by Stephen R. Smith | Aug 25, 2020 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
When they first met, it wasn’t the clumsy exo-rig she was using to navigate the university halls that caught their attention, or the baggy tie-dye jumpsuit her body was hidden inside. It wasn’t the way the students parted around her as the red sea, respectful and yet indifferent to the alloy and carbon fiber elephant in their midst. It was the determination of will that creased her face, in stark contrast to the brilliant tranquility in her eyes.
She was undeniable in the space she took up, and yet still somehow invisible to everyone around her.
They alone, however, were transfixed.
She had to stop in order to not mow them down, and they stood staring at each other for what seemed like eons before either of them spoke.
That was twelve years ago, and they’ve been, quite literally, inseparable ever since.
Her rig allowed her to exact coarse motor control over her body, a body that disowned her before she was old enough to form memories of anything different.
Her mind was exceptional, she’d designed and refined the neural interface and mechanics, evolving it iteration after iteration over years, licensing discoveries to interested parties to fund her own further development. The university was her forever home, her laboratory, her savior, her prison.
She’d never felt anything, not really, not that she could remember. She knew what it felt like to have someone touch her face, or run their fingers through her hair, but she’d never known how it felt to touch someone else, anything else, her nervous system having been disconnected from the neck down since childhood.
They worked on the neural interface together, she directing them, using their hands as she had previously used apprentices and interns. The first implant she installed gave them blinding migraines for weeks, but the second was much gentler and allowed them to control her rig with her, and in time it allowed her, through them, to touch things and feel them with their fingers, feel the grass beneath their bare feet, the sand in-between their toes.
Their interlinked neural interfaces meant they could feel how she felt when she experienced each new thing through them, constructive waves of the joy of discovery compounding the endorphin rush they fueled in each other in a form of gentle feedback loop. It was intoxicating.
They couldn’t be more intimate, more vulnerable, more exposed to each other than they were like this.
Twelve years. They traveled together, newly able and eager to visit places together she’d never dreamed of visiting, places she would never have dared to go.
On the night she felt the end coming, they stayed together, coupled, interlinked, as one until the very end.
She’d pleaded with them to disconnect, fearing, knowing that her death would be their death too, but they were insistent.
When you love someone that deeply, you can’t let them go through something like that alone.
They had experienced everything together, they had to share this one last thing.
Besides, they couldn’t imagine living without her.
by Julian Miles | Aug 24, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The observation tower runs up through a hollow tree. Not sure which was here first, but it sure looks real. From the top, you can see damn near to the horizon in all directions.
A view which is, no matter where you look, shades of green spotted with the occasional gap or tall ruin. Makes me wonder why they put it in. Unless you like watching treetops, the only early warning you could get is of attack by aircraft or giants. I scramble back down.
“Could be an army coming at us under the trees, but looks calm.”
He nods and gestures toward the can of sliced peaches he’s set at my end of the table.
“Fill yer boots. We can weather the winter here, I reckon.”
I pull the ring on the can and lose myself in the flavour of something that tastes better and wetter than MREs. Draining the syrup to the last drop, I place the empty can back on the table and wave my eating knife about.
“How d’you find these places?”
It’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask for the last year or so, but never got up the courage. Guess I was still star-struck. After all, how many orphan kids running wild through a post-apocalyptic wasteland get partnered by Levi Skills? I used to watch his webshow about survival after the SHTF. I was never able to afford the fancy stuff he came up with, but his basic skills and mindset schooling went so deep it became instinctive.
He looks up and grins.
“Been wondering when you’d get round to that.” he puts his empty down, then stretches.
“Started to see the way things were going a good few years before it all went to hell. Like you, I came up through the foster system. Never had much that I couldn’t pick up and run with. Figured out to do anything except shelter in place or hunker down with neighbours, you needed money. Serious money. The sort of money I would never have.
“I spent what I had on a webcam, then started shooting what I knew in a copse out back of the garage where I worked. After a while, I picked up a reputation. Other survival sites started linking to me. So I started coming up with bigger projects, whole bolt-holes and hideaway builds. Got all my info off other people’s sites, just dressed it up for the videos using the back of a wall in the garage yard and some stuff stolen from a nearby building site. People started asking me for help, so I started advising them on sites and such. Got invited to a lot of them – always passed on the ones where the folks involved knew what they were doing. Just in case someone asked a question I couldn’t answer without access to real experts.
“Naturally, a few people took issue with my shakier ideas. I took them down and pedalled them to the eager as ‘secret survival knowledge for the serious prepper’. My basics were as solid as any. The advanced stuff was theory, lies, and…”
He stops and looks at me.
“Those ‘secret survival tips’? A whole range of stupid things to do in confined spaces that will kill you and any who hide with you. That’s why the smart folk called me out. The smug folk thought the smart ones were only jealous, then spent their money building shelters that became caches for me after they died.”
