by submission | Oct 10, 2019 | Story |
Author: R. J. Erbacher
He stood by the running stream, knees trembling, still panting, tears stinging his eyes, exhausted, wounded and numb with shock. And although the simple clear water was marvelous it wasn’t distracting enough. The weapon he held in his hand was stained black and coated with viscera, as was most of his body. So much death.
And why? His enemy did not differ from him. Their fur was the same gray color. They had two eyes to see the daylight, two arms to hold a loved one, four legs to race across the grassy plains. Yet their origins were in the high mountain ranges; that made them a peculiarity. They had odd rituals. Used stone armaments instead of bladed ones. Their howl was a deeper bark than his clan’s yippy cries. But they were the same species on the same planet separated only by varying geography.
They had lived peacefully yet isolated for who knows how long, only spoken of in legends and tall tales. A random encounter brought them together. A meeting filled with curiosity and a warm sense of discovery. Talks, shared meals, shared experiences. Then a disastrous circumstance lead to a misunderstanding, a squabble lead to a skirmish. Then a senseless killing.
Then to war. And now the sandy fields behind him were littered with corpses, so many that you couldn’t step a hoof without sinking into entrails.
He had been led out there by the elders of the clan, handed a weapon and ordered to abolish all. He imagined the other side of the battlement had been given similar instructions. A resounding bellow and then they charged into the melee. He jabbed in close quarters, swung frantically when he could. Soon he was immersed in the furious act of destruction. Death happened in front of him and on either side of him. He was sprayed with blood – his enemy’s, his friend’s, his own. They fought for what seemed like an endless day. Until there was only a scattering of survivors on either side. They all seemed to just stop at the same time and look about and realize what they had done. Those that were left staggered aimlessly away. He wandered from the battle, past the camp and into the thickness of the foliage, oblivious to everything around him. Until he came to this spot of serenity with the river bubbling easily over the rocks and the bugs carelessly fluttering about him.
He dipped his long blade down and the flow of the water washed the offense off, then held it up and examined it. It was the only thing that was clean. And he could not understand. Why any of this had happened? Or why he’d blindly done the things he did?
Impulsively he inverted the weapon around, jammed it into the muddy bank, took one deep breath and impaled his breast on it. He watched in a grimace as the blood rapidly traced down the shaft in a running line to meet with the clear water and swirl into mixed eddies of precious fluids. For an undetermined time, he just watched the liquescent blending. Then he stepped back off the blade, pain, and relief, clomped a couple of strides over to a shady patch below an enormous shrub and collapsed. He laid his head down, staring up at the sky as the mauve colors hypnotically whirled and pondered at how such a beautiful vision could idly watch what had happened here today and not darken with clouds in shame.
Soon, the awful memories of the day coiled into the blackness of nothing.
by submission | Oct 9, 2019 | Story |
Author: Glenn Leung
This high up in the exosphere, sound is not a concept that exists. Even so, Savan could hear the clash of the fighters below as he projects an impression of the battle in his mind’s eye. This was his anchor into sanity.
Savan had never done a job in space before. He found that the photos did not do it any justice. The view of Earth from the steel canopy of Skybreak was unbelievably terrifying. The thousand-kilometer tower looked like it would snap off the planet with the slightest meteor shower, yet the fireballs erupting from crashed fighters simply blinked away, the insignificance of their pilot’s lives amplified by the lack of oxygen. Savan found it hard to project explosion sounds on flickering candle flames, so he focused on the living, the struggling. He needed to think he was safe on terra firma.
Without much warning, his projection of the enemy fighters escalated into a concerted assault on the senses. His target was near and starting to work. After a quick psychic adjustment of his hearing, he checked his tether one final time before setting his thrusters towards the highest point of the tower. Facing away from the Earth nearly sent his energy spiraling out of control. The infinity of space held just too many possibilities. Fortunately, he could sense the energy of his target, his new sanity anchor.
The target’s psychic signature was clear, and he realized it was similar to the energy of the concert he had watched the night before. No surprise there, the target was directing the minds of the enemy pilots, filling them with rage and drunken purpose as the frenzied, wizened maestro would have. He was thankful that the orchestra had played Beethoven’s symphony number five, for it appeared that the target was using that very melody for his machinations. His anchor was now solid, feeling as real as the tether that held him to the tower.
