism, and redirected the spectrum onto the pictures. An irradiation unfurled, and beam streams like florets, warm and hot, expanded. Space pulsed and bent, and the montage opened.
***
Somewhen, an eighteen-year-old boy and a twenty-year-old girl were walking in the evening, on the campus of a small-town college in eastern Massachusetts.
by Julian Miles | Jun 14, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“The Atrox is a perfect blend of artificially grown organics and 3D-printed cerametal. Able to withstand impacts that would crush a man to pulp, regardless of whether he is in body armour or not.”
General Navores looks back down into the glass tank.
“It’s very small, Cedric.”
Inside, a strange reptilian/feline hybrid displays greenish-white flesh between strips of a blue crystalline substance. It moves fast, changing direction like a startled fly. Tiny claws and needle-like teeth flash as it snaps and slashes at the air.
“That’s the beauty of it, sir. Fantastic infiltration capabilities, low noise, the option to use it for scouting ahead of primary mission groups as well as in active combat roles. It’s resilience allows it to be delivered by unorthodox methods, such as hollow shells or missiles, in addition to drones.”
The General sighs. This is the problem with boffins. So invested in their creations they become blind to any realities that might limit the applicability of their work to the real world.
“Cedric, I see the scouting potential, especially with that glorious video output.”
He gestures towards the three-by-three 4K widescreen array on the far wall, showing him the little monster’s less than flattering view of himself, its creator, and everyone else in the room: all thermal blurs and targeting icons.
“But active combat? Have you created a mouse-sized soldier to carry a sawn-off .22 while riding in a tiny saddle?”
His staff chuckle.
Cedric frowns. He stops watching his creation trying to kill invisible opponents, then points to the fat volume on the table between the General and his staff.
“Page 314.”
The General looks at him.
“Pardon?”
“You haven’t read as far as page 314.”
The General directs a glare at his staff. They respond with a selection of gestures intended to convey ‘we read the summary’ and ‘we were waiting for a digital copy’.
He turns back.
“What did I miss on that page, Cedric?”
“Readiness considerations.”
The General grins.
“Like needing the opponents to be lying down?”
Cedric chuckles, then fixes the General with a withering stare.
“No, they can pyramid up a soldier faster than that soldier can reload. What I’m referring to is the figure at the foot the page: I have two million Atrox ready to deploy.”
The General’s eyes go wide. He watches the little terror move like nothing he’s ever seen before, and lets his initial feeling of discomfort bleed through and blossom.
These things are going to revolutionise warfare – or end it.
by submission | Jun 13, 2021 | Story |
Author: Kathleen Bryson
You had been murmuring in your sleep about a particular breed of polygon for weeks, but – you being you – you never wanted to talk about it over breakfast.
Isoceles, I wondered, woken beside you and your apnea machine, sirens sliding like butter outside, eliding so you couldn’t tell stops or starts, what does he mean? It was the eighth time the ambulance concertos had returned. I closed windows at night and had done so since April 2020; I couldn’t bear the dark scratchy sirens.
We had been walking – be-masked, be-goggled – along the canals when you finally chirped up after an entire month of polygon-sleep-talking. And you only spilled the beans because we both saw the shining triangles flicker on the water, and the materiality of them was inescapable.
Your index finger had a trigonometry of its own.
They were technically pyramids, the glory of 3D, but I didn’t point this out. I chose my battles during this extended, shaky time. The grim pandemic dissection had leapt on in vitro as the months became a year, then eighteen months, then the three and a half years in which we currently found ourselves floundering. 2024. Can you fucking believe it. I certainly can’t.
But I believed in these veil shapes hovering above the water, glimmering like rivers and then darting up straight in the sky and breaking all known laws of physics. The shapes had been in mainstream news. Not drones but alien spaceships. Obama gave a UFO interview to the New York Times about it. The Pentagon released the files and the videos. We knew what they were.
We gazed at the glistening pyramids that finally, mercifully, disappeared into rare air. No one else walked along the canal path, and with a measles-infectiousness level of airborne eighty-three feet in the latest variant, that was good.
“Scalene,” you said.
“I always liked that word,” I said.
“You’re being obtuse.”
“More a pyramid shape,” I said at last, as I’d been itching to do. You rightfully ignored me.
