by submission | Jul 8, 2021 | Story |
Author: David Barber
“Hurry, Igor!” called Miss Frankenstein.
Outside, the electrical storm drew closer, and thunder rumbled over the thrashing treetops to the south. Everything now depended on snatching lightning from the skies. A month of unseasonable fine weather had driven her near mad with impatience.
After so much work, after so many disappointments, after waiting so long, success was within her grasp. Her searching gaze took in the laboratory. Her laboratory.
More hygienic than robbing graves at midnight; more scientific than sewing together bits of dead bodies. What had her uncle hoped to achieve in the long run? There was no denying the heroic surgery, but it was a performance, not science. And it had all ended badly, chasing off into the Arctic after his creature. Such a male thing to do.
Igor limped into the laboratory, sloshing a flask of murky broth.
“The dead microbial culture?”
Her assistant nodded.
“And the Vital Principle?”
For a moment Igor’s face clouded, then cleared. “Ready.”
“Then bring it,” cried Frankenstein. “Bring it, and we shall create history!”
“Yes, master.”
“And don’t call me master. I am not him and you are not my servant. The old days are gone, we work together now. You are my assistant in this great enterprise.”
Igor did not answer. Perhaps he preferred the old days, nails black with gravedirt, the spat of voltage on reanimation nights, a whiff of corruption about the place.
When he returned, there was something about his expression, those beetling brows failing to hide a shiftiness in his gaze.
“You centrifuged the Vital Principle?” queried Frankenstein. “Then resuspended it in fresh broth?”
More nods.
“And checked the pH? The pH is critical.”
On the rooftop above, electricity danced about lightning conductors, then down copper wires to crackle round Igor as he closed the knife switch.
“Think!” she admonished him, while the very hairs on his head stood up as if in terror. “Dead microbes reanimated! Tomorrow, plant and animals, then one day, who knows, my uncles’ dream. Even people!”
The modern miracle of electricity meets the Vital Principle – the nucleic acid extracted from living microbes. The dawn of a new age! Men of science did not believe the Vital Principle was merely a chemical. But she would prove them wrong!
For a moment she swayed, dizzy with fatigue and euphoria. Months of work neared its climax. Perhaps she misunderstood the look on Igor’s face. Again she explained.
“Electricity will infuse the Vital Principle into the dead microbes. We will show they can live again! But do not concern yourself, Igor, we will dispose of them safely afterwards.”
She almost giggled. “They will not escape like Frankenstein’s monster.”
Igor said nothing. Preparing the Vital Principle earlier, he had dropped the flask of E. coli, but luckily found another, labelled Yersina pestis, left over from his old master’s investigations into the Black Death.
He’d used that instead. She would never know.
Busy with the future, her attention fixed on a clock as the bacterial mixture fizzed and bubbled into new life, she fluttered a hand vaguely.
“Go and see what that commotion is.”
Outside, the electrical storm lit up the sky, freezing the angry mob for an instant like a flashbulb, all jostling pitchforks and torches, before they burst into the lab to smash this latest abomination, loosing something monstrous into the winds.
by submission | Jul 7, 2021 | Story |
Author: B.W. Carter
She knew he’d really been thinking about this one. They’d made their way across campus to the shop and he was still on the conversation started back in the classroom. She let him keep talking. And he did, as they wended through the crowd to a table by the window; he let her carry the drinks, too caught up in what she would not tell him to his face was pure nonsense.
Isn’t that what you did — or did not do — when you liked someone?
Apparently. So, she clenched her jaws and listened.
It’s what she’d wanted, after all.
“What if,” he said (and here we go) as they took their seats, then stopped. Blew hard on his drink and started again. “What if,” he said, slowly, “like, what if an idea of an idea is, like, you know, more real than the idea itself? I mean, what if being is in itself an idea born of, like, the idea of being? Know what I mean? Yeah? Like, just take walking here, right? Made me think. What if the idea of walking interprets itself, like, as an idea called running? Does the idea of walking no longer mean walking or does it now mean running? Know what I mean?”
(No. No, I do not.)
“Like, you know, are ideas more substantive than those things born of ideas? Or is the idea only ever an idea until it is, like, a thing, at which point the idea never existed, you know, only the thing? Know what I mean?” He grinned, but his thick fair eyebrows seemed clenched in confusion. Did he know what he meant?
(No. No, you do not.)
But he was really thinking, bless his heart. Second thoughts and on to third, really mulling over his ideas before trying to articulate. And he was so gorgeous, and she was lucky. Lucky, she knew, to be here now. The very idea of a jock like him (rugby captain and philosophy major both!) talking to her had not even occurred as a possibility before today. Much less a reality, so remote was the idea.
(As ridiculous as this “conversation.”)
