by submission | Aug 15, 2020 | Story |
Author: Arkapravo Bhaumik
It was on the insistence of Tom that I agreed to that silly piece of imitation. James died a frightful death, his cancer gnawed through him in less than ten months, and ever since I have not been able to clear out the lump in my heart. He is not coming back however well the imitation tried. Tom said it was augmented hologram with textured plastic for skin and it had an emotional quotient akin to that of James. It looked a lot like James and Tom even claimed that it had a similar memory. While it could not process 5567889 x 3344216 with elan but it responded with a smile when it got a whiff of James’ favourite brand of cappuccino and sometimes even looked at me and added, “Thank you, love.” I really could not care less.
*** ***
Sunday. I stood before his tombstone – ‘James McDougall (16 April 2004 – 21 July 2047), Wonderful Person and a Loving Husband’. I touched the cross and then the shiny marble covering. The best I could to get closer to him. Then reality took over. I rubbed my eyes and walked away hoping my soul would quickly repair itself and I would be back in the world with a smile, as though it had never been ripped apart.
*** ***
At the riverfront. The trees had the lush of spring. The water played along both the banks. Kids were making paper boats and sailing them and a few others walking their dogs. One of these days we should take the boat trip downstream. $12 for two tickets and half an hour of a fun ride. We can get down to the old market. Oh! yes… I just forgot he is no more. Oh! my.
*** ***
Couldn’t sleep. Tried reading a book and then watching TV. If only he was here, but then there were times when I prayed for his peaceful death as the pain was unbearable. I rubbed my eyes and then my forehead as I contemplated sleeping pills.
“Are you all right?” it was Tom’s gadget, the imitation.
“No, I am not” I turned and replied. Inadvertently I felt it’s left palm. It was probably a reflex or maybe just my weakness that I quickly took it in a tight embrace and burst out in tears.
“Hey, what happened love?” it said.
“James, take me in your arms and let me cry” I replied in spurts and gasps.
“It is okay, you should be sleeping at this time,” it said as it put its hands on my shoulders.
Cries had taken over my voice and venting it all out mattered more than making civil conversations with a robot.
by submission | Aug 14, 2020 | Story |
Author: Marina Barakatt
You don’t know where you are or how you got there. You figure that it’s technically a prison, but nicer than anything you’ve ever paid money for. The bedroom alone is as big as your apartment. There’s a King bed and a hammock on the patio. The patio of your dreams. There’s even a kitchenette with a small electric stovetop.
You walk the outer wall, counting steps, concentrating hard on taking one step per second. You count exactly 1,200 steps. The first time you think it’s a fluke. You start the third lap immediately after the second, increasingly agitated every time you land at an even 1,200. You try to keep track of days by scratching marks in the wall, but every morning you wake to find them gone. Not painted over, just gone. You begin scratching marks into your arm.
The restaurant is big enough for dozens of tables but only one is positioned precisely in the middle of the room. The wood of the empty bar and maitre d’ stand gleams with fresh oil. Corners are free of dust and dirt, even with the windows open and the lace curtains dancing in the constant, pleasant breeze.
Three times a day, a meal appears on the table. Never the same thing, never anything you dislike. Always just enough food to keep you full until your stomach starts to grumble. Bottles of juice and water in familiar brands appear in the bedroom’s small fridge.
At first you refuse to eat, though you find yourself compelled to wander towards the restaurant at mealtimes. The aromas wafting off the plates drive you crazy, but you’re damned if you’re going to eat food without seeing any evidence of its preparation or ingredients. On the second hungry evening, a note sits next to the plate.
Please eat, it says. It’s safe. The heavy paper is neatly folded in half.
After the hunger strike, you stay in the restaurant for three full days, trying to see the meals arrive. You sit in the chair and stare hard at the table, but inevitably, despite your best attempts to keep your eyes open, you find yourself squeezing your eyes closed and shaking your head to fight through fog. When your head clears, the table is back to the middle of the room, bearing a new meal.
