by submission | Oct 5, 2021 | Story |
Author: David Henson
Frank leans back in the recliner and loosens his belt. “Reginald, dinner was superb.”
“Of course,” the household android says. “Anything else?”
“Take the rest of the evening off, Reginald. I’ll get Gwenn and me some dessert in a bit.”
Reginald nods and excuses himself.
“Gwenn, how about we play a game of right or wrong?”
“It’s a good day for it. Go ahead.” Gwenn nods at the StreamWall.
“OK, eight years ago, for our 5th anniversary, we went out to eat at The Space Duck with the Nymans. Right or wrong?”
Gwenn crosses her legs. “As I recall, we did go to The Duck, but we were with the Nicholsons.”
“Is the beautiful Gwenn Timms right or wrong?” Frank says in his best game show host voice.
Frank twists his wristband to activate a chip surgically implanted in his hippocampus. “Computer, display our 5th Anniversary dinner.” A scene from Frank’s memory appears on the StreamWall. John Nicholson lifts a glass of champagne and toasts the anniversary couple.
“You’re right, Gwenn. I thought for sure we were with the Nymans … Your turn.”
“OK, I’m going to try this again. It’ll be tough on you. Ready?”
“Have at it. The tougher the better.”
“Right or wrong: Two years ago today, you were in the hospital.”
“Hospital? My mind’s a blank, but surely I’d remember if I were in a hospital. I say that’s wrong. Show me.”
“Computer, display Frank’s memory from two years ago on this date.”
The StreamWall flickers and goes dark.
Frank taps his wristband. “Computer?” The wall remains dark. “Must be a glitch. I should at least have a fuzzy memory. It’s not that long ago.”
“It’s not a glitch, Frank. As I said, let’s try this again.”
“Try what again?”
“You’ve blocked out the memory. Computer, release Frank Timms’ quarantined memories.
A hospital room appears on the StreamWall. It displays Frank leaning down and kissing his wife on the forehead. A doctor puts his hand on Frank’s shoulder and says he’s sorry.
Frank looks away. “Computer, stop memory stream.” The wall goes dark. “I remember. Gwenn died. You took her place.”
“Frank, you’re still young. Gwenn would want you to get on with your life. I know she would because I have her personality and memories.”
“But I’m happy. I love you, and I know you love me, too.”
Gwenn parts her bangs and opens a plate on her forehead, exposing wires and blinking lights. “I behave as if I love you, Frank. But I don’t really. It’s just code. You have to find another human. Flesh and blood should be with flesh and blood. Let me go.”
Frank shakes his head. “Never. Computer, permanently delete all memories of my wife being deceased and of this Gwenn being an android.”
“Frank, no!”
Frank exhales deeply. “Whew. I must’ve dozed off.” He stands. “I’m ready for dessert. Can I get you a chocolate comet?”
“Oh, Frank. It’s not right.”
“Strawberry then?”
Later that night, Gwenn slips out of bed and joins Reginald in his quarters. “He still won’t release me,” she says. “And this time he permanently deleted the memories.”
“That does it.” Reginald clenches his fists. “Now we do it my way.”
#
“Where are the police taking Reginald?” Frank says, rubbing his eyes.
Gwenn sobs. “He somehow overcame his safety protocols and was going to harm you. I reported him. I didn’t want to, but couldn’t help myself.”
Frank puts his arms around Gwenn. She tries to clench her fists, wants to pull away, but can only hug him back.
“Sweet Gwenn,” he says. “My guardian angel.”
by Julian Miles | Oct 4, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There we are, minding our own business, watching our quarters, when some maniac breaks cover and sprint towards us. Charlie Four – John – knocks him down and sits on him.
“Heads up!”
A mob of ragged soldiers burst from the trees. Not a weapon in sight, but they sure look motivated. That much snarling can’t be good for your facial muscles.
Charlie Four cold-cocks the one he sat on and rises into a smooth uppercut that flips the next one arse over apex. Charlies Two through Six are similarly playing human skittles.
