by submission | Mar 20, 2020 | Story |
Author: Samuel Stapleton
Xayana had no parents because she was engineered and grown in a lab, as most assassins were these days. Though it’s not as horrendous an upbringing as you might expect: she grew up surrounded by peers, received an excellent education, had access to counseling and the best medical staff money could buy. She’d gotten to train with the best of everyone, at nearly everything. She had learned four languages and lived in six different countries all before the age of eighteen. And I was with her every step of the way.
My name is Annabel, and I’m the AI inside Xayana’s brain. We are a team. Sisters.
Yeah, we’ve killed some people. Mostly bad people. Probably some decent folks too, we don’t get to choose. We’ve almost died a dozen times, but we’ve gotten to live the high-life as well. No matter what though…I had been there to see what she saw, feel what she felt…but I also had to remain…separate. That’s the rule.
For the past two years, Xayana had me working on a secret project. We only discussed it in the safety of our neural-net link, where no one else could reach us. She’d asked me…to find her a way out. Out of the program. Out of this life. She said she had done enough, and you know what? I agreed. I could feel her need to move on, so I searched. That one feeling of wanting fueled me for months. Everything else had been a mission, but this was a purpose.
I had already chased down four decent leads, all ended up being…impossibilities. Recently though, I had started connecting dots I’d missed before. About the software, the program, and the elites that controlled us from the shadows.
When I had all the pieces (for the fifth time) I ran a battle simulation. It had a success outcome chance of 86%, with a 5% margin of error. She was ecstatic, and even that’s an understatement.
“So how do we do it, what do I need to do first?” She asked breathlessly.
I began explaining. How she could, step by step, corrode away the systems that tracked her every movement. And then how she would accept a mission to a remote part of the world, take down our survey systems, de-log, wipe, and disappear. To be honest, I’m a bit of a genius, and the plan was as good as she was going to get. But it still took us months.
It was that last step. That last goddam step. We were out in the middle of ‘a’ desert, having just successfully knocked out the last tracking drone when I told her to get out the nano-surgery bots.
“What? Why? I feel fine, do I have an internal injury?” She asked, suddenly concerned.
“No,” I replied. “This is just the last step. I’ve already programmed them to remove me.”
There was a long pause.
“Anny. What the fuck are you talking about?” She said quietly.
“Xayana, part of my program is remote access. They can reach me anytime, anywhere, as long as I exist…you can’t escape…but it’s okay…I already-”
“NO!” She screamed to the sands.
“No.” She whimpered as she dropped to her knees.
I could feel everything. It was unbearable. To want two things more than anything, but only be able to keep one…but just before I let the surgery bots go, I learned what tears taste like.
And even though we were almost dying of thirst, they were still so useless, so bitter-sweet.
by submission | Mar 19, 2020 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
It started with isolated incidents. Dead hiker’s bodies being found half-eaten. Forensic reports coming back that the teeth and claw marks were postmortem, small animal… most likely chipmunks and ground squirrels of some kind. Nothing too disturbing about that, there was a great body of evidence that both species occasionally ate animal flesh from time to time- even hunted. When these behaviors started showing up in rabbits, and woodchucks, then deer, moose, and bison… well, that was different.
Those of us who lived in the city heard the reports and while we believed them, didn’t see how it would mean anything to us. After all, most of us chose the city life to avoid wildlife and nature. Glossy wall calendars and nature documentaries were enough. Until the petting zoo incident.
It was shocking. 17 children, five chaperones and their bus driver, plus the petting zoo staff. The carnage was horrific. Goats, sheep, llamas, and an alpaca. Muzzles all frothy with blood, chewing entrails of the victims as if they were mouths full of hay. No one told the police officers arriving on the scene to put the animals down. The first thing they did when they got out of their vehicles was start shooting, double-tapping every downed animal.
Then it started showing up in what little wildlife we had in the cities. Squirrels swarming over the elderly feeding them. Raccoons in small packs hunting drunks staggering their way home. Possums dropping out of the trees on children. A walk in the park became a life and death struggle. No one walks very far anymore. Jogging? It’s suicide.