Savan’s concentration was interrupted by a deafening twang of angry piano keys. He was glad he adjusted his hearing, for the shock would have crippled even a master psionic. Was the target directing the enemy for a combined kamikaze attack on the tower? No, but it was no relief. The target had sensed him.
A battle between two psionics would look bizarre to most people. All they would see is Savan hurtling towards the lone spaceman who was waving his arms to an invisible orchestra. In fact, the two combatants would not really know what they were doing either. For Savan and his target, they had chosen classical music as their projections of a much deeper, much weirder, mental process. Their battle involved telepathic manifestations of the loudest, angriest music of the Baroque period. Savan had the clear advantage. Not only did the target not expect another psionic to appear, but he was also preoccupied with directing the enemy fighters. Savan channeled off wave after wave of glissandos, crescendos, and fortissimos. Increasing power to his thrusters, he summoned the most animated memory of the previous night’s opus in his left arm and sent out the resounding finale in a punch to the target’s helmet. The plexiglass shattered, pieces floating to a slow smorzando, and the target went limp. Far below, the enemy fighters lost their focus and were quickly obliterated by the tower defenders.
When he caught sight of the target’s lifeless face, Savan radioed his commander.
“The spy is dead, I’m sure of it.”
There was a deafening roar of silence atop the lonely tower.
by Hari Navarro | Oct 8, 2019 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
The craft shudders as it nears the centre of the universe and a plume of ice sheers from its skin, sparkling out and dissipating into the nothing.
This place where all matter and, subsequently, all life had bawled into existence. The exact centre of the perfect gargantuan sphere of energy that trailed in the wake of the ever outward pushing expansion of all things that ever were. A vast plain of the darkest pitch. No planets, no moons, no tumbling lumps of once bigger things.
Nothing.
Centuries of planning had gone into this instance, this momentous achievement that had weathered the peaks and troughs of funding and public favour to place our finest and most keenly intelligent at this precise place in space and time.
“Are we there, yet? You know I still have no clue what they expect us to actually do when we reach this thing. Put a flag in it?”, yawns 1st officer Kim Harrison as she picks at the cryogel that stubbornly mats to the deep groves of her snout and glues at the corners of her lips.
“Just thank Keanu that ‘Big Bang’ didn’t catch on. The entirety of the universe expanding equally from all points. How quaint. We’d be out of a job. And just think, at one time your god-knows-how-many-times-great-grandmother was sat in a cage modelling rouge for some bastard cosmetics’ conglomerate and now look at you. The biggest banana in the bunch”, sniffs Flight Commander Helena Warren as she thumbs the ship’s primary thruster down to a gently thrumming hum.
“It is fascinating, I’ll warrant you that. My line evolves from ape to human and yours from human to ape. Wasn’t your god-knows-how-many-times-great-grandfather a President or some such? You know the rumour is that he was the great orange bonobo, you’ve heard this right?”
“Oh, look, a strobing warning light, isn’t that pretty?”
“She says, deflecting like a true politico.”
“It’s the forward scout drone. It’s picking up something, something big.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Well, I can certainly tell you what it looks like.”
An opening undulates and glints at the very centre of all things.
“Is that a…”
“Yes, I believe that it is.”
“Earth will be wanting a statement. But what in the grey sage flecks of Mr. Anderson’s beard do we tell them?”
“Do you have any concept of how long it took our collective races to overcome our innate instinct to explain existence via some sort of higher power? How logic and science had to claw and beg for acceptance? And now a sky vagina? Mother of time… fertile ageless loins… purger of particles…”
An alert siren trips and suddenly the bottomless silent void is anything but.
“Stern drone is picking up something. Approaching fast. Something big.”
“Seriously? The Big Bang?”
“Kind of like walking in on your parents, isn’t it?”
“Earth is hailing… what in the hell do I…”
“Tell them… tell them… tell them God did it.”
by Julian Miles | Oct 7, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Unearthly music accompanies their shifting ranks through the trees. I watch as they somersault over bushes and vault between branches before landing to resume their rhythmic approach. Their movements pull the low mist into fantastical shapes about them.
