by Julian Miles | Jul 27, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The walls are clad in something cheap that’s meant to look like metal. The table I’m attached to has one leg bolted to the floor. Likewise the chair, but I’m not tethered to that. The door looks like it might actually be metal, but the frame is wood and the hinges are on the inside. Whoever signed off on this ‘secure room’ needs stabbing. With something blunt. A lot.
The police sergeant sat opposite me is the first combat trained anything I’ve met in the last nineteen hours. He’s looked through the notes and is now watching the video for the second time.
“Is that the incident scene video or were they monitoring the room?”
He pauses the playback and smiles at me.
“Incident, miss. The Sunset Apartment Complex is one of the rare clean operations in this city. By clean I mean they change the laundry between guests, have a two-hour minimum on all rooms, and don’t eavesdrop.”
Back he goes to watching the video. Time passes. He watches it again. If he goes for a fourth pass, I may cry. Or kill. It’s fifty-fifty at the moment.
Putting the tablet down on the table, he points to it.
“You said you hit him once. Difficult to reconcile that with breaking both arms, nine ribs, and his jaw. What did you hit him with?”
“I said I attacked once, not hit. Completely different thing.”
He nods.
“I’m familiar with the terminology. Give me it field report style, Specialist.”
Ah-ha. Combat trained ex-officer.
“Twenty hundred hours. I was impersonating a normal woman looking for a one-night stand. The target landed his tight buns on the stool next to me and flashed a full set of Purple Devils ink. As they were the rivals of my outfit, Nighthawks, I thought I’d found a way to unwind without risk to persons or property. We had the regulation three drinks, then adjourned to Sunset Apartment 312.”
He raises a hand.
“Purple Devils being the Mars Rangers, Nighthawks the First Spacebourne?”
I nod. He gestures for me to continue.
“On our way up to the room I vetted him. Being unable to detect combat enhancements, I placed him as a stealth operator, likely Recon team: power and precision. Just what I needed.”
The hand goes up again.
“Just sketch me the intimacy.”
“I thought he was testing when he offered a fourth drink. Nearly backed off when he drank, but it had been a while since I unwound. We were both up for it until he started strangling me. That kicked me straight into active response. I attacked. He wasn’t Special anything: he broke.”
The man grins.
“I think the term is erotic asphyxiation.”
“Can’t help how my combat enhancements interpret soft action.”
He sighs.
“Not your fault you ended up with vermin.”
I nod, then can’t resist.
“Speaking of rats that shave, which one signed off on this room?”
He laughs.
“My predecessor. I’m Manuel Tegua. Formerly a Captain in the Sixth Armoured.”
“Your mob lit up Trabanth City to cover the withdrawal that got my mob decommissioned.”
“Wasn’t up for letting the turncoats kill more, no matter what the ceasefire orders said. They decommissioned me, too. With no pension, I had to get a job.”
He waves his hand, indicating this place.
“Now I get to do good with only occasional violence.”
Nothing to lose: ask once.
“Need any veteran Special Weapons types?”
He grins.
“Actually, I do. But you’ll be on probation until the caution for last night expires.”
I salute.
“Offer accepted, sir. When’s lunch?”
by submission | Jul 26, 2020 | Story |
Author: Brian Maycock
Peter’s hand was cold as she led him down to the beach. She was unsettled so wanted to talk but they had run out of conversation weeks ago.
Peter can talk on more than two hundred topics. She had read that somewhere. But she had not focused on the blurb as she had entered her details. She had been wishing she could have afforded more than the basic model. Still, she had thought, you have to begin somewhere.
Peter stumbled. The path down to the beach – a generous term for a narrow patch of pebbles and seaweed – was littered with empty beer bottles, fast food wrappers and, this morning, a pair of abandoned trainers.
She gripped his hand tighter and wondered if coming here had been a mistake.
They had made love on this beach on their first night together. The only things missing for her from realising this particular dream had been a full moon and the feel of sand on her skin.
