by submission | Jan 19, 2019 | Story |
Author: Irene Montaner
I was never good at holding my breath underwater. So the moment the doors closed I knew I only had seconds left to live. Seconds left to think of Luna, alone in that escape pod.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.
I used to play that game on hot summer days. We would dip in the lake and hold our breath until we could not hold it any longer and the last to emerge would win. I never made it past ten Mississippis. One day Jack grabbed my leg when I was swimming upwards, struggling for air. He pulled me downwards and kissed me. We were fifteen.
Three Mississippi. Four Mississippi.
Jack made it into the spaceflight academy. I enrolled at a state college and studied applied maths. One day he casually mentioned the station in Pluto and the special missions going on there. He had already been accepted for the brand-new Oort Cloud patrol. I wanted to run away but he said we’d be fine. We left earth together – he as a junior pilot, I as a data scientist. We were twenty-four.
Five Mississippi. Six Mississippi.
Life in the station wasn’t easy. Jack was often away, releasing probes to gather material from the rocks floating in the Oort Cloud. I was stuck in the lab analysing said materials. My days were lonely, long and dark, in spite of the fluorescent lights that were always lit the common areas. At night I often toyed with the blue pill that we were given for emergencies but I never dared to swallow it. I was on my own when I turned twenty-seven. And twenty-eight. And twenty-nine.
Seven Mississippi. Eight Mississippi.
We would fight about anything, Jack and I. Whenever he was around, we spent the day quarrelling about everything. And yet every time he said that things would be fine again and every time I believed him for a short time. It was during one of those truces that we made a baby. Nine months later I gave birth to a girl, a genuine Plutonian. We called her Luna. And things were really okay for a while, until the accident happened. I was thirty-two.
Nine Mississippi. Ten Mississippi.
Sirens hooted and lights blinked. People ran and screamed. No time to think. Jack was out in space and I took Luna with me and rushed to the spaceport, hoping that an escape pod would still be available. All the big ones were gone. I jumped into an individual one, holding Luna tight, and off we flew. The alarm sign went off immediately – not enough oxygen. I tried to calm down in order to reduce my oxygen intake but that wasn’t enough. It was Luna or me. I am thirty-two, she’s only a baby.
Eleven Mississippi.
All I can think of is Luna. Her tiny body, her chubby face, her milky blue eyes, her pouty smile, her perfect everything. I think of Luna drifting alone into space, the escape pod aiming for a planet that might never be a home to her. And I suddenly think that gifting her our oxygen wasn’t love but mercy. And mercy can be merciless.
by submission | Jan 18, 2019 | Story |
Author: David Barber
“Hi, granddad. It’s Tom.”
His granddad’s puzzled gaze flicked between the brothers.
“Look, Corbin’s here. We’ve come to see you.”
“Christ,” muttered Corbin. “Probably keep them under the spell all day. Total immersion software is the new…”
Tom didn’t know how good his granddad’s sight was, so he scraped the plastic chair up close while his brother wandered round the room.
“Did you see the pictures from Zheng He?”
Seven years ago, the Chinese had sacrificed their Europa mission. A last-minute sling-shot round Jupiter flung its optics out into the Kuiper. Now we had snapshots of our peanut-shaped nemesis.
Corbin, peering through the blinds, turned to complain. “Thought we said we wouldn’t…”
Granddad had worked for the old NASA. As a child, Tom had watched him thumping Thanksgiving tables, ranting about the decline and fall of the space program. The family had learned not to ask. But somehow it had turned into nostalgia for an age Tom didn’t even remember.
Years later, Tom’s immersion software company had rode the retro wave with TIS Rocket Man: The future as it should have been, von Braun’s winged and shiny rockets docking with the Big Wheel, engineers in tin space suits, a Mars Fleet setting out.
Corbin went off to find somebody in charge.
His granddad had said Rocket Man should be more matter of fact. Like flying. That it wasn’t about heroes, just smart people doing difficult jobs well. Tom didn’t like to say nobody flew much anymore, but the thought lingered.
Corbin came back. He’d told people what they were doing wrong. Sorted things out.
He said Tom’s style was Reactionary. “You just wait for stuff to happen…”
Corbin bought and sold futures in global processing power. You jumped. You invented the parachute on the way down.
“Read an article said there was still a chance it could miss…”
“Only Deniers say that.”
