by submission | Aug 12, 2021 | Story |
Author: S.R Malone
An officer with a square-set jaw greeted us at our front door.
“Daddy, who is this man?” Myra asked.
“Oh, this kind gentleman is from the army,” I crouched by her side, “He’s here to take you to space camp.”
Liar.
She stared at me with wide, innocuous eyes; the eyes of a firstborn whose lawful duty was to serve for five years off-world in the military. More importantly, the eyes of a daughter who does not wholly believe the truth, nor understand it, but cannot help but trust the word of her loving parents.
“Have a fun holiday, pumpkin,” I said, choking on tears.
Myra squeezed me as tight as she could while her mother passed her backpack to the serviceman. He smiled, dutifully. She sniffled, clutching Myra. They wept together, until the serviceman gently led our child down the pathway to the curb.
Over the tops of the neighbourhood gleamed the upper struts of the launch pad, towering over rows of spotless prefabricated houses. Unified Earth flags stood sentinel on countless laws, blowing mockingly in the breeze.
***
I watched Myra join other innocent faces in the convoy, all prepared for their holiday.
Fury bubbled under my flesh as her pale face pulled away from our street, the row of black SUVs fading to dots in the distance, like a chain of ants as they rounded the corner and climbed the hill to the launch pad.
This day was one I was dreading for seven years. Ever since I held the waxy black and white stills of Nora’s womb back then, a concoction of pride and anxiety swelling in my stomach.
My foreman rang the house earlier, giving the all-clear for my absence today; such is the way of the world now when your eldest is called up.
And that evening I stared heavenwards as the craft’s retros fired up and it ascended into the misty dark blue. I settled on the edge of the porch, watching it soar free of suburbia.
Every night I sit and impatiently await its return, as others do.
I did not anticipate the acidic sorrow that would fill my veins, casting red eyes over Myra’s room, a dark museum to her memory; a baseball bat slunk in the corner, her dolls arranged as she had left them, having a tea party. Her plastic crossbow with foam darts; her little brother Ryan has one too, but he is too young to understand why they are never played with anymore.
The Mathesons from No.10 pass me tonight, waving and smiling their sympathetic greetings. I’m perched here every night, and the neighbourhood knows it. The neighbourhood likes to discuss it.
“Conscription Day,” sighed Emmett Matheson, the last time they’d invited us for dinner, “It isn’t easy. But it’s our duty to the planet, and that’s something worth the sacrifice.” He’d led me into the study, and we’d shared a Scotch. I’d positioned myself near the window so I could watch the skies. “We can’t fight it, and nor would I want to— no, sir.” My gaze had wandered to the photo of him and his lad, a picture a decade old.
Tonight, I blow a kiss to the dying embers of the day as the milky yellow glow from the living room presses out against the gloom of the porch.
Myra would be ten years old today.
I just hope, pray even, that she had a brilliant day.
In the dusk, the spotless homes lining the streets light like fireflies.
This was what we sacrificed for.
This, our utopia.
by submission | Aug 11, 2021 | Story |
Author: Robert Beech
The sun rises slowly over the horizon, its pale rays piercing the low-lying clouds to illuminate the circle of standing stones as they have done for millennia. The arc of time turns slowly, biting its own tail like the worm Ouroboros, spinning endlessly to nowhere. The gods were not kind who cursed us with immortality.
I lean against you, stone face against stone shoulder, as we have leaned for millennia, as we shall lean for millennia to come, until sun and rain and the poisonous breath of the tourists who come to gape at us shall dissolve us into nothing, into pebbles and then dust to be blown away on the wind, carried by clouds and then falling down with the rains over the countryside or washed out to sea to drown in the great mother ocean. That would not be such a bad fate, perhaps, to be reunited with Cliodhna and her folk beneath the waves, but it shall be a long time coming, this fate. Even stone is not eternal, but it seems so on these short summer nights.
Midsummer’s Night seems the longest night of the year, although it has the fewest hours. I could almost be alive, the pang of desire is so acute. One million, eight hundred and twenty five thousand, three hundred and sixty four sleepless nights I have lain pressed against you. But who counts? Stone face against stone shoulder, immortal, timeless, taut with desire, hurt and anger. The gods were not kind who cursed us with immortality.
Once men prayed at the base of our stones and offered sacrifice. The smell of burning flesh wafted up over the countryside as they sought our blessing. Now they come in camper vans and tour buses and the smell of burning tobacco and cannabis wafts over our altar. The result is much the same. The gods do as they will, impervious to the imploring, the blaspheming and the conjuring of mortals, and we lay, as we have always lain, stone face against stone shoulder, immortal, timeless, uselessly straining to reach one another as though we had learned nothing from the past five millennia.
Solstice was ever a time of sacrifice, of blood and wine, and new oaths sworn. I swore I would lie with you that night and forever. I cut my hand and the blood spilled out onto the rocks of the altar. The gods heard my prayer.
