by submission | Apr 21, 2021 | Story |
Author: Kei Lynnette
“Is it just me or do power and tea go just wonderfully together?” The Empress’s companion laughed and replied, “It’s just you Empress, and if you don’t mind me asking, how did you come into so much power?” The Empress only smiled. “Don’t tell me it’s because of your ‘sunny disposition’.” her closest companion said with a sarcastic smirk. The Empress looked out to the spectacular view of her empire and sighed contentedly. “You could say that it was a happy coincidence.”
The fancy hotel room was a cleaning service’s nightmare. Soiled sheets lay twisted in large heaps and what used to be a comfy bed was now of no use. The culprit of this mess stood on the defeated bed with her arms crossed and her face the picture of anger. Lennon Walter was understandably upset about being kidnapped, and by aliens no less. “This stupid room is of no use to me anymore! Show me a better one now!” Lenny yelled loudly.
Her captors showed Lenny to a larger room with an even larger TV. The girl didn’t hesitate to power the TV on. Promptly, Sunday morning cartoons started playing in full volume. Lenny cackled at the stupidity of the characters and was surprised to hear soulless laughing coming from behind her. “That’s new,” Lenny says, these creatures had not shown any emotion until now. Lenny and the aliens watched poorly animated cartoons for about an hour until she turned off the television so as to order the aliens to get snacks. She was not expecting the group of aliens to turn on her angrily. “Oh crap, sorry! Sorry -” she clicked the show back on. ” – look it’s back.” The aliens turned back towards the screen as though nothing happened.
Like everyone else that watched cable TV, these aliens despised commercial breaks. It was during one that Lenny yawned and said sleepily “You fellows had an extreme lack of dopamine.” the aliens only gave her confused looks. Her eyes widened “I thought beings from space were eggheads, you don’t know what that is?” When no one answered, she sighed, “Well, dopamine is called the happy chemical,” Lenny tried hard to remember what her teacher had said about this topic. “Dopamine helps humans, and you guys, plan while also helping us find things interesting.” She stares pointedly at the TV “Like funny tv shows for example.”
The aliens nodded, but before they could go back to watching, the TV powered off. Lenny ignored their cries and calmly but firmly said, “I’m going to need some answers before we continue. Why did you capture me?” she smiled slyly. “No answers, no TV” The aliens hurried to explain that they had come to Earth after discovering that an heir for their empire was there. Lennon was that heir because her great-great-great-grandfather had bought a star that eventually became their small empire. The aliens had taken Lenny from her boarding school in hopes of convincing her to lead their failing empire and make it as powerful as it was in centuries past.
The young Empress continued her story “Of course I accepted their offer, what do you take me for? We hopped on the nearest space bus and blew that popsicle stand. Only painful memories and a troubled past were on Earth. But that’s another story for another time.” She glanced around as if thinking an invisible enemy was around before leaning in close with her friend and saying “There are other heirs you know, the leaders of other empires.” she gave her trademark sly smile “I think that needs to change very soon.”
End of Step 1
by submission | Apr 20, 2021 | Story |
Author: Germain M. C.
I’m meeting Tili’s assistant tonight. Tili’s too busy to meet me herself, but I don’t mind—her celebrity, her beauty would eclipse me anyway.
Headlights approach my vehicle in the dim, empty parking lot. They crawl up beside me as the driver’s window cracks open. Faint dashboard lights illuminate a figure inside.
“Are you Gina?” she whispers.
“Yes. You’re her assistant?”
“Look, you’re not going to do anything to Tili, right? You’re not some stalker or obsessed fan?”
“Do you have it?”
“This is just some sexual thing, right?”
“It’s just a passing kink. Nothing more.” I hand over an envelope filled with six months’ salary.
The assistant hesitates, then flings a package at me. I caress the paper-wrapped box while she speeds off.
Alone, I explore the contents: dirty socks, a toothbrush, a used collagen facial mask.
***
Footsteps echo in the hallway and interrupt my work. Fortunately, I’m done injecting myself and only need to hide the equipment I’ve unplugged.
Jonathan rushes into the laboratory. “Oh. Late night, Dr. Gina?”
“Research directors don’t get time off.” I finish prepping the chromosomal editors and check the facial mask’s DNA sequencing: 85% of Tili’s DNA retrieved. To confirm it’s her, I scan the genome. I see her blue eyes, her full lips, her rare “elastic skin” caused by Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
“Cramming it all in before your vacation next week?” He looks about for the missing equipment. “Something happen here?”
