by submission | Feb 6, 2020 | Story |
Author: Phil Manning
My mother was a strange woman. Not strange as in, lock the children in the closet, more, strange how easily she seemed to be able to pick up new information, new things and make them work for her. She could learn almost anything but she could never fully understand how her two sons ticked.
My brother and I were always fighting, I know the cliché, but this was war, as if the very nature of each other’s existence pushed like the opposite poles of magnetic fields. Our wars were Shakespearean, biblical. Epic. No father, just mother and our war.
My mother would use adventures to cool us down, we could only go to X, Y, Z if we didn’t fight for an allotted time. We used a different word for peace, mallard. Mallard is a type of duck, the type of duck that we found dead at the side of a lake. My brother and I pushed the corpse into the water and it became our word for peace. So, if our mother, in desperation, would offer to take us to the library or the park or the bike shop, we would look at each other and decide whether the mallard would like to go, if we both nodded and spoke the word, we would hold our peace until after the adventure. If only one spoke, or neither, if the deal didn’t seem sweet enough, the war would continue and the violence of an unspoken mallard was the worst of all.
I remember the day my mother first used a computer, I still wonder how close we were to losing her. My brother and I had watched a Kung-Fu movie, we had strapped pillows to our chests with duct tape and were practicing our running sidekicks across the lounge room. No major violence, not yet, but it was escalating. The shouted threat of no trip to the library had us both mutter mallard and return the pillows to our beds. We walked to our local library. We liked to borrow books with monsters or spaceships or sex. Whatever we could get away with.
The library had received a computer the week before. I don’t think my mother had ever even seen a computer. My childhood was before the time of mobile devices and personal computers. My mother was drawn to the bone-white box the moment she walked through the library doors. People had to book time for the computer but for some reason, that day, that time, there was a free slot. My brother and I ran off to see what we could see, my mother sat in front of the screen.
I’ve never been sure how much time passed. It seemed like hours but time always seems like a strange concept to a child. I do remember the glow on my mother’s face when we went to check on her. The screen was running by itself, lines and lines of green luminous text and my mother seemed…faded. We tried to get her attention but she didn’t seem to notice us. As we watched she seemed to reflect more of the green lines and seemed to fade even further.
I’m not sure who pushed the other first but the pushing began and I shoved my brother hard toward my mother. He seemed to fall through her and into the computer. His body hit the box hard enough to turn the screen. The screen went black. My mother let out a sound, a sound that made the hair stand up on my arms. It was a moan, a wail, but it seemed metallic. When she stood she seemed solid again.
We didn’t seem to fight as much after that day, we used the mallard more and more. I’m not sure my mother ever understood what made us fight, but I’m glad we did, and I’m glad it was something she couldn’t understand.
by submission | Feb 5, 2020 | Story |
Author: Richard Leise
A knock on the door. In the way of doctors, the door opens before Justin or Jenifer can answer. The wail of a woman moaning sweeps down the hallway and into their room. The sound swells to a scream, but her words are indistinguishable, each syllable crushed by a choking sob. The doctor smiles, unconcerned. A moment later, a nurse enters. She carries a manila folder clipped closed with a pen. She shuts the door behind her.
Instead of a woman, the screaming brings the doctor’s features into sharper focus. In some near or distant future, this man will be considered a hero or a villain, his actions, his participation in The Program, judged heinous or brilliant. History often enjoys the glory of perspective, a sort of ordering imposed upon chaos. Justin is too close to this particular point in history to predict which.
“Please,” the doctor says. He doesn’t take his eyes from Justin as the nurse sets the manila envelope upon the foot of the bed.
What does “Please” mean?
Smiling, the woman asks Jenifer how she’s doing. She doesn’t stop talking as she approaches Jenifer, and, speaking now to the child, lifts the boy. She leaves the room.
The woman down the hall is still screaming, but she has tired herself, considerably. She sounds more human. The nurse pulls the door closed. The suite is silent. Jenifer pushes herself backward until she is sitting. She smiles. Her eyes are fixed and bright.
The doctor steps to the foot of the bed. He retrieves the folder. He thumbs a corner of his mouth. Light flashes as the television pops to life. The doctor turns. The TV cuts off and into darkness. Shaking his head, he again faces Jenifer and reads through a sheet of paper. Nodding, he says, “What’s your name again?”
