by submission | Apr 11, 2019 | Story |
Author: Janet Shell Anderson
Enormous sound, heard and felt; goes right through me; my bones feel it. Shock. The sky over the Potomac cracks; the sound streaking overhead moving from East to West as if heaven’ll fall into two pale, white pieces. One breath. Two. I’m not afraid.
Birds lift into the air like one animal, whole flocks. The river, sulky, milky, murky, icy, grumbles to itself, as a doomsday sunset pink spreads at the bottom of dark clouds, reflects on chunks of river ice.
I shouldn’t be here where I could be picked up, shot. He’s listed us all as traitors, everyone who did not stand and applaud him. Drones filmed us just standing there, staring at him, while huge missiles on trucks went by. A parade. Pennsylvania Avenue cracked in two places from the weight of the rockets and their carriers; the crowd stood cold, sullen.
I hear sirens, red shrieks of sound, see planes coming fast over the ice-crusted river, fifty feet above the current, fighters, really moving. They light up afterburners.
My great grandfather Nils, an engineer back in the twentieth century, designed a bomb shelter in the White House when Truman was President. Is it still there?
“He’s done it now,” a man swears. “Sonofabitch. He’s done it now.”
Not safe comments. The Tidal Basin looks grey, smoky, the famous Japanese cherry trees, wet and black, bent with ice. A lot of them have been burned because they’re not American trees. Swastikas score many trunks. There’s another tremendous sound but different from the ones in the sky. The ground shakes. Has something hit the White House?
“What was that?” a very young woman, really still a girl, shivering near the trees, whispers. She has dark hair, dark eyes, looks foreign. That’s not good these days. My hair’s bleached white as snow. Safer.
I’m Jamtish.
What’s that? Arctic people. Pretty scary. A while back near Lapland, my cousins, the Bixos, dealt with NewNazis, Germans who came to conquer, made it illegal to mention the Holocaust. Built a big structure, marched around requiring obedience. It didn’t last. There was not a stone left of the Nazi fortress. Not one stone. Some black jackets in the snow. An arm.
Wolves were blamed.
“Aren’t you afraid?” the young woman asks.
I see a big gush of flame across the river reflected in the chunks of ice that rock slowly as the tide runs out. The Potomac’s a tidal river.
“No.”
I used to think all rivers had tides.
The Jamts left not a stone behind.
by submission | Apr 10, 2019 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
What Ozzie did most with his virtual reality game The Invasion was not the playing but the observing.
His parents had recently moved to the big city, and they put him in a new school and a physical fitness club there. However, he was not a gregarious type, and he made no real friends. So frequently, after school or the club, once he finished an olive loaf and lacy Swiss sandwich with a glass of pulpy orange juice, he connected himself to the game.
He would sign in on noncombatant mode, often in the point of view of a tree, a stone, or a bird. The game-world setting was an abundant panorama of weaving coniferous forests and still wetlands under a bright neutron-blue sky. Sometimes everything almost felt real, especially the four-dimensionally simulated wind and the green smell of the branching pines.
All the same, every time, the placid serenity would be abruptly interrupted by the glassy screams of flying saucers, exploding particle beams, and roving units of ragged woodland guerrillas and snipers waging hit-and-run strikes with archaic general-purpose machine guns, fighting desperately against the technologically superior battalions from beyond the celestial sphere.
It was a terrible, mesmerizing, awesome scene that Ozzie took in quietly, speechlessly, and seriously.
He was going through his observation routine when his mother, who usually did not bother him, suddenly grabbed his shoulders and shook him in a frenzy, saying she was extremely tired and needed help emptying the heavy shopping bags she had lugged up twelve flights of stairs because the two apartment elevators were under repair.
“Noooo!” Ozzie shouted. “My POV!”
He saw himself in the middle of a guerrilla ambush. The men and women mercilessly fired their machine guns at a dreary menagerie of straggling creatures that resembled something between sea worms and centipedes. Ozzie felt the four-dimensional simulation of the searing rounds of armor-piercing bullets, as if they were truly rending and destroying the muscles and the bones of his arms and body, and he quickly disconnected himself from the game.