It would sort itself out. Asia had all the money. Corbin admired and distrusted them. They’d zap it with a giant laser, nuke it, drag it away with solar sails.
“Point is, who knows…”
“…how that sentence ends. You do that every time.”
Take me outside, granddad said. It was like listening to birds squabble. He had no time for all that now.
“Over there,” he insisted. “Next to Max.”
Corbin’s eyes had screened over. They’d agreed to drop out the Net but he couldn’t wait. Tom parked the wheelchair next to the bench where granddad’s friend, Max, sat tucked under a rug.
Granddad beckoned Tom to lean down. “They cancelled Apollo, they cancelled Ares. Always cheaper to do nothing.”
Tom nodded vaguely. A whole generation had been careless of flying. They thought nothing of crossing continents, spanning oceans. With turbulence, night landings, air hostesses in tight skirts! There must be a market for a product like that. TIS Mile High.
“That rock’s a good thing, Tim. Forces us back into space, otherwise, we’re trapped here, and it’s gotten so small, so…”
Later, he explained it again to Max, about the space program, his grandsons, about the dread in his own heart. What sped towards him was incomprehensible, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. It would serve them right. Puzzling to think he wouldn’t be here to say I told you so.
Afterwards, his heart played up again and they wheeled him back for his medication.
“Or they’ll cooperate,” said Max out loud. “No one did before the Melt, but this time we’ll save the planet and feel good about ourselves again.”
Things would get better, he was sure of it.
The End
by submission | Jan 17, 2019 | Story |
Author: Tim Ulrich
The doors opened and the small throng Joel was standing with, moved to board the lift. They shuffled into the car, jostling against each other as they settled into an impromptu formation for the brief, but cramped, journey up to the Centerline Station.
He reminisced; so short, it had only been seven months, but it was his most relaxing break in ages. Everything was slower here, and not just emotionally. To get its 0.4g, Layer 9 spun at little more than half the speed of his home Layer, 4. The best part had been that both Layers were governed by the same species. That meant the day cycle was the same (in hours if not rotations); there were minimal cultural and language differences; and, very pleasantly, he didn’t need any additional modifications to breathe the atmosphere. It had been nothing like that disastrous trip to Layer 2.
A chime and the sensation of his boots pulling him to the floor as the lift decelerated, brought him back to reality. There was a chuckle in the cabin as a rider near him outpaced the slowing floor and floated toward the ceiling. Startled, the passenger pulled themselves back down and sheepishly toggled their boots. Better late than never.
Disembarking, the passengers broke off in various directions. The locals mostly heading to jobs in the station, while the outbound travelers made their way to the already packed lines for Inspector review.
The Inspectors always creeped him out. They were fickle; enforcing undocumented rules in a manner so inconsistent that it baffled even the most astute scientists. The Inspectors’ seemingly limitless power over reality didn’t help either.
The bump of an unexpected weight in his pocket distracted him from watching his line’s Inspectors. He opened the catch and felt around. His fingertips found something.
Presenting an unknown object to the Inspectors was not an appealing thought. He looked ahead again and saw a “Quintessor” being addressed by the Inspectors. He was surprised. Always among the last of their species and, as a result, almost as powerful as the Inspectors, “Quintessors” were extremely rare. Before he could decide if pity or awe was a more appropriate feeling, fear resurfaced, and he refocused.
He wrapped his hand around a hard, smooth orb. It was warm, as though someone had been holding it tight before him though he had no idea who.
The Inspectors were now focused on a heavily augmented traveler from Layer 2. The less said about that abomination the better, but Joel was confident they were distracted. Sneaking a glance at the orb he felt fear boil to panic as he recognized an item he had only encountered in stories. Glyphs under the enamel glowed and changed. He couldn’t read the symbols, but there were fewer of them every moment.
With great effort, he pushed the questions of who, how, and why out of his mind to focus on the only one that mattered now. What do you do with an unwanted bomb?
He frantically looked for salvation and locked his eyes on the Inspectors who were now confiscating and vaporizing packages from a unit of Layer 5 clones.
He broke free of the line and sped, yelling, toward the Inspectors.
….
The official report indicated that the quarantine protocols, (including the severing of Layer 9 from the outside world), occurred when a solo attacker charged the Centerline Station Inspectors before detonating an unknown device which demolished a cubic kilometer of the station, in Layer 9’s largest documented explosion.
by submission | Jan 16, 2019 | Story |
Author: Lance J. Mushung
I stepped onto the yellow and black transfer disk mounted on the gray deck of Delia Akeley and began bouncing like a child expecting candy. I’d be home in moments.
