by submission | Jan 8, 2021 | Story |
Author: Barry Boone
“We’re not going to make it.”
This from Damian. Always worrying. Which is what humans do best. Unfortunately, in this case, he was right: our ship couldn’t outrun the aliens.
“How long til entry?” he asked, his voice tight.
“Fifty-two seconds,” I said. I used my Star Trek computer voice. Which I knew bugged him. One of my pastimes.
“How long til intercept?” he asked, ignoring the provocation. So — he really was frightened.
“Fifty seconds,” I said.
“I blame you,” Damian said.
I winked, but he didn’t see. He was staring at the heads-up display showing their green line intersecting our blue squiggle just outside the wormhole’s throbbing purple torus.
“You should’ve fired the torpedoes sooner,” I said, switching to my annoyed Harrison Ford voice.
“You should have told me to.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but my programming censored my reply at the last moment, tagging it as “Unhelpful.”
“If we had one more,” I said, “we could’ve fired it for a boost and made it out. Probably. Newton’s Third Law and all.”
“Well, we don’t have one more,” Damian said, “thanks to someone telling me to FIRE ALL THREE!”
“It was the right call, in the moment,” I said. “They’d have blown us up back there.”
“Great. So we delayed death ten minutes. Good job, robot.”
I wondered: what had as much mass as a torpedo? Hmm… I unstrapped myself from the co-pilot’s seat.
“Where’re you going?”
“To see if there’s a fourth somewhere.”
“Wow, does that ever smell like desperation.”
Of course there wasn’t a fourth torpedo. Sure, sometimes I struggled with rounding errors, such as when I was calculating tricky relativistic effects. But I can proudly say that counting from three down to zero was something of a specialty.
Still, I knew what I had to do. I’d meant to do it quietly, but my metal exoskeleton could be difficult to fold into small spaces.
“Don’t tell me you found one,” Damian said, hearing all the banging.
“I did,” I said.
He turned around in his seat and did a double take.
“Get the hell out of there!”
“If I don’t launch myself,” I said, “we’ll both die.”
“I’m ordering you…”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said (C3PO voice). “I’m just a robot.”
“Don’t,” he said. “I’ll… I’ll miss you too much.”
“Sure, I’m amazing. The best. Also, I think you’ll get the boost you need.”
“They’ll capture you.”
“Not to worry,” I said cheerfully. “I already initiated self-destruct.”
“You WHAT?”
“Do me a favor. Play a game of computer chess when you get back. For old times’ sake.”
“I hate you,” he said.
“I hate you more,” I said.
I shot into space, and wow, what a ride!
Andromeda was a fairy-tale pinwheel. The alien ship looked big, even in the vastness. Its tentacles reached for me like a moon-sized squid. My sensors registered 3-degrees Kelvin — a tad chilly, so I dialed down all inputs. Anyway, less feeling would be good when I exploded.
9… 8… 7…
I know Damian. He’s a sentimental sap. He’ll play chess, just like I told him to.
The entertainment value will be lousy, so he’ll investigate, find something unlabeled taking up memory reserved for the gaming system.
6… 5… 4…
Turns out, a copy of me takes up a lot of yottabytes. He’s not getting rid of me that easily.
Damian’s ship wavered in the blurry edge of the wormhole, then vanished like a mirage. The aliens veered away.
Oh, look! I’m about to count from three down to zero. My specialty, remember?
by submission | Jan 7, 2021 | Story |
Author: Tripp Watson
Lucy sat on her bedside and stared at the tiny gap between two of the many grey, plastic panels that composed her bedroom wall. The entirety of Station Bravo’s interior was built of these plastic panels, but only these two with the tiny gap between held Lucy’s gaze. Because this is where it came, she thought. Maybe it only came because this is where she had first left food out, but nonetheless, this is where it came. She slid a small screwdriver into the gap and snapped open one of the panels. She produced a morsel of dried meat from her pocket and pushed it onto the sharp line made between the fluorescent light and the inky darkness beyond the wall.
She knew she couldn’t continue this for much longer. Although she only took a small amount from each crew members’ rations per day—barely an ounce—it was beginning to be evident. Where once the commander’s jumpsuit clung to his arms in a tailored, if not flattering manner, it now began to sag and seem ill-fitted. The chief engineer was hollowing in the cheeks, and even some of the med-staff looked fatigued. The entire crew ate their allotted calories and worked out in the gravity pod as instructed, but the feeling of unease was spreading.
