by submission | Jul 26, 2019 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
“Thank you for your service,” she said.
“Thank you for your support,” I replied with the appropriate level of expected gratitude.
The hardware store clerk saw the veterans imprint on my license. I didn’t ask for it, it’s required by law. Still, it’s a useful designation. 15% off most retail goods. 25% off restaurant tabs, no questions asked, no hassles given.
I just don’t like the look they give me.
Fear and pity. I can handle them being afraid of me; it’s the pity I can’t stand.
They told us the process would be reversible- that when we finished our tours we could seamlessly integrate with civilian society, only with new skills and the thanks of a grateful nation. Turns out they were wrong. The process isn’t reversible.
At least the nation is grateful.
Then it hit me; the disembodied feeling like I was a half-step behind myself trying to catch up. Damn! I don’t have time for this.
I drove to a bar I had never been to before for someone I didn’t know from Adam; just knew she was in trouble. Her sitrep rolled in. Some biker dude had hacked her command codes. Had her in leathers on a chain. I could tell by the blank look on her face she was just along for the ride. At least as field grade officer, even if retired, I could still help.
I went passed them without making eye contact and into the men’s room. I looked in the mirror, looked myself in the eye. Despite the blinding pain, I flicked into the operational headspace, found her, used the override/compromised command, and set her free. By the time I got to the men’s room door, the situation report update was rolling in. Biker dude had a broken nose, arm broken in two places, all his fingers “ceremonially” broken. I thanked the stars above she left him alive with his package intact.
I came back into the now deserted bar. The vet wasn’t even sweating. She stood there calmly waiting for me. She came to the position of attention and snapped off a smart salute. I returned the salute.
“Thanks for doing me the solid, sir.” She said, voice heavy with shame and embarrassment.
I smiled mischievously “Thank you for your service.”
She smiled. “Thank you for yours” she replied.
“Fuck You!” we both said in unison.
We laughed. I handed her my business card. On the back, I scribbled eight numbers.
“That’s the access code. Change it the first chance you get.” She nodded. I locked eyes with her “You need to be more careful with your operational security. I know you’re not in anymore, but you gotta keep opsec sharp so you don’t wind up like this again or accidentally hit a trigger and take out a Nursery school. Even I have to be careful.”
She nodded sheepishly “Yes sir. Thank you, Chaplain.” She gave me a hug and ran out of the bar. I heard the deep rumble of a Harley as she peeled off the lot. The police would be there soon, better if I was gone as well.
I stepped out of the bar, looked around, got my bearings, looked at my watch. I would just miss dinner but be on time to get the kids to bed. The wife understands. Dealing with me, she’s just as much a vet now as I am.
I walked out to the car. Nerves still tingling, anxiety creeping in, wondering when the next time I would have a trigger event.
Thank you for your service. Fuck you.
by submission | Jul 25, 2019 | Story |
Author: David K Scholes
“When they transported us down time to the original colony I thought we would at least have the place to ourselves,” Urrle was indignant. “Apart from the dinosaurs of course.”
“We did,” I replied, “we did for a while.”
“Until “they” started coming,” I could see that Urrle was really down.
“The tourists you mean?” I enquired. The damned tourists I thought taking 4D selfies everywhere they went and uploading them to the All Time, All Net.
“No, not them – they are a nuisance I grant you, but eventually they head back up time and we get a break before the next ones. Also, thankfully, we can’t view the All Time All Net here,” replied Urrle. “Nor are the semi-perms that spend half their time sunning around on their dinosaur farms down here that bad. They don’t bother us that much. No, it’s the crims, the other crims.”
“The other penal colonies you mean?” I asked. “We all know they have been sprouting up like mushrooms.”
“What I don’t understand,” persisted Urrle, “is that they have 180 million years to play with, in the Mesozoic era alone, why plonk everything here in this little patch?”
I had to admit that our little part of the Mesozoic era had become very crowded. More crowded than areas up time since the “Thinning” and the “Galactic Commitment”. No one had told us why. Not our cyborg guards, not the transportation guards as they brought down supplies and new inmates, not the tourists, not the crims or even borg guards from other penal colonies that we occasionally came in contact with.
“Eisenstein says that they only have a narrow time segment they can send things down too,” replied Terathh who was listening in to our conversation. “I couldn’t understand the math but I guess that’s why things are so crowded here.”