Mickie, the A.I. half of the crew, said through the speaker mounted on the bulkhead, “You may transfer now.”
“I hope my replacement enjoys the time with you as much as I did.”
“I hope you enjoy Earth of your future.”
Pioneer ships like Akeley traveled at high fractions of light speed to deliver transfer disks to habitable systems. Time dilation would make my six months onboard far longer back home.
In the blink of an eye I stood in the institutional-green disk room on Earth. A wall-sized screen showed a head with pale skin, green eyes, and curly auburn hair under a welcome home banner. It was me when I’d transferred to Akeley.
A holo of a dark-skinned dark-haired woman projected next to me. “Sharon McCrae, welcome. I am Isabel, the administrator of this facility. You have been gone 27 years, 137.52 days.”
I dipped my chin. “Thanks.” I resisted the urge to add it had only felt like six months, a quip Isabel probably heard all too often.
“Your billet is C237. A linker patch is on the desk. Place it on the back of your neck. It will link you to the Planet Wide Mesh and an online assistant will then bring you up-to-date.”
Once in C237, I sat by the desk and picked up a small square blue patch. I pressed it on my neck and closed my eyes. The assistant, an androgynous person with tan skin and close-cropped brown hair, appeared in my mind.
The assistant smiled. “Hello, Sharon. I am Claudia. A major advance in comm is people now have thought-controlled implants that replaced all handheld devices. The linker patch is like a low-fidelity implant. It puts you online with the PWM continuously and you can join the five senses of another person. Joining –.”
I interrupted her. “I can essentially be another person?”
“Yes.”
“Please join me with someone sharing something exciting.”
I bounced up and down on the wooden seat of a raft negotiating a river’s rapids. Excited whoops from other passengers and the roar of water almost deafened me while rocks flew past. Although I savored the smell and taste of the water pelting my face, oncoming motion sickness convinced me to stop.
I said, “Another, please.”
A lovely nude Oriental woman was lying on blue silk sheets. I moved closer.
I yelled, “Exit.”
Claudia reappeared. “You are surprised.”
“That shouldn’t be shared.”
“You interrupted me before I explained anyone can join a person without the permission of that person.”
I remained silent as the unpleasant ramifications sank in.
She broke the silence after several seconds. “Should I continue the briefing?”
“Can I have any privacy?”
“Privacy as you think of it does not exist.”
“Must I have an implant?”
“The government implemented them as a crime control measure. Only an insignificant minority do not have one. Those people are considered lunatic fringe and the government isolates them.”
“Can you get me on another ship?”
“Isabel has an opening on the Daniel Boone in two days. Boone’s current velocity means that six-months ship time is approximately 51 years here.”
“I’ll take her.”
They’d tossed a life jacket to a drowning woman. I yanked off the linker and told myself some sanity would return to Earth in half a century.
by Hari Navarro | Jan 15, 2019 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
Cat toys. They have an aisle for cat toys. Of all the gaudy alleys in all the supermarkets and I find myself boxed into the last seconds of existence surrounded by fake mice and pom-poms. I fucking hate cats.
I can hear Mrs Graves calling out for her dead husband Franklin as she has sex with Billy Pike over in Personal Hygiene. Mrs Graves was my PE teacher and Billy always did fancy his chances. He’d say that she had pools in her eyes when she looked at him and that he could feel her words when she spoke.
In Wine and Beer, the good Reverend Donner and his goodly wife Tamzen and their goodlier daughter Elitha, sit drunk and scared and eating bits of their Christ in a circle. Even with vomit and breadcrumbs stuck to her lips, I love this girl. I really, truly actually do.
I love her even though she thinks I’m a creep. She said nothing as I pushed through my shyness and proclaimed that the way her hair floats and filters the sun is the most beautiful thing that I’d ever, ever seen. Mind you, now saying it back, it does sound a bit Ted Bundy-ish.
In the meat section, Patrick Breen is crying as he kisses and pulls at the hair of Lewis Keesburg and neither one thinks about rugby as they squirm atop a vacuum sealed mattress of cheese-filled sausages and party-pack portions of pork.
