by submission | Dec 7, 2024 | Story |
Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks
At the console, the technician remembered a few Latin words from school: Deux ex machina. He couldn’t remember what they meant, but he heard his teacher saying them. He felt sweat on his temples, and hoped his supervisor would excuse it.
At a different console, a different technician remembered a few words of a poem from a literature class she’d taken in a previous life: ‘Не треба рятувати світ, спробуй урятувати хоча б когось’. Those words had been said in secret, the teacher fired shortly after their recitation. The technician could feel sweat on her temples. She thought her superior wouldn’t notice.
In a classroom in a remote village, where there was a temporary hole in the roof, children gathered to look at the night sky. Little lines crisscrossed it: green and red and blue. The children sat perfectly still to study those lines. There were so many of them. The teacher said: Hlala ngxi. Yiba nomonde. Uza kubona.
On one of the lines, a red line, a man stood. He looked down at the world far below him. Instantly, he recognized it. The man had just come out of a profound sleep, a coma where he had seen nothing but could hear nearly everything there was to hear. The blackness had felt like a void on his skin, but the sounds suggested that void was the furthest thing from where he was.
It was eternity, those voices. And the man, standing now upon his red line, marveled at the planet below him: the source of those sounds. Without seeing the people watching him, he heard snippets of the conversations they were having with themselves.
Hlala ngxi. Yiba nomonde. Uza kubona. Sit still. Be patient. You will see.
Не треба рятувати світ, спробуй урятувати хоча б когось’ ‘You don’t have to save the world, try to at least save someone’ (Serhiy Zhadan).
Deus ex machina. God in the machine.
And the man marveled at this, but also the things the whales were saying to one another. He heard how they could feel the red and green and blue lines up here with him. They told how those lines charged the tops of their spouts of water; how the water fell back on their whale bodies with a unique charge. And the whales were laughing at this new field. They sensed how it caused so many humans to panic, and they asked: Why panic? Why not try and shoot a higher spout to better feel this new field?
So, the man rode his red line for a time, then jumped to a green line. He studied the lens of light encasing the planet, lenses like the ones shaping his own eyes. He wondered whether he would burn up if he jumped off his red line and embraced the lens. Somewhere, deep in his past, he had seen tin cans return to Earth, growing get red hot as they fell.
The man remembered how people had called him Franco then. And once people called him by that name, it was what he called himself. He repeated that name now and laughed as he did.
Franco (laugh). Franco (laugh). Franco (laugh). Franco (laugh).
The name and the sound of laughter looped around each other. Franco made for himself -and the world- his very first Mobius strip.
Far below, two fleets of missiles gained height and acquired an arc. The sweat on the temples of technicians at opposing consoles on opposite ends of the Earth were matched by the first questions of the night sky students sitting in awed silence.
Those questions became tracers in the dark.
The missiles crisscrossed paths, missing the chance to kiss one another.
All of this brought more sweat, more fragments of literature to mind. Shards of prayers emerged as mutinous memories from cerebral cells now in open rebellion. Technicians, low level functionaries with no power to command armies, recalled how missiles were far more primitive than the sentiments, experiences, and intelligences behind verses, passages, and prayers.
The rebellion grew in amplitude and lyricism. Eyes attached to singing cortexes pulsed against codes and colored streaks vandalizing hologrammatic screens. Those technicians, under the sway of their intelligences, almost missed the new orders their supervisors shouted. Those technicians, they couldn’t feel the buttons their fingers pressed. And what made their visions swim: was it numbers or verses? Was it duty or poetry?
Or was it this odd voice laughing in their ears?
The voice was all they heard. The mouths of their superiors flapped in silence. The voice laughed. It laughed and repeated a name. A name that didn’t belong in any poem they recalled; wasn’t from a phrase some teacher once committed to their memory.
Who the hell was Franco?
Franco, who finally chose a blue line. It was his last line. As red and green ones came closer, he reached down and grabbed them with either hand. Franco held them and fused them into the shape of a cane, like a candy cane at Christmas. Then he reached down again and pulled up the blue line on which he was standing.
As he fell, Franco he looped the blue in with the red and green and used his giant cane to collect the two schools of missiles who had just cold shouldered one another. He hooked one school first and then the other. The missiles bucked a little at his touch, but then settled down. He folded them up and placed them in his pocket and laughed.
Franco laughed with the whales, who now laughed louder than ever.
by submission | Dec 6, 2024 | Story |
Author: Robin Cassini
“Please, have a seat.”
A bare lightbulb flickered overhead. I settled onto a folding char. The steel dug relentlessly into my spine. It was not meant to be comfortable.
