by submission | Feb 13, 2019 | Story |
Author: Irene Montaner
By the time the aliens reached Paris, the streets were empty. Parisians and tourists alike had sought shelter inside the many churches in the city or underground in the metro tunnels. They prayed and hid or hid and prayed but regardless of their choice their end came fast. Ruthless and painful.
I didn’t run.
I stayed where I was, inside the Louvre. There’s something romantic about spending my last living moments surrounded by beauty, accompanied by some of the finest art ever produced by human hands.
Petrified, I listen to the first echoes of destruction. Through the windows I see Paris collapse. Houses, churches, monuments, all burning. The city is ablaze under a dense cloud of smoke. Heavy green bodies lean from the Eiffel tower until it bends and breaks. A handful of green colossi glide along the river, wrecking all the bridges over the Seine. And some are mocking their own reflections on the crystal pyramid. Glass shatters. The aliens are coming and I still haven’t seen her.
Time to run.
I run downstairs and race along endless corridors lined with hundreds of exquisite paintings and antiques. I find her in the same room where she has been for the last decades. There she is, behind bulletproof glass. She with the mysterious smile. She with the coy eyes. She with the plain looks and the rich robes. I look at her like millions before me.
Their foot-stomping startle me. I turn around and find myself cornered by six of them. Six tall, muscular, green monsters, their heads too small for their sturdy bodies. The look at me and laugh. They take another look and grunt. Their grumbling goes on for a while until one of them lifts its left arm and the rest shut up. It lifts its other arm, points its weapon at me and pulls the trigger.
My body plummets but I’m not bleeding. I feel myself burning, a fire consuming me from the inside. From my dying place, I see their leader walk past me, smash the protective glass and rip the canvas off its frame. I look at her one last time and see into her like no one before me, unraveling the mystery behind her tight lips and smiling eyes. She, too, had met these visitors five hundred years ago. And unlike any of us, she lived to tell it, only that she didn’t. Until this very moment.
The enormous fist squeezes the painting and Mona Lisa’s smile vanishes forever as the paint cracks and falls off the canvas. I close my eyes and vanish too, leaving nothing but ashes scattered on the floor.
Her secret is safe with me.
by Hari Navarro | Feb 12, 2019 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
Tāne hoists himself over the wrought iron gate and as he falls heavily to the ground, he feels it. A deafening coldness as the old building strains and grins. It had been enticing him here for years.
Villa Mater had once been a home for the elderly. But for decades now it had laid empty, victim to a desire to expedite the process of dying, and not coddle those who had all but lived their lives to the end.
“Look at her shutters, hanging from hinges upon which once they swung. Now shedding the rot of their slats, scattering them as tears to the ground”
“Do you ever speak like a normal person?”, Meri prods as she pushes open the door.
“This place has haunted you well enough, personifying it gives it a face. Faces bite”
“Faces kiss too”, he smiles.
Upstairs they easily find the room. He knows the number from the records he’d searched – 92.
Tāne steps into the room and inhales as threadbare curtains roll in the slit breeze, agitating the black creeping rot of her bed.
“I’m here now, Nonna”
He sits on the beds sodden edge, but before the throb of his sad guilt can muster his next thought, he falls back. It’s like fainting, only it’s dying and down into the mattress he tumbles.
A tunnel formed from never known memories of an old woman and then…
… he awakens, an echo.
A phantom in a deserted hospital. The ghost of a great author, stashed away and hidden from the world, here where electrodes they bit and chewed at his temples.
A film crew readies for the night to arrive. An intern named Frances, steps into the exact spot where the author had screamed through his teeth and she sieves down into the floor. A sluice. A vein that pulsates amid fouled needles that ooze from its walls and…
… she’s barely conscious, as then, she melts into the bullet ridden body of a soldier. Just enough life to contract his fingers, as she grips up out from the mud.
She feels the tickling roots of poppies as they lace down and suckle her bones and the mud becomes hard and the sun ticks away at the years.
