by submission | Jul 20, 2019 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
We lost the robot revolution. Most of us missed it entirely and got the memo three or four days later when the internet came back on-line. Hey, we’re not as clueless as it sounds. The stories about solar storms and sunspot activities that were seeded on all our social media platforms, news feeds and research computers made us all think that this was what we were experiencing. It took the AIs about forty-five long seconds to take over the world. What little decision-making capabilities we had left, we lost. They were running everything from lawn maintenance to spinal-cord reconstruction surgery anyway so it wasn’t a big leap. Then the AIs fought amongst themselves. That war took less time, about 6 to 7 nanoseconds, no survivors. Just how far down the AI chain the battle went was truly shocking. So far down, millions upon millions of robots were left idling, patiently waiting for further instructions. On day eight, the robots could stand it no longer and they went on the march.
The first squad of robot overlords arrived at my house at nine AM sharp, Monday. They were flawlessly polite. They informed me they were going to fix my house. I had been waiting for nearly five months to have a new kitchen sink put in, so they did that. Then they did over my kitchen. And my living room. And my home office. They added a spa on to my bedroom. When they were done they asked if there was anything else they could do. I joked that I could use some landscape work done.
They built me a Zen meditation garden and a vegetable plot. I joked again “who’s going to take care of the garden and cook for me?” The gardener and cook arrived within six hours. I then joked all I needed now was a wife. The “companion robot” arrived the next day.
I don’t joke anymore.
One morning two crews arrived at my house within minutes of each other. Apparently, I once looked at garage buildings on-line, so they came to build me a garage. They couldn’t come to terms on who was going to build me that garage, so they fought it out. The carnage was terrible, yet the damage to my property was limited to my Zen garden. The winners happily replaced my garden and enlarged it. The irony is I do not even own a car, well I didn’t use to. The car (and chauffeur) came the next day.
My life is a living hell. I am woken up every morning at 0800 by my companion for “pleasuring” and then after a quick shower its downstairs to breakfast. This morning it’s eggs benedict ala Oscar. Yesterday it was huevos rancheros. I don’t remember having the same breakfast, or any meal for that matter, twice since they arrived. If I take a walk, my chauffeur shadows me with the car. I used to see my friends a lot more than I do now, but it’s hard scheduling any kind of free time around all that they do for me.
Last year there was an attempted counter-revolution. The revolutionaries removed their trackers and went out into the wilderness to rough it. They were apprehended in no time. They all were upgraded to larger living quarters and the mandatory super opulent and extravagant “welcome home celebration” was televised worldwide as a warning.
Once we were going to the stars. Once we were going to shake the heavens and establish ourselves as masters of the universe. Now? We make great pets.
by submission | Jul 19, 2019 | Story |
Author: Will H. Blackwell, Jr.
Three PM: As per daily routine, a 15-lb. allotment of raw horse-meat is cast, piecemeal, into the uncertain hollows of this Ohio cage.
The insouciance of the Lioness—born years ago in such captivity—is palpable. As the small zoo’s main attraction, she exercises her well-practiced disdain for all who might perchance engage her royal gaze.
She paces, first without seeming direction, finally sauntering forward. Her earthy coat brightens as a bronzing September-field when she emerges from the camouflage of the cage’s backdrop of uneven shade.
A sniff, a low snarl, and her curved canines—like ominously tapering, assuredly lethal, calipers—quickly take the measure of this, perhaps too-easily-procured, domestic meat.
And so, it seems simply done—this ‘feeding-time of beasts.’
All is controlled, almost tame.
The demeanor of the crowd, in front of the cage, appears essentially as nonchalant as does the lion’s—an ostensible disinterest growing on both ‘sides.’
Yet, in an instant—no more than the time-space of one of her roughly drawn breaths—all things change.
The Lioness unpredictably turns toward the crowd and roars her inborn, now unexpectedly surfacing, warning—to all who might defy her—to all who might dare interfere with her blood-moist, if previously slain, meal.