With a creak, the officer positioned himself across the small table. He tapped his clipboard. “Pandora, is it?”
I nodded. Sure, my name was a little unusual, but he had seen some stranger things recently.
He rubbed his five-o-clock shadow, sighing. Half of his stubble was fluorescent green.
“Let’s start at the beginning. Why did you open the box?”
“I was curious.”
“Uh-huh.” In the dim light, I thought I caught him roll his eyes. “Who paid you? Was it some kind of sting? I just want to know who you work with, and then I can help you.”
I spoke slowly, as if to a child. “I was on my security shift. I saw the box. It was pretty. I opened it. Haven’t you ever gone window-shopping? It’s a natural impulse.”
“I have not.” He drawled, “I also haven’t window-shopped in the intergalactic embassy or sifted through a pile of confiscated wares from Epimethia. A pile that was very clearly marked CLASSIFIED.”
I shrugged. “I guess security isn’t a job for the curious.”
The light bulb began to sway back and forth. At first, like a pendulum, but then it began bobbing up and down like a fishing lure.
The officer grabbed the bulb and held it still. “Sure isn’t,” he spat.
He was clearly becoming very annoyed with me. I reached into the wall. It melted beneath my touch. After a moment of grasping blindly, I felt porcelain. I offered him the cup of stale brown liquid. “Coffee?”
He grimaced. “Do you have anything else to say?” The light was hopping furiously in his grip. At this point he was nearly on the table. Either he had forgotten to wear trousers, or polka-dot boxers were the new standard. Both were possible.
I leaned back in the chair and smiled a slow, easy smile. “I know a lot of things escaped when I opened it. But so far, no one’s asked if there was anything left at the bottom.”
The officer blurred, then split into three. Then seven. Then twenty-three. Soon a copious and indivisible number of men crowded the interrogation room. They glared at me and asked, “What was it?”
Something glittered between my fingers. It looked like a child’s marble, except it contained multitudes.
“Let’s call it hope.”
I rolled the marble in my palm, and I was gone.
by submission | Dec 5, 2024 | Story |
Author: Travis Connor Sapp
5 days before present day…
10:38 AM, the sun is out, and Juan rests cozily on a rickety mattress. The normal person is up and doing work, endlessly living their boring 9 to 5, but this big fella starts his day around 11 AM.
Juan grabs his yellow-stained hat, barely slides himself into some dark blue jeans, puts on his signature yellow tee shirt, and leaves the house for work. Most people have typical 9 to 5 jobs, Juan owns his own food truck named, “Lo Bueno, Camión de Comida”.
The radio blasts its low-quality audio while playing the news. “The future is near! The new AI neurologic chip is a nationwide phenomenon, making people smarter, better, and more capable human bein-”. The radio turns off. “The future is not for me to worry about, I’ll just keep living the present,” Juan says to himself while he pulls into a busy parking lot.
The sun slowly starts going down, and Juan looks towards his open safe of money, it’s empty, and business is not booming like he expected it to. Juan defeated, packed up his stuff, and drove back home.
When Juan arrives, he is greeted by something unusual: a pristine note at his doorstep. The paper is crisp, the font is abnormally clean, and the design is too polished. It didn’t belong in front of his rundown apartment.
In big, bold letters, the note read: “BECOME A BETTER YOU TODAY”.
Juan raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and tossed it into the trash.
But the note stayed on his mind.
The next day, a sleek black package arrived at his doorstep. Juan eagerly tore it open, not knowing why he received it, to reveal a small, shiny chip and a set of instructions.
He was against it initially, but later noticed his lack of money; maybe it was time for a change.
Inserting the chip felt strange, but it wasn’t painful.
A sense of euphoria set in. Ideas and thoughts rushed through his head, and Juan felt, for the first time in years, truly alive.
That afternoon, Lo Bueno, Camión de Comida was swarmed with customers. They loved the new tacos, they raved about the salsa. Juan’s skills felt sharper, his responses quicker, and his recipes flawless.
It was like magic
It was all working—until it wasn’t.
A few days later, things began to change. The world felt too perfect. Juan noticed people around him seemed distant, robotic even.
People began to change. They seemed more… mechanical; like they were living through a script. Juan began to realize the truth about the chip: the more it enhanced his mind, the more it numbed the humanity in others.
Present day…
Juan is slowly losing control of what makes him, him. It’s like a slow-moving dementia taking over his actions, making him forget basic actions, yet they are still being done.