An archaeologist huddles in a trench. A hole pocked skull at the tip of his brush. His finger touches the soldier’s bones and he grabs at his chest. He snakes down into the earth and falls out into space and through and back into time…
… and he wakes. The first blink of a newborn child. And, in these first seconds, she remembers all that has past.
Then, nothing.
Nothing for years. Nothing until the ghosts they come.
As a teen, she will be diagnosed and plied with pills as she recalls the mind of a lonely boy.
She’ll sit in the street and piss in her veins as the author he hands her the needle.
She’ll lament a poor girl who lived for the horror in films. Her dreams and passions not lived.
And she will think about things she cannot fathom. Cold. Wet living things with feet that rot in the mud and she feels the ripping ache of her soldier.
The woman sits alone in the villa because her skin has furrowed and she can no longer count backwards from ten.
“Come to me, Tāne”, she chants to the air.
Hidden away behind shutters and doors, she waits for her end as she remembers again the lives that she’s lived.
And, though nobody will listen, she knows… she knows she’s back where she began.
by Julian Miles | Feb 11, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Another cold coffee. It’s the last one I’ll have for a while. Tigerhouse closes tonight and affording bean coffee will go back on the luxuries list.
“Last one?”
Elena slides into the seat opposite, looking like a pinup from the side of someone else’s bomber. Her coffee is steaming and she’s got a double-stack bacon and stilton sandwich. It’s amazing what being pretty and having no truck with overbearing bosses will do for the punctuality and quality of your mealtimes.
She spins the plate so half of the pile is facing me.
“That’s yours. Since you haven’t had a break.”
I examine her expression to see if it’s a wind-up.
“Not joking, Doug. Get some while it’s hot.”
The lady watches without comment as I go face down in hot food. Minutes later, I come up for air, followed by cold coffee, then carefully wipe the wreckage from my face.
She grins: “That didn’t touch the sides, did it?”
Looking at the crumbs that remain, I shrug: “Good food doesn’t come along often.”
“How’d you like to afford good food every day?”
I wave toward the Sunny Chino across the road: “They’ve done recruiting.”
“I don’t want you to make coffee. Anyone can do that. I want you to kill. You know: do what you’re good at?”
They always say the one that’ll get you is the one you don’t expect. This pretty lady has obviously been paying way too much attention to me.
“Tell me my service number.”
She raises her eyebrows: “What, no disbelief? 16443790.”
The quickest check is asking for something that’s not on open- or restricted-access records. If answered correctly, the leverage is implicit and most other questions can wait.
“How much? Paid how? Who dies?”
“Five thousand sterling. Banded pack of one hundred B of E fifties. The owner of Tigerhouse.”
“Pay me.”
Her studied calm slips a little. Then, after taking a deep breath, she brings her handbag up and extracts the block of money. I take it, drop it below the edge of the table and fan it. While out of her view, I vet it for tracers and chemicals using the sensors built into my thumbs. It’s clean and genuine.
With a nod, I rise and walk across to the counter. Emilio, the owner, is conferring with Toni, the manager. I lift the leaf and step behind Emilio. He starts to turn and I snap his neck, then collapse her windpipe. Moving out from behind the counter, I close the panel, drop the leaf and reach over to latch it.
Elena’s halfway across the room, an eager look on her face.
I point a thumb back over the counter: “You’ll need to arrange disposal.”
She keys her datapad. As the contacts come up, she looks down, her mouth opening to talk. I take her down in a cybergrip stranglehold and relieve her of datapad and jewellery while she thrashes and dies.
Going back behind the counter, I loot bodies and till before lighting the serviettes, uniforms, and menus. Might go up, might not. Gives the right amateur flavour: a cue for the incident obfuscation mob.
I exit Tigerhouse and call a number using Elena’s datapad.
“Compromised. Vet this datapad and expunge anyone who flags as even remotely suspicious. Demise Doug Chaffin. Who am I?”
“Ian Valent. Chauffeur for Advocate Limousines of Stoke-on-Trent, holidaying in London. Your datapad will be updated by the time you catch your 00:05 train home from Euston. Her datapad is cloned. You may dispose.”
“Thank you.”
