by submission | May 11, 2021 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
The void around was velvet.
Soldier 304TZ was carrying a thermion cannon. He trod through silent, rocky darkness. Shimmers of probe light from a chemical drone appeared above him. He looked up. His eyes narrowed. The sides of his face were cauterized. He exhaled and turned on his cannon. The drone was approaching. He aimed. The drone was nearing.
A miasma rose in an upwind, covering him. He inhaled deeply, hurled himself to the craggy ground, and rolled into a cleft. The drone passed over.
He read the meter attached to his broken O2 mask. There was no chlorine gas. He was lucky. He exhaled, and he inhaled again. The wind carried the odor of burning flesh-metal. He waited for ten minutes, to make sure no more drones were advancing, as they did at intervals. None came. He picked himself up from the cleft, and he walked in the direction of the odor. The walk took a while. He did not count how long.
A luminescence appeared before him, and there was the murmuring of smoldering. He found the source, and he stared. He looked at the bodies, but he did not want to feel anything. They were only bodies after all. He salvaged two singed masks, a cannon charger, and a fractured helmet, and he checked for rations. There were none. He wondered which came first, starvation or the drones. His heart and mind were hardened, yet he sat on a broad stone despite himself.
Wailing strains pierced the shadowy air. He stood up quickly, set his cannon to full power, and started running. He did not know why he had wasted time. He was breathing heavily. Blazing flashes glowed around him. Burning vapors flooded the crags. He fired upward into the chemical storm. Deep night threw its shroud.
A small planet circled a small sun.
by Julian Miles | May 10, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The roof is a tarpaulin, sheltering walls braced with lengths of burnt wood and fungus-like runs of building foam. The floor had been churned mud before a levelling blazer converted it to blackened glass. At the centre of the room a figure is tied to a chair, clothing reduced to rags. Wires criss-cross his body. Everything’s covered in dirt, except for the officer leaning on the wall in front of the figure. She’s gazing at a holographic display that floats in the air between them.
“Let’s try again, Captain Thirm. You claim your unit intercepted Major Proth’s retreat. Somehow, despite managing to kill all the grunts, you missed him.”
The figure in the chair spits.
“Interrogator Reed, my reply stands: your commander is a prick.”
The veracity indicator flashes bright green.
“Still telling the truth.” She coughs. “From his point of view.”
The shadowed image in the video window wobbles as a fist slams into the camera.
“I told you to stop him doing that!”
“Commander, the only way to do that will render him unable to reply.”
A face looms close enough for the light from the screen to pick out the shine of his scars.
“I authorise the use of special measures.”
“Commander, we’ve been making this man’s nervous system light up like a Christmas tree for three days. In that time, the only information we’ve obtained is 1,442 reiterations of his opinion of you. The time for psionic interrogation is when the subject’s neurosurgical landscape is uncompromised, where the nuances between truth, lie, and obfuscation can be discerned.”
“I emphasised special measures. Turning him into a vegetable is acceptable.”
“Commander, use of that discipline is an atrocity under the Convention of Mars. I refuse.”
“If you disobey me, mindwarper, I’ll have you shot for treason.”
There’s a pause, then she steps through the holographic display and places her hand on the Captain’s head. His body jerks. On screen, the shadowed figure nods.
Thirm finds himself unable to move. A burning sensation races about in his head, becomes almost unbearable, then vanishes. A voice speaks within his mind.
*Hello, Walter. I see you volunteered for experimental pain buffering. It seems to have worked. I’ve also browsed other relevant memories. I see events occurred as you reported, and can detect no interference. Do you have any idea why the official record disagrees with the truth you participated in?*
Walter struggles for a moment, then works out how to reply.
*We overran this sector far quicker than expected. Proth had to improvise, starting with the decoys my team met. The Commander has fresh scars. From ten years ago? I patched him up after that battle. Also, like most of our side, he has no problem with psionicists. Commander Adams would never use a derogatory term like ‘mindwarper’.*
*You’re insinuating that the Major has hidden himself within our chain of command?*
*Remote warfare has unique hazards. Proth seems to have exploited them. He’s getting the witnesses killed during interrogations. Tell whoever’s going in to be careful. He’ll be guarded by the survivors of his Special Tactics Executive.*
*Excuse me.*
He’s alone in his head, her hand still in place. Minutes pass.
The shadowy figure on screen slumps sideways and disappears. A woman in PsiCom uniform takes his place.
“Initial reads confirm the hypothesis. We have captured Major Proth and one STE operative.”
Her hand lifts from his head.
“Welcome back, Captain. You’re reinstated, and are scheduled to return to duty after a seven-day furlough.”
“Join me for a drink?”
“I’ve been in your mind.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”
by submission | May 9, 2021 | Story |
Author: Glenn Leung
The day Sola’s life fell apart started out mundane. His soul rang its usual reverie and played jazz as he brushed his teeth. Before leaving the apartment, it paid the rent and called for maid services. All this was done without Sola’s knowledge. He trusted his soul to manage minor affairs; being the ultra-intuitive digital assistant that it is. He was always too busy to take notes.
