by submission | Dec 16, 2020 | Story |
Author: Lisa Jade
My battery’s running low.
I jiggle the connection to my hip, hearing a beep as it clicks into place. In a few hours, it’ll be light out – and I can sit at the window and gather some paltry amount of solar charge. It won’t be much, but with luck, it’ll be enough.
I lift my communicator to my lips and start listing names. Ethel35, James61, Millicent18. I say the names of every android who’s ventured into the ruined city over the past two years. It’s pure routine at this point; stating every name, just in case they’re listening. Just in case, by some miracle, there’s anyone left.
Nothing. I stare at the communicator for another hour, biting my lip. It’s been months of silence, but I still half-expect to hear another voice crackling down the line. I touch the side of the device softly, recalling the last voice I heard. Jemima8.
I stand, dragging the heavy battery pack behind me. The weight sends shivers of pain through my legs, pulling unpleasantly at my connectors. Androids weren’t meant to use battery packs. My body simply isn’t made for this.
The city is soundless. Like it has been for over two years. There was a time when it was bursting with life. A bustling metropolis, occupied by both Humans and Androids. The crumbling building around me was a Repair Centre, hidden far from the rest of the city. After all, it was considered ‘inappropriate’ to see an Android in a state of disrepair.
I cast my eyes over the darkened structures outside, tracing the lines of silent skyscrapers. To this day, I don’t know what happened to all the people. I’d arrived here after a minor charging issue, to be kept out of sight while awaiting a new battery, so I was absent for the catalyst. All I know is that within three weeks of being here, the whole city fell entirely silent.
The other Androids didn’t last long. Many ventured out to find their loved ones, never to return. Others tried to stick it out, but were too damaged to function without the repair supply chain. After several months, we all but stopped searching.
My battery pack beeps again and I curse under my breath, scowling at the hateful thing.
By the time my internal battery fully gave up, there were only a few of us left. They hooked me up to the last external pack we had – but it left me hindered, unable to move beyond the range of the Repair Centre.
Jemima8 was the last to leave. She’d pulled me close, vowing to find a replacement battery and bring it back for me. She assured me that everything would be alright, as long as we had each other.
That was ten months ago.
I stare into the city, tempted to grab the communicator again. Perhaps, if I just said all their names one more time…
Something hot pricks my eyes.
They’ll come back eventually, right? They have to.
I can’t possibly be alone out here.
My chest tightens. I bite back a sob.
I barely hear the crackle of the communicator.
Then, it comes again. I lift my head, staring at it. Disbelieving. I bring it to my lips.
“H-hello?”
There’s nobody out there, surely. My battery’s lower than ever, so it must be messing with me. Hell, maybe I’m losing my mind. Nothing would surprise me at this point.
So when the line crackles again, my whole body is ablaze with excitement.
“Hey,” says a strange, sickeningly familiar tone, “still need that battery?”
by Stephen R. Smith | Dec 15, 2020 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The crawler sat heavily on massive tires in the only area of the hanger not lost in shadow. Its exterior bristled with scanning apparatus, and Baker knew from experience every cubic unit of interior space was packed with storage. The smell of diesel exhaust and carnage clung to it, off-gassing slowly into the cavernous expanse of the building.
On a cluster of hastily assembled tables beside the crawler sat banks of field processors, tethered to it with thick fibre lines. Nearby squatted the base unit for the field VR rig and beside that a pair of alloy frame and mesh loungers, their headjack lines coiled, waiting.
“We combed the zone for nearly two days. If there was an asset down in there, we’ve got their cerebral IP in the bank. It’s been defragging since eighteen hundred, and we’ve got a bunch of completes.”
The technician pointed Baker towards the VR rig. “If you want to jack in, we can start spinning them up for review.”
Baker nodded. He was tired – adrenalin, stimulants, and hope were the only thing keeping him together, but he had to know.
“Light me up.”
He straddled one of the loungers, leaned forward, and held the end of the datacable behind his head. The limp strands of fibre twitched to life, each straining to find purchase in the socket at the base of his skull. He let it pull itself close, and once the first tendrils engaged the entire bundle slithered from his grasp into his skull, jacking him fully into virtual.
The transition into the suite was rough. This was a primitive field hospital terminal, and each of the lives his squad had scraped out of the massacre would get spun up into an androgynous, grey body, their eyes molded shut with bandages to prevent them from seeing what or where they were. They would struggle with the sound of their voice, and if they tried to feel their own bodies, the struggle could get much, much worse.