* * *
The guerrilla unit was surveying the area where it had attacked and slaughtered the surviving reconnaissance crew of the flying saucer the snipers had shot down. The soil was sodden with pale yellow blood turning blue, and the ground was a mess of shattered extremities, pieces of life-support suits, and indeterminable entrails. One of the guerrillas, a fair gaunt man with scraggly black facial hair, appeared confused.
“What’s wrong, Gonzolo?” the swarthy guerrilla commander asked.
“I saw a kid, an ocher-complexioned kid.”
“I saw him, too.”
“He couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve. We killed him.”
“I realize that, Gonzolo. He just ran in.”
“Yeah. He did. … The way he looked, though.”
“How’s that?”
“We’ve been fighting and starving in these hinterlands for six years now, but the kid, he looked totally healthy.”
“He probably came from a stocked-up cottage out there our units haven’t found yet,” the commander said. The two men peered upon the untouched sections of evergreen trees, crystal lakes, and forested islands in the distance before them.
“Yeah,” Gonzolo said, “maybe from one of those islands.”
But there was no more time for the battle-wary men to muse. The guerrillas needed to move, regroup, and rearm. Screams of more flying saucers were fast approaching, and particle beam bombardments were burning through the woods and the glades. Bounding deer fled the fire and the fumes, and somewhere, a wolf howled in rage.
by Hari Navarro | Apr 9, 2019 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
“This is not who we are”, I mutter as I watch the images cycle over and over on the screen. We are a haven and we love and hold close the freedom and liberty that we’ve cultured here on our tiny beautiful moon. Our special speck of clean green, out on the farthest tip of a bitter and cruel blood-streaked cosmic sea.
We’ve no time for such violences. We play in the surf and we play in the snow, the envy of all those who visit our lush and fertile shores.
My son was a magical child. Really. He had the power to pull down words and render them apart and, then, mix and shape their elements into things. Tangible, tactile, real things.
“I was called into the big chief man’s office today. I have to give it to him, he’s done well. Not sitting and sucking from the system like so many others who filter on down from his swamp, and I totally forgot the projected figures for the next quarter. So, I say, your wife has a nice figure, they used to write rhyming couplets about that flavour of ass. Your kind really pack the junk in the trunk. Am I not wrong? Oh, how we laughed!”, I’d said, more than once, many long years ago.
My son, as a baby barely able to stand, formed from my words countless lengths of cylindrical metal. Pellets that dribbled down his chin and amassed in great piles at his feet.
“Real men don’t put colour in their hair and a man who castrates his penis is not a woman. You cannot re-write that which is written in stone, the sacred tomes that set us apart from the animals – marriage is between a man and a woman”, and again I casually shared my vast knowledge as we sat at the table and ate.
My son, as a young child, he hollowed out the cylinders. Drilling the tip of his tiny fingernail into their base with the keenness of a chisel spiralling away wood at a lathe.
“They’re lazy. The city ones definitely but the rock apes that come in from the country, stuttering and forcing us to assimilate their dead language, it’s on a respirator for fuck’s sake. You want to talk to me then do so in my fucking language, am I right? Tell me I’m wrong. If we find sickness, we vaccinate against it. Their beliefs are a disease. We need to vaccinate ourselves against that. Radicalisation is here, we imported it. We are told to tolerate and embrace the good ones, for they are the majority. But how do we differentiate? Will they whisper their good intentions through the slits in their shrouds? Or must we just await for their cleavers to fall?”
My son, as a teenager, he tapered the ends of the tubes with the suck of his lips and he formed lead pointed tips for their ends, as yet again he plucked their weight from my words.
“They’re coming and their wave will drown all that you love. They will pollute your freedoms.”
Today, as an adult, my son needed only his own words as he ground their bitter dark taint with a mortar and pestle and he filled each of the cylinders to its brim.
My beautiful son, flickering in blue on my screen as he spat at them vitriol and he spat at them bullets and the dead, they stacked as they fled.
“The real cause of this bloodshed is not the sick killer but rather the immigration program, which allow fanatics to migrate to our world in the first place”, said the man with the microphone on the screen, swallowing his spit as he, too, savoured the taste of his words.
This is who we are.
by Julian Miles | Apr 8, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Another flight of stairs disappears into the shadows above. If this were an old movie, I’d casually rest my hand against a spotless wall while pausing to see if my pursuers have given up. If not, I would spring lightly upwards as if the previous thirty flights didn’t matter.