“And that’s with two ‘n’s’”?
“Maiden name?”
The doctor nods. He taps a piece of paper, “And you were born Eight One?”
He shrugs. “Last four of your soc?”
“What’s going on,” Justin says. He steps towards the doctor.
The doctor holds the folder like a bible. His glasses rest upon the end of his nose. He traces his finger as if following a particular passage, and, satisfied, closes the folder and pockets the pen. He speaks as if into a microphone.
“It goes without saying that things happen.”
Justin makes to speak, but Jenifer raises a hand. “Make him say it. All of it. Whatever they have done? Whatever supposedly happened? We’ll get more if we’re silent.”
The doctor pushes his glasses atop the bridge of his nose and cocks his head. He looks at Justin. He shrugs. He turns his body and addresses Jenifer.
“Those involved apologize, Mrs. Dressler. I certainly can’t do anything more. He bites his bottom lip. “We’ll bring you your boy shortly.”
The doctor crosses the room and places a hand upon the door. He nods. “As promised, Mrs. Dressler, your child will be delivered shortly.”
He leaves. The woman is no longer screaming. They hear her crying before the door seals shut.
Justin. Jenifer. They know what happened. What’s impossible to construct? Meaning. Life—as in what it takes to live—has never been easier. Living—as in what it means to exist—has never been more complicated. Before, your mother could die, and you were given a ghost. Now, a woman has a child, and she is given what?
This?
More than ever before language, just as it illuminates, exposes our weaknesses, and highlights our inability to grasp what might once have been considered intuitively.
Jenifer sighs.
by submission | Feb 4, 2020 | Story |
Author: Katlina Sommerberg
Five seconds on the clock. Rachel hurled her coffee cup at the reactor’s control panel, but she missed by five inches. The porcelain shattered against the worn carpet, white shards skittering across the floor. Before the coffee spray hit the ceiling, the cup fused together and smacked back into Rachel’s outstretched hand.
Closed timelike curves featured in Rachel’s favorite movie: Groundhog Day. She wished she’d read Gott’s book on the physics behind the concept; perhaps she would’ve already broken the endless five-minute loop.
Instead, time threw her back into her seat, steaming coffee in hand and 8:42 am displayed on her computer monitor.
Her papers scattered to the floor when she stood up, knocking her chair over and running out the door. The first loops, she hadn’t found the reactor room; the twisting hallways doubled back on themselves. Even with a map at every intersection, it took her ten loops before she learned the way. Then it took fifty more loops before she consistently arrived at Dr. Soot’s office.
“Time-meddling superhero coming through!” Rachel yelled out, expertly weaving through five Ph.D. students loitering in the hallway, interrupting their conversation on gravitational waves for the hundredth time.
Skidding to a halt before Dr. Soot’s pale wooden door, her fist slammed against it. It took three loops before she learned the magic words to entice him to open it, and she hollered the first word, “Professor –”
Another woman slammed into her, cutting her off and flinging her coffee cup into the hallway. Tumbling to the ground, a traveler’s mug of orange juice splattered open by her head. The foul combination of coffee and citrus hit her like a freight train, and her eyes widened when she recognized the other student. She hadn’t known Ember took a summer research position, until now.
“Who stands in front of a blind corner like that!” Ember said, picking up her half-empty bottle. The black student usually ended up paired with Rachel during their shared classes, but Rachel hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask her on a date.
“Who says nonsense like that when we have less than two minutes?” Rachel grumbled.
Dr. Soot’s door opened, and the short professor frowned at her students. Behind her, an open laptop looped through cat videos in front of a shimmering ball. The reactor, deemed a failure by a previous Ph.D. student, had been turned into a reading lamp. Various glowing buttons, looking as real as the functional ones, decorated the surface to turn it into the most expensive piece of furniture in the Maus building.
“What are you two –” Dr. Soot started to demand, before time reversed itself.
by Julian Miles | Feb 3, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
A distorted voice grates out: “Your DEDbot is sweating money.”
I step back to see who’s heckling. It’s some masked tech vendor, looking to score passing trade by running my mechanical down.
“Surprised you can see anything through those tinted half-lenses. Venus Monterey just about managed to pull that look off at the premiere of ‘Hypergrid’. You? On Surrey Street? Not a chance.”