Someone would die eventually; Lucy assumed that. Maybe a few before anyone figured her out, but she didn’t find that important. This was important. This small square of darkness in front of her. This was why mankind pushed the boundaries of exploration.
From somewhere behind the wall she heard a small bump and then a slow, dragging rustle. She watched as a small coil of wire was pushed to the side and a hand—no bigger than a doll’s—emerged from the darkness. It’s skin was black and wet with a viscous film that reflected the fluorescent light. The hand had sharp claws the color of flesh on three of its fingers. The fourth, something like a thumb, Lucy had once noted, was really more of a black talon like that on a bird of prey. It picked up the morsel of food slowly and purposefully but with no sign of timidity. Then, with Lucy peering from her bedside, the otherworldly doll’s hand retracted into the darkness.
The years of preparation and briefing didn’t matter. What ground control would say if they found out was of no consequence; for Lucy, her mission was clear.
by submission | Jan 6, 2021 | Story |
Author: Andrew Dunn
Tijani queued with other girls alongside a block wall, its once brightly painted designs sun-bleached and flaking. It was September, dry and hot. Sweat jeweled like dewdrops on her face, moistening on her skin. The clatter of an air conditioner teased the possibility of a cool classroom inside. They were students.
Students being a simple term that belied the gravity of the situation. Lunar gravity specifically. A generation of moon mining lessened the mass of Earth’s largest satellite. The lunar cycle was off, ever more erratic each year, altering tides and seasons. But not Septembers. It was as hot as any Tijani remembered.
Tijani’s teacher was a scientist. Mr. Ikego’s skin was light, the color of teeth Tijani thought. His hair was gray, and he stooped and shuffled like her grandpa, leaning on a cane. But Mr. Ikego hadn’t lived his years in the markets and fields. Mr. Ikego spoke of Tokyo, and a dozen trips he made into space when he was young.
Tijani was walking into the cool of the classroom. Mr. Ikego was saying “Good morning” and imploring students to take seats.
“I have exciting news.” Mr. Ikego said. “Your work is showing progress. I will put an email I received on the bulletin board later so you can see.”
Tijani was reading what the teacher scribbled on the board months before. ‘The world depends on you.’ She mumbled, “And the gravity machine,” mopping sweat from her skin before sticking electrodes to her temple and base of her neck. Their wires snaked down the leg of her desk into a conduit with others, and then past the teacher’s desk through a hole in the wall. The gravity machine was on the other side.
Tijani hadn’t seen it, but Fa’izah had. Fa’izah stayed after school once to wait for her brother to finish soccer practice. Fa’izah was strolling corridors, listening to sounds filtering in from outside. And she was listening to the hum from behind a closed door one down from their classroom.
“I looked inside.” Fa’izah told Tijani, “It was big and grey with wires and blinking lights.”
Tijani didn’t know whether to believe Fa’izah. There was no reason not to, and there was no denying that whatever was inside the room was tethered to a dish antenna on the school’s roof.
Mr. Ikego was shuffling down the rows, laying folders on desks. Inside Tijani would find a stack of punch cards and math problems.
Electrodes would siphon synaptic energy she and other students expended solving the problems and punching cards. Mr. Ikego would collect cards every hour and hurry them to the machine. The gravity machine would check their work, and combine them with synaptic energy into pulses the rooftop antenna beamed into space.
Mr. Ikego connected his laptop to a projector to explain it all once. A dozens places on Earth were beaming pulses up to satellites that amplified the signals, and swirled them around Earth the way the ceiling fan in the corridor churned stale September air – a long shot at keeping a wayward moon from stealing too much more of an already thinned atmosphere.
“There aren’t many like you.” Mr. Ikego said, depositing the last folder on Fa’izah’s desk.
Tijani was reading again what the teacher had written on the dry-erase board.
Mr. Ikego was staring at his stopwatch. “Ready. Set.”
And Tijani was scraping pencil on paper, new dewdrops of sweat beading on her forehead as the weight of it all levied heavy on her spirit.
by submission | Jan 5, 2021 | Story |
Author: David Henson
When a buzzing sound distracts Cage Edward Fox, he stumbles at the top step and cartwheels to the bottom. He lies motionless a moment then gets to his feet and continues to the garage.
#
Cage parks his car and takes his fishing tackle from the trunk. Short-cutting to a pond in the hills, he howls as something chomps his ankle. He reaches down and strains apart the jaws of the bear trap enough to free his foot.
Hopping in circles, he stirs up an underground hornets’ nest. Screaming, he stumbles toward the water to escape the wasps but loses his bearings and tumbles off a cliff.