“I’ve got,” you said, “a hypothesis about them. All these pyramids showing up,” you continued, self-correcting, “all the UFO press releases. They’ve got it all wrong.”
“You know this, how?”
Your eyes skimmed over poplars mirrored, but the triangles weren’t there.
“What are they then? Russian military, Chinese, US special-ops?” In 2008, I once saw twelve black helicopters land like spiders on a Portland skyscraper.
“They’re humans,” you said, “the time travelers we’ve been waiting for. Our species, the future. The blurry sparkles are just them messing with dimensions, they haven’t fine-tuned the trips yet; we can see their marks. Tourists. Rich posh kids. History students doing MAs. They’re coming back to a historical time to sightsee the pandemic, which is why reports have shot up since early 2020. And now even more.”
“Why?”
The triangles were back, the teepees on the water. That’s when you grabbed for my hand and rubbed my knuckles and you kissed me. It was so good to feel your face, it always was during this time with endless masks. And you kissed me again. You said, “I think more sightings because something even bigger is going to happen, more terrible and historical than even a pandemic; I don’t mean to trouble you,” you said, we watched the pyramids lick once more the water.
“I wonder what the tourists think of us at this very moment. Doomed and tragic?”
“Let’s give them a show,” you said. There was a charming light in your eyes, a reflection off the moving waters. And I kissed you back, a cool prim smooch.
by submission | Jun 12, 2021 | Story |
Author: Paul Colby
Hirvath led the way down a narrow valley in the highlands of Euclid. As he approached the foot of a cliff, he looked up into the white sky, threaded with bands of purple cirrus. The Archivist trailed him by five or six meters, taking his way more slowly over the chunks of granite.
“Hard to believe these aren’t real,” he grumbled.
“Who says they aren’t?” Hirvath countered.
“Not real like Earth rocks,” Berizad said, treading sideways. “Not like the ones you touched in the old, old days, when you were called Hervey Rule.”
“I knew those rocks with the nerves of my fingers. Same as these. The same way a future generation will know the rocks of Paragaia.”
Hirvath stopped at the edge of a creek bed and waited for his companions to catch up. There were four of them, ranging in age from the Archivist who was part of the first generation born in space, to Volna, recently graduated from the Astral College.
“Is this the place?” Berizad asked, casting a skeptical glance at the towering cliff, barren except for a scattering of lichens clinging to rock ledges.
“Close enough,” Hirvath said. “I only have to take a few more steps before I reach the dissolution zone.”
His words were followed by heavy silence. In the distance, a rock fell from the cliff, and all of them waited in suspense until they heard the muffled report of its landing.
“To my right,” he indicated, extending a finger. “In the hollow formed by those rocks.”
Clearing his throat, the Archivist said, “Our plans, gentlemen … Time for us to go ahead. We might as well begin with Volna.”
The young man reached inside his tunic, took out some sheets of paper, and began unfolding them.
Hirvath stopped him with a sharp shake of his head.
“No, I’ve set it all behind me now. I’m done with all that I once knew, done with the memories of Hervey Rule and Hirvath. I stink of death already.”
The silence deepened again as the elderly man looked at each of his companions in turn. He turned to gaze one last time up the face of the mountain; turning back again, he held out his upturned palms. One after another, the men who had accompanied him placed their palms over his. Then Hirvath stepped into the hollow between the stones, drew his right hand across his midriff, and the man who had once been Hervey Rule disintegrated. The leftover particles streamed through a tube on the invisible wall of the projection compartment, and then only the four companions were left.
“Now?” Volna asked cautiously.
“Yes, you can begin,” Berizad said grimly.
“As the youngest,” he said, “I have less personal experience to draw on, so Hirvath gave me a memory of his own to share with you.”
He began reading what was scrawled on the paper: “ ‘When Earth first disappeared …’ ”
“Wait a minute,” the Archivist said. “Let me see that.”
He took one of the sheets from Volna’s hand and ran his finger along its surface. “It’s like new,” he said. He held up his finger. “Look. The ink isn’t even dry yet.” He held onto the paper a moment longer, reluctant to part with the last remains of his mentor and friend. Then he handed it back to Volna.
The young man again began reading: “ ‘When Earth first disappeared from the viewscreen, I suddenly recalled the time my sister fell from the apple tree, clutching a green apple. This is how it happened …’ ”