For hours Baker paged through one retrieved asset after another, the virtual hours taking a fraction of that time in the real, but Baker’s body logged the fatigue in perceived time just the same. Many came in screaming and thrashing, irretrievable, and he spun them down and marked them for deletion. Most were confused, they’d been fighting what seemed to them only moments ago, and now they were… where? Dead? Alive, but incorporeal? Baker spun those down too, marking them for potential refurb and redeployment.
Then he found the needle in this hellish haystack.
They came up calm. Took a moment to explore the edges of the gurney they spawned in on with tentative fingertips. Felt the swath of bandages covering their eyes.
“I’d recognize this low rez medivac horseshit anywhere.” The voice was clear, focused.
“Do you know who you are?” Baker asked, hopeful.
The construct smiled the nearest approximation of a wry smile. “Of course I know who I am Baker, don’t you?” There was a pause as the VR rig matched their brainwaves with coded signature reference points and rerendered the commander’s avatar more accurately. “How long have I been down?”
“We lost you four days ago, took some manoeuvering to get a team in here.” Baker stood, forcing his weary body to attention. “Welcome back Sir. We’ve got a body in the tank waiting, the tech’s will start infilling any gaps in your recovery from your backup and prep for reinsertion.” He allowed a tired smile to find purchase. “I’ll see you in the real, real soon.”
Baker took a long look at her, magnificent even in low rez, and ejected, letting the cable slip lifeless from his neck.
The technician was hovering nearby.
“This is her?”
Baker nodded. “Get her back in a body, we’ve got a mission to finish.”
He lay back on the lounger, fatigue and relief washing over in waves. It would take most of the night to reconstitute her, but he could wait now, wait and sleep.
by Julian Miles | Dec 14, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Opening clip: a heavily-built man sits on the tailgate of blue pickup truck. He’s smiling and unshaven, taking tiny sips from a red and white can of beer so quickly it doesn’t interrupt his speech.
“Well, it’s been difficult, that’s for sure. Never thought them libtards could fight worth a damn, but Lord, they proved us all wrong about that. Digging them out of the sanctuary cities hereabouts took weeks. Can’t say I held with the burnings and suchlike, but I do hold with our founders proclamation that we have to be forthright in heart and deed, even if a few of those deeds sit badly with some folk’s interpretation of the good book.”
A band starts playing somewhere beyond his truck. He glances back, then his attention returns.
“We’re not monsters or fanatics. The Free States of America are about individual rights and freedoms under the auspices of God. Can’t say or be fairer than that.”
Next clip: a thin woman leans against the wide shoulders of a bearded man in a torn T-shirt. She starts, then the sentences go back and forth between them.
“After our warnings were ignored,”
“we discussed online,”
“before the nets went down,”
“and decided to become the haven for those who wanted to evade the lies,”
“the surveillance,”
“and the manipulation.”
“Nobody tells us who lives,
“who dies,”
“what goes in our bodies,”
“or our minds.”
They smile.
“We’re part of the Independent States of America.”
“If you want a chance to live free of the enslaved dystopia the rest of the world has fallen into,”
“come fight alongside us.”
Followed by: an elderly woman gestures to the trees about them.
“When my son married a Lakota woman, we fought. Then he challenged me. I went to their reservation to prove him wrong. Instead I had an epiphany: realised what I was lacking. Never had much time for technology as it was presented, liked how it was used even less. Didn’t take long to find out a lot of folk felt the same way.
“When things started to unravel, we gathered ourselves, chose our ground, and stood for what the spirits wanted. If you hear the call of the wolf, the eagle, or the crow, come find the Tribal Nations of America. Fight with us to save the land.”
Then: a middle-aged man straightens his tie before pointing at the camera, his expression stern.
“You’ve got to understand that in trying to drain the swamp, he made himself a target. That he’s still with us is a sign. The Evangelical States of America will be his legacy. The corporations he permits to trade here are all certified by the Robertson Committee to be abiding by the Lord’s tenets. But we need soldiers for the Staunch Defenders. If you can’t fight, you can donate. We must always stand ready to protect our way of life.”
The screen shows a prairie sunset. A voiceover starts.
“These represent the major extremist factions in what was the USA. There are dozens more. Most are militant, some aggressively so. As I record this, overseas aid has once again been stopped, as having what is deemed to be unacceptable pigmentation, ornamentation, or clothing has caused aid workers to be attacked and, in some cases, killed.
