by submission | Feb 21, 2019 | Story |
Author: Suzanne Borchers
I’m one of three applying for the position of Assistant to the Chairman. Why me? My parents placed my application to the Great One.
Mother’s favorite story is about my birth. Daddy laughed, hugged me close to his chest, and called me his little lamb.
I grew up in Cumulous City, high above the drudges mining minerals and gems for our Chairman’s government. Daddy made sacrifices so my wardrobe was the finest in the city. He told me stories about our Chairman–his strength, his wealth, his love for his people.
And here I am awaiting his arrival. My parents told me not to worry, that I would be chosen. I am quiet, unrivaled in beauty, and mature for my thirteen years. Yet I shiver, knowing that if I’m not chosen, I could die.
We applicants stand before the throne and await the Great One. The Chairman’s Board circles us. The Followers stand off to the side, my parents in front.
On my left is Jax. My face heats at his beauty–his black curly hair and graceful curve of aquiline nose. He wears his planet’s tunic of silver. On my right is Aal. His appendages are placed without direction or order. Before I can lower my gaze, he smiles at me. My stomach heaves and I turn away.
With the sound of a gong, the Chairman enters. His unlined, clean-shaven face beams goodness. His large hands clasp together in our universal sign of peace. He radiates youth although he is old.
The Chairman sits and motions Jax forward. Jax’s fluid steps are confident. His tunic shimmers. He kneels. Of course, Jax will be chosen. Shaking, I glance at my parents. They smile at me.
A bolt of energy surges from the Great One’s hand.
“No!” I gasp.
Jax collapses and is dragged away by the Chairman’s guards.
The Chairman announces, “I knew Jax to be prideful and I felt his need to be purged of it.”
His Followers chant, “Our hearts and minds are yours!”
The Great One smiles and motions Aal forward. Aal’s eyes moisten and his appendages churn until he’s before the Chairman. His body shakes. His red tunic drips sweat.
He’s afraid like me! Tears fill my eyes.
Silence.
A bolt of energy surges into Aal’s body, twisting him around before he falls.
My eyes hold his until his eyes see nothing.
I breathe out a sob.
Aal is kicked from the room.
The Followers cheer.
The Chairman giggles. “I knew Aal’s embarrassment at ugliness and his need to be purged of it.”
I brush away a tear.
The Followers’ chants ring throughout the room until the Great One raises his impressive hand.
He crooks his finger at me. I turn toward my father, who motions me forward to the Great One.
I force my legs to move. My knees tremble as I stumble to the Chairman.
I bow my head and kneel, waiting for the arc of pain. It seems hours as I focus on his giant feet. His shoes glow black.
One hand caresses my scrubbed face before he lifts my chin, forcing me to face him.
His other hand cups one of my heavy breasts and squeezes it, hard. He whispers, “There is no need for an Assistant. I have just one need.” My breast throbs with pain. “You’ll learn.”
My father joins the Board Members’ circle. He doesn’t look back at me.
Moaning, I remember his words, “My little lamb.”
by submission | Feb 20, 2019 | Story |
Author: David Barber
Nova Education was paying Jacee Egan a pittance to interview famous scientists. Nova hoped the links would make their failing on-line physics course less dull. It’s not about the science, they insisted. Give it a human face.
Nobel-winner Darius Smalling was long dead, but this Blount woman had been a student of his. She seemed fascinated by the recorder on the table between them. Top of the range holographic. He’d still be paying for it when it was obsolete.
“Need a level check, Doctor.”
“Who did you say you worked for?”
“I work to free the facts, Doc. FTF.”
She was spry for her age, but tendons stood out on her neck, and her flesh was a map of wrinkles and age spots. A woman that old should cover up more.
Thought so, she sighed. Had to be sure.
The old girl was long past her sell-by date.
“So, Dr. Blount, you worked with Darius Smalling on the Quantum Hyperstate Project.”
“My Ph.D. supervisor, yes. A great man. Chen was brilliant too. I thought myself lucky.”
He’d looked it up beforehand. Seemed like the famous Darius Smalling had been onto something. Physics beyond the Standard Model. Hints of faster than light. Hints of time-reversed particles. All a bust. Faulty concept. Faulty claims. Smalling retired under a cloud. Chen got religion. And young Blount switched to medicine.
“But wasn’t there a scandal?” Serious face for the edit. “Talk of fabricated results?” Then if she looks shifty, nice link to the issue of fraud in science today.