She owed it to him, right? To think, to really think, about the utter garbage he was so passionately spouting.
And she really tried. She did. He was gorgeous, after all. She sipped her latte and she considered. To be considerate. Though she began to wonder as she was doing so what she even thought, anyway, about this idea of thinking about the idea of thinking itself.
(Huh?)
Or the quintessential being of an idea as itself or something else. The thought, or the idea of the thought, rather — which came first? Which mattered most? Was there an egg involved? Did she even care?
(Is he really that hot?)
Finally, she made her decision. Exhausted despite all the caffeine, and late for dinner shift at the diner, she shrugged, stood, and answered him at last as she turned to leave:
“You know, I really, like, haven’t the faintest idea. Know what I mean? But I think, you know, I can, like, honestly say that you and me? As an item? Is, like, no longer on my list of things to think about.”
And she was gone.
She’d always thought rugby sucked, anyway.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jul 6, 2021 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Sven had been driven out of Newport City and into the stars with a warning.
“If you ever plan on landing Earthside again, you’d better bring enough money to clear your debt in full, with interest, or you’ll be flayed and spread along the whole of Mainstreet as a warning to all the other losers.”
The warning was a kindness. He should have been killed, there and then, and he knew it, but LouisXIV owed him for saving his life, long ago, and this was him clearing that marker.
He’d spent seventeen years floating from station to station, light hopping to the furthest reaches of habitable space, conning and cajoling himself in and out of better ships, to better leads, and he was ready to come home.
“Newport tower, this is Sierra Victor Echo November seven seven three niner on approach, requesting inbound vector, over.”
It should only take a few minutes for that to throw up alerts across the control tower.
“Unmarked vessel, we do not have you on our grid, turn on locators. Over.”
Of course, he wasn’t on the grid, the sun was throwing up enough interference they’d never be able to see him. If it wasn’t for the hardened mining rig he was flying, he’d already be a meat pie.
“Newport tower, inbound heavy.”
“Unmarked…” the transmission was cut off abruptly.
“Sven, you sack of excrement, if you even think of landing here I’ll gut you like a fish myself before you get both feet on the ground.”
The familiar voice brought a smile to his face.
“Louis, nice to hear a friendly voice. You said payment in full with interest, correct?”
There was a long pause.
“We’re talking a hell of a lot of interest Sven.”
The meteoroid he’d secured was nearly 20 meters in diameter, in it was enough rare elements to more than pay what he owed. All he needed to do was land, get the cargo valued, and he could cover whatever Louis wanted for his freedom. Easy.
But there remained the principle of the thing.
Sven pushed the throttle to the pins and rolled the ship on its back, belly to space. He’d calculated on full burn with a little centrifugal help running a slingshot around the sun, that meteoroid should reach about five thousand meters per second on release. Given the ship computers’ calculated trajectory, which he trusted with his life, and this precise time of day and the relative rotation of the Earth, which he’d been working back from for months, his little payment should arrive crisp and cooking right at Newport tower while he continued following the sun’s orbit, breaking loose en route to another system before anyone even knew what had hit them.
Maybe there’d be a LouisXV holding markers somewhere else, but that was a problem for another day.
“Standby Newport tower, you should see me light up the grid momentarily.”
by Julian Miles | Jul 5, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The valley is smoking, trees nothing but scorched gravestones for the life they once sheltered. The farmland around here used to be really scenic, but the only tourists today are the subject of my little excursion.
“Good morning, Elizabeth. Welcome to this ashen paradise.”
With Cardy as my overwatch, this is going to be nothing but fun.
“Morning. Who am I partying with?”
“Seventeen hardcases with a penchant for scorched earth tactics.”
They’re good at their jobs. Holy hell, what a mess.
“Does anyone need to talk to them?”
“No.”
“Do I need to be discreet?”
“No.”
“Anything left I shouldn’t hurt?”
“Don’t be silly. Your targets just finished a sweep. They sure as shit ended anything living.”
Then it’s open season.
“Set the clock.”
“Engage in 3… 2… 1… Go!”
I reverse the direction of my knees and charge, letting my targeting arrays prioritise victims by proximity as I accelerate to a whisker under 55KPH; I can’t hit shit at anything over 60.
“They’ve spotted you.”
“I’m leaving a rooster tail 10 metres high. You’d be wasting my time if they hadn’t.”
Powering up a low hill, I launch myself into a somersault, letting me shoot the three twats huddling in the lee before I land. Two down, one staggering.
“Left a stray.”
“I’ve rolled a posse from 42 Commando in on your tail. Nothing’s escaping.”
The landing isn’t as pretty as I’d like, but no-one’s watching bar the boys and girls who’ve made me and my kind legendary, so I’m allowed a skid or two.