“It’s okay,” I said “or at least it was okay. I mean I was okay with all of that. I could have lived with it all. The circus that we have become down here, but now ___. “
“What is it Garth?” asked Urrle surprised by my uncharacteristic show of emotion
“You know I had to go over with one of the borgs when that new colony was set up over the range. Just to help out. I think it was the first of its kind.”
“Aliens?” I could see Urrle was guessing “Alien Crims or even Alien Prisoners of War?”
“Alien Crims have been here for a while,” I couldn’t understand how Urrle didn’t know this, “and also Alien prisoners of war, not just our prisoners but prisoners the senior members of the Galactic Alliance compelled us to take” It seemed like the Galactic Commitment had no limitations. “Including, among them some Drorne prisoners.”
Urrle’s face went white.
“Even that I could take,” I said “even Drorne prisoners of war down here in this pocket of time with us. Our sworn enemy who heaped so much humiliation on us when we were fighting men.”
“What then,” asked Urrle “what is it Garthh?”
“The new camp, everyone was old, all humans over 95…” I stopped, unable to speak.
“The tourists or the semi-perms would see them down here and would raise all hell up time!” exclaimed Urrle.
I shook my head. “They might get to see pretty much everything else but not this latest colony.”
“And how many more are to come before the Galactic Commitment ends?”
“I feel like the guy in that ancient movie when he discovered we the human race were eating people” said Urrle.”
“Only worse’
by Stephen R. Smith | Jul 24, 2019 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Kaz got close enough to town for broadband wireless access before hunkering down in a culvert under the roadway.
His suit’s AI ran the standard duck and cover protocols, scouring for low-security funding resources, supplies available for autonomous delivery, and shelter that could be counted on to be quiet for the couple of days he needed to regrow his broken bits and replenish his fuel reserves.
Within a few minutes an independent credit bureau had been breached, six adjacent rooms on two floors of a motel secured, and half a dozen delivery orders placed, each for substantial quantities of food. Late on a Friday, there shouldn’t be anyone looking too closely for a couple of days. He hoped that’s all he’d need.
Kaz traced a path through a field, then a vacant lot to the back entrance of the Motel 69, up the stairs to the second floor and then let himself into 227.
He waited until the delivery vehicles had come and gone on the street outside, drones depositing disposable keycode thermoboxes outside each of his rented rooms, then he did a quick lap and collected all the food.
He sat in the middle of the three second-floor rooms, the AI starting and stopping showers, adjusting lights and the TVs in all the rooms around and below him, and ate everything he could until he’d ingested an alarming quantity of fuel. He’d been on full burn for nearly a week, he’d already long over-stripped his reserves.
Refueling complete he unpacked the Heckler & Koch mini-gun from his bag and pulled the mono-filament supply line from its socket, dropping it into the shower drain. It crawled the pipes, branching, and branching again, seeking out the hydro mains in the motel itself, as well as several businesses across the road.
He trailed the line across the floor, stretched out on the bed and perched the H&K on his chest, where it deployed its multi-legged mounting system, and did an exploratory revolution to confirm full three hundred and sixty-degree freedom before parking itself aimed at the midpoint of the front wall.
Kaz’s AI dimmed the lights in all the units and locked him into full rigor. It wouldn’t do to have him twitching into the line of fire if the H&K had to engage while he was sleeping.
Cold fire started inside his boots and raced with benevolent fury up his body to his shoulders, down his arms to his fingertips before crashing over his consciousness like a tsunami.
Were anyone there to see, they would have witnessed his hybrid meat and metal suit crack open at the seams, and a small army of carbon fibre insects begin the delicate task of molecular rendering and refabricating required to undo a week’s worth of organic and mechanical damage.
Full burn took its toll.
Kaz’s perceptors were woken up first, ears and nostrils filled with the sounds and smell of H&K discharge, the squat turret mowing through the front wall of the motel room with intent, then periodically rotating to squeeze off a barrage through the bathroom wall, and into the unit next door, before focusing on the front again, adjusting down at an angle to presumably address a target identified in the parking lot below.
The lights were out. They would have killed the power in the unit. Never phoenix without a backup power source.
Motor control was released, and he grasped the mini-gun while sliding off the side of the bed in a single smooth motion, its mounting rig readjusted to wrap around his forearm for stability.
