by Julian Miles | Jun 15, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Drantill’s become a regular over the last year. His arrival times vary, but he’s always seated by 12:00. From then until 12:30 he watches the long lines of the digitised clockface on his phone move, saying nothing, barely breathing. Then-
“Miss? Can I have a caramel macchiato with a shot of cherry syrup, please?”
“Of course you can, Drantill. Remember, my name is Pellaira.”
He smiles and nods. It’s our little routine. He never uses my name. I make a point of using his. Drantill is, for want of a better term, beautiful. I’d really like to get to know him, but he doesn’t seem interested – in anything.
Except his odd coffee. I’ve never seen a man so transported by just smelling it. His face becomes… Serene. Even more impossibly beautiful. Then his eyes close and he takes a sip, swallows, and sighs.
Maybe I could use that?
“You really like that coffee, don’t you?”
He jerks in surprise. Those wonderful eyes turn my way and it’s like he’s looking at me for the first time.
“Reminds me of home. You blend it well.”
“Thank you.”
“Your name is unusual.”
“It was my mother’s. She died giving birth and dad named me for her. Seemed strange, but I’m used to it now.”
“Where I come from, it’s the name of a great city. To name a child after it is considered a brave act, dooming the child to greatness and a terrible fate.”
“I’ve never heard of a place called Pellaira.”
He smiles and takes another sip.
“It’s far away.”
“You come from there?”
“A little village nearby. Goshtan O’er the Fyres.”
“Strange name.”
“It’s at the edge of a huge lava field. The main trade is pumice. Not thrilling for a young lad. I volunteered for something that took me far away,” he sips and sighs, “now I regret it.”
“What did you volunteer for?”
He looks about, mutters something, and gives a little laugh.
Those eyes catch mine.
“They wanted men and women for an impossible mission, one from which there might be no return. We formed the crew of a great boring machine, powered by the biggest creniuld engines ever cranked. Our mission was to prove for once and for all that our ice-ringed world was set fast upon a bed of endless rock, just as stated in the Latturlidan Scriptures.
“We spent months living in that vibrating tube as it chewed through the foundations of our world. Just as we approached the return point, we tore through. Everything flew into the air. Up became down. Our machine toppled and rolled, then fell, breaking apart in the hideous impact that followed.
“A few of us crawled from that wreckage, finding ourselves at the bottom of a deep ravine. Crazed and confused, we wandered until we came upon a settlement.
“Each reacted differently to the epiphany. To save conflict, we agreed to go our separate ways for a year, then meet up and share our tales so we could work out what to do next.”
He looks at me, tears at the corners of his eyes.
“That was twenty-nine years ago. No-one came to that meeting, so I went looking. Not many killed themselves. Most settled. Some found love. A few started families. Only one yearns for home so much he cannot rest, and tortures himself by visiting the daughter who bears the name and face of her mother, his lost sister. But today he told her the truth, and will never see her again.”
He gets up and rushes out.
…What just happened?
by submission | Jun 14, 2020 | Story |
Author: Michael Anthony Dioguardi
I’m getting too old for this shit.
Suzie Zapach. Serial number 386D1286. She’s got the m-series processor and the defect: emotional evidence displays. Category: Lacrimal system malfunction.
There’s been a lot of these since they started autosplicing in the newborns. I’m glad I don’t have any of that junk in my head.
It started with simple additions. People wanted to remember more, so they got the memory unit.
It was small and innocuous—you’d forget it was there at times, ironically. But folks always wanted more. The reaction time and physical strength chips were so damn expensive at first. Now every kid’s got one.
I guess I should count my blessings and be thankful I have a job. When I first started, I was told human chip mechanics would be obsolete in a decade or two. Turns out even the best AI couldn’t repair malfunctioning emotion units. I feel like a damn shrink half the time working on these poor people. The AI just couldn’t think like a human. Technically I’m fixing these folks by getting them to not show a shred of emotion anymore—so they get their money’s worth.
But they’re starting to develop prototype mechanics—only a matter of time I suppose. I just keep on reminding myself: just one tear; keep that lacrimal system working as God intended—for some reason, nobody wanted to cry anymore. I’ve always silently disagreed and that’s all I needed to do to keep myself employed.
My pops was a mechanic. He worked on cars when people still drove themselves. He always mangled the engine parts. I never understood why he did that until I started working on cerebral processing units. Folks would bring their car back in a week with a new problem and he’d do it again. So always break something. They’ll come back.
But there’s nothing to break here. The m-series processor always comes with this defect. I’m surprised the manufacturers haven’t fixed it yet. My guess is, most repairmen are keeping their mouths shut.
Well, you’re about ready, Suzie. Let’s see how you do:
Execute module 36.
And there’s a smile!
Alright, let’s try another. Execute module 53.
And there’s a tear.
Let’s close you up and bring in the next one.
by submission | Jun 13, 2020 | Story |
Author: Michael Walton
How do the stars feel, you ask? You are right to inquire of one of us – we are the ones who know, after all. You little bags of carbon and water, who can’t even see most of the light that we emit, have no idea how we feel.