Not long after this the problems with battery life developed and having to keep Peter plugged in became a real passion killer.
“Let’s sit here.” She brought him to a flat rock onto which they could both just fit, and rested her head on his shoulder. He still released the pheromones she had chosen during set up overnight, and she enjoyed the remains of the latest lingering batch for a moment.
It was a cloudy day with rain threatening, and they were alone apart from an old couple who sat on striped deckchairs and stared out over the sea.
She sat up, wrapped her arms across her chest and told Peter, “I want you to walk into the water and keep going.”
“You are breaking up with me?” he asked after a pause to run through the possibilities.
She had made the decision days ago but had been putting it off. You see adverts online, you see them in charity shops or simply abandoned and left to fend for themselves on the streets, which of course they cannot do.
She did not want that. She wanted it to be romantic.
“Take your clothes off,” she said.
As he undressed, she ran a finger down the line of his back. “It says here you’re bio-degradable.”
His clothes were not. She would take them to the charity shop, along with the rest of his things. It was time for a fresh start.
“Goodbye Peter,” she said.
He looked at her. “I can’t swim.”
“Goodbye.”
He began walking towards the water.
Once upon a time, some people thought that the A.I.s would become the dominant force but like other technologies as soon as the sheen wore off they became disposable.
Peter was all but invisible to the man and woman sitting on their deckchairs. Neither commented as he was enveloped by the grey water.
She was already back on the path. She hesitated over the discarded trainers but decided to leave them. They were too dirty for the charity shop.
by submission | Jul 25, 2020 | Story |
Author: Oisin Hurley
Nailah stopped to catch her breath in the shadow at the base of the pyramid. One time her ancestors would have been buried here, surrounded by items they could bring to the afterlife. They had food from the chill lands to the north arrayed around their death masks, gifts of silken clothing from the rulers of the teeming societies to the east laid at their anointed feet. How far had they fallen from that gilded age? The sorrow for the descent of her people from rulers to rabble haunted her, weighed down the days of wearying work forced upon them by the invaders of their lands. That was why she had rebelled, damaged the collection of machine suits, and stolen this one. It rested quietly around her, mute but for low fans that followed her own breathing. A small green bar at the edge of her vision meant many days of reserve in the batteries. She would fly south like an arrow to the peopled lands. She would escape this dry hell where the invader folk lived, avoiding the moisture of the forests.
A small cascade of sand and pebbles from the ancient stone at her back hissed in her enhanced hearing. Distracted from her thoughts, she felt a low, rolling rumble — an armoured remote approaching. She could outrun its pursuit. She fed power to the leg motors of the suit and ran toward a horizon of dunes, silver-lit by the crescent moon.
by submission | Jul 24, 2020 | Story |
Author: David Henson
Richard teeters to his pig. Made of a hard, shiny material, it’s pink, sports a green tux, and is about two feet tall and five feet long.
Steve scoops the pot into his pile of poker chips. “You OK, Richard?”
“Not OK,” Richard slurs. “Wife left me. Girlfriend dumped me. Daughter hates me. Living in this crummy apartment. Zap me away, pig.”
John winces.
“Actually,” Harry says, “there hasn’t been a verified incident of vaporization except for failure to stroke at midnight.”
The poker buddies have focused on the game but can no longer restrain themselves:
“We don’t know that people are vaporized.”
“I heard a cult believed the pigs are sending people to some utopian planet and got zapped on purpose.”
“I still can’t understand who would put billions of pigs here.”
“Stan’s brother was sick. Couldn’t get to his pig when it squealed at midnight. Got zapped even though his wife tried to stroke for them both.”
“At least parents can stroke for their kids.”
“What about people who got zapped before we figured out the rules?”
“I heard we nuked one and didn’t scratch it.”
“Maybe aliens are watching us … like a kind of reality show back on their world.”
“Maybe like in that old show,” Richard mumbles, “the aliens are eating people.”