“No, it was a complete success. On the very first run, we got a signal from ten minutes into the future.”
His interview face slipped.
“In fact, Professor Smalling poisoned the well deliberately. To make sure nobody followed up his work. Because the signal contained information. You could picture the future.”
The old bird was rambling. The plot of some TV show from half a century ago.
“You could see yourself on screen, holding a coffee mug, ten minutes from now. First thing Chen asked. What happens to that future, if you don’t pick up the mug.”
How was he supposed to get anything useful out of this?
“What do you think would happen?” she asked sharply, catching him out.
He was busy nodding. Nodding was good for linking edits. “Well, if you saw him holding it, then…”
“A test of free will, yes.”
Jacee smiled uncertainly. The QHP had ruined several careers, but in her ramshackle memory everything turned out fine.
“I don’t think the Professor trusted Chen to keep quiet. So we checked ourselves out. Professor Smalling watched himself die in a car crash. And Chen’s retirement into obscurity. Only Doctor Blount, paediatrician, spills the beans fifty years on.”
“For a moment there, Doc…”
“Imagine if it became known. The kind of world where you’re not responsible for a crime because you couldn’t do any different.”
They stared at one another.
Useless for Nova maybe, but a nice piece for the Net.
The recorder had a good heft to it; lenses and batteries and so forth. It didn’t feel like she was being forced to act, any more than wanting to confess the truth at last. And she’d seen this before, the hack making a grab for his precious equipment.
She can never remember whether it takes four or five, so she goes for five whacks to be sure. Then she fries the recorder memory with mains AC.
It’s taken fifty years, but finally, she’s free. Finally, she doesn’t know what happens next.
by Hari Navarro | Feb 19, 2019 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
The little girl clutches into her blankets and runs her cheek over the ancient concrete veins that etch into the great wall at her side.
“I love the wall. It is strong and tall and beautiful and long, isn’t it Dad?”, she says, thinking with the scrunch of her lips.
“Tell me, again, who built it, please…”
“Again? You’ve heard this story, maybe, and this is just a rough estimate, a bazillion trillion and two and a half times. How about you tell me the story?”, says her father as he looks out through their acid-strafed hermetic bubble, and across the undulating flotsam of the now dimming Sonoran wetland sea.
“Well, in the beginning, there were no houses on the wall. There was no monorail, no shops, there were no buildings at all sprouting up and out from its sides. There was nothing. Just wall. On one side, there was wall and on the other side there was more wall looking back at it. Why was it just a wall, Dad?”
“Because the man who built it wanted a barrier, not a city.”
“Why?”
“Because he wanted to stop people from crossing from one side to the other. Remember, there used to be a border where the wall stands now. Many years ago, before the deluge… before the resumption.”
“Why did they want to cross?”
“Many reasons. Running away from stuff. Running toward stuff. Running stuff… Hey, it’s time for sleep.”
“Dad.”
“Yes.”
“What’s your favourite drink?”
“Corn Squeezin’s.”
“That’s alcohol, isn’t it Dad?”
“It most certainly is.”
“Belen’s mum told her that her Dad came home so drunk the other night that his auto-pilot got arrested for drunk droning.”
“Christ, that reminds me, your father will be landing any minute. Best for us both that you be found deep in Sleepsville.”
“You’re scared of him, aren’t you Dad?”
“More than fear itself”, he smiles.
“They’re going to build a pool at my school.”
“A pool. In my day, there wasn’t enough water to drink, let alone swim in.”
“Yup, it’s going to be made of transparent polymer forged in New Qalqilya. It will go right through the wall from one side to the other, right under the football pitch. I think it’s much more fun that we all live here together, it’s better than a border, isn’t it Dad?”
“It is, and you’ll be able to swim from one side of the city to the other. But you really, really, really… did someone say really?… need to sleep.”
A silent alarm flashes, a signal of the family transport’s imminent arrival.
“Buenas noche, Dad.”
“Tisbah Ala Kheir, Gal. Go to sleep. Sleep. Eyelids getting heavy, shutting…”
There is a gentle scratching and the sound of hydraulic clamps locking, as the drone settles on the pad above their heads. Dimmed internal lights automate, and a decontamination lift whooshes into life and begins to lower from the ceiling.
“Dad?”
“Toilet?”
“Nope”, she says, awkwardly now sitting, her face burning in excited recognition as her father steps into the light. “Papa!”