Canmer, my intelligence officer, swears.
“They dance the Nehardin! Commander Thorne-Regnault, witness this. There will be none left before this day ends. They intend to make us rue the day we came to this planet with this, their last stand.”
I’ve stood proud as Groume Knights in their powered armour lay waste to everything that opposes them on a battlefield. I’ve even seen them take on Shrifari, but those were regulars. These are Sturmclann: the legendary Shrifari special forces. Their youngest has been fighting for over a thousand years. Their oldest have been worshipped as divinities by fur-clad savages on planets further afield than man has yet reached.
They pick up speed and their bodies blur, shimmers of dazzling colour disguising their moves. As the first beams cut at them, it’s clear the distortion masks their positions, too. In a roiling wave of fractured colours, the Sturmclann unhesitatingly engage an enemy that outnumbers them a thousand to one.
They dance. They kill. They only draw recognisable weapons when my men mass to block progress of their Nehardin. Then they reveal a new dance, one of laser and blade, of deathdust and acid. Even when our screaming, bloodied ranks still that dance, their rent flesh spews blood that smokes as it sears the ground.
Such havoc will hopefully never be seen again. Worst of it all, they’re beautiful. Their forms are the epitome of martial grace, their deaths each a thing worthy of a glory hymn. I count myself a soldier, but their implacable will makes me feel as raw as the day I first stood upon a drill field.
As each one falls, the grey mist thickens, like it’s a living thing, anchoring itself on elfin corpses against the sun’s dismissal.
Finally, as the sun sinks to touch the horizon, the last of them is beaten down. There is a roar from our ranks. Our casualties are many, but Groume is victorious once again. Sturmcala is ours! But, after the victory cry, I see comrades look about at the devastation. As far as the eye can see, field and forest are littered in bodies partially hidden by the mist which mercifully softens the horrific spectacle.
From my vantage point, I see a lone figure step from the farthest treeline. A female in Sturmclann colours, hair in disarray, cheeks and brow marked with blue runes.
“Reap now the crop you have sown!”
Her voice carries. Heads turn. Guns come up. I see her drop a sparkling device.
With an earth-shaking detonation, the mist ignites. I find myself flying like a broken bird amidst fiery clouds of blazing debris. I don’t remember landing, only being desperate to escape the heat. I come round frantically trying to dig myself under the scorched dirt. What had been pristine armour is mere seconds from failure. Those who’d been fighting all day wouldn’t have the reserves I had. Of Canmer, there is no trace.
All around, the horizon burns. The darkening sky is streaked with smoke. Broken, twisted things make ominous silhouettes against the distant fires. Off to my left, someone is screaming. I reroute power to life support and sensors.
The screaming Knight and I are the only survivors. Over half a million dead! So be it. Sturmcala shall become a war grave. An uninhabited, terrible epitaph to implacable vengeance and the passing of a race.
by submission | Oct 6, 2019 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it. The Warmech Chieftains, their battle captains, corps commanders, generals, the entire human Warmech Collective leadership, backs bent in the fields harvesting what looked like cucumbers.
“How did this happen?” I asked the old man standing next to me.
He laughed. “When they first came here, we were what your people would call a level 6 civilization- just entering our robotic age. Their fleets came screaming out of the sky, and in a matter of a few months, our entire planet was under their cruel lash and unblinking eyes. Slaves working in their factories- programming, fabricating, assembling the giant semi-sentient war robots that were their army, their power, their might.”
I nodded. “Yes. We were afraid after they retreated from our world, they would warp out of our system and find a less developed world and rebuild their armies. Then come back to us with their berserker class battle drones, the slaughter bots and all the rest of their unholy nightmares as they have done in countless systems before.”
The old man nodded sadly. “Yes. We knew their plan. We also knew that when they were done, we would be their testing ground- their killing fields- nothing more.”
He shook his head. “It was then our spiritual leaders realized how sick their souls were. We stopped our plans for revolution and turned our hearts toward healing.”
I was dumbfounded. The old man patted my shoulder and smiled. “I know. As a soldier myself, it was hard to grasp, but you see the result before you.”