So quickly it came to this, the end of all ends. Sparks, acid filled motes or maybe they are even alive – these blistering fireflies that swirl and stick to the glass. Oh, how they burn, how they dissolve and eat us away. Maybe they are metaphor, a construct, a delusion. One born of hate and ignorance and legislation signed by fat-fingered men. Things that made me think I was hated and ignored, yet I know it is not fictitious this thing that now contorts and thumps at the walls.
The ones who ran out back into the whip to look for those things they most loved, they are gone. They are dead.
I knew them all. And this last handful of life, the people who stayed and cowered here and found for themselves an appropriate aisle, I know them too. But I am sure they don’t know me.
Futility builds little clans. No time for bets that are hedged, no time for talk. There is barely but time to cast off these – our dogged blankets of lead.
I sit here alone squeezing a rubber toy, it is in the shape of a ball of wool and it squeals like the drawing of sick breath. The moan thump of the sex and the climaxing blurry pant of hymns surge and they beat in the blood of my ears. I know I have wasted my moment. Elitha, all I wanted was to talk.
I scream and all sound folds down into one sucked screech. A drone that is gulped down by the red fire blaze as the tiles on the floor rip like a zipper spitting its teeth and my world it breaks into two.
by Julian Miles | Jan 14, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I open my eyes to behold a slit of blue between tenements that descend from lofty, sunlit heights to the sordid mess of which I am a larger part. Lining that strip of clear sky are the blurry, baroque patterns made by fire escapes and drying racks set against the cerulean heavens.
Lowering my sight, I find aged brickwork well on its way to possessing the rugose anonymity of weathered rock due to a thick layer of ordure. In places that glistens like oils left to dry by a demented painter.
I have but one boot remaining. The sock on the other foot bears more resemblance to what covers the walls than any garment. My trews are ragged, likely ruined. I am shirtless under my heavy coat, and am lying on a soiled mattress.
Have I an appointment? Am I late? Something disturbed-
My testicles are wet.
Pressing my chin to my chest, I see a bottle resting against my crotch, angled in a way that incriminates my left hand for dereliction of gripping duties.
Righting the bottle, I narrow my eyes, then resort to digital means as the effort required to focus is beyond me. My headware queries the bottle and its RFID returns: ‘Freefall: premium vodka triple distilled in low-earth orbit’.
Unfinished vodka, and the sun is on the rise. So yesterday was Tuesday. Maybe. Today is probably Wednesday, or I missed brandy day and today is Thursday: tequila day. Making head or tails of that conundrum can wait. I drink the bottle dry, then consider taking my trousers off to suck the spilled liquor from them. That would require a cessation of being prone – isn’t worth that sort of effort.
Letting my head fall back, I watch birds wheel across the blue slot above, trying to guess where they’ll pop into view. Sure enough, idling and booze slip me back into stupor.
I dream of a furtive man in shabby clothes running the calluses of his thumb across the edge of his blade, taking comfort from the feel of whetted steel. He’s creeping down a debris-strewn alley, everything about or on him suppressed so as not to give warning. It’s foolish, trying to get past the eyes that never sleep, but the rewards are so big he cannot do anything but try.
My knee cracks bone when it slams into his head, held in place by my left hand, grip anchored by thumb in eye socket. Right hand smashes the empty bottle. Pain starts to make him recoil; jagged glass opens his throat. I release his head with a push and twist. That turns him away before he drops next to me. His last breath gurgles and stops. From the roof above it would look like we’re drunks sharing a discarded mattress.
I’m awake.
“Good morning, Frank.”
My ‘eyes that never sleep’ have been waiting.
“Hello, SAL. How long did I manage this time?”
“Nine days. A new record.”
“Thanks for letting me pretend for a while.”
“I don’t mind. Your drunken dreams are fascinating and some of your ramblings are quite insightful. I’ve contacted the outfitters. Clothes and grooming accessories will be here within the hour. Coffee and pierogi will arrive sooner.”
“Thanks, SAL. Next contract?”
“Mars. Somebody’s insisting they’ve been dumped there against their will.”
“We’re to silence them?”
“No, we’re to bring them home alive.”
“Nice. We can pretend to be a good Samaritan.”
“I thought you’d like it.”
I sit up and settle. It’s so quiet here.
“Frank?”
“Uh?”
“We should move nearer to the entrance of the alley.”
“Ah. Yes.”