As it is, I keep a tight grip on the creaking rail while the dry heaves pass and the quivering in my thighs subsides. The baying pack of blood-crazed schoolgirls have paused to tear the sleeping transient I hurdled limb from limb, so I can allow myself a moment. Not that I have a second wind to recoup, but the illusion is nice.
“Hideo, this is no time for hanging about!”
I straighten slowly while mentally putting together a reply without swear words: “Are you going to continue stating the obvious, or do you have useful information?”
“You sound angry.”
I do believe she’s genuinely surprised.
“You told me ‘two or three’. There are more than twenty. All are stage four or worse.”
“If I’d said twenty-six stage fives, you’d have told me to do one. So I lied.”
Chikusho. I’ve been had.
“Am I actually here to rescue Shonji Kurasawira? Is she even part of this infected pack?”
“You’re helping her rescue by leading the pack away from the nest at Matsue College. A specialist suppression unit is currently engaged in cleansing the nest, having retrieved Miz Kurasawira and one other stage two.”
“I’m curious. How would me using my usual pack killing methods not have helped?”
“We couldn’t be sure the pack would leave their lesser members behind.”
“I see. I guess the rendezvous I’m desperately heading for is pointless, because everyone’s at Matsue College?”
“Yes.”
At least she’s not trying to apologise. That would be really annoying.
“Why did you shout at me if there’s nothing for me to lead this lot into?”
“There are a few residents left in that block. Getting them torn to bits would be bad for our image.”
Whoopee. I’m a sacrificial PR exercise.
“Lita, self-sacrifice is usually decided on by the one about to do it.”
“Don’t be picky. You’re doing a good deed.”
The baying gets louder.
“If I get out of this, I’ll drop a little something off for you all to share.”
She laughs: “Can we pick which body part?”
Kuso. The contempt in her voice reveals much.
My legs seem to weigh a ton apiece, but I have anger to drive me through the pain. After two flights, my vision is swimming, but my body is moving like always. It won’t last, and the next stages are crawling and blackout. Better do something significant.
I enter the next floor and see possible salvation. As the pack arrives at the foot of the stairs, I stick my head out. The baying increases. I turn and sprint down the corridor, kicking up trash in my wake. The picture window at the end is already cracked. I shoot it six times before hitting it flat out. Smashing through, I arc away from the building.
The pack follows seconds later: a slower, heavier mass of frenzied death that tumbles into the gap between tower block and the smaller office block next door. One makes it to the office block roof where I’m lying. I shoot it as it teeters on the edge. It topples backwards.
Laughing in relief and crying in pain, I roll over. Delivering a grenade to Lita can wait until I have two working legs. For now, I think I’ll drag myself off in search of medical attention.
by submission | Apr 7, 2019 | Story |
Author: Mandira Pattnaik
First time it felt like a huge soap bubble had released at the nape of my neck, and, rising to the cerebrum, burst in slow motion, into pixelated colors—an unspecified shade of purple dominating an array of pinks and crimsons. My head had throbbed with all the electrical impulses it could collect—sugar rush of a candy; thrill of telling a lie; chill of first snow…even the static despondency of a leisurely falling leaf.
I made each second of the two hours of cathartic release from the bondage of the App avatar of my Code Master, count.
Then I put on the wired mesh that covered my eyes and ears. The transparent head mask extended to the cerebrum and Code Master took control of me for the rest of the week, bombarding me with orders and directions as I negotiated the lanes of old Delhi, behind Qutb Minar; a lunch packet, warm and ready for delivery, in the box fitted to my bright yellow Lambretta.
Most days, my dazzling orange bodysuit and purple cap marked a conspicuous getaway in the swarming traffic; through daring pedestrians; and motorists attempting death-defying stunts.
The memory of the second time is not as clear. I binge watched Television, croaked with the frogs in the puddle when it rained suddenly, then ate alone—a cup of reheated noodles.
On a typical workday, Code Master barked a slew of new orders, punctuated by increasingly abusive slurs. I made calls to the next customers; thumbed messages, then kick-started the old Lambretta, swerved into alleys behind Rajiv Chowk. On special days, I ran into pompous wedding processions displaying filthy wealth. Under the hot afternoon sun, and balmy air, they made a song and a dance about another sacrifice—at the altar of fleeting happiness-es!