One night you arrive to find perfectly cooked steak, creamy mashed potatoes with green beans that are crunchy in the way you like, and a velvety red wine. Next to the plate sits a large steak knife. You hold the knife in your hand, feeling the weight of it. They’ve never given you a knife this sharp before. You run your finger lightly along the serrated edge, so sharp it nearly breaks your skin, a thought forming into your head. You look around to make sure whatever it is is watching you, then let the knife rest lightly on your skin. You begin to press.
A sudden sensation envelops your head, like you took a huge bite of ice cream and then stood up quickly. You try to maintain your grip on the knife but realize that you’re bent at the waist, elbows tucked into your stomach. When you open your eyes, a bowl of creamy pumpkin soup sits on the table. The air around you somehow feels apologetic.
You sit for a moment, running your fingers over your wrist, then something releases in your chest. You stand and flip the table.
by submission | Aug 13, 2020 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
“What’s the emergency Lieutenant?”
“Sir, the alien device in locker 433 has activated itself.”
“Contact protocols?”
“In place. The Contact team is in the staging area waiting for you sir.”
“Excellent. Security?”
“In place.”
“Chamber area?”
“Sterilized and ready for contact.”
“Outstanding. Give me the vitals on the object activity on our way down.”
The base commander and his lieutenant made their way to the secure elevator. Two armed guards snapped to attention. The commander and the lieutenant each removed a key from around their necks. They inserted their keys into receptacles on either side of the elevator doors.
“On my mark Lieutenant: 3-2-1… MARK!”
They turned their keys, the elevator door opened, and they stepped inside.
The commander nodded and the lieutenant began his briefing as the elevator descended.
“At 1726 hrs. Zulu, scanners picked up an energy spike from the alien object in locker 433. All probes indicate radiation normal. Biohazards, bio-organisms, or any biological threats- none. Chemical, Volatile materials- none. Probes indicate low-level energy building, but at full discharge, it would not be enough to kill a small housefly. X-rays and electron scans indicate a reservoir of liquid in the device. Components are organic but inert. It is not conclusive if the liquid is a manufactured or biological organism extract. At 1729 Zulu hrs., the display screen on the object began transmitting a series of images: four vertical lines, four horizontal lines, the Chinese character for four, the Sanskrit numeral four, the word “four”, the Roman numeral four, four dots, the English numeral four. Then the pattern repeats.”
The commander nodded again. “Anything else I should know?”
“Yes sir. In spite of the threat scans being negative, the science team is advising all contact be in the hazmat suits with the face shields.”
The commander shook his head. “Nonsense… I find the risk acceptable.”
The elevator door opened, and the commander and his Lieutenant exited quickly. Four sets of doors and eight biometric security scans later, the commander stood before the alien artifact.
He walked around the medicine ball-sized object, shadows being cast from the display as it went through its sequence. The commander shook his head. “What does it mean…four?”
Suddenly, a high-pitched whine pierced the room. From within the object, low pitched gibberish filled the room and evolved into English.
“Four. Four. Four. Four.” The sphere said mechanically.
The commander came closer to the sphere. “What is the significance of four? What are you trying to tell us?”
The display stopped its sequence and then pulsed only the numeral four. Four quick beeps emanated from the alien machine. The was a hiss, and a panel opened from the sphere’s side. “Four. Four. Four. Four.” Came the reply.
The commander drew closer to the machine. “Are you all recording this?” He said aloud to no one in particular.
“Yes sir!” came several replies.
The commander bent closer to observe the open panel. Suddenly there was a large hiss followed by a stream of inky black liquid that burst from the depths of the sphere. It covered the commander’s face and coated his decorations & ribbons with a thick coat of black goo. From within the sphere, the sound of mechanical laughter bubbled up and filled the room. “FIVE! FIVE! FIVE! FIVE! FIVE!” The sphere boomed out.
Then, accessing a technology far beyond our understanding, it vanished from sight.
by submission | Aug 12, 2020 | Story |
Author: J. P. Roquard
The city stretches out below me; a sweeping view, buildings pressed close, the old city being devoured by the new. This is my home. This is where I have always lived. This is the view I’ve sold my soul to see, sip, sip.
“Your friends are out there, aren’t they?” says Hamid.
He watches me from just inside the door. Not visible from outside, but near enough to grab me if I do something stupid; try to jump. Hamid is the kind one. An interrogator not a torturer. He’s the one who got me to talk, s-ip, s-ip.