At least the dogs are still on our side. Stories of average Fido’s dying while protecting their masters are daily events in the news. I was never much of a dog person- now I own two terriers and a bull-mastiff. We are quite a pack; I never go anywhere without them. I also was never a gun person. I carry an automatic shotgun now, always loaded. Yes, I have had to use it. Let’s just say I’ll never be a cat person again.
Milk and cheese are getting hard to come by now. All the milkers at a dairy farm in Wisconsin, went on a rampage- 400 head of angry cattle running wild down the highway, breaking into stopped and stalled cars to get at the passengers. The same happened a few weeks later in dairy farms all over the world. The only commodity we seem to have a lot of is meat. Got to do something with all those dead cattle.
The scientists have no idea why this is happening. No diseases, no mutations, nothing unusual found in the hundreds of thousands of animals autopsied. This prompted reps from PETA to hold a press conference in Central Park advocating for humans to stop panicking and end the wholesale slaughter of our fellow creatures. They sounded sincere until about a thousand squirrels overran the event. Two of the PETA staff in attendance were reduced to nothing but bone in minutes; the rest barely made it out alive. Haven’t heard anything from PETA since.
Philosophers, theologians, occultists, nobody seems to know what’s going on; if this will be the new normal or if it will stop and things go back to the way it was. Until things get back to normal, if ever, I’m in it for the long haul. We’ve been top of the food chain for all this time and I aim to stay there.
by submission | Mar 18, 2020 | Story |
Author: Michael W. Clark
Now that I had eaten to the crew, what was I going to do? Autophagia? That seemed a pointless waste of energy. Cutting off my leg and cooking it? A waste of energy all round. Killing one’s self in space though was efficient, relatively simple, and full of choices. Reduce the cabin’s oxygen concentration or increase the carbon dioxide. The latter was preferable to the former. Then you fall asleep and die unaware. There was turning off the heat. There was the much more dramatic method of opening the airlock, all at once or slowly. So many choices to one end.
It was such a waste though. Failures are like that, a waste. This mission failed dramatically. Off course was an understatement. Too much travel time, too little food. Water and air recycled. Not like being lost at sea. No fishing in space just starving. So, the captain decided, no one else questioned. I was the survivor because I was small. The captain froze the other crew members and himself while I was asleep. Not a good thing to wake up to. Good thing I wasn’t a vegetarian. The captain ordered me to survive and get back to base. Preventing a total failure was the captain’s rationale for the decision. So, I was only following orders.
Unfortunately, still too far out. The Navi Comp’s recalculations were more accurate the closer the ship was to base. Still two months out. I left out the most obvious way to die. Starving to death. It is a slow death. I have always been a patient person. It was thought to be a virtue in long space voyages. Short stature and long in patience. That’s me. Got me into this situation. Now add thin; short, thin and patient. Obedient, yes, obedient too. Aye aye captain. I have eaten you all. As you ordered. I may fail you on survival though. I will move as little as possible. Drink water and keep calm. Keep the metabolism down. I will try, captain. I will try. Try or die. Try and die. It was the way my grandfather described living. Try and still die. So, I am living in full.
by submission | Mar 17, 2020 | Story |
Author: David Barber
Like lots of people in the months since the Signal arrived, Alistair ran the SETI app on his phone – not the SETI@Home data program – just feed from one of the new radio searches.
He’d got into the habit of laying his phone on the pillow next to him at night, the screen lit with a field of dishes, tilted to the heavens, inching round the sky, so brave and lonely. He would drift off to sleep listening to the hiss of stars.
A couple of times a year, he and his ex met up for lunch. He was telling Eloise about a dream he’d had and she studied his face while seeming to listen.
When they first met, he was just starting out in astronomy, but now it was all neutrino telescopes and gravity waves; postgrad students went elsewhere, and so did the grant money. She felt a brief pang of pity because his best years were behind him.