“Glass of water?”, her father smiles as he kisses her Dad’s cheek and, tiredly, drops his briefcase, it too flopping to the floor with a resided sigh.
“No. When I’m big, I’m going to build walls. Huge strong walls that reach out across the dead water. And I will keep adding to them and adding to them until I find the lost tribes. We can all be together. Like a bridge. That will be good, won’t it?”, said the little girl, gesturing excitedly with the tentacle stubs of her shoulders.
by Julian Miles | Feb 18, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The view goes negative, then my tummy does the thing where it tries to chuck everything out whichever end is the nearest.
It’s an hour before I can pick up the coffee left by an orderly barely older than my little sister. She doesn’t say a word. Literally runs off as soon as she’s put the cup down.
I need to clean myself up. Then someone needs a crash course in datamancer etiquette.
Stalking down the corridor in clean fatigues, I can see people moving away. I’m sensitive enough to read data as it passes by, and able to adjust it by act of will. It’s not hard to detect the clumps of electrical impulses bundled up in lifeforms.
“Specialist Leeson. What are you doing away from your post?” Sergeant-Major Ipswich sounds annoyed.
“I’m not at my post because it became irrelevant. I’m looking for the shitstick who gave permission for someone to let off an EMP within a half-kilometre of me without warning. Honestly, SM, I’m trying to help, but all your side seem to be able to muster is piss-taking and casual negligence.”
He grabs my arm. Mistake. He lets go and hastens away, convinced there’s a knife fight going on outside the Officer’s Mess.
Slamming through the doors to the command centre, I lean on the console next to the orderly who delivered my coffee.
“Could you get the idiot behind that EMP to come up here, please?”
She stammers. I delve into the console’s data lines and divert the tactical feed from Zone Six to a vending machine in the canteen. Unhappy shouting starts.
I raise my voice: “Which twit ordered the nearfield EMP?”
Shouting continues. I shut off the main display.
“Hey, people. Who ordered the EMP?”
A voice from behind me: “Release the data or I will shoot.”
I turn, slowly. A balding man in an overtight officer’s uniform. He’s got a lot of stripes on his chest and upper arms. He also has a revolver pointed at me.
“If you shoot me, the system crashes.”
“We’ll reboot it.”
I glance at the orderly and smile: “How long for a reboot, Trooper Barrett?”
She sits up: “About thirty minutes, Specialist Leeson.”
I look at him: “How much war can you lose in half an hour?”
He goes a little pale: “Technowitch bullshit. The interference will drop when you do.”
This man is a senior officer in the army that found, honed, and trained me. He hasn’t got a clue.
“I’m an ‘electrosensitive’ with ‘chronic hypermanipulation’. Street slang for me is ‘datamancer’.”
“Boojuns to scare the natives. You’ve just got supercomputers up your fanny.”
The f-?!
His eyes close and he drops like a sack of spuds. Behind him stands a dangerous-looking gent in baggy fatigues and warpaint: bright eyes, big grin. He cracks his knuckles.
“Excuse me, Lieutenant-General Renvers. I’m Sergeant Malc Green, one of your ‘point removal specialists’. This young lady has been kind enough to save my sorry arse twice in the last month, and is about to crawl through three kilometres of mud to fondle a cable so I can slip past enemy detectors, kill someone, and get out of occupied territory once again. Therefore, mind your fucking manners.”
You could hear a pin drop.
Malc takes a deep breath, then winks at me: “Ready to get dirty, witch?”
“Only for my favourite Uruk.”
I smile at him and restore the feeds.
As we head out, Malcolm pauses by Trooper Barrett and whispers: “Dunno ‘bout you, but I’d take the cartridges out of that revolver before he wakes up.”
by submission | Feb 17, 2019 | Story |
Author: Gerard Baars
Surging forward he crosses the sonic boom, his toned body unaffected by the turbulent forces. Accelerating he hits the second boom. Then the third, fourth… G-forces now threaten to rip his body to shreds, but his perfect physique shrugs it off. Hairless, naked except for the streamlined genital sack, he pushes on, emotionally dead, but mentally alert, consciously slips his mind into a higher sphere.