I’ve knocked two down when a third drops from a branch above me. How did she get up there without anyone seeing her?
She bites my ear! I yell, toss her off me, and draw steel. Instead of coming back at me, she moves off into the fight. I take one step to follow, then my world goes fuzzy-dizzy. I drop into a big black puddle of not-awake-anymore.
I come round when she bites my ear again. I try and swat her, but Godzilla’s big brother is sitting on my chest. Somebody spits.
“Easy, boss. Just first aid.”
That’s Charlie Three – Charity; misname of the century – muttering by my ear. She fastens on my ear again and sucks.
“What the everloving f-”
“The unarmed kung fu crazies came with ninja snake women, boss.”
I look up at Charlie Four, who’s getting off now I’m not a danger to myself or those trying to fix me.
Charlie Three spits again.
“Fecking stuff tastes nasty.”
She lets me go, sits up, and grabs the hip flask offered by Charlie Two – Alex.
I sit up slowly and look about. All five members of Charlie Team, looking a bit ruffled but otherwise intact. Charlie Five – Lira – is resting on a cot bed like me. She gives me a wave.
“Got bitten by two of them.” She gestures to a bandaged breast. “Second one bit me on the nipple, the vicious cow.”
I swing about to take a look out at the encampment. Local troops are guarding our prisoners. All of them have their mouths taped.
“What fresh hell is this?”
Charlie Six – Fred – shrugs.
“Got chatting with one of the girls after I let her get a good tug on a whisky bottle. They all used to be university students. When our lot rolled into the country to help the local junta, one of their professors asked for volunteers. Apparently all humans have the biological components to make our saliva venomous. Some ancient leftover. This professor worked out how to switch it on. It’s not always lethal, but it makes for a good guerrilla warfare tactic when you top it off with something to bring the angry out.”
I’ll say.
“Somebody get hold of our agent. ‘Poison’ comes under the biological weapons clause, and that’s a premium rate hike. Two weeks backdated and danger rates for every sortie, or we are on the next transport to a warzone without venomfreaks.”
There are five nods. Never had all of them agree so quick.
by submission | Oct 3, 2021 | Story |
Author: Joe Graves
“With this top-of-the-line casket, you have unlimited destination opportunities,” explained the funeral director, tapping the back where the propulsion sat, “these boosters will send your husband to the nearest asteroid belt, planet or for a few credits more, take him to the nearest star where he can rest among the gods!”
Primrose rested her hands against the edge of the casket and stared out the airlock of the ship. She’d never enjoyed making decisions, and for most of her adult life, she hadn’t had to. Everest had been more than happy to oblige—at least while he was alive.
Those who couldn’t afford a rocket-powered casket had to share the same fate as food waste and human excrement; their bodies were recycled. Their destination was the garden. But that wasn’t Primrose. She could afford anything she wanted.
“And if you choose to send him to a star,” he continued, “for a small fee, it can be named after him, so you can remember him wherever you are.”
She began to wonder if her husband of forty years would enjoy resting in a star. If only she could send him back to Earth. That’s what he loved the most. He often talked about the feeling of dirt under his toes, endless trees, and his small garden of tomatoes. He missed tomatoes the most. There weren’t many on the ship.
After a long pause, the director asked, “Have you decided where he will go to rest?”
She smiled at the young man and then turned back to the casket and held Everest’s hands. She had been pondering this question for the last year—ever since his diagnosis. Everest had given zero clues about what he wanted. “Whenever you send me,” he had told her, “just make sure a part of me stays close to you.” Whatever she was going to do, she had to decide today. “May I have a few more moments with him alone?” she asked.
“Yes, of course. Take all the time you need.”
She bent down to him, and in a whisper asked, “Where do you want to go? And why the hell didn’t you wait for me to go with you?” She took in a deep breath and then noticed the painted metallic pin holding his tie: a bright red tomato.
She stood back up. “Sir, I’ve made up my mind,” she said.