The beer is watery. The cheapest variety of the cheapest brand, but it tastes divine. I drink it slowly, savouring every drop, savouring every minute out here in the sun, watching my city, sip, sip, sip.
They say there are people who can hold out indefinitely under interrogation. I’m not one of those people. The pain was bearable. All my life I was told these people are the enemy, are monsters. I expected pain from monsters. It was kindness that broke me. After so long in the dark, hungry and alone, a small offer of kindness was all it took, s-ip, s-ip, s-ip.
I gave them a name. In return I get to sit out here every afternoon and drink one beer. That is all it took to betray my friends; one beer and some sunshine. Not the pain, the torture, the darkness, the hours alone, knowing I will die. No, just a simple comfort; sunlight, a beer, and a view of my city.
“Do they know you are here?” asks Hamid.
“How should I know?”
“Perhaps they are watching you right now?”
Sip, s-ip, sip.
He’s right. My friends are out there somewhere in this city. My comrades in arms, my brother. Or terrorists, as Hamid calls them. But one man’s terrorist is always another’s freedom fighter, sip, s-ip, sip.
“What would you say to them? If you could speak to them now?” says Hamid.
“I do not know.”
“Would you tell them about me?”
I should not hide from the truth. They are my comrades, my brother. But what will they think of me now? Even if I survive, if I’m allowed to leave this place, I cannot return to my old life. I have betrayed my brother. Even family has its limits.
“No,” I say. “I would not tell them. They would not like to hear about a man like you.”
“Then what would you say?”
I check my beer. Only four sips left, but that is all I need for the last letter; s-ip, sip, s-ip, s-ip.
Hamid is smiling when he talks again; I cannot see but I hear it in his voice. “You know, you’re not the only one who knows Morse code.”
I should have known he wasn’t fooled, that he’d know what I was doing all along. That this luxury was just a different kind of interrogation. But it doesn’t matter. Nobody is watching us. I have no friends anymore and this is no longer my city. I cannot deceive myself with such hopes.
The message was only for me.
Hamid rises, a rustle behind me. “Come, my friend. It’s nearly time. I have more questions for you.”
I put the empty bottle down and turn my back on my city, on my home.
by submission | Aug 11, 2020 | Story |
Author: Morrow Brady
“What do you see?” She whispered into the darkness.
He widened his eyes and held his breath.
“Nothing. Just pitch black”
Her next lesson would be her last.
“Not black. Eigengrau. A dark, dark grey. Perfect for….”
And then it all kicked off.
It was over in minutes.
In the stillness, when the blood rush and panting subsided, he lay in agony, staring wide-eyed into eigengrau. Waiting for the final stroke to be delivered.
With trembling fingers, he reluctantly thumbed an orb air-ward and a soft patina green illuminated a decaying Tuscan colonnade and a grisly scene.
His burdened, limp arm was riddled with pulsating grey ribbons, like an overgrown Buddhist temple. The violent tech had infiltrated his boosted biology. Unrecoverable.
Glittery sauce spilt from the severed end of a thick ribbon that serpentined through murky puddles to splay into a ham sized seeder, gasping in the rubble like a dying fish.
“Bag o’ bits” He grittily mumbled.
A horrid squeezing sensation informed him his arm’s tattoo armour had failed. What remaining nerves tingled, their fellows hollow. Dead. His thrashing, moments earlier, while in the throes of a shower of pain, now a shocking core memory. The other hand, uncorrupted, clamped at the wrenched tricep where the other severed end of the ribbon protruded, still squirming, longing for its seeder host. A ghastly mix of glitter and blood seeped from its hollow centre, pooling on the ground.
He started to yank it out and her voice in his head mocked him.
“Not backward compatible buddy”
He rubbed his bruised, aching neck, where moments ago his corrupted hand had tried to strangle him unconscious. The seeder’s desperate bid at buying time to fully overthrow its host.
In the soft green light, he hesitated, then forced himself to roll his head to look towards her last position. Small muddy boots, legs akimbo and smoke rising from her seared skull. His mentor’s sacrifice her true final lesson. Her tortured femininity convulsing under a seething mass of eigengrau straps lit up by the white laser flash-band to the temple. Her final deep wail through vocal cords engulfed with blackened snakes and then the foul stench of burnt hair and strange cooked pork filled the dark, dark grey.
