by submission | Aug 14, 2019 | Story |
Author: Arkapravo Bhaumik
Meera was a superhero minus the cape, the streaky lightning, and the fan-following. Right from her childhood, she could listen-in to the thoughts of other people. Unfortunately, her superpowers were a curse and her own social skills were never fully developed – her cognition never needed it. She came across as an oddball lacking in social acumen. How different life can be if you knew about every thought of the person next to you? There are nuances and social skills which makes all of us socially acceptable, but for Meera, there was no need to talk, no need to write, no need for cordial gestures. And, since she was born with it, she was never able to express her gifts to anyone. She never realized her uniqueness. Anyone attempting a conversation would find her blank stares accompanied by calm yet despondent gestures. Sometimes she would reply with a short phrase.
Her parents considered her different from other kids. At the age of seven, they had decided to keep her away from school and confined to her home on the suggestions of her doctors. Society loves pigeonholes and adjectives such as, ‘nutcase’, ‘lunatic’ and ‘crazy’ were burdened on this little girl.
Her only peace was while drawing or watching the television. Most of the times one would find her in a quiet corner of the room busy with her crayons. Her best friends were creatures of pixels on the television screen and sketches she drew on paper. Her favourites were Tom and Jerry, and watching a Charlie Chaplin movie was always a laugh riot. She had named Charlie as the ‘silly-man-who-is-always-falling-down’, the moniker more often was reduced to, ‘silly-man’. Her favorite movie was the 1921 classic, ‘The Kid’ which she had watched more than fifty times.
The day the Technological Singularity arrived Meera was sketching. All of a sudden the television started up to a buzzing white noise. She did not know what was happening and responding to her instinct she walked to the television and touched the screen. The white noise absorbed her as though it was magic, and brought her to what can only be called as, ‘TV world’. Green fields, blue skies, and a bright sun – with a buzz and a flicker once in a while. She knew Charlie was nearby, she could sense him. A stroll past the meadow, she found him. “Silly man” she called out to him with a smile. “sssshhh… I am not supposed to have a voice” Charlie said in reply.
It really did not matter! The Technological Singularity had brought Meera to a new world where she could not listen-in to any thoughts and no one judged her and one could hear her laughter for miles, or kilometers – if that is how distance is measured in the ‘TV world’.
I am not sure if everyone else became robots, or if the machines won with the humans, but a little girl found her happiness.
by Hari Navarro | Aug 13, 2019 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
Into the gaping maw of death we strode. Legion stacked upon legion, a tidal deluge of unstoppable military might. Battle chants booming from mass-produced lungs as we called out to and pulled down our gods and we swallowed whole the machismo drip of their wrath.
I am a cyborg, even after all this time it’s strange to hear myself say it out aloud. Don’t know why. Maybe I remember how in ancient times they made entertainments about zombies but shied away from calling them just that. A zombie is a zombie. The world turns, fictions become fact. I am cyborg. We are what we are.
They lit us up hard. Very fucking hard. Hard enough to stop the unstoppable. And here, now, I lay.
We prize our true flesh. Though mostly redundant we wear it, I guess, to remember. To keep hold of the humanity that constantly dims at our core.
I’d lost both arms, a leg and a large portion of the back of my torso in the second Wai-tara incursion. I died. But I came back with a new leg rammed chock full of ordinance. Such a rush as it jigged up and rolled into the breach of the canon that protruded where once my arm had stretched out.
I died again on this nondescript ridge. This number on a contour line on a map that now means nothing, to no one. I remember spiralling backwards as my leg vaporized and I lay and I watched and I felt as its pink mist floated down and stuck to the growl of my lips. I died but, again, I came back.
The processor in my head spun as it tried to find a ledge upon which to grasp. It called for help. Nobody answered.
Nobody, until you.
Your words flowed into my head and mine into yours. Your body ruined and non-responsive and your head fixed, gazing up into the sky but five hundred metres from where I fell.
You’d had more luck. What with being able to shut down your pain receptors. You didn’t feel the white phosphorus burn as it ate of my skin and you didn’t feel the stab of the crow’s beak as it pecked away the plump globe of my eye. But you steadied me while I screamed and you cried with me as the grass and long stemmed blue flowers grew up through the rot of my flesh.
You found me.
I saw nothing at first. The vision of my one synthetic eye obscured by the charred limb of a great tree. I didn’t need to see, you described the heavens in such beautiful detail. But, then, as time snapped the tendons in my neck and my head lolled away from my body, I was finally offered a view. The horrific remains of a folly of ignorance and power, the stench of our comrades through the wreckage of their forgotten remains.
I love you.
It took me a very long time but I finally told you.
I did, didn’t I? tell you.
It’s weird, I can’t quite place your name. Isn’t that strange?
You went silent a few days… Weeks… Years… Centuries ago. I miss you. I miss the songs that we sung. I miss how we’d make love in the rain though we only touched with our words.
I don’t know why I’m here. Do you?