“On that happy note,” Steve says, “we should settle up so we can be home to stroke our pigs at midnight.”
After everybody leaves, Richard downs a glass of whiskey then lurches to bed. He’s passed out when his pig squeals at midnight.
***
Richard wakes up in the bedroom of his house, not his raunchy apartment. He hurries to the kitchen. There’s his wife, Rose, and daughter, Lilly.
Rose kisses him on the cheek. “You overslept, Honey. Better hurry.”
“Daddy, remember you promised to give me another driving lesson after you get home from work.”
Lilly hasn’t gone off to college? He’s been zapped to the past? To before his girlfriend, Lucy? Before the pigs? He’s being given a second chance. To not take up with Lucy. Not destroy his family. The pigs are good. He gives Rose a long kiss.
“Easy,” Rose says. “I love your sentiment, but not your timing.”
He hugs Lilly.
“You’re weird this morning, Daddy. Don’t forget my lesson.”
“Do it right after work,” Rose says. “Remember we’re taking my new friend from the office out for a drink this evening. Lucy. You’ll love her.”
No! It’s the day he first meets Lucy. Richard recalls her tight skirt, feels that familiar rush of blood. Don’t give in this time, he tells himself. “Maybe I’ll pass, Rose. You go out with her.”
“Don’t be silly. I want you to meet her. I think Lucy and I are going to be great friends.”
After Rose and Lilly leave, Richard lingers in the kitchen. Maybe he could be more careful. Not get caught. No! He pictures Lucy’s breasts. Don’t! He finds a bottle of whiskey and swigs half. He mustn’t give in again no matter what he has to do. He opens the knife drawer.
TO BE CONTINUED
***
“Oh, no!” Zandy says as the closing credits roll. “Do think he’s going to cut off his —”
“You never know with these crazy earthlings,” his mate, Zobby, says. “This is the best series yet.”
Zandy clambers to his feet. “Think I’ll get ready for bed. I have an early appointment at the mud bath tomorrow.” He and Zobby touch snouts, their curly tails twirling with affection.
“I’ll wait here,” Zobby says.
“OK, Sweetie. I’ll be back out at midnight for us to stroke our cow.”
by submission | Jul 23, 2020 | Story |
Author: David Barber
This species is very wary of us. Skittish. Paranoid even. And all because of the reckless behaviour of the Adversary in times past. Though doubtless that is what the Adversary says of us, so neither can pretend the Accord was an act of benevolence. Between us, we were driving the Talents to extinction.
Of all the Talents, the Sense Of Universal Location is the one humans occasionally have, and is a mind-state essential for the functioning of Mayaships. Which is why, as we cross the Orion Arm, we drop in sometimes to see how the harvest is coming along.
Mostly they were obsessed with stone axes, though tribes were willing to sacrifice the chosen one in return for success in the hunt or something. In those days we didn’t have to wait for death by natural causes; we just ripped the mind-state and went on our way.
Then suddenly they had cities, and writing, and rumours of hidden penalty clauses, and no-one trusted us. Hence the Accord, which insists contracts are strictly supervised, with an end to caveat emptor.
Take this fellow, named something unpronounceable like Williams in the local gibberish, doubtless why they’re referred to as Faust in contracts. Or asset in the language of Powers.
He shone out; a prime Talent we had to sign up before the Adversary made him a better offer, though he saw right through the mumbo-jumbo that had served us so well in the past.
“No, you want to abduct me,” he insisted. “You want to take me to your ship and probe me!”
Improvise and adapt. Was he open to a deal about this abduction business? Sex, wealth, and fame were on the table. Also, to be clear, he wouldn’t be abducted until his deathbed. And by probing we meant…
Our Faust worked in the City and knew about deals. Reproductive success? He didn’t need aliens pimping for him thank you very much. And how would he explain two tons of gold bullion on his Tax Returns?
Was there nothing else he wanted? Nothing at all? In times gone by, contracts have involved some creative accounting.