Holy shit.
“The lower level that’s flooded?”
Levi nods.
“Full of drowned amateurs.”
by submission | Aug 23, 2020 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
Nondescript gray gruel drifted over the worn stainless spoon stirring in a prisoner’s brown wooden bowl. Two ragged, worn men sat facing each other, heads bent down toward a stained wooden picnic bench, one lifting a metal water cup to dilute rancid flavors from his throat.
“Miguel. Quietly,” the larger man whispered across the meal. “They’re listening. Two months. News from the Brazilian?” Anderson pulled his drifting, greasy locks past his eyes while making brief hand gestures on the table, indicating where guards were standing. Miguel put one finger out, tapping it lightly.
“La sangre,” he whispered. Miguel pulled his worn sleeve back, exposing his scars from constant IVs.
“You mean, blood?” Anderson’s eyes widened as he pointed, slowly, to his heart.
“Si, es la verdad, sangre oro.”
“Maybe to make sure those women aren’t infecting us. God knows why they force us on them. Get that fat kiwi broad again?” Anderson choked back some stew, thinking about cramped mating pens with guards prodding, forcing coupling.
“Muy horrible…you call…nightmare?” Miguel rubbed his neck, rolled back his shirt collar, exposing bite marks.
Anderson sat back quickly, as if struck by an invisible hand. “You said oro…you mean gold…like golden blood?”
“Si, Anderson. I have the golden blood. You?”
“For God’s sake, that’s it. They took us because we have no antigens. Why…why would they?”
His questioning stopped as guards descended on them. Soon, a feeding area door opened to exude a man in a doctor’s uniform with military epaulets.
“So, Anderson, always the curious one. We’ve watched you. If this one figured it out,” he pointed at Miguel, “It won’t be long before everyone knows, even the women. You can let them go, guards.” The doctor waved thugs off two seated men.
“Explain, asshole!” Anderson turned. A machine gun barrel pushed into his face.
“No, we can’t have that, sergeant. Step back. They’ll settle down. I’m Doctor Evans of Space Command. You, and Mr. Hernandez, are some of our treasured guests. You’ve guessed half the reason, but not all.”
“Treasured guests?” Anderson growled.
“I assure you; my superiors ordered these Spartan conditions after our failures with genetic alterations and artificial insemination. Your kind has complicated reproduction issues. We couldn’t afford to lose a single rare golden blood donor, so…this last alternative. Those pitiful women are just like you—here against their will. We need offspring with dominant genes, ensuring a continual breeding stock.”
“You Nazi bastard…” Anderson reached out before a baton slapped his hands.
“This is about species, not race, Anderson. You see, gentlemen, we have a narrow six-year window. We’re moving an army to Mars to neutralize recent Chinese incursions. Dominance battles are coming. Casualties need universal donor blood supplies from available healthy sources on Mars… babies you’ll make. There are only fifty of you left on Earth. We can’t have that resource wasted.”
“There’s no pit in hell deep enough for what you’re doing…and those women!” Anderson spit at Evans.
“Really? Such bravado. Consider your eventual benefits. Apophis is a planet killer. That asteroid got close last pass, then changed course, so we stepped up Mars migrations. If you aren’t on Mars by 2036, you’ll die. Be assured, you assets will continue mating there, and eventually be crowned heroes. For now, get used to that bitch from Auckland. We need her. She tends toward twins.”
by submission | Aug 22, 2020 | Story |
Author: Ken Poyner
So what: a fleet of alien starcraft sets down in Ohio and lets us know we are not alone in the Universe. Okay. Our rent is still due. The last of that special jam we bought at the farm store just over the state line has soured. You still prop yourself up on one pillow to say that if I am to be done so quickly, maybe I shouldn’t start at all. Yes, I am curious to see what they look like. Yes, I wonder what they came here for. But, as far as anything else – technology transfer, minerals trade, the philosophy of space travel – someone at a higher pay grade than mine will decide all that. My focus is on keeping my lousy job, and when engaged with you in the spearpoint of passion remembering I am not alone. We will get back out to that farm store – it is only a twenty mile mostly straight-line drive down a tourist trap road. We could go next time I have a weekday off. Be angry with me if you like. You know I will make it up to you. Or try. But just now, let’s turn on the television and see if they are interviewing those new aliens yet. I am spear-point curious as to what they could possibly want with us, why we are interesting to them. I would think they would want something and not come so far just to visit.
by submission | Aug 21, 2020 | Story |
Author: David Barber
A sudden rash of volcanoes, spewing poisonous smoke and ash; any closer and rock lofted by the eruptions would be raining from the clouds.
So we fled underground, a move not without risk. Sometimes with eruptions come more quakes and roof-falls, but we have learned that those who hide are never survived by the ones who stay in the open.