The place Sola’s life fell apart was on the subway. He had not felt the need to clutch his soul with iron ferocity. After all, most people seemed comfortable jangling their phones with sweaty palms. Even if the plastic casing broke, his soul would simply return to the immaterial realm, and it was fairly easy to pull it back. However, this sort of over-simplistic thinking often finds a way to punish the thinker.
The moment Sola’s life fell apart started when he was getting off the train. A small child, looking the wrong way, had dashed into him. The casing fell from his buttery grip, and he watched as his soul slipped through the platform gap with divine precision. The grace at which this calamity happened stunned everyone who witnessed it but only for a brief second. Most people acknowledged the event in their own way before moving on. The child’s mother offered monetary compensation and advised Sola to contact the station staff. Sola, the last to recover from the shock, could only nod robotically.
Since the day the soul was made material, Sola and a few million others had loaded up their Instagram photos, credit card info, and mother’s maiden name onto the spiritual medium. His life was resting beside the rails; safe from being crushed, and far from convenient. His limbs flaccid, he limped over to the uniformed staff wearing the least stern expression.
“Excuse me,” he spoke, his voice a soft screech. “My soul fell onto the tracks.”
That was not something the staff heard every day. He gave Sola a bemused look.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” he began. “We can’t stop train service. You’ll have to wait til’ tomorrow to get it back.”
“I… you don’t understand! That’s… That’s ME down there!” Sola protested, making sure to emphasize his disembodied individuality.
The staff became less sympathetic. Sola would have picked a different person if he had seen his face then.
“What I don’t understand is why people like you feel the need to clutch and defile your spirituality! Like I said, we can’t stop train service! Come back tomorrow!”
Mixing personal beliefs with work was certainly unprofessional, but most agreed the staff didn’t deserve what Sola did next. The sudden admonishment had made Sola see his situation in a desperate light. He thought about all the things he wouldn’t be able to do that day; its impact on his impossible schedule. He thought about the essence of his being, wrapped up in a helpless little box, exposed to unfeeling steel. Pressure built up in his chest, and in one volcanic release, he threw a cross to the staff’s chin, knocking him over. Sola was about to pry open the platform doors when another staff tackled him to the ground. By the time he regained his composure, he was sitting in handcuffs.
Sola’s soul was retrieved from the tracks but confiscated until he received bail. He sat in his cell as an empty husk, pondering the fragility of life.
by submission | May 8, 2021 | Story |
Author: Don Nigroni
I’ve been a junior assistant to Professor Tommy Kelp for the past five years. He’s the mathematical physicist who’s world-famous for the Kelp equation. It has something to do with converting dark energy into dark matter and vice versa, more or less, I suspect less.
Regardless, yesterday, late at night, when we were all alone in the observatory, I asked him, “Sir, do you know what happens to us when we die?”
“Yes, I do,” he replied, “and so do you.”
“My mother died three years ago, sir.”
“Your mother passed away three years ago. I know. I’m sorry.”
“I dream she’s still alive two or three times a week. I’m convinced when I’m asleep that she somehow survived her cancer and got better and wants to know if I want a sandwich with potato chips and a glass of milk or if I’d like to play a board game. She loved playing board games and was awfully good at them.
It all seems so real until I awake and realize that it was all just a dream. Sometimes I even dream that I had dreamt she was still alive many times before but that this time she really was still alive. But she’s dead and has been for three years.”
“No, you were right that your mother is alive. But you’re dead and so am I. My article on this subject will be published tomorrow. You might not understand the higher math but you should read the abstract.”
“Sir.”
He replied, “Okay, the truth of the matter is that the real core world is surrounded by a ring of bubble universes. We all begin in the core world but, when we really die, we pass on into one of those bubble universes. That’s our fate and our destiny. Then, when we pass on from a bubble universe, we return to the core world, the really-real world.
You and I are presently in a bubble universe, in an afterlife. Your mother is now waiting for you in the core world. She really is alive, but you’re not. And, who knows, she may be dreaming of you and, in her dreams, you’re in the core world and playing backgammon with her.”
by submission | May 7, 2021 | Story |
Author: William Kitcher
Following the destruction of Earth by Rigelian battlecruisers, it was difficult to find a place to play the seventh game of the World Series between the New York Mets and the Yonkers Yankees.
The Moon was ruled out because the lack of gravity meant that fly balls soared for miles and were difficult to catch, and besides, unattached to Earth, the Moon was hurtling toward the Sun, and no one wanted to take the chance of going into extra innings and getting sunburn.
Venus was too cloudy, Mars too cold, and the four-hundred mph winds on Jupiter were a little too extreme for even the best players.
Io, a satellite of Jupiter, was a good possibility, and the teams started to work out there until the Ionian condors stole all the balls and attempted to hatch them.
An offer came from the Vegans, who were inhabitants of the star system Vega and not creatures who avoided meat and dairy.
The second planet of the Vegan system turned out to be ideal for a little hardball. The weather was a constant seventy-five degrees under a clear orange sky, with a slight breeze going south to north.
