by submission | Oct 9, 2021 | Story |
Author: Kevin Criscione
We built fires for warmth, shelter from the elements, crude wooden tools to continue building, among other necessities, more crude wooden tools. We found our rhythm, working in simple motions out in the open air. Eventually, we had huts, fire pits, hunting weaponry, an art cave, clear organizational hierarchies, a community. We used some materials we had taken from the burning cities – plastic tubes, bandages, sheets – and tried to craft everything else ourselves. There, beneath the Appalachian mountainside and the scorching sun, we found a way to keep living.
I taught myself to thatch roofs. Anyone could forage the long skinny branches, but you needed a keen eye and deft hands to thread them together tightly. I had a vital role to play, something I hadn’t felt in my previous employment, waiting tables and pouring coffee for wealthy Fifth Avenue clientele.
Elle and I found each other quickly. I noticed something in her eyes, her way of speaking to others, her thoughts on the evolving world around us. A sense of humanity. She became fond of me, too. We were both looking for companionship, even if, for us, that often meant simply sitting in silence.
We built a citadel to house our grain and most valuable supplies, with footpaths branching out to the huts and farms and observation posts nested in the barren trees. We made plans for the long and dark winter ahead. We labored, schemed, and even laughed sometimes. We built a home.
Finally, we needed a purpose.
“Well, what did they do?” Elle asked as we gathered around the fire. “For purpose? What was the operating procedure?”
“I don’t think there was a clear procedure. It was a messy and very human process, involving imagination.”
“But there were specific actionable steps. They told stories around the fire. They invented gods and spirits, and eventually theories about utopia.”
“Yes! That’s what we need. Otherwise, we won’t really be carrying the torch.”
We didn’t actually need the warmth of the fires, the foraged berries, or even the shelter. Our synthetic bodies wouldn’t crack for at least several thousand years. However, the primitive pursuits made us feel connected to our creators. Mimicry was our way of ensuring that, though gone, humankind would not be forgotten. Perhaps one day, with practice, we could become them, or at least a close enough approximation.
I’ve had visions – one might call them dreams – of returning to the ruined cities, with their hollowed out factories and salvageable secrets. I believe it can be done. We can find some of the technology the humans had, and build the rest ourselves. We’ll tinker around until we produce the next generation of our kind, just like humans produced other humans so naturally and beautifully. We’ll build a generation that is smarter, stronger, faster, and more capable of creating its own meaning, that no apocalypse could ever destroy.
“Why don’t we start with stories?” I offered. “Who has one?”
The firelit stares of thirty-one androids turned my way. Elle smiled while gently placing her arm around me. Like me, she has had visions. She believes.
We may find that, after all is said and done, after millennia of religion and art and war and philosophizing about the human condition, humanity’s ultimate purpose was to simply build the next step: artificial intelligence that could survive the collapse of the climate and continue fighting for the great human dream. The Roombas and the self-driving cars couldn’t do that, but we can.
“I can begin,” I said. “I might have a story in me.”
by submission | Oct 8, 2021 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
“Not one of your better ideas Inky.” My yelling echoed against the reinforced beams and lines of ready ships stored in launch five.
I shook my head as Enrique Chacon selected and boarded a starcraft alone from the space station’s shuttle bay, or should I say stolen? His reputation as a daring Latino space explorer would only grow and spread after such bravado. By order, the hangar remained bone-chilling cold. Even with that, odors of toasted reentry metal plates filled my mouth with acrid filth.
“Can’t help it. Got to have that last chevron. Only three other cosmos got a selfie there. That’s rare company, Mayfield.”
Inky used my last name when he wanted to make a point that he was a commander while I remained a shuttle captain, simply babysitting robots transporting VIPs and medical supplies between worlds.
“How do I explain this to Central? They’ll pull your bars…maybe put you on a prison planet when you get back…if you do. How can one photo be that important?”
I pulled up my synth suit sleeve, revealing burn scars from an engine test backfire for interdimensional jumps that caught me off guard when I was first out of Academy. My grizzly reminder itched with a crawling pain when bad events were in the wind.
“Commander, AS 134 is still off-limits, even to the Emperor. Every alien race we’ve met avoids it. Those three you admire in the Halls of Records have no graves or memorials. We only show their last, grainy photos. No doubt, standing that close to a black hole with all the stars imploding with their bursting arrays behind you, the comets circling and dying in that pit’s dark blue halo framed by double pink nebulae ionic waterfalls…fabulous. I get it. But it’s a suicide run, Inky. You’ve got decades of adventure ahead. Why now? You have everything other pilots dream of in our empire.”
Chacon waved me off as he closed the entry portal. “A few decades and I’ll be a gray-haired dribbler at the age centers. Ever been there? Gives a new perspective. If I’m near AS 134, I might find the other three, still watching, looking back as all of you fade and disintegrate into your time as ours slows. It’s the sizzle from the steak of immortality. Can’t get that at the commissary. It’s one to a customer. Appreciated our service together, Mayfield. You’re a good sort. You’ll move up, but don’t hold back. Grab wild and wonderful things that come along…and they will. Make your life a flame, not a sputter.”