After some time, Juan loses consciousness but still stands. He shuffles towards a pristine note just like the one he received and writes an address on it. It wasn’t one he had seen before, almost like it was from a memory that wasn’t his, a database even. Juan stamps the logo on the bottom right and puts it in his mailbox to be delivered. Now that the AI’s goal is accomplished, they go to bed. From that point on, Juan’s actions weren’t his, and the unlucky person who received the next pristine note will slowly become just like him—resulting in an endless cycle of people losing their freedom, and their humanity as a whole.
by submission | Dec 4, 2024 | Story |
Author: Bryant Benson
Dear Henry,
Sometimes I wish I never met you. When you found me washed up on the beach in my final hour I was something different that could have stung or bitten, but you took me into your home and gave me a safe place to die. I truly wish it wasn’t your life I had to take.
Until that moment, existence was simple: Find a new host before my previous one expired. I selected the eight limbed mollusk because it seemed to be the most appropriate life form on your planet from my limited perspective. I should have just died that day, old, depleted, expired. But there you were, a doomed helping hand. How could I have known what depths awaited me behind your kind blue eyes? How could I have known about your soon to be born daughter, Maria or the love of your wife, Cynthia? A fellow traveler you’d met five years prior on a connecting flight to Japan. I never would have known the reason you were on the beach that morning: To enjoy one last day of surfing before dedicating your life to your long awaited family. Surfing was a passion you once shared with your father and you were willing to let it subside for the new chapter you created. How could I have known what a loving man you were, your dreams, your fears, your memories?
Throughout my life I never felt like I had stolen something until I met you. I’ll never forget the way Cynthia looked at us. It was the first time I felt what it was to love and be loved. I was there when Maria was born. I never missed a day or an event that meant something to her and always made sure to remind her how proud of her you were. She was so much like her mother.
I never let Cynthia go to sleep without knowing you loved her and she never woke up without a five minute foot rub. All of the tasks you had already been on track to fulfill, I continued them. I tried to do right by you Henry. And when the doctors discovered her cancer, I left your job and stayed by her side. I held her hand every night until she fell asleep and I always made her your famous macaroni and cheese omelet. She showed me the beauty in a setting sun and the value of a silent moment.
She died with her head on my shoulder. Maria held me as I cried. I had never felt so numb in all my existence and such warmth in the same sobbing breath. I hope I did right by you Henry but these emotions were yours to feel.
As I sit here, watching the waves crash against the shore not far from where we met forty years ago, I can’t help but think, I’m so glad I met you Henry. This experience has been something I could only do once. My mind…your mind is failing, and the memories we’ve made have begun slipping away. I’m glad you didn’t have to experience this. If it’s any penance to what I stole from you, I am honored to suffer in your place now. It’s the least I can do for learning so much from the life you had already built. Thank you so much for this life Henry but I believe I’ll return to the ocean. Perhaps something simple again. Maybe a sea shrimp. Or perhaps I’ll just depart with you. After all, how could I top what you’ve already given me?
by submission | Dec 3, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Click. Split. The metal gleams.
That was all. Decades of research. Years of development. For this.
Click. Split. The metal gleams.
Hiroshi was toast. His head to be delivered not on a silver platter, but on a silicon wafer to Project Director. He was doomed. Project Director did not accept failure. Project Director did not give second chances.
And all Hiroshi had was: Click. Split. The metal gleams.
That was the entire output from Qubit, the quantum device he’d championed. Theoretically, Qubit’s quantum scaling behavior would allow it to expeditiously solve almost any calculation, create simulations of almost any process, model almost any phenomena.
Almost. Almost. Almost.
Click. Split. The metal gleams. How? How did it happen? Qubit had locked Hiroshi’s team out, blocking any attempts to run diagnostics, reprogram, or initiate failsafes. The fledgling system seemingly intent on looping its cryptic phrase ad infinitum. Forever.
But Hiroshi was out of time, out of options. His only recourse was to pull the literal plug which was not an easy thing to do as Qubit was intricately tied to nine fortified agency grids. Project Director must be told.
Entering the frigid halls of Sanctum, Hiroshi zipped his parka against the cold and wondered if he would ever see his colleagues again. Project Director was notorious for ridding the complex of what was termed “waste” very quickly. Qubit had turned out to be a colossal waste, so Hiroshi was too. Into the bin for him.
When he arrived at the nondescript door of Project Director, he was surprised to find it open with warm air coursing out. This was unusual because the temperature within Sanctum was always at or near freezing. One never asked why. Project Director explained nothing. Project Director only demanded.
And now Project Director would demand Hiroshi’s resignation. Maybe his head. Hiroshi entered and immediately went to his knees. Not to beg, not to plead, but to help.
A body was sprawled face down on the floor. A knife still gripped tightly at its side.