The AI had already pulled together the available recon data, and identified a half dozen black and whites in the parking lot, and a small contingent of tactical officers cowering at the back stairs. They had an armored breach vehicle, useless with a second story engagement, but evidence of the overzealous nature of the local PD.
He squatted to retrieve his kit bag from the floor, making sure to allow the weapon freedom to continue firing energy rounds in bursts in case anyone was feeling brave.
Heads-up read Thursday. Shit. He’d been in worse shape than he’d thought.
Hunger was already on the periphery as he surveyed the remains of his feast splattered around the carnage of the room with disappointment.
He kicked out the back door to the fire escape and stepped out behind a continuous stream of weapon discharge, the already panicked officers scattering like ants.
The H&K recoiled it’s backup feed. Battery only from here.
He had miles to go before he’d sleep.
Full burn.
by Hari Navarro | Jul 23, 2019 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
I hate women. I really do. I guess that’s probably why I chose this life. Or maybe it’s as they say, it’s this life that chose me. I’d heard that up here in the colonies the women are obedient. That they do as they’re damn well told.
I’ve been here a month. Sold everything for a one way ticket to dig holes in a rock that just barely feels the warmth of our sun. I had to get away. Away from the screech of all those who wanted equality. What a fucking joke! Women, successful women at least, aren’t they just aping the attributes of men? Then, who better to do a man’s job than a man, am I right? And don’t get me started on those who’d have themselves butchered, baby killers when all they have to do is keep their bloodied legs shut. I am right.
It sickens me and I grew so tired, you know, of bearing the weight of this farce.
The population on the base is precisely controlled. Here a miner dies he is replaced. I’m the latest replacement. I love that every detail is regimented. Where even the women here agree to be sterilized. Most are old and haggard and don’t look like they could conceive a bright idea, let alone a child. But, then, there are those who came here as children and they, too, are sterilized when they come of age.
I met one. A stupid girl who came up to me at the Working Man’s Saloon. To her credit, she politely asked if it was all right if she spoke. I liked that. She brought me drinks all night. She whispered of how great it was to meet a fresh man. One who’d not been here long enough to get the dust in their blood and she told me that she’d love to swim naked in the deep blue pools of my eyes.
How easily she slipped into my bed. It was true what they said of this place. The women of the moons are only good for two things and I am yet to taste her cooking.
So young and beautiful, she is a precious commodity. Mine to have and do with as I please. She could’ve had anyone. But she chose me. She talked about books and she talked about art and she talked about how if she was down back on Earth that she had a plan to clean up its filth. She would write novels and she’d paint about the lush colours she had never once touched and people would love again the Earth… just shut up and lay still, you stupid, stupid girl.
That was a month ago. The night before my rotation down at the face of the core. All that is left of her now is this note on the screen and for the first time I taste the grit of this moon in my lungs.
A government shuttle took her away. Was it luck that deemed her that one in a million for who the sterilization did not take? Did she know that if pregnant the corporation would whisk her away, fly her and my child back down to Earth, to that place she so badly craved to be?
“Stupid…”, I say to the reflection in the screen in my tiny room on this malignant base on this foul lonely moon so very, very far from home.
by Julian Miles | Jul 22, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The fan on the ceiling turns slowly, another kitsch feature of this fake colonial era hospital. I do not know when hospitals started to compete for trade, but the ‘healing ambience’ vogue has been out of control – and good taste – for a while. A symptom of a diseased society: choosing to be treated in a replica of a Field Hospital from the Crimea or the whitewashed walls of a Rehab Centre in Da Nang, or any one of thirty or so other styles. Offering appearances, not authenticity, in every case. No-one wants anything less than the very latest in medical care during their treatment.
“Good morning, Mister Clarke.”
The nurse is cheerful. That stoic happiness you wear like armour, when there is no other option but to put on a brave face to cope with an unwelcome task. Not that I have ever had to do that, but my recent experiences have given me a certain insight. Which means I recognise the sideways glances, the abruptness in her practiced moves. I am an interloper in an otherwise genteel establishment.
“How are we feeling this morning?”
“I am comfortably numb, thank you. Yourself?”