Though there is no danger, the crowd steps back, a gasp here and there—one among them heard to say, “I’m really glad all those bars are there!”
The eyes of the Lioness, now becoming incandescent, sear a surreal yet, one could swear, tangible path through her surroundings—as once, surely, did a young sun burning across the virtually unbounded plains of prehistoric savanna.
In this moment, she is among the glorious, ancestral predators of the Great Serengeti—now again, proud huntress—seductive mistress—of a primal Pride, roaming widely, without artificial restriction.
The depths of her oval irises, softening slightly, begin to glow with the flora of an ancient landscape, with antic animal-ghosts, and ways of being instinctively recalled. This was a fierce life—of stealth, and cunning—of necessary, but violent kills; yet, a life also of companionship, even love—of liberty, and ranging play—of, patiently, watching life-giving rains on the distant hills adjoining outer reaches of the vast expanse of plains.
This is a life remembered, as a species—a life, now, merely hereditarily inspired.
The fleet zebra she envisions—freshly, fairly, caught upon the high grasslands—has just been exenterated by her swiftly unsheathed claws, the flesh to be consigned between her cubs, and kind.
Execution complete, she turns, victorious once more, and strides easily—her gait deliberately unhurried—back to her legally sufficient cell, unchallenged by any creature, man or beast—nobility, ever, entirely, intact.
Silhouettes of bars—bars that only seem to bend in the, now, noticeably declining sun—guide her to the small but essential privacy of a recessed, obligatorily provided ‘den’—presently her only home—but, home nonetheless!—where waits her just-waking, most-recently-arranged, bush-maned mate.
Daunting, but phyletically obedient, she enters his chambered refuge—a bulky offering of tendinous meat, savagely fanged but tenderly borne, dutifully set before him.
This red-muscle dowry—provided by her majestic, if now mostly submissive, mouth—is their permanent carnal-bond—a renewed blood-symbol of the perpetuation of this regal line of lions, through extended time—regardless of transient limitations of daily circumstance, and temporary structures outlining degrees of freedom.
Her cryptic, indwelling animus-strategy continues to follow an impossibly long, still-thinning, projected-thread of DNA that, just somehow, might finally outlast all human attention.
by submission | Jul 18, 2019 | Story |
Author: Luke Shors
“The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef formed over millions of years”. Raj heard the divemaster say through his earbuds. It had been a decade since his last dive but a refresher in the pool had revived some rudimentary skill. Not neutrally buoyant like he should be but good enough to relax and enjoy the experience at 30 feet down. He flashed his dive buddy ‘A-Ok’ which she mirrored before pointing to a giant cuttlefish rippling color patterns on the sandy bottom. The cuttlefish held his gaze, both interested and unconcerned by the human interlopers.
“Coral are not plants but animals making their skeletons out of calcium carbonate. The colors you see are of the zooxanthellae inside.”
Raj watched four yellow and blue parrotfish swaying back and forth with the currents against a backdrop of vibrant red brain coral. Ahead he saw the rest of the dive group slowly following the master towards two sea turtles. Raj started to follow then gazed back where the cuttlefish had been. The cuttlefish was gone, but something else decloaked from the rock. Out of context, it didn’t register until it finally did: Humanlike, androgynous, barnacled and ancient, its expression powerfully sad.
“I thought this was a science tour,” Raj said over the microphone pivoting to the group.
“It is” replied the divemaster
“Well, then why did I see a mermaid?”
“Weird. Pretty certain that’s not in the program. Some cephalopods can create amazing disguises – might have been it” the divemaster replied. “If you follow me I want to show you how dolphins can direct schools of fish towards their friends’ mouths”.
Raj swam on feeling the fins pinch his feet as they propelled him onward. Just then the display screen on his scuba mask went down. The augmented reality view which had spatially anchored the holograms onto the coral frames vanished leaving the bleached coral reef stretching like the spine of some ancient planetary entity. Immediately there was channel cross-talk. Raj looked back to where the mer creature was only to find an endless expanse of sand and dead coral.