He edged on defeat, but rose to his feet anyway, reliant on his sole working arm.
“Still standing, so the mission still stands” he mockingly muttered her mantra, as shrill bucks sounded in the distance, heralding the approach of the scrapers to recover the victim.
Of course their presence had been sounded. He kicked the deflated seeder into a stone column. It crackled in jest.
Stumbling forward, he picked up his still steaming weapon, reinserted it into its chest slot. He withdrew a thick silvery band and clamped it high on his infected arm. He breathed deep, braced and hit activate. Red rings glowed and everything fell. A metallic ping followed a meaty thunk and he tottered for a new centre of gravity. As the sharp pain dulled, he craned his sore neck and examined the beefy cauterised site at his shoulder, recoiling instantly at that sweet porcine odour.
“Oh lovely” He muttered sarcastically.
He restarted along the seeder filled colonnade. Their eigengrau ribbon stems wafting, waiting, willing an unknowing host.
As he entered his target sector, a mighty explosion in the distance made him grin.
“Felt that one”
Deep now into the sector, he extinguished the orbs and crept forward once more in eigengrau. A patient stem waited to end his mission, the explosives implanted throughout his body waited to end theirs.
by Julian Miles | Aug 10, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Nine years ago today, I think, is when my fervent wish came true: my mundane life was transformed into a thing of wonder.
Wonder… Plus confusion, pain, fear, grief, longing and, right now: abject terror.
The cause of that is crouching next to where I lie in the torn ruts of the field I’d been hoeing. It plummeted from the green clouds above, paused a few metres off the ground, then proceeded to float down.
They look like ochre smoke captured in a human-shaped plastic bag. They smell like apple pie. They squeak when they move. They’re faceless, fingerless, and toeless – but have thumbs on all four limbs.
“Hello, Malcolm.”
I wet myself. Feeling the warmth spurs me to do something.
“H-Hi.”
The head moves like it’s looking about.
“I see you’ve got the settlement up and running. With an emphasis on running.”
I think that was a joke?
“N-not f-funny.”
It nods.
“I can understand that. Anyway: thought you’d like the explanation I promised.”
I remember. Amidst that whirl of light and sound, I’d screamed out, demanding of God why I’d been picked to die in a freak accident when there were so many bastards deserving of death still walking about. God didn’t answer. Something else did: ‘If you survive, I’ll come and tell you.’
I’d blacked out at that point.
“It was you?”
“Talking, yes. Picking you up, no. That was done using an energy field generated by one of our machines.”
I sit up.
“Go on, then. Tell me.”
“Nothing personal, I assure you. We just prefer your kind. The population of what you call Earth has a usefully delusional approach to anything outside the realms of their accepted beliefs, and if anyone does know about us, they’re too busy trying to find ways of exploiting the situation to their advantage. Either way, when we grab a few people, no-one investigates in any effective manner.”
“You prefer us?”
“Yes. Apart from the self-deluding aspects of your minds, you have a trait that is unique: you adapt and survive no matter what. It’s quite incredible to behold. Pick up a few hundred of you from Earth, fix that degenerative inbreeding thing – and slow your aging while we’re in there – then drop the lot of you on some appalling planet and leave you to it. We come back a century or so later and eight times out of ten you’ve sorted the place out enough for us to live there. There’s sometimes a bit of conflict over us moving in, but, like I said, you’re adaptable. Most of you make the switch to serfdom nicely.”
“What about those who don’t?”
It stands up.
“Those who want to serve usually make short work of them.”
“What about the unusual ones?”
The thing shrugs.
“We transplant hundreds of you between galaxies, modifying your bodies with barely any effort during the process. Updating those modifications is simple.”
“You force the uncooperative to comply?”
“No. We bring about their deaths. No resistant strain can be allowed to survive.”
It shrugs like it’s reluctantly acknowledging a point: “Infectious stubborn is the other thing humans do too well.”
We regard each other in our own ways, a metre and a vastness between us.
It nods to me, then rises into the sky.