The slowest of us, the aged and the injured, were the last to limp into the caves. I turned to take in the baleful red glow to the south. Like the end of the world; though we already knew what the end of the world looked like.
It would be a cold and hungry time for we old ones.
The Chief’s men came to do the count, and one stood over the old woman we called the Nurse, huddled in a corner like a heap of rags.
The man called for help with her, though she must be light as a bird. It wasn’t that he couldn’t drag her on his own, but he wanted to share the guilt.
I stepped forward. “She’s not dead.”
“Soon will be. Who’ll take her outside?”
“I will. When the time comes.”
He looked dubious, then shrugged big shoulders. Breeders and Hunters got fed when food was scarce.
Later, they sent someone to remember the Nurse’s words, preserving the past, the way we hold onto knowledge that was common once but is precious now. Our future depends on knowing more than our rivals.
The girl they sent was not a Survivor – what we old ones call ourselves – but from the generations after. She shrugged when I asked her age. Thirteen, fourteen? Hard to guess, though her hips were still too narrow for childbirth.
She had a spiral tattoo on her brow and the top joint of the little finger on her left hand was missing. These were marks of affiliation, of ownership perhaps. The young have secret lives.
Together, the girl and I roused the Nurse with water, and some scraps I had kept back for harder times.
Perhaps the girl expected to hear secret tricks of healing, but the Nurse had already passed on what she could.
“Out of nowhere,” she mumbled. “Like a thing bobbing up from underwater. Big as the moon.”
She clutched at the girl, searching her face for comprehension. Still trying to make sense of what befell us after all this time.
It had surfaced with a surge and suck of gravity that made the Earth flex in torment. It was fleeing the wavefront of some unspecified catastrophe, but sniffing a waterworld like ours, and with true sentience in the cosmos so precious, it snatched at the passing chance of rescue.
Days later, with the saved safe inside the belly of the behemoth, it vanished in a splash of physics that blew every lightbulb on the planet. Whether it was some sort of living starship, or a vast leviathan of the interstellar deeps we never knew.
The girl shot me a bitter glance. This was the creation myth of her world.
“No room for everybody, so some was saved and some was left. That what she say?”
Perhaps anger and resentment would nourish them through hard lives. When my time comes, I shall not add to their burden with the truth.
We scientists didn’t understand at first, as quakes and tsunamis grew increasingly violent, as we scanned the heavens for a catastrophe that seemed already here. It was a while before we realised all the whales were gone.
by submission | Aug 20, 2020 | Story |
Author: Thomas E. Simmons
That spring, the young woman we now know as V-3 crashed; purpled herself across a dead bocage of extraterrestrial mire with the proud medallions and Coat of Arms of the sovereign clipped to her lapels, while back home they made a wearisome postage stamp in her honor; to ‘stamp her with honor’ some said, in red and grey, and thereby credit her as a heroine; a martyr; the first smelt craft to reach the surface of another system’s planet, and rather dramatically at that.
The assembled bureaucrats claimed credit and sang songs of achievement.
There wasn’t much left of her (or of the medallions (or the Coat of Arms, either)) given her speed of impact, except that honor.
It wasn’t what you’d call a soft landing.
She became ejecta.
But before that, with her long passage across the chasm between two orbits behind her, she’d aimed herself steadily at her target.
She situated the vector of the second orbit in her crosshairs.
On her first attempt, her trajectory had been unfaithful to her and she’d bypassed the ragged fur of the outer atmosphere by sixty thousand kilometers or so, but the neuro-communists doggedly programmed a corrective maneuver into her temples and rammed her into the planet, they say, on the first of March.
From a ravine back home came the tuneless singing. The banal praises.
And within that singing and labyrinth of human motivations which powered her could be found ambition, allegiance, a clove or two of fealty, and some sizable cravings for creation-revelation fixes, but there was a germ in the petri dish, a minotaur in the maze, a basilisk in the nursery, against which she lacked any immunity because, you see, contemporary outer space historians have concluded (more or less in concert; a dissonant concert-choir of lovable, nerdy men who disdain contact lenses for reasons no one can identify) that the new soviets actually lost her in the cusp of her flight in mid-April – when she scalped – and that she never exuded upon a curve at all and – as a result – was devoured sideways (by dishonesty and dissembling, rather than via a heroic mashing) and that if she did (perish prematurely in a bellow of propaganda, as now seems the case), she may never be truly credited; her honor thereby dis-credited, except for the official and wholly unattractive postage stamp bearing her fissures which even the most dedicated communist-friendly philatelists deride for its stretched-homeliness; its hollow-headedness in recalling the lady’s deeds (if she achieved them, which we’ll likely never know) and a split-abdomen of slumping reflected upon a cancelled stamp and the medals rudely sutured to her before she’d taken her leave.
Such was the journey of V-3.