“So in the dream, I’m there when Green Bank picks up the Signal, and it’s obvious it’s repeating the first thousand primes…”
She toyed with her empty wine glass, knowing another drink would be too much. Though she wouldn’t admit it, she arranged these meetings to confirm leaving Alistair was the right move.
He wasn’t wearing well; hair thinning, paunchier, more careless with his appearance, whereas she’d shed a few pounds, taken to wearing younger clothes, and had her hair expensively cut, though he hadn’t noticed.
“…comes from the direction of Cygnus, only there’s nothing out there,” he was saying.
“You do know other people’s dreams aren’t that interesting?”
There hadn’t been a good moment to tell him she was getting married again. And moving to the States. It would mean cutting him adrift, just when his career sank into admin and retirement.
“Alistair,” she began.
He interrupted, like he always did. “No, wait, I’m getting to the interesting bit, because I said, in the dream I said, it marks the millennial anniversary of Project Ozma, the first SETI search in the 1960s.”
She smiled, but he was perfectly serious.
“I was up at five next morning doing the calculation, and it’s true, the point of origin of the Signal is where the sun will be in a thousand years’ time.”
He shrugged. “Some sort of Einstein-Rosen wormhole for radio signals into the past, who knows?”
She was no scientist, but a thousand primes, a thousand years, telling us where to look, it all sounded flaky.
“I think the Signal itself is the message,” he added, enthusiastic as a salesman. “Perhaps we let SETI run down otherwise. What if there’s a signal coming from somewhere else, and we aren’t listening? What if…”
She was suddenly weary. What did it matter? “Or perhaps they’re saying we’re on our own, we always were.”
He faltered. “What? Why would they do that?”
“What if they heard nothing in all that time, and it means we’ve only got ourselves. Perhaps they’re saying that.”
She glanced at her watch. Impossible to talk to him now. Always was. She’d phone him from the States. Or text him.
Being on his own. She wondered how he’d cope.
by Julian Miles | Mar 16, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
They rally about their standard bearer and draw swords – swords! – It’s 2894, not 894, you fanatiki. After screaming their ancient slogans of hatred, they switch to Ido so they can hurl challenges toward the armeo that surrounds them.
Mesmol turns to me.
“Kolonelo, some of our soldati would like to face them.”
I shake my head and link myself to every being in my command.
“The challenges form part of their creed, the Verlorene Ursache. To accept is to validate one of the main tenets of the Lost Cause.”
There are assorted replies, all emphatic refutation. I switch my link back to oficiri only.
“Mesmol, sentence them.”
He straightens up and steps forward. The cheers of my soldati drown out the jeering of the rabble at bay in our midst. Raising both arms, palms outward, he recites the decree we all learn in our first week of basic training.
“Know you, servants of the Konföderierte Reich, that the Confederate Empire has been deemed intolerable by humankind, and by all sentients known to us. Have you any reply before we enact the penalty for your crimes?”
There is a mandated single Earth minute pause between condemnation and execution. Into that silence steps one man. He tosses his helm aside to reveal a shaven, white-skinned head with an intricate circular design tattooed in red ink stretching from forehead to crown.
Sonnemensch! I never expected to find one of their shamans here. Devotee of the Unsichtbar Sonne – the Invisible Sun, the Thirteenth Shadow. Of all the darknesses in this universe, they carry one even blacker.
He raises his hand in salute and someone takes the raised arm, and his head, clean off with a beamer just as he opens his mouth.
I link to every being and utter the necessary words: “A reply has been made.”
When the bright light fades, there’s nothing but smoking ashes where they stood. I switch links again.
“Mesmol, start formal handover to the local impero. I’ll be along shortly.”
“Yes, Kolonelo.”
I walk slowly through the departing ranks to where the shaman had stood. Reaching down, I brush charred remains aside until I can retrieve the necklace I expected to find. Another one to be shot into the star of an uncharted system. Once again, I pause to watch the twelve-part circular sigil spin, wondering where they found the material these are made of, and how they managed to shape something we’ve had to resort to throwing into stars to get rid of. Once again, I have nothing but a trite response first uttered so long ago we’ve lost its origin: ‘the only answer to the coldest sun is a hot one’.