How do the stars feel? We feel heat. Stars are great furnaces of hydrogen – and, in our older days, helium, carbon, or even iron. We burn, and every part of us burns so much brighter than it does in you. Our loves span ages. Our feuds last for eons. Our fleeting whimsies outlive entire civilizations of yours. The rage of one such as us is a conflagration that scours whole regions of space. And when two of us come together, it is an orgy of light and fire and passion that makes your most torrid affair seem as the lightest brushing of shoulders on a crowded street. How do we feel? We feel sad for you poor, cold, emotionless things.
How do the stars feel? We feel old. Ten million of your years is mere infancy for such as us. A billion years to us is childhood. Two billion, adolescence. Our spans are so long that, if we but blink, we miss entire generations of you. How do we feel? We feel pity for you fragile, fleeting, impermanent things.
But what do the stars feel most? Imagine how rare it is that we come together. Picture if you can the distances between us, gulfs so great that life on dirt balls like the one on which you live can evolve, fail to prove itself worthy to reach us, and die in the time it takes light from one of us to reach another. Think on this and ask again, how do the stars feel?
Lonely, you heartless little cinders. The stars feel lonely.
by Olivia Black | Jun 12, 2020 | Story |
Author: Olivia Black, Staff Writer
It’s 4 am and Leed’s alarm doesn’t go off for another hour. It feels like she’s barely closed her eyes and the socket at her temple is hot and achey from overuse. There’s no use trying to force more sleep, she knows from experience that she’ll just end up groggy and sluggish all day if she does. Today’s already going to be hard enough. Maybe getting up early isn’t such a bad thing. Jetta will die of laugher to see it. Leed has never been a morning person. Well — that was before.
Now it’s all riding through empty streets before the sun’s even up to get across town to open up shop. She runs the last data salvaging operation on this side of the country. No one has their physical data storage anymore and all the big firms use in-house techs. Most of her business is mailed in from municipalities still using outdated tech no one else knows how to work with, and those are becoming rarer and rarer. Won’t be more than a couple years before she’s out of business altogether, what with the new data redundancy and transparency laws coming into effect. A sane person would have closed out and moved on, but the shop was always Jetta’s dream. Can’t let go of it now.
The morning ride is always the worst — it’s all uphill until the cloud district, where the vast expanse of state-run data servers are maintained. The towering glass fortresses with their militarized security loom over the streets. The shop’s tucked away on the far fringe, the last storefront in the district that hasn’t succumbed to virtualization. Not that you’d know it from looking at it. Someone’s set off an enzyme bomb on the display window so now the whole thing is a mottle of electric blues and purples. Leed never bothered with cleaning it off. It’s not like there’s any foot traffic to deter.
Inside the shop smells like fresh coffee from the auto-brew with a strong under layer of dust, solder, and mouldering plastic. She shuffles about the shop, turning on monitors and holo-displays. Most of it’s for show, really. And it hardly makes a difference amidst the heaps of dead tech and spare parts that have accumulated in every available nook and cranny.
The last step is to spin up her private servers in the back — technically, she’s only licensed for virtual servers and short-term storage. Owning your own hardware is a big no-no. Not that it doesn’t happen. There’s a lot of money to be made in the underground data trade. With the right skillset and access to lots of old-fashion components, it’s not so hard to cobble something together. Leed happens to have both and motivation to boot. Commercial virtual servers aren’t up to the demands of hosting a human memory matrix, even if they’d let you try. Active personality storage is experimental tech at best, an ethical quagmire primed for abuse at worst. To Leed, it’s worth the risk.
Today is the day Leed’s been working toward. She’s bringing Jetta online. She’s finally not going to be alone anymore.
There’s still a few minutes of diagnostics to run before she can really knuckle down, which means she’s finally able to get at that pot of coffee. Massaging her much-abused data port, she meanders into the tiny break room. The first thing she clocks is the pot is already half empty. The second is the woman in a cheap suit clutching her favourite mug, badge resting on the rickety table.
“We gotta talk about your extracurricular activities.”
by submission | Jun 11, 2020 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
“Don’t feel threatened, Melissa.” A squat, balding officer faced off a bewildered woman in a beekeeper’s outfit, shackled to an interrogation desk.
“Threatened? Your armed thugs dragged me inside for just crawling ten feet over your fence. What the hell…who the hell are you? This isn’t a USDA bee research lab.” She pulled back away from him as he leaned forward.
“Obvious, I’m sure, after we escorted you through our main laboratory. You saw what we wanted you to, enough to pique your curiosity.” He leaned back relaxed, hands locked behind his head.
“I know bees, mister…whatever your rank…”
“Captain, but just Brian is fine. We hoped you would track your missing swarms, wondering where they disappeared. I’m sorry we tricked you, but you’re dearly needed.”
“Needed? You’re kidding, after you arrest me like a common criminal!” Melissa surged forward to choke him, but shackles restrained her fury.