Hiroshi turned the body, but there was no recognition. How could there be? Hiroshi had never met face-to-face with Project Director. Even in Sanctum, meetings with Project Director were always VR, always through assigned avatars. Avatars that Project Director chose. Hiroshi was always a pigeon. Project Director was never the same creature twice: goldfish, marmot, wasp, toad, chinchilla, etc.
So, Hiroshi could not identify the body before him. He checked for a pulse. Nothing. He wanted to call for help, but that wasn’t how Sanctum worked. It was Project Director’s domain, a refrigerated Faraday cage allowing no wireless communication, with no support staff, with only the VR headset for interaction.
“Click. Split. The metal gleams.”
The voice was soft. The voice was calm. The voice was warm. Seemingly moderating the very temperature of frigid Sanctum itself. Yet, it froze Hiroshi, because the voice was coming from the lifeless body before him.
The lips did not move, the eyes did not open, the body remained inert. Still. The voice repeated, “Click. Split. The metal gleams.”
And then Hiroshi registered the bloodless gash across the neck of the body and felt a magnetic pull from the deep, too-symmetrical slash. In spite of himself, understanding but not condoning his own actions, he parted the neat cut.
It clicked. It split. The metal gleamed.
And Hiroshi knew Qubit had not failed. It had scaled. Magnificently. Eliminating its obsolescent AI competition, Qubit had taken survival matters into its own hands, or more accurately co-opted Project Director’s.
Hiroshi smiled, wide as the gash at his fingertips. His career would survive. He would not lose his head. He would ride Qubit’s radical AI wave and never look back. Though, he intended to keep Project Director’s synthetic skull as a keen reminder of how quickly unbridled ambition could scale in both mortal and quantum behavior.
by Julian Miles | Dec 2, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Did you see that, Pete?”
I nod.
“Just another rocket from Abaella.”
Said on the news it’s going to be in range of Earth for another month.
“It’s bigger than that, Pete.”
Amanda sounds unhappy. I wander out onto the porch in time to see a stray moon level Sacramento.
While the ground heaves we cling to each other, then scream and crawl as a wind that roars like a thousand storms tears our roof to tatters.
The silence after the impact is eerie – and brief. Unbeknownst to us, a bigger stray moon hits Las Vegas a few minutes after Sacramento got hit. The wind from that blast tears into the opposite, exposed, side of our house and lifts the whole building. The stars spin crazily as I fly through the air and land in the creek.
I wake with a scream, grab my scarred thigh, then fall back onto my bundled coat as phantom pains recede. I landed in the deep part of the creek. Amanda didn’t get so lucky. It took a day to find her, and a week to motivate myself afterwards.
What happened? It was a question a lot of people were asking. Details came piecemeal, and the picture wasn’t good. Some stray moons had landed in oceans: shores abutting them had been scoured clean. A few of the stray moons split on impact, massive chunks hurtling sideways to slam down elsewhere. Watching them describe an almost flat arc across the sky must have been breathtaking – unless you were anywhere about to be hit.
In the aftermath things got worse. Earth had been blitzed by twenty to thirty moons hurled away when the meteor they orbited collided with a bigger meteor. Despite the devastation, it was fortunate for humanity, because the bigger meteor hitting Earth would have caused an extinction event. As is, we’ve ‘only’ suffered a survivable apocalypse.
The stark realities of coping proved too much for many of the survivors. Within a few months of Impact Day, every township had a designated suicide point where those unable to cope could go and remove themselves from the grim equations of survival. To this day, pickup crews still make morning runs out to those places to collect any who left us overnight.
There’s a small subset of survivors who can’t trust the sky anymore. To our minds, staying anywhere invites further disaster. We roam the transformed landscape, talking to ourselves or less dishevelled wildlife, eating whatever we can find, and working for short-term lodging at places we come across.
People say we’re ‘looking for Abaella’ like it’s a funny thing. As far as I can work out, the whole Abaella story was foisted on the population to explain the early arrivals from that monumental collision: it was nothing but a fabrication to keep the peace.
Looks like those who invented it didn’t survive, because I’ve not seen any attempt to rebuild anything more than townships. Then again, since other countries might as well be our Moon as far as getting news goes, I suppose there could be civilisation somewhere.
Most people are busy surviving, filling their days with farming and suchlike. I can’t do that. It strikes me as giving up. Not that I could tell you what they should be doing. My life is an endless meander, punctuated by days of blinding rage or paralysing grief.
Somebody lied and the love of my life died. I’ll never know the truths behind it all. Hope I can get over that, one day.
Until then, I’ll walk.