The next fire team is five strong with heavy weapons. I don’t like GPMG. They scratch my plating. Plus, a close-range hit could tear my head off, but that’s beside the point. A trio of minimissiles with frag heads leaves only their outlier.
He feints right, goes left, then breaks his dagger on the ceremetal chainmail across my gut. Funny how ancient warfare tech often works really well when made with modern materials. I box his ears with my stubby assault rifles. He’s wearing a helmet, but it doesn’t matter. With titanium-wrapped weighted jackets on each barrel, I halve the width of his head.
The next mob are in two pairs, and enhanced. I can see their raised body temps. Which makes the colder sections revealing their junction boxes really easy to target with the baby railguns on my right arm. I only get ten titanium ball bearings to play with, but they travel at four kilometres a second.
Three targets go down, crippled at best. The fourth is fastest, but a futile dodge only changes where he gets hit. Paired supersonic projectiles make a godawful mess of his head.
Last are the command team. Four around one. I go straight at them, flat out, assault rifles spitting. One goes down on the way in, the railguns do for his partner, and I’m on their leader before the furthest two can cover. She lets me have both barrels from a sawn-off shotgun, which hurts, and slows me down a bit. I’m going to be picking pellets out of my softer bits for a week.
Even slowed down, I still hit her at 45KPH and stop dead, launching my empty guns into the last two. The transferred energy hurls her broken body away as the rifles knock her cohorts down. I pull my automatics. Simultaneous headshots finish the party.
Cardy whoops.
“26 seconds from first contact. New record!”
Mission complete. I switch my knees back and retract the lenses over my eyes. I prefer to look passably human when I’m not being devastating.
by submission | Jul 4, 2021 | Story |
Author: Riley Meachem
“You eat before you got here? Because, not to be gross, but this is a fuckin mess.”
“I’ve seen worse.” Catalonia whistfully gave the cul-de-sac a once over. “He staged the killing in the middle of his own private amphitheatre. A downtown cul de sac, where no one ever goes. His own private pirandello play.”
The uniformed officer raised an eyebrow. “The fuck?”
“Pirandello? He was an Italian thinker, who came up with Umorismo, the…” she stopped. “Doesn’t matter. Look, the fact the killer left the body here means something, ok? It’ll help us catch him.”
The officer shrugged, his fat grey mustache twitching sadly as he responded “Whatever you say, boss.” He said the last part with a bit of derision and scorn, that could have meant a million things. Did he resent the fact she was a celestial, giving a native low-towner orders? A woman? Or the fact she looked so young? She didn’t let her mind wander too much over the picayune. The man was nothing to her. What he thought made no difference.
The officer lifted the fencing surrounding the scene, and Catalonia slipped under it, into the Cul-De-Sac. 20 years ago, a place like this would have been a bazaar of illegal wares: uppers, downers, digital scrips, weapons, pimps, organs, new DNA transplants. But ever since Walt Templeton’s cartel had been wiped out, this area of town was dead quiet.
With the occasional exception of something like this.
The Celestial lay spread eagled on the cracked asphalt, mouth wide open, arms extended like an angel. His eyes were glassy and unfocused, and the bloody puddle around him had begun to dry into a thick, rusty brown.
Both his hands had been chopped off. His ID bracelet was missing. And someone had taken his jacket. He lay there, shirtless, so that anyone looking down from the surrounding high rises would see the gruesome lacerations that had opened his toso.
She slipped on some gloves, and slowly approached the scene, getting down on her knees when she reached the cadaver.
The wounds were precise. Surgical. This wasn’t the work of some incensed serial killer as she’d suspected. The fact there were no ligature marks or gunshots meant he hadn’t been tied up, tortured or killed before the cutting started, right here, where she was standing. A couple of men had held him there, while someone with a scalpel made the incissions.
“Shit,” she muttered, then stood up. “Who’s in charge of this territory?”
“Well, Councilman Xanders is…”
“No, no. Who really runs it. Who has street presence?” she clarified.
“No one, really. Ever since Templeton got pushed out of that high rise, the only person who’s ever moved shit here was officer Caldwell. And he filled out ricin resignation papers when he was caught stealing product from the evidence locker.” The officer shrugged. Somewhere near her, there was the loud clicking of a device taking a video inventory of the scene.
“Well, it belongs to someone now. This guy was left here for a reason. He’s a challenge. whoever did this is showing that his crew can kill a celestial unopposed, with no consequences.” She looked up at the man in question. “Prove him wrong.”
“Sure. Top of my pile of casework. Soon as the papers pick this up I’m sure I’ll get some unlimited overtime.” The man said. He popped a piece of gum in his mouth as he said it.
“Why take the organs though? The ID bracelet, the hands? Why make it harder for us to ID him when he could have just shot him in the face?”