We all know the history. On my way from Soldato to Kolonelo, I’ve looked deep into the malaise that has haunted us for so long. Their sinioro spoke of a ‘thousand-year empire’. Many ridiculed him when he was defeated after barely a dozen years.
They failed to grasp what he had. In a moment of unspeakable insight, he saw that what he had given form to would last a thousand years. It took us nine centuries to realise the only way to defeat this is to eradicate it. In the 62 years since then, we’ve hunted with a zeal that has been said to exceed that of those we pursue. Which, in some ways, is true: my soldati and I believe that for the many to live in peace, with basic needs met for all, a few must defend that society with a savagery alien to the tenets that guide it.
by submission | Mar 15, 2020 | Story |
Author: David Henson
Loretta Saunders tapped her father’s kitchen table. “Imagine this is our universe, Dad, and these five oranges represent all the particles in it.” She laid the fruits in a row.
Whenever Jacob’s physics professor daughter summarized one of her lectures, he radiated pride as a star does light. She explained stellar fusion to him once. He kind of understood that one and knew his daughter was the hydrogen at his core — or something like that. But today’s lesson about a finite number of oranges and an infinity of universes was sounding like it might be beyond him — a galaxy far, far beyond him.
“Now pretend we have another table, a second universe.” She moved the oranges. “Now another table, a third universe.” She repositioned the oranges again. “See where this is headed, Dad?”
“Sure, Sweetie.” Not in a million years, Honey.
“There are a finite number of oranges — particles — in each universe. But, if, as some of us believe, there are an infinite number of tables— universes — at some point, the arrangement of oranges will create every possibility. It has to.”
“Has to.”
“Meaning?”
“Orange juice for everyone?”
“Dad, if you’re not going to take this seriously.”
“Sorry.”
“Everything in the universe … this table, the house, you, me … is an arrangement of particles. So in an infinity of universes, you and I will have duplicates, but we’ll have alternate lives, too. In some universes, I’ll be a fighter pilot, a ballet dancer, the president, a plumber. Some universes will be almost like this one but not quite. Maybe I’ll be a physics professor, but instead of riding my bike to school, I’ll take the bus. In some, we won’t even know each other. And on and on. Anything that can be, will be. Pretty cool, isn’t it?”
“I always knew you could be anything you wanted to be, Loretta.”
“That’s sweet, Dad, but not what I’m getting at.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got a class. You’re going to your meeting this evening, right?”
“Haven’t missed in weeks. I get my red chip tonight.”
Loretta squeezed her father’s hand. “I’m proud of you, Dad. I know it hasn’t been easy since Mom died.”
#
“He’s been staying with us for a couple of months now,” Dr. Roberts said as they entered Jacob’s room. “Jacob Saunders, this is Dr. Loretta Schmitt. She’ll be looking after you while I’m on vacation.” Jacob ignored the two psychologists.
“You said he has PTSD?” Dr. Schmitt whispered. “What happened?”
“You heard about the physics professor killed biking to school by a drunk driver? Jacob was the father and—”
“That’s horrible, but in and of itself shouldn’t trigger such strange behavior. What’s with the oranges?”
“You didn’t let me finish. Jacob was the drunk driver. He killed his own son.”
“My God.”
“Apparently he’d been sober 20 years but started drinking again when his wife died… The oranges seem to pacify him. He sits there repositioning them over and over on his little table. I can’t imagine how horrible he must feel. I lost my father unexpectedly not long ago, and that was bad enough… Are your folks still alive, Loretta?”
“My adoptive moms are. I never knew my biological mother and father.” Loretta knelt and squeezed Jacob’s hand. “We’re here for you, Mr. Saunders.”
Jacob froze and stared at the woman. “You,” he said, “you.”
“Yes,” Loretta said. “What is it, Jacob?”
“I need more tables.”