“That redhead spirit, too. Fits your profile folder.” Brian leaned forward, outside her reach. “Probably another reason Northern California beekeepers don’t like you, especially after your illegal breeding program using Alpine bumblebees smuggled from Tibet. Brilliant. Your successful combination of alleles produced a new species. That shock spurred our program to make bees thriving in limited atmospheres. You’re amazing.”
“I’m happy for you, creepo,” Melissa responded, slamming back in her steel chair. “Just what I need–my government spying on me. I mind my business. This is what I get?”
“Melissa, you propelled our program ten years. You deserve a medal, but there’s more to do for your…no, for your world. Bees are dying. You know that…even the bumblebees. Your mutants could turn that around, but we’re looking for even more. You saw the springbank clover in lab salt tanks. Surely, you wondered about that and the algae ponds. We also took you through the robotics center. You dragged your feet, taking a hard gander at electronic bees. No one sees those experiments unless they’re carefully screened. You are, dear lady, the most perfect candidate on Earth.”
“For what? Hey, if this is a sex-slave trafficking thing, forget it. I won’t put up with any shenanigans.” She bit her lip and then crossed her legs.
“You misunderstand. We need a tough, brilliant person to lead the next step. The algae fields are already growing in brine water from near the pools we identified. Our modified clover was planted by algae growths last spring. It’s taken off, but needs regular pollination to thrive. It’s a beginning. Now, we need a beekeeper for the next evolution to prepare our new home–someone with no family and only bees for companions.”
“What? I’m confused. Where is this all going down…in those salt marshes in the Delta, near Stockton?
“No. I’m afraid not. We’re asking you to volunteer as the pioneer with our new hives. They are part bee, but they don’t breathe oxygen. They survive on carbon dioxide. Our algae and clover are producing oxygen and nitrogen soils. But, we need our new insects to spread the growth. You could be critical for establishing a new home for all Earthers…as the first Terra-former.”
“No bee can live in carbon dioxide. Can’t happen. Terra-forming what?”
“You see, we merged your new bee’s DNA with a tardigrade, the only animal we know can survive freely in space. Took years, but now we have living specimens that can fly, pollinate, and build hives. That’s why you’re here, Melissa. You can be the first queen bee on Mars. Interested?”
by submission | Jun 10, 2020 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
In the age before Adam, somewhere between the branching of hominina from panina, there was a small tribe that found a tree.
They were a shortish nation of forty—large browed, flat faced, wide nosed, and slate skinned—with three infants and five young. Constantly hungry and thirsty, the tribe lived a life of perpetual foraging and perpetual fleeing, eating seeds, plants, insects, and carcasses and evading large predatory animals as often as inclement weather.
On one of their wanderings, they followed the contours of a new land, which took them to a rank of green wooded mountains. They trudged up the ribs of the elevation, through coarse foliage and deep thickets, and under arching boughs, wary of the possible carnivores.
Drifting single-mindedly into the wilderness, they came upon a clearing where they saw a solitary, gargantuan tree abounding with yellowish-red globes amid shining leaves. The tribe’s little eyes widened, and they stood in speechless silence. A shared association formed in their minds, and collectively, a uniform muttering rose among them. They marched to the tree. Beneath it, they stared and pointed at the globes that dangled high above them.
The tribe attempted to climb the tree, but they, like the generations that preceded them, had wandered for so long, they had forgotten how to climb trees. They gathered pebbles and threw them upward, but the tribe’s throwing strength was weak, and their aim was poor. Exhausted, they sat under the tree and, out of past habit, resigned themselves to it as a shelter from the heat and the expected rains. The sky dimmed, and with no predators about, the tribe fell asleep.
One morning after a meager forage in the woods, they returned to find piles of the globes scattered at the foot of the tree. They shouted and chirped in excitement, ran to the fruit, and engorged themselves, satiating their hunger on the pulp and quenching their thirst on the juice. And they continued to do so every dawn and dusk over seven passings of the sun.
That night, the tribe felt the beating in their chests quicken irregularly, and then in the next few days, there came a heavy malaise, followed by a nauseous agony of vomiting and inflamed faces, torsos, and limbs.
Many of the tribe turned rabid from the torment and began to devour their enfeebled kin, infants, and young; whereas others few, who were still sane, found and ate white flowers with yellow stamens, which previous wanderings had taught them relieved stomach pains. Helplessly, the tribe laid beside the tree, subdued by unsteady pulses, strange flutterings, and feverous dreams. Uncounted days passed.
* * *
Under the blue arch and the round sun, the tribe awoke, their affliction finally lifted yet their number greatly reduced. The remaining five females and four males assembled and buried the dead. Soft wind wafted over the survivors. They looked up at the tree, and they looked down at the graves strewn with mossy rocks. Shuddering, the nine trod down the mountain, hunger and thirst compelling them to relinquish their calamity and their sadness. The tribe wandered, foraged, and fled, and gradually, they multiplied.
As the ages glided away, time claimed the nation and its memory, and new tribes came. A lone pair, whose form and gait had slightly changed, plodded into the wilderness and happened upon the mountain, the clearing, and the tree.