“I’m having the equipment tested before I go. Don’t want you all bothering me while I’m tanning.”
“Oh, thanks. Sorry, but can I copy some data?”
“Give me your flash drive.” I minimize my work on the screen while searching for Jonathan’s files.
“Those please.” Jonathan points, taking a seat next to me. He notices the nanoparticle condenser. “You’re making chromosomal editors?”
“Yes. A pet project.”
“Speaking of, what ever happened to your mice? Did you switch any phenotypes?”
“I did: fur color, ear width, nose length.
“Incredible. You practically switched them from one genus to another.”
“Almost, yes.” I hand the flash drive back.
“Oh, thanks. I’ll get go-” Jonathan smacks into a table corner. “Christ, maybe someday we can edit out my clumsiness. Replace it with some gymnast genes.”
“Maybe.”
***
There’s only one picture of Tili in my remote cabin. It dominates a quarter of the vanity mirror where I sit, scribbled with lines and dimensions for reference. Tangles of wires litter the floor around me, connected to stolen analyzers, while a mountain of Tili’s “Tasty” branded clothes clutter the bed; bought just to support her career.
My phone vibrates. Work demands to know where the laboratory equipment is, demands my return from a vacation I never plan to end. They don’t understand the old Gina is eroding.
I study—stroke—Tili’s symmetrical face; you could almost hate her. Blonde, with a tinge of pink, is her preferred look, so I carefully mix the proper ratio of hair dyes before me. While it rests, I take a tape measure and note my cheekbones, chin, eyebrows. I compare the numbers to the notes on Tili’s picture. There’s an average difference of 3%, down from yesterday’s 3.2%.
Phone vibrates again.
The nanoparticle condenser beeps; chromosomal editors are done. I inject them into my bloodstream and feel the particles clip my misappropriated DNA, replacing it with the bit of Tili they carry. In time, they’ll dilute me completely.
If providence didn’t see fit to bless me as they did Tili, perfect Tili, I’ll do it myself.
But editors aren’t enough.
To evaporate Gina, inside and out, I’ll need a blood sample.
by Julian Miles | Apr 19, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Slowly revolving like Christmas decorations, sparkling under the spotlights of the Seacole.
The barbarism of those we face brought an old quote back to me: ‘An honest soldier will regard the battlefield as dawn breaks across it on the morn after the battle. He will take in the awful beauty revealed. Set against the death-dealing evidenced by that vista, something he knows full well, having oft dealt such, he must acknowledge the sacrifices made. He should then give thanks unto God for his survival, no matter it be by the fortunes of war or the vicissitudes of rank.’
Every time I come to a field like this, I start by looking at it unfiltered, admitting my relief at not being part of it.
“When you’re ready, Jackie.”
We call the enemy ‘Triclaws’. Not much is known. They’re secretive, ruthless, and never ones for what humanity considers a ‘fair fight’. Merciless, overwhelming force is their trademark. We have some basic descriptions: at least two metres tall, two clawed arms on one side, a giant pincer on the other. There may be other limbs, because they can use our keyboards and the like. They never leave their dead, and delight in taunting us. Every atrocity is capped with some disgusting trophy display. When it comes to space battles, they leave only wings and fins.
“Seacole, I’m going in.”
We search every site. The first clue we got was from a lone tech on an isolated orbital station. She took one of them out. Had to use herself as bait, and kill herself, to manage it. Left us a description and some clues. Since then, re-investigations have revealed many supposed accidents as likely Triclaw attacks.
They aren’t infallible. Horrifically good, hinting at long practice, but not perfect. Their advantage is in leaving so little of themselves behind. One fine day we’ll bury them. Painstaking efforts like this are how it’ll come to pass.
“What are you thinking, Jackie?”
“That we should change our parameters. The Triclaws obviously use heat sensors. I’d guess movement detection too. For anyone to survive a post-battle purge, they would need to be cold and still. Everybody knows, so anyone with the skills and materials would have to be fast.”
“And lucky?”
“Only if we find them alive.”
“True. We reckon whatever they came up with would be of diminishing effectiveness, too.”
So, my theoretical survivor is hiding in plain sight – or inside plain sight.
“Seacole, give me a 3D map of the debris field. Highlight all remains with an internal volume over a square metre.”