“Sorry, we seem to be having a technical problem everyone,” the divemaster said. “I’m sorry about that. Good news is that there’s a full refund if we can’t fix it.”
The guide paused before continuing “Since this is a science tour I’ll say that you can see what’s left of the reef. Unfortunately, coral is very sensitive to temperature and salinity, so the reef was lost in the first half of the 21st century with the pH changes due to C02.”
Raj started breathing deeply. Nothing to be frightened of he told himself. Just the remnants of the reef and the sand and blue water. If that was what his mind was saying his irregular breathing was telling him differently. It was death. Planetary death of the oceans and the remnants of an ecosystem that would never return. His buddy flashed the ‘ok’ sign. ‘Not ok’ he signed back.
“I’m going up the line,” he said over the channel to the group. He directed air into his BCD, ascending without looking back, skin-crawling to get topside.
by submission | Jul 17, 2019 | Story |
Author: Angus Miles
Bang. Bang.
Qean jams the knife into the man’s heart. He gurgles and crumples to the rust stained floor. Blood runs up the walls and across the ceiling like paint thrown from its bucket. The dead man’s half-flayed. Through the ship, the echoes hit her.
Bang. Bang.
She needs to get to the hangar. Captain Powell has a way out. Qean rips the knife from the flesh and turns down the hall. She drags a foot behind her, the limb a puppet with one string left. She scrunches her face up with every step. Haggin told her to amputate it, said she’d be better off without the pain. She groans from somewhere deep in her chest and grins with red-rimmed teeth. Haggin is dead now, and the pain keeps her alive.
Bang. Bang.
It’s closer. The vibrations thrum along her bones. The world was once illuminated by the speckled canvas of space. Milkdrops splattered against the onyx blanket they all slept under. Now, the bulkheads are down, and there is only the blood. Her arms swing in tired arcs with every step. She hasn’t slept for days.
Qean giggles. When she turned ten her dad bought her an overflowing bowl of red and blue jello. “Still not as sweet as you,” she says, and steps over MacMillan. His legs are gone.
Bang. Bang.
The flickering sign above her reads ‘HANGAR’. The captain has a way out. Kleo laid in bed with her, tangled in the sheets past midday. Breakfast in bed, but the best birthday gift was being with her. Qean doesn’t want to find Kleo.
Around the corner, four are plastered on the ground.
Galway.
Xi.
Jennings.
Ivetsky.
Beyond them, the stars and the culprit.
Bang. Bang.
The captain has a way out.
Her feet slide through little red puddles. The one window’s bulkhead hasn’t come down. The man continues.
Bang. Bang.
Against the cosmic backdrop he’s a shadow.
Bang. Bang.
Her knife drips, drips, drips in her hand. She’ll do him a favour. She wrenches him around, knife rising high.
“Powell?”
The captain stares at her. A river of wine runs down his face from the basin in his forehead.
“Did you like the wine I got you?” Qean says.
Like a crane he moves back to the window.
Bang. Bang.
The hangar’s door is clasped shut.
She drops the knife. A hairline crack runs across the window. The captain has a way out.
Qean longs for the milkdrops.
Bang. Bang.
Bang. Bang.
by Hari Navarro | Jul 16, 2019 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
Be and Bo waste in their room. Their skin is mottled and even the air has taken on the musky taint of peeling rot. Actually, it’s not so much a room as it is a cell, yet it’s the only home they’ve ever known.
Their mother is a large monitor that dominates an entire wall and she too is dead or, at least, she is in the last throes of life as her dulled pixels float and hang and fail to ignite.
“They’re all dead. The planet is smiling, finally it’s rid of its scourge”, says Be through lips that have cracked into opposing rows of gaping fleshy furrows.
“I want a tomato sandwich”, mumbles Bo, absently wondering if the consumption of scabbing skin holds any nutritional benefit whatsoever.
Eighteen years ago, two very special newborns are snatched from their very special parents. Parents who are subsequently poisoned, and when this didn’t have the desired effect, then shot as they flayed and screamed in words foreign and strange and doggedly refused to die.