When he comes to, his whole body aches like a bad tooth.
#
The next morning Cage goes to the front porch for the Sunday paper and finds a package marked EMCA. He opens it, and an explosion sends him flying. As he looks down on the roof, he thinks he must be dead. But when he thuds to the ground, he realizes a ghost wouldn’t feel such pain.
#
Cage is walking down the crowded sidewalk toward work when people start shouting and diving aside. Seeing a growing shadow at his feet, he looks up at a falling piano. It crushes him with the sound of a dozen minor chords. He lies under the piano in a puddle of hurt then extricates himself.
#
“OK, Fox. You’re free,” the guard says.
Cage’s eyes flutter. “What … ?”
“The disorientation’ll clear up. I’m John Peters. You’re Cage Fox. You’ve been serving time under Forced Dream Punishment protocols.”
The electrodes buzz as Peters removes them from Cage’s temples. “Damn feedback,” Peters says. “Your sentence has been commuted. They’ve decided it was self-defense when you beat that guy to a pulp.”
Cage leaves his cell and heads for the exit sign. After a few steps, a looped rope tightens around his foot and yanks him toward the ceiling. As Cage dangles upside down, Peters morphs into a cartoon and whacks him with a stick as if he were a piñata.
#
“OK, Fox, you’re getting out.” Peters removes the electrodes from Cage’s temples. “Enjoy your freedom.”
“You’re not fooling me again.” Cage stays in his cell.
#
“This is Cage Fox,” Peters says to a younger man. “He lives here. He’s been free to leave for years, but prefers not to. Cage, I’m retiring. Sanders is my replacement.” Peters nods toward the exit. “Old friend, it’d warm my heart cockles to see you walk out that door.”
Cage guffaws. “Still trying to flim my flam, aren’t you?”
#
“Cage, you’ve a visitor,” Sanders says.
After Cage and the young woman chat a few minutes, she hands him her phone. “Dad, this is a picture of Sally, your granddaughter. Don’t you want to see her?”
“I’d love to, Honey. Can you bring her in?”
“If you want to see her, you have to leave this place once and for all.”
Cage sighs. OK, he thinks. Life’s passing me by. Sally looks so cute. Eyeing the floor with every step, he makes his way to the door without incident. “I can’t believe it. All this time I was free to go?”
Sanders shrugs.
“After you, Dad.”
Cage grins and opens the door. A freight train roars through it. The train grinds to a stop, and Cage slides off the front of the engine. After a moment, he climbs to his feet, groaning. Then Cage E. Fox hears a buzz and is hit with an irresistible urge to buy a vintage Plymouth muscle car and pedal-to-the-metal it on Breakneck Road. Beep beep.
by Julian Miles | Jan 4, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The mist-shrouded marsh is spotted with steaming pools of purple liquid, which, unlike the mud, won’t grip you like glue. It’ll either wash the blue-black slime from your boots, or you’ll disappear into it, never to be seen again. Some say the pools are the traps of an unknown ambush predator. Others use terms like ‘sinkhole’ and ‘bottomless’.
Through the hushed gloom, two figures move. The one in the lead strides slowly, letting powered armour take the strain while sensors probe the marshland ahead. The one behind moves with exaggerated sneaking movements, like some pantomime villain.
“‘Romeo, Romeo-’”
The lead figure spins and points the arm without a mounted blaster at the other figure.
“Cut it out, Shakespeare.”
“The name’s Bond. Julius Bond.”
“You keep saying that. I presume there’s some antiquated pun value I’m fortunate enough to be ignorant of?”
Julius relaxes from his one-foot-raised comedic freeze and sighs theatrically.
“You’re ignorant of our noble heritage, Captain Cadava. Cultural icons are how the future is shaped.”
Romeo chuckles.
“That explains why each mission improves the ratings of whichever political leader got the most leverage at the previous strategy meeting, rather than achieving any objective that might end the fighting.” He waves his arm about: “I used to call this place home. Now the province I grew up in is nothing but radioactive dirt, and the rest of the planet isn’t much better.”
“You lived around here?”
“Born next to the River Adissa. Lived there until I had to join up. I hunted through marshes like this when they were small enough to have their own names.”
“Galley rumour says you’re a conscript?”
“Close. I’m a signee. My choices were life imprisonment or service in the Consolidated Forces.”
Julius stops next to Romeo.
“That’s the murderer’s gamble, Captain. What did you do?”