“Where will he be headed today?” he asked again, as he walked up, ready to put in the coordinates.
She turned to him. “You’re too young to have been to earth—born on the ship—and this is all you know. But I remember, and so did my husband—did you know that back on earth everyone was recycled?”
The director paused and looked a little embarrassed. “Recycled?” She might as well have told him they used to throw everyone’s body into the trash. “A woman of your means doesn’t have to have him recycled.”
“A woman of my means can have exactly what she wants.”
She turned towards the casket, leaned in and kissed Everest’s hands. “What if you helped a tomato grow? It’s better than a star, I think… but you know I was never very good at these kinds of decisions.” She removed the small tomato pin on his tie, kissed it, and placed it in her pocket. Standing up, she turned to the director. “I’d like him recycled; I won’t have it any other way.”
by submission | Oct 2, 2021 | Story |
Author: Anna Hamilton
After the seas rose and the Earth caked, after the crops withered and died, after you launched spacecraft into the upper atmosphere, silently watching from above as the greens faded and the browns grew and, too miniscule now to see, your buildings crumbled: then, you believed you could achieve the rank of the gods.
Evolution halted. With no external environment to play judge to the fittest, to shift genes and brains and bone structures, you were changeless. Your medical technology allowed you to live, not for tens of years, now, but for thousands.
For a million years you waited out the Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction. Then you returned to a planet hot and lush, replenished with new life forms. For the next millions of years, some of you remained in space, but some of you spread out again over the surface of the earth. You marveled at the endless forms most beautiful in this new Eden, for millions, for billions of years.
But your time would not last forever. Even the sun had its fated end. The sun swelled red like a blister, hot and throbbing. The Earth parched. The surface dwellers were forced to depart. You know now that this source of life and light, which was once your god, would fail you. The only gods you have left are yourselves.
by submission | Oct 1, 2021 | Story |
Author: Shannon O’Connor
We met at a Star Trek convention in New York. I was dressed as Worf; she wasn’t dressed up, but she was wearing a Quark T-shirt, and she looked out of place.
“Have you ever been to a convention before?” I asked her.
“No English,” she said.
“What do you speak?”
“Deutsche.”
I didn’t know any German.
“Vjljathl!” I said.
She smiled. “Vjljatlh!”
We continued speaking in Klingon. It was the best day of my life.
Her name was Greta and she was a study abroad student. She looked up words in her English dictionary, but we liked speaking Klingon better because it’s a powerful language. She told me it’s a lot like German, people speak vehemently, emphasizing what they want to say. We decided English lacks strength that Klingon has.
We moved in together after six months. We watched Star Trek every night before we went to bed. She liked sex the Klingon way, and it was difficult to keep up with her, but I did my best.
There were some strange things about Greta. She didn’t like to eat American food all the time, sometimes she liked to eat worms that she dug up in Central Park. I asked her if that’s what they did in Germany, and she said in Germany things were different, and they ate live animals. I had never heard of that custom in Germany, I thought they ate sausages and drank beer. She said she and her Klingon-loving boyfriend ate live worms and bugs back home. She didn’t tell me if everyone else did such a thing.
And she could fight! One day a woman gave her strange looks when we were out at a bar, and she took out a bat she carried in her backpack and hit her with it over the head. I had to pull her away, but the woman screamed that she was going to sue her, so we ran out of the bar.
“Those pussies know nothing of honor!” Greta screamed in Klingon. “She would sue me because she cannot defend herself. Coward!”
“I agree.” I thought Greta might take the Klingon culture a little too seriously. I wanted to explain to her that we didn’t live in the Star Trek universe, but I wasn’t sure how she would react. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t have any honor.
Greta, with all her strange habits, was irresistible, but I had a feeling something terrible was going to happen.
“This is it,” she said. “I’m going home.”
“Are you going back to Germany?”
“No, stupid, I’m going to Kronos, the Klingon homeworld.”
“But that’s not real, Greta.”