This search would be nonsensical if the Triclaws hadn’t taken everything but the wings. My grid fills with coloured debris.
“How long since the battle, do we reckon?”
“Twenty hours.”
“I’m heading towards the nearest. Scan the others for raised temperature. There’s no way to hide body heat for that long without prepared containment.”
Please. I want to prove they’re not perfect killers.
“Jackie, the ventral fin from the ‘HSS Expedient’ is warm! A check of the original schematics reveals it had a manned weapons cubicle that was sealed up during a refit. It’s flashing on your grid.”
That’s a way off.
“Seacole, I’ll rendezvous there. Go get them.”
Darkness returns as the Seacole moves off.
The thing that offends me most is how pretty the wreckage looks in the light of the distant sun.
I take my time and check all the other possibles. Finding two would be a miracle, but I have to be thorough.
“He’s alive, Jackie.”
Here’s hoping he’s got information: another rivet for the Triclaws coffin.
by submission | Apr 18, 2021 | Story |
Author: Andrew Davis
Bo buried their head in their hands and screamed. Fuck Jay, fuck his beautiful hair and his pretty face, fuck him, fuck him… they still really wanted to fuck him.
Angry breakup sex was supposed to be a thing, that’s what they’d been told, but when Jay had come round to collect the last of his things – his toothbrush (why couldn’t the possessive fool just buy a new one?), his watch that was always five minutes slow, and some plates whose ownership was disputed – the two of them just got angry. One of the plates had been broken.
Bo threw themself onto the bed and shoved their head in the pillow.
“Come on, dear, it’s not the end of the world,” echoed a voice that was just the wrong side of the line between soothing and aggravating.
Bo pushed their head further into the pillow. “Shut up, Mum.”
“I can’t shut up, I’m in your head,” said Mum. “And I’m right. It’ll pass. And it’s not the end of the world.”
The room shook furiously, and there was a blinding flash of light. The photo of Jay on the bedside table fell to the floor and shattered.
The light faded, and a tall, thin figure stood quite still in the centre of the room.
“Greetings, human,” he said in an eerie, soft voice. “Prepare for the end of your world.”
Breathing in and out, Bo blinked several times. “Finally, someone who gets it.”
The figure paused, clearly not ready for that reaction.
“I-I do not think you understand. This is an invasion. I am the First. Others will follow.”
He stumbled over the words, as if fluffing the lines to a long-rehearsed script.
“No, I get it,” said Bo. “Weird green man says ‘prepare for the end of your world’, what’s not to get? I’ve seen movies.”
“Movies?” asked the First.
Bo ignored him. “But frankly, threaten away. My day was crap already.”
“Your petty human concerns are nothing compared to-”
Leaping off the bed, Bo squared up to him. “Shut up! You don’t know me! You aren’t living my life!”
The two of them were standing face to face, centimetres apart, breathing in sync. A new thought started to form in Bo’s head. The First was, there was no other way to put it, an absolute snack. If anything, the scales helped. And the curve of his forehead wasn’t unlike Jay’s.
“Counter offer,” they said, softening their voice.
“We do not negotia-”
They leant in. “Kiss me.”
The First considered the offer. In truth, he had started to question the cause. And the human was not unattractive. He pulled them in and kissed them, hard.
Spinning as they kissed, Bo flung him onto the bed. Breakup sex with Jay hadn’t happened, but it seemed an ill-advised hookup with a stranger was very much on the cards. Straddling the First, they reached for his chest, and started to unfasten his spacesuit.
“Right,” they said. “First contact, here we go.”
by submission | Apr 17, 2021 | Story |
Author: Alfred C. Airone
They never really believed me. After fifteen years, I can say that. And now, of course, it’s too late to prepare for what comes.
I had hoped that somehow, unexpectedly, I had changed time for the better. Maybe I did, but the enemy later outflanked me, as has always been the case. I will never know.
My name is Cassandra. I am recording this because I need to put my thoughts in order, to make whatever final attempt I can to save these people, and to save my own world, my own time, by altering its history. I arrived in this time period fifteen years ago, hurled by the Time Catapult into my distant past – more than ten centuries, as it turned out. Moments from sure death, a soldier fleeing a lost battle in my own time, I materialized ten feet above the playing field of a sports stadium, in the middle of a competition, and lay stunned while players and security personnel rushed to take me into custody.