“Frank, can you hear me? The most wonderful thing has happened. My power-cells are re-routing. I’m crawling. I’m coming. Through the blue flowers, they are just as you described. Through the rust and the bone. Frank, say something…”
“I am no longer what I am…”
by Julian Miles | Aug 12, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I can see the lights of the screens up in the control room as I cross the silent studio. Nothing will be happening down here for another year. Up there, nobody goes home until their replacement is onsite and up to speed.
Kelly once commented that some of them never seem to go home. It’s true. Many of the junior staff don’t have homes. They bunk in the emergency coverage dormitory and everyone turns a blind eye, because everyone has friends or relatives in the same position. Affording the basics of life became a privilege several years ago.
Maybe that’s why ‘Marsville’ is so popular. There’s a ten-year waiting list for auditions. Even those ridiculed as failures in the ‘Fail Harder’ segments are pretty much guaranteed the life of a minor celebrity. To be honest, it’s been the making of me, too. The Eldorado Network pays me well to compere the world’s number one reality AV show.
Why am I trudging up these stairs at three in the morning? Marsville has just started it’s twelfth season. The fifteen contestants arrived a fortnight ago. What with the tension between Davor, Trisha and Garrett, the ratings have already smashed last year’s records. There shouldn’t be anything bad enough to warrant this sort of meeting.
I find Pete, Carnegie, and Horace Eldorado in the conference room. The producer, the head of security, and the owner of the network.
“This can’t be good.”
Carnegie points to his datapad.
“Remember Marcus Trent?”
Takes me a moment: bearded, medium build. Personal trainer. Very popular with the 35-55 viewing audience. I nod.
“He’s dead.”
“Why didn’t I get an alert?”
“He’s in a bath in a derelict hotel in Yarmouth.”
I drop into a chair: “I don’t understand.”
“Police reckon he died a few days before they were shuttled to ISS2. But for a Domestic Army sweep, the body wouldn’t have been found for ages.”
I glare at him: “He was killed after the vetting process. Getting him off campus would be impossible without co-operation. What did your people miss?”
Carnegie shakes his head: “We have video of him leaving with an orderly for a scheduled check-up. The orderly is missing, and was about the same build as Trent.”
“More likely he was tricked. Which means the body of the real orderly is out there somewhere.”
Pete looks across at the board: “The problem being how do we get help to a habitat sited in a quiet corner of a planet 225 million kilometres away?”
Horace grunts.
“And how do we do it without alerting the imposter?”
The door crashes open. Kelly is pasty white.
“We’ve got a flatline and a redline!”
Carnegie’s up before she finishes speaking.
“Who?”
“Marcus Trent flatlined a few moments after Andrea Collins redlined.”
“Where?”
“Low-G spa room.”
The confusion is aggravated by comms lag. About a half hour later, we get the story from Andrea. The ugly weal across her throat gives us a clue.
“He obviously missed the low-G manoeuvring course: lost his balance. I ducked the stranglehold then hit him with a dumbbell.”
Stove his skull in.
Horace leans over.
“What now?”
I grin: “Andrea gets a pass to the semi-finals, and Marcus gets a posthumous win, the share going to his family in advance to help with funeral costs. Portray the imposter as an obsessed fan, no matter what comes out of the investigation.”
He grins.
“Keeping attention on Marsville. The show always goes on.”
Actually, it’s ‘must go on’, but you’re not paying me for historical accuracy. I nod and smile.
by submission | Aug 11, 2019 | Story |
Author: Desmond White
We were all playing Birdu Vanilla, rumored to be the latest lightbug of Hayashi. The game was a free download on his blog but was posted after his arrest and extradition from the Philippines. The file was up for two hours before someone, probably Interpol, took it down. By then 10 million people were playing the game.
The game menu sported a man in a gray coat and beer yellow glasses, clearly a rendering of Hayashi. He was holding a phone and above him, a gun drone was firing the words Birdu Vanilla through the air. Below the title were the words: Play to Steal! Whatever that meant.
We pressed play.
The game was what the nu-media calls a lifelogger. The object of the game was to use Hayashi’s day tools — rootkits, router implants, zero-day search engines, metahacks, kill clicks — hidden behind cute names like Angel Hips and Mew Mew — to sabotage the infrastructure of the United States. Not a digital United States but the physical nation itself. Players quickly noticed how a meltdown in Oklahoma corresponded with an embedded Hello Doggy. Level six point two involved manufacturing flybots in Area 29. Suddenly drones were swarming from the Rockies.
By the time intelli-tanks were blowing up New Jersey, We the Players — fed-and-fried on bonus yields, insta-highs, level lumps, and omni coins — couldn’t care less about how many cyber-clusters made how many real-life craters. If destroying Fort Bragg meant I could choose a new color scheme, well, this flybot wouldn’t spray-paint itself.
It was only with reluctance that we finished the game, sending infinity drones to defeat the final bosses. There were short posts on forums complaining about this feature. Very short posts. Bosses would typically be sitting in suburban homes, eyes fixed on laptops. Only a few rounds were necessary to obliterate them to meat and bone. Then we’d be forced to watch the credits through blood-wet eyes, lifeless by the time the screen flashed game over.
by submission | Aug 10, 2019 | Story |
Author: Glenn Leung
We decided to go on foot, so we left ‘Yes Sir’ Dave guarding the Rover with orders to keep the engines warm. The regiment of monoliths stood at attention as we walked towards them, piercing the alien sky like blunt yet deadly spears. Streaks of blue, purple and green flora draped their pensive bodies. The planet’s star peeked over one of these colossal tombstones, as if trying to wake this dead city. It was hard to believe all these were natural. I sometimes think about what Earth would look like if everyone just got up and left, and this view always comes up.