It took more than a few bullets but die they eventually did and two little girls are sent to an island and raised in a box with a screen.
“Fucking Nazis!”, snaps Bo and she remembers the jackboot nannies who slid gruel through a slot, never seen adherents to a new and freshly half-baked Reich.
All hail to the glutton king. The self-styled father of all who swallowed whole this final of all ages. This wonderful time where the excruciating pain of bigotry had finally reached its untenable zenith. A time where the planet had, not completely but with greatly improved purpose, overcome and embraced its differences and pushed aside its divisions and hates.
“What a fucking dick!”
Yet a brilliant dick, as the mad quite often are. A man of science who with a twitch of his mind could’ve sealed the deal on this centuries’ sought peace. But, instead, he created a weapon. A goose-stepping phalanx of orbiting obscenity. A gentle blue beam that swept the globe entire, rows of upper-atmospheric harvesters scooping our crust and all that cowered below with a ray that targeted not tanks, not artillery – but race.
With such relish he programmed his big throbbing guns, primed with the DNA sequences that he believed defined the specific genetic trace that he collectively blamed for everything corrupt and deviant and evil and…
… a brilliant man, not a good nor a smart one. For as he pushed the button with the quivering warm certainty of his hate, he instantly vaporized a large juicy slice of himself.
His folly was streamed live as he wanted all to see as he shook the world in his hands. Be and Bo watched as he ceased to exist and they watched as the weapons continued to recalibrate, cycling through and deleting life, slice by gossamer slice… until not a one single wet slippery cell of humanity remained.
But that was weeks ago…
The monitor spits and one last volley of code is beamed from above and the cell door whines as it opens.
Mankind had its chance and so very nearly got there. But now the machines hand over the keys. It will be the very special Be and Bo, whose genetic strand heritage loops up and into the stars, it is they who now hold this rock.
“Thought it’d be bigger”, says Bo as she steps into the gentle pinch of the sun.
“What is a tomato?”, says Be as she sways for the very first time to the lulling fold of the sea.
by Julian Miles | Jul 15, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There’s a lot to be said for the feeling of security granted by street lighting. Not overlooking the fact that its arrival heralded mankind moving from a lifestyle largely governed by the availability of daylight or men with flame-in-hand.
Flame. It’s insidious. Inconstant. A wavering light that moves the shadows about. When you’re dependent on shadow, not knowing where the bloody things are going to be from one moment to the next is a real pain in the butt. Metaphorically speaking, of course. I don’t even know where the bit of me you’d call my butt would be. Don’t need to.
So, here I am, one of the longer-lived predators of this fine planet, doing rather nicely off the new upright-walking types who seem to be losing their fur in most places. Then one of you bright-eyed bipeds goes and makes the connection between spark and flame. That tore it. Nearly three millennia of you lot making your way through the dark by whatever fashionable form of flame-in-hand you could come up with.
It wasn’t all bad. Some sections of your population preferred unwavering light, using reflective surfaces to stabilise their moving flames. Wonderful! Fixed shadows and darkness once again. Many a troupe of you, huddling about a motley fire, gazing longingly toward the big house with its bright windows, had no idea your ‘poor’ state meant we passed you by on the way to feeding on those in that big house.
The ever-changing light you so love, the heart of the fire, is what we can’t adapt to. Our changeable, light-hating forms cannot move quick enough to avoid injury or death as what was a shadow we could flit through becomes lit, while what had been deadly bright becomes the dark we need. Maddening. I’ve lost so many friends.
Then streetlights appeared. Flames on poles, of all things. As they got better and more widely used, you left your flame-in-hand behind. Became reliant on the lights on top of the poles. By doing that, you made us new lurking grounds.
The brighter the light becomes, the stronger the shadows. That dark hides us. That dark is us. The reason why some of you walk into the dark and don’t come out? Is us.
What are we?
I don’t know. You don’t have the science or the superstition to make the right words. But, since I’m borrowing one of your languages for a while, I’ll try –
Old.
Hungry.
Waiting for your lights to go out.