“I fell in lust. It ended badly.”
“‘Badly’ is never speaking to your ex, maybe even getting beaten up by her relatives. I’m pretty sure killing doesn’t feature.”
Romeo looks up at the sky.
“Her name was Ivlietta. Real case of lust at first sight. Her cousin objected, my best friend challenged, then died when the cousin cheated. He got off because the official witness lied.
“After spending a night with her, I got wounded killing the cousin: he ambushed me as I left her parent’s house. She blackmailed the family doctor into treating me. The nurse betrayed us.
“I killed a close friend of hers when he tried to be hero and stop us escaping. That tore it all down. She called the law, but still cried like a baby as they led me away. Got the nurse blackballed, too.”
Julius spreads his hands.
“Sorry I asked. Returning must be difficult.”
Romeo shakes his head and points towards their target.
“The Escalusian forces on this planet are led by a local: General Laurence Mantua. He used to be a priest.”
Julius slots a blaster into his arm mount and moves round to check Romeo’s missile rack.
“By any chance did he also used to be a registered witness who invigilated duels?”
Romeo chuckles, then steps behind Julius to check his missile rack.
“Good guess.”
Julius laughs.
“Then I have to ask: ‘wherefore art thou, Romeo?’”
“About to rain hell down upon that lying friar, Julius.”
“‘But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks?’”
“That’ll be two flights of Sirius DK614 missiles.”
“Then let us go ‘wisely and slow’.”
Romeo barks a short laugh before replying: “Indeed. ‘They stumble that run fast.’”
Through the hushed gloom, two figures move with quiet purpose, violent delights in mind.
by submission | Jan 3, 2021 | Story |
Author: M. M. Kaufman
“What is the color of seashell?”
I made a loud hmm noise and scanned the paint swatches spread across the rug. If Tea Olive kept this up, she would have the entire apartment covered in no time. That’s if I could find more colors. I picked up a few squares and held them out.
She studied the squares of white, beige, and pink before taking them. She set them on the seat of the nearest chair and sighed. She leaned back and nearly knocked out the chair’s duct-taped leg.
I had imagined a bigger space for our hideout, but more square footage meant more windows, doors, and other security risks. Smaller was manageable, if too cozy for a four-year-old and her mother.
“It’s a start. Seashell is a tough one!” I said. “That has to be hundreds of colors.”
Tea Olive was always grumpy when she didn’t have all of the colors for a certain object. She stomped one boot and whined, “I want more colors.”
“We can’t go through this every time, Tea. Do you know how many things I want?”
She kicked a cabinet door and said “I don’t care.”
“Do you know who cares even less about what either of us wants?”
Tea Olive let her whole head loll back on her shoulders and moaned.
I walked her to the balcony. I turned off the lantern and pulled the thick, dark curtains back so we could see down into the courtyard. Blanketed in snow, half a dozen zombies shuffled around the frosty, moss-covered fountain. They left tracks in the snow that exposed the red brick underneath. We had chosen the colors for the courtyard yesterday. We didn’t include the zombies. We did not want to imagine their colors.
Tea Olive gave the zombies a wave before I closed the curtains and turned the light on.
I pointed to the colors and said, “Pick something easier.”
She kneeled down and swirled the swatches up.
“Pick something I can really imagine. I can’t even remember the ocean,” I said as I stepped into the kitchen to finish dinner.
I had found the giant paint swatch display crushed under an industrial refrigerator last week. I snatched up every color I could before darting behind a dumpster. A pair of zombies sniffed my way, then moved away. Never thought trash would smell like safety.
Tea Olive played with the swatches nonstop after that. We spent hours shouting out objects and finding their colors in the giant pile: Horse. Firetruck. Apple. Sky. It was endless fun assigning colors to the universe. I didn’t think I’d be good at normal homeschooling and there wasn’t any point to that anyway with no real schools, jobs, and well—human society.
I cut open a packet of cheese sauce and placed it between the pan and its lid to squeeze every drop onto the wet noodles. I dished out two bowls and carried them into the living room where Tea Olive sat pooled over her colors in deep concentration.
“What are you trying to find now?”
Tea Olive reached for the bowl without taking her eyes from the colors. “I’m looking for the color of escape,” she said. “Do you know what it looks like?”
I looked around our tiny home that held my tiny daughter and our tiny life. I’ve never known anything about escape, I thought.
“Maybe it looks like life,” she said.
I looked down into her dark eyes that no swatches could ever capture. “Tea, if life has a color, it is not here.”