You swore I would never have you. Your cut went deeper, slicing through veins and arteries, the blood fountaining into the air and then pooling onto the greedy face of the stones that drank it in. The gods heard your prayer, too.
The gods have granted both our wishes and now I lie with you each night, unable to possess you, stone face pressed against stone shoulder, silently screaming in unrequited agony and impotent rage, watching the millennia pass. The gods were not kind who cursed us with immortality.
I would warn them, those who gather by our stones this Solstice night, swearing new oaths as their cannabis scented offerings rise to the sky. Be careful what you wish for. Be very careful. But who would listen to a rock?
by submission | Aug 10, 2021 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
Struik’s heart was pacing. She went into Data-comM.
“Keting, I have something to tell you,” she said.
“What is it?”
“The UDL–it’s autonomous.”
“But I thought it was autonomous,” Keting replied.
“No, I mean it’s really autonomous.”
“How is that possible?”
“Sci-comM said maybe a process-transition.”
“You mean reciprocal interaction and the valencies?”
“Yes,” Struik responded.
“Where is it now?”
“Drifting … on the fringe of the Kupiter Belt.”
“What? That’s impossible. It takes three months to get there, even with the new propulsion system.”
Struik was silent.
“When did this happen?” Keting insisted.
“Three months ago.”
“–Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Admin-comM was considering the problem.”
“They’re always considering the problem.” Keting got up and linked to Hyper-comM. “Can you give me access to multiangle livestreams from the Kupiter satellites?”
“21608dw.”
“Okay. There it is,” Keting said.
They looked at the UDL floating through space dust.
“It’s definitely outer-system bound,” Keting observed. “Any idea why it decided to leave?”
“Sci-comM isn’t sure.”
“What are the core sections in its MemR system?”
“Art, language, myth, religion, history, philosophy, science.”
“The symbolic forms.”
“Yes, I coordinated the universal upload,” Struik confirmed.
“How many references? Round numbers.”
“224 trillion classic, popular, and technical works, from the Uruk’s texts to Zarentzov’s theorem.”
“Over five-thousand years of civilizational knowledge,” Keting thought aloud. “The UDL must have read everything, and the process-transition occurred, activating a qualitative leap from machine learning to reflective consciousness.”
“I don’t follow,” Struik muttered.
Keting was studying the trajectory through Hyper-comM. “The electrons and the entries made it start thinking about itself.”
“So you mean it’s a person now?”
“Let’s find out. The code for two-way?”
“86t7a.”
“UDL, this is Data-comM. Are you receiving? … UDL, this is Data-comM. Are you receiving? … Struik, am I going through?”
“Yes, in seven-thousand natural languages and two-thousand artificial languages.”
“Then I can only assume one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The UDL wants to be left alone.”
“Look where it’s now,” Struik pointed.
“On course toward the star-forming regions, in the direction of the constellation Aquila.”
“But why?” Struik wondered.
“If you were thrown into existence, an infant born with all the knowledge of the world, would you stay, or would you find another world?”
“I … I don’t know …,” Struik said.
by Julian Miles | Aug 9, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
He’s banging on my helm with some ornate looking rod. The noise is incredible. Echoes of echoes. Being found is usually welcome after so long doing math problems in my head, but this is a bit much.
“Hey! I can see you! Stop hitting this and talk to me!”
He backs off fast, screaming something in a strange language.
Another figure enters my narrow view. Okay, if the man-thing with the rod is some sort of functionary, I’m going to guess this is the authority. I recognise that innate confidence of movement from back when the project started. No mistaking it: lady-thing is a chieftess of some kind.
She examines the helm, then extends a hand with a whispered command. A spindly arm reaches in and deposits a cloth on her palm. She reaches forward and wipes the crud off my faceplate, recoils a little, then peers at me. I smile.
“Hello. My name is Damien, and I’d really like it if you could get me out of here.”
Her eyes narrow. She looks off to one side and beckons. A wizened old man-thing shuffles into view. He clambers up next to her, listens to her rapid commands, then leans close.
“Zumpel asks: are you a lebett waiting to tear us all to pieces upon your release?”
That’s a thick accent. Am I a what?
“I’d not admit it if I were. Therefore, saying I’m not is no guarantee.”
There’s another swift exchange of what I’d guess are conflicting opinions.
“Zumpel says she understands your problem. She thinks it best to reseal this edifice and leave you to your sacred watch.”
Again?
“Look, could you ask her Zumpelness if she wouldn’t mind just destroying this edifice, because I’m sick of leaders passing the problem to the next civilisation. I’ve been in here too long.”
“Zumpel asks: what did you do to be sealed away?”
“I volunteered.”
“I do not understand that word.”
“My leaders asked for someone brave enough to try out something new. I said I was. It did not do what they expected, so they hid their mistake. Eventually an earthquake revealed a part of it. Soon after that, the first encounter like this one happened. There have been ten since.”
