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.”
by submission | Jan 2, 2021 | Story |
Author: Zannier Alejandra
There is comfort in routine. Wake up, pray, shower, and get dressed. Regulation boots, black cargo pants, black shirt, and, lastly, the hood. Mollifying inertia, the only thing that keeps me going.
One hundred and thirty-eight. That’s my number. Today, I’ll add another name: Maylin Rotta.
You could say it was in my blood. My father was a black hood, and his father before him. Perhaps, many generations ago, my ancestors back on Earth were also black hoods.
When my father took the black, the hood was synonymous with justice. He was a punisher of crime and violence, the keeper of our safety. He marked the end of an era.
By the time I inherited the hood, things had gotten bad, execute-a-child-for-stealing-rations bad.
One hundred and thirty-eight. That’s my number. The number of people I’ve retired since I took the hood. Maylin Rotta will be the next.
Our station was built to be self-sustaining for eight decades. A lifespan. It’s been one hundred and fifty years. The last of the Earth natives died long ago. We found new ways to create food and oxygen but it’s not enough. Population needs to be controlled.
I pray every day. I pray for us to find a new world. A small planet to resupply. If I were a religious man, I would take comfort in this. But I only pray because it’s part of my routine.
I wish I were a religious man because that would give me the certainty of life after death.
Maylin Rotta is fifteen years old. Her younger brother had an accident and broke an arm. She stole medicine from the infirmary to help him with the pain. She was caught and sentenced for this crime. In truth, she was sentenced because we would not survive the year with the current population.
There’s no spectacle surrounding the deaths. No public square, no noose, no ax. Just a plaintive march to an airlock. People have had it with the death surrounding us. If they don’t witness it, they don’t have to feel guilt.
Once we get there, I prep Maylin in the usual way. Shackles off, flight jacket, hairband. I offer her a bible and some paper to leave a goodbye note. She writes to her brother.
I press the button to the airlock antechamber and push her inside, closing the door behind us. The second door leads to a smaller chamber. The death chamber. There’s a timer at the door, after one minute the floor of the chamber will open, releasing its occupant into space.
I start the timer. I take off my hood, but I don’t push Maylin inside the death chamber. Instead, I get in myself.
“Run,” I tell her. “Hide.”
It takes her a second to react, but she eventually does as told. After the minute is over, I fall.
One hundred and thirty-eight people I’ve killed, but not a single more.
by submission | Jan 1, 2021 | Story |
Author: Nilgin Yusuf
I had so much more to do. Physically, I’d almost reached the seventh milestone and according to the Decree of Zenith, that was it. Show over. But mentally, no. There were planets I still wanted to visit: Copernicus, Vellium, Quadus; men I wanted to impregnate, new drugs to experience. I wanted to whizz out on Axis B, all crimson and gold, preferably with Brett. But here I was, at the edge of my existence, and it didn’t seem right. Brett gently swung in his anti-gravity pod, as I nervously paced up and down.
“Hey, man,” said Brett. “There are ways. And means. Twice, those fuckers have tried to check me into the Plant. Fuck that. I’m hanging onto these organs. They can fuckin’ go harvest someone else.” I stopped and stared at him.
“Is it…here?”
“It’s somewhere safe, on loan, from a friend.”
Brett had balls of iron. The punishments for anyone caught in possession of a Regenerator were terminal. It was rumored the plutocracy had one in the Chambers of Judgement and that our leaders were actually eight thousand years old. But us cogs came with a finite warranty; keeping us into old age was not financially viable. My wrist vibrated and a vermillion message glowed. It was my check-in date for the Plant; my seventieth birthday.
“First things first,” said Brett. “You might want to bite on something.” I slipped off my foot pad, placed it in my mouth, and clenched my jaw muscles. Brett took a small blade from his boilersuit pocket, made a neat incision inside my arm, and chivvied out the microchip.
“Cyborg no more and officially deceased. Do you want to say goodbye to that Travis, Travis?”
“So long, pal,” I said to the microchip.
“Let’s go. There’s no time like the past.”
We zoomed along corridors and down endless flights of stairs, eventually arriving at a steel-lined, concrete bunker in the basement. Inside, a large, spherical, transparent structure balanced onto a metal base.
“In you go. It might feel stuffy but try to relax. Regenerating cells takes time and love.”
“Put your details in there, your DOB, and let it know how many years you want back.”
What did I need? Another ten? Twenty? I should have gone with ten. As the door closed, Brett stood outside, his boyish good looks giving me courage.
The Regenerator emitted a low-frequency sound and the temperature begins to rise. I held onto a bar and the digital screen displayed 69. I began to perspire, sweat breaking on my forehead as the humming intensified. The numbers began to descend, 65, 64. Brett was watching me. My back pain of several years disappeared and the grey hair on the back turned chestnut brown. 55, 54. My body started to retract. I looked down to see my middle-aged spread evaporate. 48, 49. As the divine spirit of youth reenergized my veins, I seemed to be glowing from within. I felt new strength as a muscular definition re-contoured my arms which felt firmer, more sinuous. My younger body felt incredible. I wasn’t going to the Plant! I would do all those things. Brett was no longer smiling. He had moved closer to the glass door and was staring at the control panel. 27. 26. Jesus! I hadn’t wanted to be this young! Brett was banging on the wall but I couldn’t hear him and noticed my clothes were suddenly too large. My trousers were slipping down and the control panel seemed to be changing position, growing larger, until I had to look up to it.
by submission | Dec 31, 2020 | Story |
Author: Andrea Goyan
In the stark examination room, I cradled Maxine. When I kissed her forehead, her bitty fingers grabbed my nose, and she giggled. My six-month-old miracle baby.
“There are worse things,” the doctor said.
I kissed her again. “I don’t think so.”
Penner Disease had come for my daughter. It was named for the scientist who’d found microbial evidence of the virus in Arctic glaciers. Cell by cell, it would destroy her, until she slipped away like the melting ice shelves that unearthed it in the first place.
But not before I loved her for 1,269 more days.
#
I spooned pureed vegetables into my almost four-year old’s mouth. “Swallow,” I said, wiping away the food that dripped from Maxine’s paralytic lips.
I changed her diapers.
“And I’m one of the lucky ones,” I murmured, repeating the empty words spoken to me at this month’s compulsory insemination. “Humanity’s hope.”
I rubbed ointment onto the lesions that bubbled on Maxine’s waist. She groaned, her face red, pained. I replaced her bandages.
Only eight percent of women on Earth can conceive. I’m one of them.
I sipped the secret herbal potion that rendered me infertile, by choice.
It was my life. My choice. Humanity be damned.
With Maxine fed and cleaned, we went outside. Slumped sideways in her wheelchair, her eyes lit up as she watched the birds.
I lifted her frail hand to point at them. “Spread your wings, little darlings. Be free.”
Maxine’s icy hand nestled in mine remained motionless. Despite a cloudless sky, warm wet drops moistened our skin. It wouldn’t be long now. A mother knows.