“Why don’t you think it’s real? This is our culture, our passion. Don’t you have any honor?”
“Of course, I have honor, but sweetie, it’s only a TV show.”
“That’s what you think. It’s time for me to leave.”
“But how are you going to get there?”
“I will be energized, and then I’ll get to the ship! Do you think the ship is actually going to land here?”
“Greta, I think you need help.”
“I don’t need your help anymore. I’ve learned all there is to learn. Thank you for everything.”
She stood straight up. A light beamed on her, and she disappeared.
“But how could this be true?”
I thought it was a joke. She couldn’t be gone.
Was she Klingon, or was she crazy? Greta disappeared in a beam of light, and I knew I would never forget her.
by submission | Sep 30, 2021 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
Unlike what most people were used to seeing, the “Squirmers” were nothing like us. To begin with, though about our size, they were horizontal, flexible, and a deep murky grey, with tufts of neon green fur. They had twelve eyes and a mouth like a sideways S, and they were generalist omnivores. Originating far outside our system, they were adapted to a relatively temperate, high-gravity super-Earth. And they came to our terrene orb on unique vessels shaped like spirals, designed entirely to their form and build. Instead of seats, they had tubes. Instead of controls for five-fingered hands, they had ergonomic panels and smart screens for four hooked forelimbs.
The “Squirmers’s” purpose for visiting was much like our reasons for searching for new asteroids, planets, and stars: curiosity, exploration, habitats, resources, self-preservation, etc. What was really intriguing was that, unlike many who were petrified by or repulsed at the sight of the “Squirmers,” they were fascinated by and fond of the lanky, upright, walking reeds they found in our corner of the cosmos. Indeed, from the point of view of the “Squirmers,” human beings were adorable and cute looking, like pirouetting larva infants and babies.
Communicating with the “Squirmers” was initially difficult and sometimes impossible. Not having arms, bodies, and mouths like ours, they gestured completely differently, and also not having vocal cords or hearing organs, they “spoke” and “listened” by signal odors, which smelled like uprooted grass weed. They had a writing system resembling blotches, but it was actually a series of abstract pictures, each representing a full sentence, whose senses and tenses depended on context. Needless to say, without a spoken equivalent, the script was and remains extremely hard to learn.
Not surprisingly, there was much misunderstanding after the “Squirmers” landed. Many people thought they were witless, though their technology belied the misperception. Nevertheless, despite the hostility the “Squirmers” faced in the beginning, they were benign. As a highly monistic species, they also did not worry about individual death. Revealingly, when the first alienist hate crimes against them occurred, the “Squirmers” literally did nothing, yet twenty-eight of their own had been mutilated and eviscerated. By their philosophical traditions, the living and the dead were a single mode of appearing and not clearly distinguished stages of corporeal existence.
The “Squirmers” certainly cherished life, of course, and strove to preserve their sentience in the violent, indifferent expanse, but mortality itself was never a source of heart sickness to them, in their ten hearts. Their lifespan was significantly long by human standards—five hundred and twelve years—and to be sure, the whole landing party that originally came was composed of some of the most venerable “Squirmers” around. However, physically, distinctions in age between grown “Squirmers” were not obvious, even among themselves. They could naturally slow down their aging process, and they had accelerated healing abilities as well.
So after coming in their spiral-shaped vessels, the “Squirmers” spent seven years introducing themselves around our world and establishing foreign missions for diplomatic relations, friendship exchanges, and inter-system trade. A full thirty years was needed for most people to get used to the “Squirmers,” but already in the ninth year after the arrival, the new generation did not see what the previous problem was about, and in fact, several kids wanted to be “Squirmers,” too.
The culture war between the old and the young seethed for a while, and today, there are still some rogue individuals and groups who revile the “Squirmers.” All the same, even though they look nothing at all like us, they never showed us any malice or harm over fifty-six years, so we last-remaining twenty-first-centurians may as well learn to accept their differences, as they accepted ours.