My mechanical rotates it’s upper torso and flips the vendor a fat finger salute.
The vendor waves both hands and steps forward, slinging faceplate and distort box out the way. Bloodshot brown eyes peer intently at the mechanical, then at me.
“Okay, toolgrrl, tell me the software that gives verbal cue responsiveness and we’ll call it quits.”
I snap my fingers and the mechanical stops moving.
“Homebrew. Still in the decimals, nowhere near a whole digit release.”
“Seems to work. Unlike the lube cooking off the back strakes.”
“It works well some of the time. That’s not a lube bleed, that’s evaporation.”
She steps way too close. I step back. She waves her hands about again.
“Sorry. Not good with personal space stuff. You’re running a reactive software test with a water-cooled baby fusion core?”
“Ducted, jet-fed compressed air cooling with condensation evaporating off.”
“Fans? Injectors? Where’s the noise?”
“Did a lot of sound studio work to get through university. The best active noise suppression rig I’ve ever built keeps things quiet.”
“You’re talking rubbish, toolgrrl. Baby fusion can’t handle that much drain.”
Her tone tells me she’s not guessing. Which means she’s worked with fusion boxes. I look closely, running my eyes down to the ground. She warily shifts her right leg and I see the hitch in the movement.
“You made it off ISS-4!”
My former heckler looks about warily.
“Not so loud. That never happened, remember?”
I point to a spot next to her stall and snap my fingers twice. Nothing happens.
“Guess your ‘stop’ gesture is being parsed as a partial hibernate. It needs to know you want it active again. The optics on these models are never dormant.”
She holds her hand up in front of my mechanical’s optics and snaps her fingers twice, then moves the hand to point at the same spot I did. The mechanical moves to where she indicates. We follow.
“I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.”
She thinks a moment, then nods.
“ISS-4 was used for power source research. Baby fusion units were our best result. The next stage was cold fusion and that went slightly worse than the suppressed headlines and long-range pictures hinted at. Got my leg shredded by the torsion wave, which also threw me in the right direction. I hit the wall at the back of an escape pod just as the hull cracked. I wasn’t even conscious when the pod auto-ejected. Got a cheap prosthetic leg and a non-disclosure agreement with a death penalty attached for my trouble. Therefore, I was Professor Tildennit. Now I’m just Bertha, and I’ll thank you to never mention ISS-4 again.”
“Noted. I’m Rosalie, and it’s not fusion. I took my Royal Engineers decommission bonus in broken gravitic drives. Not cost-effective to repair, apparently. I’ve salvaged four cores so far. Got half-a-dozen that are beyond me-”
Now there’s an idea.
“-but not beyond someone taught by the late Professor Tildennit?”
Bertha grins: “Well, she always said gravitics was a useful hobby. Mentioned there could be a good living in it, too.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“Right on both points.”
She points toward a snack stall: “Go get coffee and crepes, toolgrrl. We’ve business to discuss.”
by submission | Feb 2, 2020 | Story |
Author: Morrow Brady
The desire ached deep inside. She was in his head again. The first thought of every day, just true perfection. The beautiful dream of her standing in the red dress, echoing through the halls of his mind.
The further he birthed from sleep’s wonderful womb, the nearer he drew to journey’s end. The dreamachine at his bedside, heeding his awareness, disengaged with a click and the memory of her sweet face faded to rejoin the night. Barely a warm feeling lingered by the time he crossed the threshold.
At high sun, a faint image of her beautiful face. A luscious leak of nocturnal thoughts. It was a minor but pleasant side effect of the machine. It momentarily bewitched a faint smile and then she was gone again. His fairy tale was trying to escape his subconscious and needed his help.
He began withdrawing from his family and friends. He ceased the mundane routines and shed lifelong hobbies. At his centre now was his true passion. That moment of fantasy, when she would appear and give meaning to one more breath.
The sun fell below the oaks and silence came in waves. Sleep was coming and he needed to prepare. Power down the home. Take up the armchair with a warming drink and follow the hallway that illuminated his path back to her. He pulled the caressing duvet over his shoulders and tingled as he tempered the cold night. Soon time would exist no more. Click.
Morning sunlight spilt across his bed and he fought consciousness for one dear moment longer. Her eyes lingered until his contented smile broke through. This was the best feeling he would have all day. Click.