A cover where I’m allowed decent food. Just the ticket.
by submission | Feb 10, 2019 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
Pressing slick walls within Perri’s briefing center opened gigantic multi-verse mapping systems across a great briefing hall aboard Haven’s interstellar spacecraft. The Order’s enclosure pulsated with its anthem, rising to crescendos oscillating beneath gathered crews’ blue slippers. White-robed acolytes raised covered heads to view Perri’s guidance for their next voyage.
“We will traverse Channel Aluhayo near Braxis Egua. It is tricky, but our passenger has little time. It is the essence of our charge to bring each seeker to final rest. We must submit ourselves to any challenge to support their trust in Haven.”
“May Haven await us all,” a confirmation returned in one voice from the Order, resting in their robes upon red floor cushions.
“With our pilot’s blessing, may we bring this being to ultimate contentment and joy. Mahuya Ho.”
“Mahuya Ho,” echoed the audience, just before standing and leaving for assigned posts. One remained to address Perri privately.
“You are Jardin Co, are you not?” Perri asked, surprised at an unscheduled conversation.
“Yes, Father, I have that honor of my House.” Jardin Co bowed in respect before speaking.
“Proceed.” Perri waved one of his many arms indicating consent.
“May Haven find us all, dear Father…but I have concerns about repercussions for returning Crax to Haven when its planet’s government warned us away. If Crax is a terrorist, do we risk initiating a conflict on this world? Does that create an imbalance in our core belief in Haven?”
“Your youth speaks loudly, Jardin Co. Let me explain.” Perri displayed no facial indications of anger or retribution. His golden robes continued to glisten under lights above the dais where he stood elevated over Jardin Co.
“I did not mean to offend,” Jardin Co replied, flustered.
“It’s a fair question for one new to our Order. Let my experience provide evidence that we are honorable in our cause. Every being has an inherent right to pass to their judgment while in the Haven of their home world– to touch their native soil, drink liquids of their home and dine on foods that return memories of youth long forgotten. Their passing, through our provision, prepares them for the greater journey beyond. It is our deepest calling to bring them to Haven.”
“But threats of war…the balance of our creed?” Jardin Co stared down as he dared question.
“Surprising… such considerations from youth. But, you have asked, and we maintain that all your questions be addressed. Crax is near death, posing no threat to this colony. War has been their way for millennia. Its presence will not change their ill-tempered breed. Our only focus is for a creature’s soul to journey peacefully beyond. We offer a bridge, no matter a species history, to their origination before ending life’s moments. Nothing is more frightening than taking one’s first step from the physical world while exploring voids of space, away from one’s like species and familiar surroundings. The Order has existed beyond time to serve all requests to seek Haven when nearing transition, especially for those at untold distances from their roots. Haven means something to them all, no matter their faults or glory, so we submit to this quest, regardless of threats from those who misunderstand this primal derivation of existence.”
“Have I acted poorly in my concern, Father?”
“No, Jardin Co. All who serve Haven are free to know by asking…and blessed to serve in trust. Our only continuance price is a client offering one offspring to our order. Your previous father’s house honored us with you. You will now serve honorably with the issue of Crax.”
by submission | Feb 9, 2019 | Story |
Author: Bryan Pastor
“We should have listened to your father and stayed out of this place.”
“Nonsense… Woo what is that?”
Neil and Toby paused to examine their find. It stood twice as tall as than them, reminding Neil of the holoart of Michelangelo’s David, they had viewed in class last term. The form was manlike, an approximation of the skeletal form, without all the human flesh.
They stood marveling for a few minutes at what they had discovered, before Neil punched Toby in the arm.
“See this is the kind of stuff I told you we would find. Cool isn’t it?”
Neil moved forward into a shaft of light that streaked down through the broken roof above.
“Yeah cool, whatever it is.” Toby snarked.
“There looks to be some kind of controls on it. Maybe I should push the green button.”
Toby yelled, a carnal instinctual, that-is-a-bad-idea scream. The thing awoke instantly. Neil stepped back, when it began to jerk. There was a high-pitched whirring noise, but they couldn’t see any moving parts. It began to make different sounds, which could have been a foreign language.