“You kidding?” the officer asked.
She gave him a stern look. “No. What does it mean, officer?”
“People down here get fucking sick. They fucking die of every goddamn thing you can imagine. No growing new guts when they get gangrene or a new stomach after poisoning. They fuckin’ die. And they’ll do anything to stop dying.”
“So they… get the organs transplanted from murder victims?” she asked.
“No, they just juggle them. It’s a big thing down here, organ juggling. My brother ustacould juggle seven kidneys at once. ‘Course they fuckin’ transplant them.”
“But the organs won’t grow back. Won’t regenerate. not when they’re not in the host body.” “So? They still work, for a little while. Free organs, guaranteed to fit with any blood type, that any poor bastard can afford without any C-town creds, and a hefty loan from the local loan shark. Most of us would rather live with new organs from some dumb schmuck who was too stupid to stay alive than die poor and helpless. Not that you’d know anything about that. Fuckin… he trailed off.
“Sorry?” Catalonia asked, sternly. “Didn’t catch that part. Fuckin’ what?”
The old man sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. it’s just not every day I gotta go through shit like this.”
“It’s fine. Why the hands and bracelet?” she pushed. But she knew the answer to that one already.
“More money?” the cop hazarded. Catalonia scoffed and left the scene.
Only a fool would sell a bracelet like that, and two hands that bore prints in the C-town data base. Whoever owned those was a celestial in all but name.
She gave one last parting look at the ravaged corpse lying on the ground, staring up at the uncaring ceiling. No wonder she’d thought it was some sort of mad animal or deranged serial killer that had done the work. If you spent enough time down here, it was easy enough to become both.
She made a mental note to herself to write another check to the C-town gives foundation.
by submission | Jul 3, 2021 | Story |
Author: David Barber
In 1969 the Canaveral Timeport was brand-new. The future had come to meet us and everything was possible.
This is the Chronos Tavern, with its much-polished wooden bar, a dozen booths, subdued lighting, and no hint of clocks, hourglasses or calendars.
The overweight man behind the bar talking to a time-traveller is Frank Court. This is exactly why he opened the Chronos. He would work here for nothing, he once told a traveller.
“So, you’re some sort of future law enforcement,” Frank was saying. “After a runaway.”
There were two of them, Frank was sure of it. There was an occasional ripple in the air, a flicker in the corner of the eye. The disturbance seemed to have settled near the door.
The traveller smiled a smooth curve of enamel where teeth should be. Why didn’t Frank like this man?
Sometimes he wondered what customers made of the place. A shack bordering a jungle airstrip, where a native offers hooch across a plank on two oil drums.
The Timeport Authority had planned an automated refreshment zone, but Frank made a clever pitch. The government could bug the Chronos and listen in on conversations about the future, though it only gathered miles of tape hiss.
“He will walk through that door presently.” The man had put his box of tricks on the bar. Even his lips seemed to speak English. It was only technology.
Frank was wise to the rookie mistake of asking how the man knew. Because it was documented history. It was the smug hierarchy of time travellers who have seen your future.
“I didn’t even realise there were runaways.”
“Idealists, who think we interfere with the past. When in fact we ensure peace and stability. They come here to warn you, but are ill-equipped for the squalor. After enduring a night out there, he will be glad to be apprehended.”
Frank guessed it was the runaway he’d talked with yesterday, sitting on the same stool as this cop. Best not to get involved, he decided.
“What did he tell you?”
Don’t play poker with someone who’s already seen your cards.
The man had made an impassioned speech about worlds that never happened, and Frank had shrugged vaguely. Runaway seemed a misnomer. More like a zealot.
“Like your moon landings,” the man had insisted, these natives seemingly deaf to his warnings.
“What do you mean, moon landings?”
“Didn’t your rivals put a man in space?”
“The Soviets? Oh, right, sixty one. Before the Timeport.”
“Without the Timeport it would all have been different. They need dead-ends to anchor the wormhole…”
After that, the man’s words had become indistinct, his translator on the blurred edge of causality violation.
Frank grew up during the Cold War, which was quietly abandoned when the future arrived and let slip WWIII never happens. He couldn’t recall spaceships fired at the moon, though as a child he’d been promised colonies in space, and von Braun’s winged and shiny rockets docking with the Big Wheel, ready to set out for the red planet and adventure.
For a while he’d debated opening a bar called The Right Stuff here in Canaveral, but then the space program went the way of Zeppelins.
Before Frank could ask his own question, the door opened, and the runaway was seized and bundled back outside by the stealthed presence. Unless you were looking, you wouldn’t even have noticed.
“No harm done,” said the time traveller, getting to his feet. No mistaking the contempt on his face.
Frank had missed something here, but he didn’t know what it was.