He glimpsed her across the park. Her perfect face framed in the window of the lakeside cafe. Dappled light through weeping willows played across her red dress. Elegant fingers cupped a steaming broth. From the water’s edge, he watched her smile at noon’s sun and turn to look his way. Her wondrous eyes touched on his, then passed on by.
He recalled a playground from his youth where he had lacked the nerve to speak to her. The night of the gala when she smiled, only to vanish before his courage arrived. He walked through the tinkling cafe door and approached her. He introduced himself and knew immediately he was a stranger to her. She smiled and politely declined the invitation. He left serenely, knowing they would be together tonight.
She took a deep sip of the warm broth, turned her face to the sun and almost smiled at the thought of his proposition. That night, she pulled her duvet close and tingled into dreams at the click.
The birds on the trees woke her gently and his smile lingered. The handsome face she had dreamt for years finally had a form. Click. She sat mesmerised, grasping at a memory of dreams as they faded to mist.
Time’s river flowed at day and froze at night. Together their dreams intertwined and together their realities crumbled. They passed their nighttime lovers on daytime’s street, each knowing they were one click away from perfection.
by submission | Feb 1, 2020 | Story |
Author: Moriah Geer-Hardwick
“Don’t try to talk to them.” The consultant clicks another cylinder into place. It makes a satisfied hiss as it seats properly into its compartment. “They don’t react well to the noise. Imagine one of them emptying an entire scent gland in your face. That’s how they feel if you start spewing sound at them.” She inserts the last cylinder, powers up the regulator, and then hands the belt to the specialist sitting across from her. Dutifully, he straps it around his waist
“The belt has seven cylinders,” she explains. “Five are passive pheromones, good for about three hundred and sixty minutes of steady dispersal. Should make us fairly uninteresting, provided our encounters stay casual. Fifteen minutes before the last one runs dry, the regulator pack will start to vibrate in short intervals to let you know you need to refill.”
“You think we’ll be down there that long?”
“The drop is less than a kilometer from the financial sector. Ideally, I’d like to be back in orbit before the first two passives are spent.” She begins working on her own belt. “If the regulator detects any hostility in the chemical spectrum it will automatically vent one of the other cylinders, which are panic pheromone concentrates. They should clear everything around us, for at least thirty meters.” She slings her belt onto her hips and snaps the buckle closed. “Right before it goes off, you’ll get one, long buzz. You feel that, things are about to get heavy.”
The specialist nods, slowly. He eases his weapon around in its tactical harness, checks the action, and initiates the charge pack.
“One more thing,” says the consultant. “We need to stay as far away from the red ones as possible.”
The specialist looks up at her.
“If you spot one, run. If it spots us, hit that button on the regulator, and then run.”
He lifts his weapon to inspect the angular device connected to his belt. In a shallow recess on one side is an unmarked red square.
“That fires both panics instantly. I should warn you, it’ll soak through your clothes, and it smells like cat urine. Old cat urine. And it doesn’t wash off.”
“So, last resort.”
“It’s better than what the reds will do to you, but only by a slight margin.”
“What are they? Soldiers?”
The consultant shakes her head. “They’re more like a militaristic religious sect. Not literally, of course, but the term is arguably analogous. They’re xenophobic, ritualistic, and extremely violent. They’re red because a lot of their ceremonies involve ingesting inorganic materials, mostly metals. Causes an excessive amount of iron to be absorbed into their chitin. It makes their carapaces almost impenetrable. Unless you’re firing depleted uranium rounds, you probably won’t even dent one.”
The coms chirp once to notify them that the skiff is landing. The specialist heaves himself up and moves to stand by the door. He grips his weapon firmly, pulling the stock in tight against his shoulder. One hand drops to the regulator, his thumb just above the red button. The skiff shudders, and lands hard. With a wistful sigh of escaping air, the door splits, the bottom half lowering into a ramp.
In unison, their regulators erupt into a frenzied chatter.
“Uh…” says the specialist.
Through the widening gap, they glimpse a flash of writhing exoskeleton, serrated, angry and red. Instinctively, the specialist clenches down on the regulator and right away the sharp odor of cat urine claws into his eyes and sinuses.
With a sigh, the consultant reaches over and presses the control panel to close the door.