“The people are still united. They still pledge allegiance. But only to those who hold the same views. All others are considered fools or enemies. In many cases, extermination of any who differ is seen as an acceptable solution.”
The sun sets.
The screen goes black.
A minute passes before closing credits appear.
by submission | Dec 13, 2020 | Story |
Author: Leo James Topp
Out of my office window, the colony ship sits low in the sky. The Test of Time. Sleek and flat, a shimmer along its underbelly, the viewing deck’s dome sat on top… I should be working.
I know it’s a marketing technique, parking it over the city, just the right height for clouds to break around its hull.
On my workstation display, I pull up the tab I always have open.
SIGN UP TODAY!
ONLY 1051 PLACES LEFT!
751 PEOPLE LOOKING AT THIS PAGE RIGHT NOW!!!
Fingers hover over REGISTER NOW.
But what would I tell Ellen?
“Don’t look at that on your work machine, mate. HR’ll think you’re doing a runner without notice!”
Swivel my chair round. A smile stretches up one side of Gary’s face.
“Just a bit of research, mate, keep on top of the market. Commercial awareness.”
“Can you imagine though?” He says, “One way ticket, some barely terraformed tundra, trying to scratch out a living from GM crops they won’t even approve for disaster relief. No thanks!”
“I guess people think if you’re scratching out a living, at least you’re creating something from scratch,” I want to stay.
What I actually say is: “I know, right? Sounds grim.”
He wanders off to the coffee machine. I close the tab, reveal the desktop background.
ANDERSON RECYCLING TECHNOLOGIES
KEEPING EARTH LIVABLE
My phone lies face up on the desk. One quick call to Ellen, get her to set me straight.
But what if she does set me straight?
Or what if she backs the idea, then I have to go?
It would be flipping a coin to see if I was disappointed with the result.
It would be making someone else responsible for my decision.
I should stay. Could I really leave?
I pull up a tax return, but suddenly the idea of another form, another calculation, another word, starts a vibration in my head, ringing in my ears. I can’t hold the words and the numbers together. The insides of my eyelids dance with floaters.
Another day, another week, another year of this.
The Test of Time. Bulky cargo carriers scud back and forth across the sky, merging in and out of traffic, up to the ship’s hold.
On the balconies and roof terraces of surrounding buildings, tiny figures lean against railings, cocktail glasses or coffee cups or cigarettes in hand, looking out towards the ship.
Smooth chrome delta, hundreds of metres across, a thousand metres up. Birds drift along its length.
I open my work messages (27 unread), hit AUTOREPLY.
“I am currently out of the office and…”
Delete.
“Thank you for your message. Please note that I have now left the company and your message…”
Delete.
The sun glimmers on the Test of Time’s hull.
897 PLACES LEFT!
SIGN UP NOW!
LAST CHANCE!!!
“I’ve left this crappy planet behind now. All we do here is re-use the same old rubbish over and over until we die. You should come along…”
Delete.
“As long as I can remember, I’ve looked up at the stars and seen space to make something from the ground up, space to make something fresh. Space to make something of myself.
Life has never been bad on this planet, and I hope you continue to enjoy life here on a world that has already been built. I’ve decided I want life to be good or bad or both, but never not-bad.
Please note that I will not be returning. My messages will not be monitored in my absence.
Goodbye.”
by submission | Dec 12, 2020 | Story |
Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks
Her eyes are a blue million miles
-Captain Beefheart
It was October. The hickory leaves were yellow and smoke emerged from the woods. She was a woman and she was a girl and I was sure we had met before, walking this shoreline. I didn’t know the sound of her voice so I would speak to her.
Albemarle Lake is shallow but in dream I would dive down and discover an abyss. I would skin dive and sprout gills because there was a God in that lake and she/he/they insisted I touch bottom, possess enough air to reach my destination.
The deeper I dove the louder it became.
Waking, a drum would pound, a bass drum. It was like I was marching in the second line of a Crescent City funeral, sashaying past marble graves planted above ground to prevent their decay. The lake nearby might join the great river and spread its fingers beneath the soil, lifting water towards the sky to swallow the city whole . . . letting the cadavers escape.
Albemarle Lake has no mouth. It is a single eye, an iris that no one save a pilot or shaman could spy. They would have to skirt the upper atmosphere, look down on the teary vale to see.
The drum steadily pounded and my temples vibrated like skin beneath a mallet. It was a heart I was hearing; from the bottom of the lake it was beating. The same lake -Albemarle- where the woman/girl would walk, hickory leaves falling to her shoulders.