Ponderous humans. We amused ourselves while his thoughts coagulated into speech. It appears they can almost hear us when enough join in to sing the Songs.
He loved sport when he was a kid.
Sport: a form of ritualised combat.
Played a bit at uni, but was too busy now, and besides, some crappy Sunday league? No thanks. Had a trial for Spurs, you know.
Spurs? Searching…
Imagine being told at thirteen you’re not good enough. So you grow up and get on with life, but sometimes…
No, it was just foolishness.
With sufficiently advanced technology, anything is possible. It only seems like magic. In the end, altering his physiology with nanoware was the simplest option. Totally undetectable with their technology, and he would be twice, three times faster than their top athletes.
And it was all sorted before the Adversary arrived. We showed them the contract, with his unique DNA signature in circulatory fluid. Also, as required by the Accord, proof that we kept our side of the bargain. This translation of a news headline about our Faust.
“Lightning” Williams scores all two hands of goals(?) in (metaphorical) destruction of rival Deuch nation-state in final of Global Drinking Vessel.
As a side-effect of the nanoware, sadly he’s in top condition. We should have thought of that. We won’t be collecting our end of the deal for about a century.
by submission | Jul 22, 2020 | Story |
Author: Beck Dacus
He lowered the faceplate of his emergency spacesuit’s helmet, sealing it under his chin. In his ear, a voice suddenly said, “Hello, Commander. I’ve set your suit to play this recording approximately when you’ve crossed the event horizon of your life.”
He froze in the middle of the hallway, startled. The tremor of a distant explosion brought him back to the present. He followed the signs on the walls at a sprint.
“You don’t know me. I’m one– no. I was one of many engineers that worked on your ship. In particular, I was among the POWs you forced into cooperation with your killing. Keeping the village-burning hawkships and planet-killing battlecruisers in ‘ship-shape.’”
There it was: the airlock. His fingers punched in the code on muscle memory, opening the internal door, which automatically sealed behind him. He broke a glass compartment on the wall and hammered the external vent button, quickly pumping the airlock’s atmosphere outside rather than into the ship’s reserve tanks.
“As much as I hate this life, I wish you had given my family the same chance you gave me. Children can be surprisingly resilient, and they would have given me a reason other than the tardy alarm to get up in the morning.”
After an eternity, the external door opened; on the other side was the curved limb of the planet below, shining in reflected sunlight against the inky sky. Tongues of translucent red flickered across the threshold– the ship was entering atmosphere. He activated the flickering Mach shield on his forearm, held it in front of him, and jumped.
“You might be wondering what I mean by ‘event horizon of your life.’ I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations on this ship’s antimatter reactor, as well as a little research into the specs of your jetpack. There is a certain point where no amount of thrust it can give you will let you escape the detonation of the Pax Romana’s reactor; if I got the numbers right, you’re well past it.”
Once his freefall stabilized, he engaged the airbreathing turbine mounted to his back, putting as much distance between himself and the ship as possible. The Pax fell like a stone, nosing into the thick air, seeking the alien surface.
“The explosion will take out this hemisphere of the planet, along with you. Even if flying supersonic with your Mach shield behind you, protecting you from the blast rather than the wind, didn’t tear you apart, its power cells would explode trying to shed the energy it was absorbing. And the shield is transparent to gamma radiation anyway.
“I want you to know what it was like, Commander. I want you to feel what my children felt, waiting to go in front of the firing squad. I want to give you time to think about how you die. No jetpack malfunction, no early reactor breach, no suit leak. I want you to know that, even though you still have all your toys and your tricks, you’re a mortal like the rest of us. Your flesh is made of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.
“And in the fire, it will burn.”
Through his Mach shield, he could see the sun setting upon the curve of this world. He sighed, turning off his turbine, then his shield. He let himself fall.
The Pax touched down, a new sunrise igniting this planet between one instant and the next. But not fast enough.
The darkness took him first.