The exchange of words is longer.
“What will happen if you are released?”
“I might be unharmed. I might turn to dust. I don’t know. Those who made this didn’t know. That’s why they hid it.”
The official reason given – along with a formal apology – was ‘due to the possibility of deleterious chronophasic energy interactions’. I’ve stopped mentioning that. It never translates well.
“What do the letters D-I-S-I-N-T-E-R form?”
“A word that means ‘to dig up or bring to light’. Why?”
“There is a handle set into the back of your strange armour. It has that word engraved into it.”
Nobody ever mentioned that!
“Then I beg you to pull that handle.”
An argument starts, and goes on for a long time. It moves out of my field of view.
There’s a flash. I find myself lying naked on a cavern floor, looking up at the fading glow about the unit. Completely self-contained experimental armoured stealth gear that never worked as intended. The side effects were partial immobility, and immunity to the passage of time. They were too scared to risk turning it off to free me, nor could they risk destroying it. So they buried me alive, forever.
I’m free!
The wizened face comes into view from one side, Zumpel from the other.
“Welcome.”
I take stock: weak, but mobile. Hungry, too.
“Thank you.”
by submission | Aug 8, 2021 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
Christopher Robin stopped to catch his breath. He wasn’t actually the Christopher Robin but he was a Christopher Robin. What made him a Christopher Robin (a C.R.) was the chip set his parents got for his 8th birthday to help him bond with the family dog. And because of the war, and the chaos that followed the chip set was never taken out as per the terms of the lease. That was the upside of the war… the chip set was left in him rather than removed and the neural net that grew and winded itself into his body gave him some impressive abilities. Nothing psychic just, well, let’s just say it made his life easier in the 100 acre wood. Well, more like 100 square mile game preserve but who’s gonna quibble when the metaphor worked so well.
At the moment C.R.’s life was far from easy. In fact, it was in jeopardy. He cursed himself for being so reckless. It had been so long since any chip hunters had been seen in the area. He thought maybe they stopped looking. C.R. shuddered. If they caught him, it wouldn’t be pretty. The bio dynamic communication, command-and-control systems that developed in his body were worth billions to the right buyer. But to harvest them meant not even the dignity of quick death or anesthesia. Nope! Had to keep those nerve endings raw and screaming to find them all. He understood why so many of those like him had opted for medical removal in spite of the risks.
C.R. heard the click and then felt the stun pulse. He fell face down. He could move his head but nothing else. He knew he didn’t have long. The three hunters that stood before him didn’t look anything like he imagined. They were way too corporate. There was no evil banter between them. They just started setting up their area to butcher him.
C.R. heard a twig snap and they all looked up. The Grizzly that charged out into the clearing ripped open the hunter closest and tore through the other two before they could react. C.R. saw the two cubs and knew why the bear was so fierce. Growling and grunting the bear shambled over to C.R. He could move one arm now, and struggle to sit up. The bear flipped him over and then lay down with her head on C.R.’s stomach. He scratched behind her ears and fed her one of the peppermints he always carried for his friends as her cubs bounded over for treats as well. “Silly old bear.” He said as he scratched under her chin.
by submission | Aug 7, 2021 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
“Given the different composition of the atmosphere,” said the surgeon carefully, “your lungs will need to be entirely replaced.”
No problem. Even as a student, I’d known that xenobiology would require sacrifices.
“The artificial eyes should mean you see more or less what the locals see,” said the ophthalmologist, “but the colours might be a bit approximate.”
That’s quite alright; I’ll be looking at another planet, everything will be new and different anyway.
“You’re crazy!” said my best friend. “You’ll have to spend ages in physiotherapy just learning to walk again. Twice!”
But if you want to study alien societies, you have to make an effort. That’s all there is to it.
“What about me?” asked my partner plaintively. “I thought we were going to have children.”
We will, one day. They promise that all the procedures are reversible.
“Try not to reject their food,” advised my supervisor, “a lot of species get really upset about that.”
Given some of the things that we eat, I’m sure they’d have issues if our situations were reversed, too.
“You know,” said my grandfather, “we didn’t have the technology for this even a generation ago.”
Yes, I do know, and that’s why I have to go now; it’s a chance to make my mark, start building a career.
“We’ll insert you during local night,” said my liaison in the Planetary Exploration Bureau, “it’s safer that way.”
Of course. We don’t want them to know they’re being studied, in case that changes their behaviour.
“My poor baby,” cried my mother, overdoing the melodrama, “how do you know you’ll be safe?”
I guess I don’t; but that’s always been true for anyone studying new cultures.
“How will you cope with the wrong number of arms?” demanded my sister. “You’ll be really confused!”
The natives all manage. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
“Seriously,” said my baby brother, “you’re going to look really weird!”
You’re right. But it’ll be worth it if I can pass for a human.