With that, Chacon closed the door. I slammed the bay door shut, out of harm’s way, spitting bitterness from my throat, as blue plasma roared around his circular ship blinking into the compelling void. Weeks later, I received a short video of Inky with the black hole AS 134 behind him. The new interstellar cameras finally worked. The brief video was every bit as stunning as he described so often in his infamous tirade about the inkiness of space. I’ll remember him as forever walking towards the camera as he shared the rarest views known in the galaxy. It’s now playing continuously on the wall with the other three daring souls’ previously sketchy records. All of them risked everything for a momentary magnificent stroll. If Einstein’s theories about such places are correct, Chacon is watching our galaxy dissolve as he drifts slowly back into a singularity—the ultimate unknown, while I settle for my bucket without a list. I wonder if he is alone.
by submission | Oct 7, 2021 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
Ubn Kal-Zar, sovereign prince of Neo Ara, was extremely pleased with his family’s accomplishments and his kingdom—a vast, atmospherically controlled, self-sustaining network city encircling the equator of Mars. That Ubn’s line and nation would be the pioneers of the Martian Age was never apparent in the twentieth century, but became increasingly so into the mid-twenty-first, after the famed linear city was constructed on Earth-based Old Ara. Indeed, in retrospect, the off-Earth development was self-evident. After all, did the great civilizations from Sumer to Babylon not form in the midst of far-flung, torrid terrains, mostly dry, desolate, and dead? And what was Mars but a massive desert land, something within the age-old experiences of the earthy desert peoples.
Ubn Kal-Zat, Ubn Kal-Zan, and Ubn Kal-Zar were the three royal scions who successively commissioned and turned the network city from a speculative fantasy into a concrete reality, establishing Neo Ara to exploit a wealth of natural resources—frozen water, inorganic elements, wind energy, geothermal energy—and to honor the forefathers and the foremothers. Neo Ara, a city built for men, women, and children, the scions maintained, not for machines, and founded on the principles of ecology, efficiency, and equanimity, under the benevolent will of the all-powerful All Knowing. While the Ubn dynasty prided itself on the law-abiding, theocratic, absolute monarchy on the red wanderer—home to 2.9 million subjects and stably growing—rival governments, organizations, and industries on the planetary neighbor Earth were unfavorable to the Martian Kingdom, making several attempts to undermine, even overthrow, it by means of ZamaNet hacking, space embargoes, and agitational propaganda.
The first group to be tried for the attempts of civic disruption were some two-hundred partisans of the ultra-leftist Popular Planetist Party, who were publicly beaten and beheaded on the charges of terrorism, sedition, and atheism. In a way, the network city was a fortress of durability and rectitude—because of its place, population, and personalism. The liberal, progressive, and radical tendencies made a hue and cry over Neo Ara, condemning it as abominable and unconscionable, a model of space tyranny and despotism—an abattoir of transhuman rights abuses and crimes against humanity. While the Martian Kingdom was not free of imperfections—despite its advanced design—Ubn Kal-Zar and his ruling family had a mass base of support: the chieftains, the clerics, the intellectuals, the magistrates, and the mothers, whose loyalty earned the social groups material privileges, spiritual followings, lifelong tenures, legal influence, and domestic stipends—along with maids, mansions, swimming pools, and escalator schools.
Ubn Kal-Zar was on the third floor of his palatial villa, observing the miles and miles of the network city composed of serene districts, farms, forests, gravitrons, heliostats, parks, preserves, roads, temples, and waterways. Beyond the rim of the urbanscape, the outlands were cold, dry, and stern. The ancient sun poured over the realm. The prince held up his palms, closed his eyes, and said, “The All Knowing is good and wise.”
by submission | Oct 6, 2021 | Story |
Author: Kathryn Smith
I see them at night the most, the cogs turning in her head. She thinks I don’t know that she’s awake, going over thoughts again and again and again. She’s always been too open, maybe that’s what drew me to her in the first place. I tried to persuade her not to do it, but she didn’t listen; she let them get inside her mind.
One morning I wake up to a letter placed at her bedside table. It’s addressed to her but I open it anyway; if she can let them inside her mind then why can’t I read her letters? I quickly trace my eyes along the words: ‘Dear Mrs. Jones, you are required for an update at your nearest Think Clear centre next week on 07/04/2038). This update is a legal requirement for all our customers and as such, if you do not attend there will be consequences. Kind Regards, Think Clear.’. I crumple the letter in my hands and hold in a sob, still trying not to wake her. Another update; a lesser wife.
Three weeks later we’re in bed together and I can hear the cogs turning as they always do, but suddenly a great screeching noise pulls me out of my half slumber and I turn to face her. She lays motionless with eyes wide as the cogs creak, screech, and grind against one another causing sparks to fly into the air above us. A tear falls from her eye for the first time in five years as a cog drops to the floor beside her. She attempts to pick it up, but she can only bend down so far before the cogs start grinding even more ferociously. I pick it up instead, wipe away the dust, and read ‘Think Clear cog. No.3746. Last Updated 07/04/2037’.
I never had the heart to tell her parents that I’d put the letter in the bin.
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.