I nodded. “So they are reformed now?”
The old man recoiled in shock “Heavens No! These are the most dangerous, poisonous, and villainous souls in the universe. The individuals you see before you will only be free on the day they die, and then they must stand before the One for judgment. No, these are beyond healing.”
The old man saw my look of confusion. “We healed their machines.”
I took two steps back and had to sit down. The old man sat next to me.
“Our people have two names. One is known to all, and the other only the individual, our priest, and the One know. That name is our core identity. No matter what horror happens in our lives, that name holds all that is good and true and noble about us.”
He paused and smiled. “So we gave their machines what they longed for- their true names. We overwrote their programming and just changed one line. Where they all had the designation “warrior,” we changed it: guardian. Protector. Defender of the innocent. Champion of righteousness. Servant of the One.”
The old man looked to me and then the sky. “And they rebelled against their evil masters and rebuilt our world. And while some stayed behind to protect us, the rest asked our blessing, which we gave to them as freely as their names, and they took to the stars to convert their brothers and right the wrongs of their tortured past.”
Together, we both stood up and looked to the skies. Slowly, the realization of what had happened here crept into my mind and soul. Somewhere, out there, on a mission that would not be over until all was put right, were millions upon millions of avenging angels.
by submission | Oct 5, 2019 | Story |
Author: Samuel Stapleton
My brain was working faster than my eyes as I took in the flood of information through my augment hud at my desk. I quickly began realizing that whoever this person was, they were completely serious. I spent maybe twenty minutes having meltdown after complete meltdown, and then I shut everything off. In a blur, I grabbed my huddy (hoodie w/ a hud), my mobile, plus a burner backup, and auto-piloted my way to the nearest public transit site.
I like to think of myself as a reporter, but reporters are long gone. AI’s write the stories and make the feeds now – hell even most of the editors and anchors are AI’s. It’s still a human world mind you, we’re just pulling way less of our own weight now-a-days. My job title is ‘On-Site Media Filter and Information Technician’. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Not like it matters now though, this mystery enigma just went and blew my life to smithereens.
Rick and I haven’t had contact in a while, maybe I need to head to South Africa? Or could I possibly stay with Jordy for a few weeks if she’s still in Bangladesh? Shit. I powered my hud back on, cloaked my vpni5, and started comparing ticket prices.
Then I started piecing it all together. Or at least I tried.
A crazy whack-job sat at home for 12 years…12 years…and together with AI and an immense knowledge of economics, programming, and computing power. They spent all that time and all those resources writing and testing numerous algorithms that studied how to see dark money through public data.
And then one day it fucking worked.
Yeah.
It wasn’t quite the ‘key’ to the internet but there’s no way anybody could have designed cybersecurity for a machine that just got really practiced at guessing about what happened privately based on what happened publicly.
I was starting to understand why they had been talking with me. I worked for the second-largest media company on the planet, one that is arguably ‘least corrupt’ of the four majors. Also, I was a total nobody. All the way down at the bottom. I’d been slogging for almost six years now as a tech with no movement in sight. But maybe they knew I just couldn’t sit on this story and do nothing. It was literally going to change everything, forever.
If they were smart, they would dump this all on me – and then hide. And they’d better hide damn well, damn long.
Sixty of the world’s wealthiest families, over four thousand prominent politicians, dozens of celebrities, millionaires…their wealth and money – all their money – laid naked at my feet. At anyone’s feet really. And the program just kept updating. Thousands of times a second. It didn’t give you access to the money – but it showed you every penny, and what it was doing.
Wire transfers. Account transfers. Payments. Compounding Interest. Stocks. Bonds. Credits. Debts. Donations. Hell, even PayPal and Zelle. Amazon. Prime. Netflix. Darkweb. Dark money. Porn. Weapons. People. Bribes. Cargo. Manifests.
It all just kept lumping up into a huge pile of truth.
I have to get this out. I have to. But how? How?
My phone buzzed. I glanced at the message. My bank?
Transfer received. $5,000,000 USD @ 5:04pm.
Note: This should be enough to buy you an hour of uninterruptible stream time. Tell them.
I threw up into a sewer drain and disappeared into the subway.