He skirts the wide circular arc, pushing his angular momentum to the max. Perfectly balanced between the competing circular forces he sails on. Aware of the approaching challenge he moulds his body into an extended pencil shape. Taking a deep breath he hurtles into the vacuum tube of the hadron collider. The magnetic fields increase his velocity the more. Homo sapiens has breached another evolutionary barrier. Aware of the laser photons speeding towards him from the left, he eggs his body on. Closing in on the collision point he blanks his mind and gains a few vital metres per second. Rushing forward, ever forward he senses the blinding light of the beam to his left and powers through with a few nanoseconds to spare. The laser beam hits the opposite wall, breaches the tube and the shock wave surges towards him. Mentally he has flattened his feet to receive the shock wave. It hits him and instead of engulfing him, forces his body forward even faster.
Now into free space again, he senses a dimensional portal ahead. Moving is right elbow millimetrically, he deviates into the new dimension. Not slowing his forward movement, his mind wallows in the peace, leaving the stress of his near annihilation behind. But he quickly recovers not allowing this ennui to slow him down, and takes the next portal back into his own dimension. An energy barrier approaches and he takes the jump. One, two, three levels higher. Yes, he is now more energetic than any other human body and hurtles forward at unprecedented speeds. Reaching beyond the mental state he nears nirvana. Another energy barrier overcome, he powers forward even faster.
He now hits the entropy barrier and is enthralled by the peace and ease of motion. He hurtles, surges, ever faster, ever freer. Somewhere way, way, behind the finishing bell tolls. Blissfully unaware, he knows without knowing that no bell tolls for him or ever will. Forward, ever forward, he hurtles on outrunning space. Even time now is no barrier. Forward, speed, acceleration, speed, hurtling, surging, powering, forward, forward, forw…….
by submission | Feb 16, 2019 | Story |
Author: Richard Wren
“Aaaagh!” It was always a shock to return, to feel the meat encase him again, to stare out through balls of jelly. Felix Bonaparte, time traveler, twitched his body to relieve his aching joints and waited for his heart to stop racing.
With eyes now closed, and in a fetal position, he concentrated on calming his rapid breath. Okay, that was better.
The worst was over. He was home. Rolling onto his back, he pushed with his legs to slide sweatily across the soft flooring. Now, propped into the corner of the dim little room, he felt his muscles gradually relax.
Felix loved to travel but wished it was more like H. G. Wells and those other stories. If only he had a slick, shiny machine with flashing lights and data screens. In reality, time travel was more of an art than a science. A matter of focusing on the moment – any moment, and then simply being there. Easy once you had the knack, but not everyone allowed themselves to be released into the currents of time. Most people preferred a limiting, single reality.
Felix Bonaparte – not his real name, had been traveling for most of his life, firstly by shocking accident then, after resisting Ritalin and other childhood drugs, deliberately. Teachers said he had a wandering mind.
As a youth, he had followed various boyhood whims. He had gawped at dinosaurs tramping through primeval swamps, watched dramatic, blood-stained battles and had admired the building of the great pyramids under the ancient Egyptian sun. Now, more mature and satiated with the spectacles of history, he was a connoisseur. He specialized in French history of the eighteenth century, a time of great change.
His last trip had been to his favorite place – the sumptuous palace of Versailles. It wasn’t just the elegance and social intrigue that he enjoyed. Even the hard lives of the servants and courtiers held a fascination for Felix.
Would M. Hardouin be able to create the spun sugar sculpture he boasted for the Duke’s visit? How much longer would The Marquis de Lafayette continue his dalliance with his chambermaid? It was all a real-life soap opera, both subtle and dramatic.
Of course, only his focus moved there – roaming the mirrored corridors like a ghost. His body always stayed here in the cushioned little room.
He had visited the palace a dozen times without the problem of seeing himself from a previous jaunt. His earlier foci were no more visible to him than they were to the locals. By the same spectral token, he could observe but have no effect on what happened around him.
A little smile trimmed his mouth. Why hadn’t those story writers thought of that? Goodbye time paradoxes.
The little smirk widened to a grimace. Damn! He could feel what was coming next. It happened like this sometimes – uncontrollable spasms and reflex actions as his body adapted to being full again. It shook, laughing uproariously at those narrow-minded old tellers of tales.
Thankfully the padded walls and securely tied straps of his jacket prevented him from serious damage from his frantic contortions. He paused to grab air before another exhausting bout of laughter, accompanied by bodily thrashing, rolled him around the echoless room. Opposite him, set in the cushioned door, a little flap slid open for someone to peer in, then immediately shut again.
He was safe in his little box with its gentle lighting and comfortably tight clothing. Beyond, in nearby cells, he could hear the anguished shouts and wails of other returning travelers.