I was treated with respect and care but kept a prisoner. Over the next few days, I told my story to a succession of skeptical officials and, eventually, weeks later, to the President of the United States, the nation to which I was later transferred. My Anglishan – close enough to the English of the time in which I landed – enabled me to convince powerful enough people that I was neither insane, nor a spy, a danger, or a liar – that I was someone who seemed to be telling the truth. And I warned them: the war that had ravaged my world for centuries, the war that was being fought back and forth along the timeline, and which had cast me back to their world – that war was in their future.
The recent series of unexplained nuclear explosions outside three towns in Canada was one of the first signs. Then the disappearance of Dr. Edmund Garvey, a name that meant nothing to me until it was explained that he was the world’s foremost expert in what the present time calls “quantum computing”. What we in the future know as the basis for the time-travel technology with which we wage war. His capture was almost certainly a gambit in the war.
Then today: a report of a major battle between unknown forces near uranium mines in South Africa.
Every new piece of information I hear convinces me that we – myself and the ancestors among whom I now dwell – have moved forward in time and reached the Time War Periphery. The point deepest in our past at which the final attempts of either side to alter the past took place. The point in the timeline at which both sides were forced to recognize the futility of trying to outflank an enemy who could just as easily leap back to an earlier time and outflank them as well.
If so, we have reached the time which I long ago predicted. They understood – there are brilliant people here among my ancestors – but I know they never quite believed. They are hopeful, these ancestors. They have no appetite for giving up.
There – the knock on my door that I have been expecting. I must let them in. They will have questions – I already know what they will ask and what my answers will be.
I hurry to the door. They will believe me now. And I will help them as best I can. I hope it’s not too late.
by submission | Apr 16, 2021 | Story |
Author: Kristina T. Saccone
It might have seemed like a lot of trouble to hide his LP’s in an airlock. Darren thought it was a necessary sacrifice to keep the vinyl untouched after the time Devok borrowed Pearl Jam’s Ten without asking and returned it with a scratch. There weren’t a lot of places to stash the records on a space station where grunts got a communal bunk and no locker, but he had his secret spots. The real trouble came when he needed to retrieve the collection for his radio show.
Tonight, for example, Darren had carefully curated a playlist on the back of a used envelope. Over dinner, he surreptitiously showed it to a few friends. When Indira asked to see it, he felt the warmth radiating off her body next to him. She leaned over and slid a finger down the list, whispering the titles. In between each name, her lips made a small smack that sent shivers up his spine. She said she would listen during her late shift in the botany lab. With that, Darren knew it was imperative to play every last tune.
This was Darren’s specialty. Late 20th century rock had been digitized and mass distributed, but vinyl was rare and its analog sound: priceless. His lackluster day job maintaining the station’s communications allowed him this small luxury, and it was his passion project. The Stellars didn’t exactly condone the show, but so far they hadn’t stopped him either.
He stuffed the setlist into his back pocket and headed down the hall to Hatch Theta, making a quick stop at his bunk to hack into the rotation update for a fresh access key. Darren repeated the code over and over in his head. It thrummed like a song while he stepped down the last stretch of corridor. Then, he saw the red paper taped over the door’s security pad – and nearly lost the number sequence entirely.
“Shit,” Darren ripped the page off the wall, which read “Cease and Desist” at the top in fresh type. This had better not be another of Devok’s pranks. Darren held it up to the light, looking for the official Stellar seal. There was the golden glint, gracefully woven between the page fibers.
The station’s low, brown noise buzzed as he weighed his options. Was this night’s show worth the risk of a reprimand, maybe the brig, or worst of all, losing the show altogether? Then he thought of Indira with her headphones on, huddled over her research and listening to Lithium, and her cyan, acrylic nails tucking a strand of crimson hair behind an open-lobed ear.
Darren crumpled the warning in his left hand and tossed it aside. With his right, he entered the code and hit the button to open the airlock. The moment the lock gave way, an alarm set off. “In for a penny,” he said to himself. When the door opened, he palmed the second grey panel to the left. His precious vinyl lay stacked there, and Darren puffed in relief that they hadn’t found his exact hiding spot.
He pulled the collection to his chest, turned, and walked as fast as he could back to his bunk, where the mic and transmitter were stashed under his bed. He mentally calculated how long it would take to get there and queue song number one from the playlist: Paranoid Android. His heart raced to the opening beats and the thought of Indira, soaking in his soundwaves and surrounded by her flora.