I smirked. Lucky them—slaves of humans than androids!
*
I began to like the orders barked at me. Being slaves of Androids is not that bad. The unachievable targets spurred me on; the abuses egged me to be even more reckless on the roads and onto better ratings.
At the beginning of the fresh week, I waited intently for Code Master’s malevolent voice. My approval ratings were high, time after time.
I earned a two-minute increase in Drop Time last, which I celebrated with a rumble in the sack with my lady.
Would you like to be in my place?
*
The Drop Time has stayed at two plus two, two years on; though they aren’t the same anymore. I try hard to squeeze too much into too little. I scramble and fail; I cry. I fiddle with the wire mesh, waiting to put it back. It blinks at me all this while, counting down.
At Time minus ten, I laugh villainously (it’s a reprieve), then wait for the walls of the empty room to reverberate with the unworldly sounds. I oscillate between megapixel hallucinations and a numb, manufactured, necrosis. I am scared to take my two plus two. It means a void without the bondage of Code Master.
Drop Time means staring at the blank walls; my mind like one. No more bursts of pansies; no more frog croaks; my lady left me for the intelligent cab driver! Take me back, I implore Code Master.
Digital bondage makes me super-human (or, is it semi-human?).
by submission | Apr 6, 2019 | Story |
Author: Scott Porter
Life on a Civilization Ship is so easy. So simple, so complete. The authorities have thought of everything. Everybody has their part.
The Marie Curie had left earth four hundred years earlier, looking for any Earth-like planet to deposit her 2,500-odd souls. Other ships left with her, all moving away from each other. Eventually, communication ceased. The Marie was alone in the universe.
But life was fine here. All humanity’s vices from those barbaric “grounded” days were addressed in the most scientific way. Here, humanity was almost cured.
No one had thought it would take so long to find a suitable planet. They found dozens of prospects along the way. The Council rejected them all. “It’s brutal down there! People aren’t made for life like that!” They had the figures. People need an average annual temperature between 11 and 17°C. Precipitation between 960 and 1020 mm. And so much oxygen, and so on.
Who could argue with science? The Marie sailed on.
The correct number of inhabitants for the ship was 2,517. Pregnancies were strictly regulated, but The Council was not prepared to regulate deaths. Excess population always accumulated. The only humane solution: leave the extras behind.
No one wanted to be a Behinder.
Garlock Nash didn’t think about it when another planet was reported. He was young and cheerful. Not very useful. He spent his four hours of daily work cleaning air scrubbers. Mindless work. No wonder he kept getting into trouble.
The Council called a meeting. The population stood at 2,560. 43 too many. They started on the names of the undesirables, the troublemakers. The last name was “Garlock.”
Planet ICNA143327 was cold and wind-lashed and mostly uninhabitable. The unlucky 43 were shuttled down to a spot near the equator and given some tools, and six month’s supplies.
The argument about how to put up the tent had been going on for two hours, with the wind throwing rain in everybody’s faces. Garlock started crying.
“Stop sniveling! Get out of here!” somebody said.
“Yeah, go find some wood. Maybe somebody can figure out how to make a fire.”
Wood? Doesn’t that come from trees? Those tall, branchy-looking things in the canyon might be trees. Garlock shambled away, shivering.
He found flood-piled wood by the river. He was picking up sticks when he stumbled and fell backward onto a pile of brush. Something growled.
A beast reared up. It had a long body and strangely jointed legs, each ending in three wickedly curved claws. Was this its house? Or . . . nest, or whatever? The beast leaped.
Garlock still had a stick in his hand. He swung it without thinking, clipping the monster on its ear. It tumbled to one side and gathered itself to leap again. Garlock jumped to his feet and attacked. He swung the stick again, with all his might. The stick broke and he used his fists.
Garlock stopped screaming once the beast stopped moving. Silence. Only rain and wind.
He was alive! Garlock had never felt terror before. He had never fought, never been hungry, or cold, or soaked through like this.
He probably should have felt miserable. But he was alive. He had fought for his life and won. And it felt . . . good!
“People aren’t made for life like that.” Well, there are other things people aren’t made for.
The beast had thick fur. Could be a useful thing on a cold planet. He slung the beast over his shoulder. It was heavy. The climb out of the canyon would be hard. Maybe too hard.
He laughed.