“You get that?” Neil asked.
“Nothing I ever heard,” responded Toby.
This commotion continued on for a few minutes, then stopped. Whatever life the thing may have had, it looked like it was gone.
“Broken I guess.” Neil grimaced in disappointment. “Maybe there are some parts around here that fell off.”
“How would you know what they looked like from the trash?” Toby asked, stepping closer to inspect the mechanical giant.
An articulated arm shot out, wrapping its steely fingers easily around Toby’s waist. Hoisting him up, it began to examine Toby, rapidly twisting and turning him as it studied its catch from every angle. The movement stopped. With its free hand, it poked Toby’s chest once gently, before jabbing a metallic finger through the soft flesh. Digging around for a moment, it removed the android’s central processing core.
“Toby,” Neil screamed. Everything had happened so fast, he had no time to react.
“Run.” Toby hissed, its voices fading to a faint crackle.
The machine tossed Toby’s lifeless shell aside. It spent some time trying to interface with the powerful computer it had acquired. It was baffled by the lack of connectors or ports. When it finally became apparent that it couldn’t harness this processor, it went to the body where it did find a way to harvest the automaton’s power source.
Maybe if it caught the one that ran off, it would have a better chance of connecting to the processor it sensed in its head.
by submission | Feb 8, 2019 | Story |
Author: J. Edward Hamilton
Fragments of shattered glass float elegantly before him, and as Cameron imagines the glittering specs are stars in a little microcosm galaxy, he realizes this scene is the last beautiful thing he’ll ever see.
It’s growing warmer now as their ship plummets into a foreign atmosphere. The railgun projectile that tore through their ship had left them in reduced electrical, and for a while, Cameron had been freezing, but no longer. To some extent, the warmth is comforting, but Cameron knows it’s only a sign that death draws near. “But that’s how we live,” he thinks, “knowing we are going to die…”
Cameron sees her in his mind, in alternating scenes. In one, they embrace and he doesn’t hold back like he always does, he holds her with everything he’s got, and she does the same. And he can hear her breath, delicate and fragile, like she might cry, and he can feel her heartbeat against his chest. They are surrounded by people they know, all talking and celebrating around them, but for that one moment, it as though everything else goes quiet, and in the darkness of the world, they are alone.
In the second scene, he leads her outside away from another party, and he tells her everything he felt in the first scene. He tells her how much he’s loved her and for how long. He tells her that she’s the only one he’s ever loved. That he feels it burning inside him. That her smile is the only thing that’s gotten him through each day for the last year. He tells her how smart and talented and brave and funny he thinks she is and how beautiful her eyes are and how he’ll love her forever whether she loves him back or not.
The first scene is a memory. The second is a fantasy.
The ship is vibrating now. He can see it in the walls. Drops of sweat roll down his face. And soon tears join them.
Cameron sticks his hand out and scoops up some of the tiny glass shards so that they pool gently in his palm. “If I could have altered the universe,” he thinks. “I’d have talked to her every day. I’d have seen her smile every day. I’d have never served on an orbital intelligence collection ship with no windows and no contact with the outside world, ultimately sacrificed for the furtherance of some asinine cold war about to go hot. I’d have said the words. I’d have told her…”
His body grows heavy. He pulls himself into a chair and straps in.
They could have surrendered instead. They would have been held captive, maybe tortured. But at least there would have been a chance, however remote, of seeing her again. Of making that second scene come to life. Or at least of sending a message. But it was the captain’s call. Now their ship is burning up in the atmosphere, and everything on board will burn with it. There will be no record left. Not even a scrap of paper.
The air around him feels like it is boiling now. The sound of tearing metal resonates through the hull. He isn’t ready to die. He closes his eyes and sees her smile, and the pain of knowing he’ll never see it again is even worse than the burning sensation he’s about to feel. “But this is how we live each day,” he thinks again. “Knowing we are going to die…” and yet somehow he’s arrived at the end, hounded by regret, consumed by a timeless and horrifying question–what if?