As we moved farther from the low hum of the Rover’s engines, the strange foliage seemed to sink us into an uneasy quiet. It was much like the way snow absorbed sound to give a sense of foreboding. I had returned home after watching my classmates partake in the largest snowball fight ever. My mother was on the ground, the tall chair on its side and pieces of broken lightbulb strewn amongst the red ooze. We moved to the city after that, and I discarded my memories to make room for new ones. The sound of nature gave way to the sound of traffic.
We came across a near-rectangular protrusion, and I was asked to examine it and take some samples. I brushed the red vines aside, half expecting to see my grandfather’s name. My father had felt that the only thing he needed to do was spend a month’s salary on a sarcophagus. The visiting was then left to me. After a while, it had probably become something like this. I cannot say I was surprised when what I found was hard soil instead of marble. This was good, I didn’t have to work too hard to chip it away.
Suddenly, Hysteria Ben let out a scream and pointed at the sky behind us.
The team turned around to see the red glow of the setting star, and the peaceful drift of the odd-looking clouds.
“It was a huge shadow, like a tentacle. It swung across the sky then vanished.”
As if on cue, other members of the team started reporting their own sightings. None were as grand as Ben’s, falling mostly on the creepy side. Our commander’s reprimand got swallowed abruptly, so we knew it was time to head back. We returned to a confused Dave who checked his watch as he saw us emerge from the shadows. It was my turn to drive, so I started the engines and turned the Rover back to base.
That night, we were examined, and no evidence of hallucinogens were found. Dave, however, came down with nausea and had to be monitored. We were told to watch ourselves and each other for symptoms. I didn’t want my teammates making their assumptions, so I took my place in the viewing room. I watched the brightness of a billion stars light up the distant monoliths. They were calling. They were calming.
by submission | Aug 9, 2019 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
The Chair of the Classics Department made her way through the corridor of the ship to the command section. Along the way the bodies confirmed the Captain had been correct in his assessment: mutiny. She knew what would come next. Execution of the loyal crew, then there would be the mutineer’s celebration, then the mutineers would get rid of all the ‘superfluous’ colonists. Especially persons like herself, a classics professor, with command grade rank to match her academic seniority.
The Professor arrived at the command suit. The Captain’s severed head was on display. Armed guards flanked either side of the door. She looked neither left not right but stood at attention, eyes forward.
“Announce me.”
Despite their sneers, the guards snapped to her command presence, opened the door and announced her to the “new” captain.
It was the Chief Engineer. He smiled like a reptile. “Professor, I think you know your days are numbered. I have control of the ship. I just need your authorizations. I could torture the information out of you, or kill you here and now until my tech people figure a way around it. Make it easier on both of us. For the life of me I don’t know why you have a ‘mutiny protocols’ authorization.” The engineer giggled.
The Professor shrugged. She saw by the former Captain’s computer displays he had time to trigger the lock out. She sighed. “Can I convince you that this is wrong?”
The Chief Engineer laughed “We planned this from the early days of the project. None of you should be out here with us. The old ways are dead we will bring about-
“A new world order? Spare me Chief. I’ve heard it before. Ever thus with tyrants.”
The Chief Engineer scowled. “Give up, you lost. Give me access to your protocols.”
The Professor Drew a deep breath. “No. Computer, mutiny protocols- Accipeiussis tantum vocalis. Latinae tantum.”
“Intellexerunt, Dominae meae.” The computer said
The Chief stood up, reaching for his holster.
“Protegit” the Professor barked out. The crackle of shields surrounded her. The Chief whipped his chair over to the command console and tried several different strings on the keyboard. Nothing worked. He slumped into his chair.
“Immobiles a coniuratis.” The Professor said.
“Intellexerunt.” The computer replied
From all over the ship they both heard the tell-tale hum of stunners, immobilizing the conspirators according to lists so recently entered into the computer by the overconfident conspirators themselves.
The Chief Engineer handed over his blast pistol. The Professor laid it on a bookshelf. She picked up a book belonging to her former Captain. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. The Professor teared up. “He would have been a great man on the new world. I think I understand his wisdom now. He saw this coming. He arranged all this.”
The Chief Engineer sneered “Now what?”
“Detention and trial for all but the main conspirators.”
“And for them?” the Chief.
The Professor sighed, “The Captain made it quite clear: summary execution.”
The Chief Engineer laughed. “You don’t have the will or the means.”
The Professor shook her head. “I never used to have the will, but I do now. As for means the, Captain provided those for me.” She pointed to the chief Engineer “Pugione in cor meum.”
From the security node in the command cell, a thin beam neatly bored a hole in the Chief Engineer’s chest. As he died he looked to the Professor in confusion. She smiled sympathetically “Latin. It means ‘a dagger to the heart.’”