She pauses, flicks me a smile that has a hint of being genuine, then carries on as if I had not asked anything. Her bluff manner continues for the few minutes it takes her to check me over. It is a courtesy, more than a necessity. The monitoring suite can see everything and administer anything bar actual surgery or sexual relief, and I am not convinced it could not be programmed for the latter. I would enquire, but I think it could be a query too far for a nurse clearly holding herself together by willpower alone.
“The doctor should be with you before lunch, Mister Clarke.”
“Thank you.”
She nods and retreats, reaching for the name badge she hid in her pocket before entering. A pointless attempt at anonymity, as the detention drone that squats on the ceiling in the corner will have identified her via facial recognition before she took three steps into the room. If she were unauthorised, she would have been incapacitated before taking a fourth step.
It amuses me, the care with which they are holding me. A rare artefact, to be handled with kid gloves and kept in padded storage while a determination as to its real worth is made. More correctly, an evaluation of the public condemnation likely to occur should it be lost. Less amusing is the knowledge that, even in my advanced state of healing, I could still die ‘from my injuries’.
The media are calling me a hypocrite. I disagree, but it will not change anyone’s opinion. I am the last one standing, and there’s no victory or support in that.
We fought for a fairer society. Son of money, I found myself drawn to a cause that would decrease my father’s income by a few percentage points while helping so many.
Whether the radical elements evolved or were induced, I will never know. The violence was pointless and self-defeating, which makes me believe it was manufactured. The truth got lost in high definition video of shouting combatants. It saves on special effects budget when the blood on the walls is real.
In the end, we died for our cause. They fought to the last. I fell off a roof. I remember looking at the stanchion impaling my chest and trying to laugh.
A mobile trauma team saved me. My father’s health insurance paid for them, and a new heart.
Cold irony echoes with every beat.
by submission | Jul 21, 2019 | Story |
Author: Mandira Pattnaik
Summer 2039, Tokyo: Goats read the evening news on TV. Goats? Yes! Take it, or leave it!
Not goats, Sam! Kamala had once corrected me. I had been silent then. It’s so much better to buy peace with your spouse even if you know better! I had worked on a farm at one time and know for a fact—goats don’t have brains! For Heavens, neither do these cleverly camouflaged machines! I had thought of yelling. And faces? You put a goat’s head or your own!
The TV screen flickers like the lights did months ago, above the operating table. Distinctly annoying, even beyond my closed eyelids….my heavily drawn breaths, each an enormous effort, murmurs, a shuffle. I can’t remember it all. Only flashes. Still, at the Trauma Center days later, I remember hearing voices, probably of nurses, alluding to the miracle that my survival was, when all the other occupants of the car had succumbed….
One goat enters the room, clumsy and irreverent. Who’s he?
Dad, here’s your medicines.
Then, this goat—is—my son. Okay! This is Teddy! The same Teddy who once wanted to make a business out of programmed goats. Tonight, he broadens his mouth to the precise measurement I’ve come to understand as his mirth. He wafts out of the room.
Kamala! I call out to that pesky female who has lived with me for… I forget so much…okay… Twenty-five years!
Kamala! Wives don’t listen to us anymore! I murmur under my breath.
She appears. I ask for some Chardonnay. She nods, slips away.
Lila says, Hi! She sways her delicate silk gown in front of the mirror, looks just like her mother twenty-five years ago.
How do I look?
Her little tapered eyes twinkle. I understand she’s pretending to go out on a date!
Well?
Well, miss? I answer, without actually looking.
How do I look?
Yes! Think you look just perfect.
She adjusts her tensile ribbon, eyes still on her reflection.
Below my window, tiny lights come up in the hazy evening, just as hazy as we drove that night—dark, save for the occasional headlamps of cars on the opposite lane flashing onto my eyes. Lila sat on the front passenger seat, fidgeted. Teddy was talking gibberish causing Kamala to fret. I’d stepped on the pedal hoping to make it to the Bay sooner. I could almost smell the sea. Then it had happened—a loud screeching sound, the distinct smell of blood, wails of ambulances, police sirens, and numbness all over my body….
I couldn’t do without them. Work of roboticists—they remade my family. Exact replicas to stand in for my dead family, to keep me from lapsing into insanity.
Kamala pours my drink, asks in the identically replicated voice of my wife if I need something else.
When I answer in the negative, she recedes near the potted Calendula and plugs herself to the socket.