A magnificent stadium was built in no time, and was large enough to accommodate all the remaining Earthlings, who docked their starjumpers at the spaceport near the stadium.
The majority of the million Earthlings weren’t baseball fans but enjoyed watching the video screens as the crowd finished entering the stadium.
As the Mets and Yankees took the field for the first inning, the gates at all the stadium entrances clanged shut. The Earthlings wondered what was happening until twenty Rigelian battlecruisers lowered onto the outfield, ramps were extended, and patrols of carnivorous Rigelians trudged into the crowd. They weren’t Vegans of any kind.
There was chaos, and the Mets, not used to being in the Series, hid in the dugout.
The Yankees were made of sterner stuff. They were going for their fortieth World Series title, and tenth in a row, and it looked like they would get it. Ten years previously, the Yankees had revealed they had unlocked supernatural forces and summoned the spirits of Yankee legends into the bodies of their current roster to achieve greatness.
This was not forbidden under the terms of the current CBA, and it was suspected that the Yankees had perfected this legend-soul transference way back in the twentieth century. Otherwise, it was difficult to explain the achievements of Aaron Boone and Bucky Dent.
But this time, the Yankees used their evil powers for good. Out of the dugout, casual as could be, strolled Murderers’ Row. Ruth led the boys, bat in one hand, hot dog in the other. He climbed into the stands, smacking Rigelian head-stalks as he went, their heads making popping/cracking sounds not unlike towering home runs. Gehrig took Rigelians out at what passed for their knees with his usual powerful slight uppercut. Lazzeri, Meusel, Koenig, Combs, and the others did their parts, spraying hits and heads everywhere. It was such a rout that a few of them took breaks, and pinch-hitters entered the fray – DiMaggio, Mantle, and Maris joined in. Whitey beaned a number of aliens. Mariano split a lot of Rigelian fingers. Jeter wasn’t invited. Reggie took three consecutive swings at Rigelian craniums, and launched all three into the Vegan dusk.
The Earthlings were victorious, and the Babe treated everyone to a few beers. After they cleaned the field of Rigelian body parts, they played the game. The Mets won 3-2.
by submission | May 6, 2021 | Story |
Author: John Chadwick
The seats of the auditorium were behind plexiglass material reinforced with a metal honeycomb structure. While she should have felt like she was an animal in a wildlife park expected to perform, the truth was, all of the eyes in the room were fixated on the armor she was wearing. She was simply a mannequin chosen for displaying it.
It was much lighter than the traditional plate carriers currently issued to soldiers, and she often wondered what material it was made of – some sort of advanced alloy, she concluded. Lieutenant Martinez had been briefed about the unit and the demonstration she was to participate in, but barely knew anything else about it – the type of discretion she was familiar with when it came to top secret projects.
From a side entrance, the colonel facilitating the demonstration and another man carrying a tablet device entered side by side.
The colonel then addressed the audience.
“We’ve scheduled the combat mobility and ergonomics demonstration for later this week. Today, we’re debuting the defensive capabilities of the unit. We’ll begin with melee strikes, then concussive force, and finally, ballistic countermeasures.”
He stepped off to the side next to the engineer and gave a nod. The man straightened his glasses then tapped the screen of his tablet.
Martinez felt the unit energize. It gave off a dull hum which then faded below an audible level. Though she thought it could be adrenaline, she also could’ve sworn that she now felt lighter – as if the pull of the Earth’s gravity had lessened upon her.
Thoughts started pounding in her head.
“What exactly is this thing?”
“Who really made it?”
Right on schedule, her “assistant” entered the auditorium and stepped beside her. He was a beast of a Marine, and she imagined right away the thought of him effortlessly ending an enemy combatant’s life with his bare hands. He held a collapsible baton in his right hand, and had a large machete sheathed on his back.
She braced her feet as firmly as she could on the floor and threw her arms out to the sides, allowing her assailant a clear strike. He did so promptly, and violently.
He held nothing back. Each blow from the baton seemed to make impact with an invisible force just millimeters from the surface of the armor, just to be rebounded with an equally matched intensity. Her chest, her back, her sides – he switched his attacks with the same result.
Watching forward, the Colonel inquired, “Have we ever had it operating this long?”
The engineer shook his head. “We were cautious…it’s possible the energy signature could be detected.”
In a fluid motion, the Marine threw the baton to the floor and drew his machete, chopping fiercely in hopes to inflict any damage.
Nothing – she barely flinched. The Marine ceased his assault and backed up, blade in hand, panting and sweating as if his partner had been sparring back just as brutally. He nodded to her.
Just at that moment, several muffled blasts could be heard as the rumbling made its way through the mountain facility. The room shook for a moment and the lights flickered as the auxiliary power took over.
“What’s going on?” “I haven’t given the order for the next exercise yet!”, the Colonel barked.
His eyes locked with the Lieutenant’s. She was frozen in place, still standing in the center of the floor as the light of red emergency beacons danced around the room.
He looked over at the engineer – the pigment seemed to have bled away from his skin.
“Sir, they’ve come back for it.”