I found a heart at the bottom. But not just one, there were many. The entire abyssal plain was a wreckage of ventricles and valves, each pierced with inanimate fragments from the surface. It was a landscape of the Titanic . . . arteries clogged with candelabras, sterling silver forks, and the jewels of a dame’s décolletage.
I tried to lift the hearts, but they were heavier than stone. They were cold as a glacial spring but still they beat. Then I heard the woman/girl’s liquid voice. “My name is M,” it said. “I want to talk to you.”
I swam toward the surface with the knowledge of what beat at my brain. And I would tell her. This was to be an important day.
But there was no surface. There was no sun and no October sky draped across the water. I was not in a lake but swimming through M’s eye. A dark core floated before me, obscuring the light. It was her pupil. What I took for fishing poles and nylon lines were her eyelashes.
When at last I could make the shores of the true lake, the actual Albemarle spreading out beyond the murk, I knew I was within her vision. I was a speck at the centre of what she saw, my form projected toward looming western mountains with their hints of black bears and bearded armies.
I was in M’s eye and there I would remain until she decided to cry. But for now, her blood would feed me memories I had assumed were mine.
by submission | Dec 11, 2020 | Story |
Author: Connor Long-Johnson
It drifted there alone, on the precipice of the infinite abyss of space. The shiny, metallic surface beginning to melt as it moved ever closer to the nearest star. The blinding light of the sun reflected off of its red and white casing.
“Honestly, some people,” she said, slurping on a cup of EcoCoffee and staring out at the solitary soda can, “they think the hyperlanes are their own personal dumping ground.”
“You know how people are,” he replied, preparing the ship for their jump to the Lagoon Nebula, “anyways, just be thankful you already have family out here.”
“I guess so, I suppose we owe Aunt Natalie a lot.”
He entered the coordinates into the log, pumped the engine’s fusion primer, and informed the nearby control outpost of their imminent departure.
“I just don’t get how we can be so ignorant!” She grasped her coffee tighter in her hands, “We’ve lost half of the Earth to the oceans, most of its species to deforestation or hunting and we have been forced out here to find a home somewhere else. It just beggar’s belief! London, New York, and Amsterdam all gone. We’ve lost so much in the past hundred years and what do we do? Bring all of our most detestable habits out here with us, like some rancid smell, following us across the stars.”
He answered her with silence as he made the final checks for the jump, focusing on the command computer. Despite being almost 40 years old, the Hyperjump technology wasn’t without its hitches. One tiny, seemingly insignificant error, one wrong number punched into the ship’s navigator and you were tomorrow’s grisly headline on the daily feed. He knew that all to well, he had written many of them himself in his time working for the Journalist’s Alliance.
But deep down, he knew what she was saying was right. Just one month ago, his colleague and a team of scientists working for the Earth Science Quarterly had found evidence of Microplastics on Io, one of Jupiter’s several moons, and the researchers pointed out that all indications were that their presence was human in origin, with Mankind moving more and more across the stars, they had noted how Jupiter’s population had expanded by some eighty-million in the last two years alone and was now the third most populated planet in the galaxy.
“I don’t think it’s as bad as you’re saying though.”
She exhaled heavily, “You’re hopelessly naïve, you know that? Ever since we crawled out of the oceans we’ve caused havoc; it didn’t end on Earth and it sure as shit won’t end out here.”
The ship jolted violently, and the girl shrieked. “What the Hell?
Her coffee had fallen from her hands with the violent motion of the ship and had now spilt out over her trousers.
“Shit. I am sorry, it was the primer.” He said gesturing apologetically at the console.
“Well, you should really get that checked out!”
She picked up the cup, wet and dripping. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?”
“You could always throw it out, in their infinite wisdom, the makers haven’t installed any disposal units in these things yet.” He sighed and gestured again at the front panel, resigned.
“No way, there’s enough junk in the galaxy, it doesn’t need any more from me.”
“Fine, you can hold onto it then until we reach the Lagoon. The journey should take about ten hours.”
Then, the most minor of inconveniences occurred.
As her hands stayed wrapped around the empty cup she felt the stickiness grow under her fingers as the moisture dried and what little liquid remained began morphing into a bothersome irritant.
She bowed her head and kicked the seat in frustration. Rolling down the window, she threw out the empty gesture that was the EcoCoffee, the momentum carried it across the vast abyss until it stopped next to the can.
The can, once alone and now part of a pair and the first in a human waste tsunami about to wash over the galaxy.
