by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 23, 2019 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
“Manhattan?” the man asks, pulling out the chair across from her before pausing, “May I?” as an apparent afterthought. He sits down without waiting for an answer and waves towards the waiter. “Two more of these”, gesturing to her drink on the table between them.
Nadia’s momentarily speechless. Her expected date had just stood her up via text message, and she was planning on drinking this one off on her own.
“You look a little down,” he takes off his white woven fedora and flicks the brim absently before setting it on the chair beside him.
There was something about his expression that was captivating, his eyes alight, and she struggled to find something to say at this abrupt and unwelcome intrusion.
“Yes, unwelcome, my apologies for being presumptuous.”
She startled, had he just…
“Do you want me to leave?” He leaned back slightly, reaching for his hat.”
“No,” she finally found her voice, “I didn’t catch your name.”
He smiled, bright perfectly proportioned teeth gleaming in stark contrast to his tan.
The waiter slipped their drinks onto the table, then retreated to the bar without a word.
“Nathan,” he was speaking again, “I’m in… acquisitions, and you, my dear Nadia deserve much better than to be dismissed in an email.”
“Text message,” she corrected him, “but how could you…?”
“Text message, telex, carrier pigeon, what’s the difference? These men promise you the moon and the stars, but when push comes to shove, they deliver nothing.” That smile again. “Am I wrong?”
Nadia shook her head ‘no’, then drained her glass and exchanged it for the fresh one from the table.
“To failed relations, and chance encounters.” He raised his glass towards her, and she met it with her own reflexively.
“You all promise the stars, that’s for damn sure,” her eyebrows knitted in a deep frown.
“What if I promised you the moon and the stars and actually delivered, would that be enough for you to take a chance on someone like me?”
“I don’t even know you, and I’ve had enough empty promises to last me a lifetime.”
“But if I followed through on that promise, would you join me for a time?” There was that light in his eyes again.
“I suppose I’d have to if you could, but you won’t. Men never do.”
She’d no sooner spoken the words than he stretched his arms out wide, tugging out his jacket sleeves, and pointed up into the sky.
“That moon right there?”
She looked, the moon a pale white circle in the blue of the sky.
He held her gaze, and reaching up, pinched the pale white circle of the moon between his thumb and first finger with his left hand, produced a small glass jar from a jacket pocket with his right, and plucked the moon out of the sky, dropped it in the jar and snapped a lid on in a smooth, practiced motion.
She gaped. The sky was now featureless blue. Whatever he’d distracted her with was clearly some magician’s sleight of hand. The jar he held before her contained a very convincing replica of the moon in miniature.
“Very clever, but that’s not exactly giving me the moon and the stars now, is it?” She sipped her drink, something seemed wrong about this.
“Tough crowd, ” he smiled. “One star then to start, then we really will have to get going.”
He pocketed the moon and produced another identical jar, then reached straight above their heads, pinched the fiery orb of the sun from the sky and slipped it into the jar, closing the lid again in one smooth motion.
Everything around them was suddenly dark, save for the blaze of light emanating from the jar in his hand.
She dropped her drink.
“Now, a deal is a deal,” he said, reaching across the table and taking her hand, “it’s going to get pretty ugly around here in a minute.”
He slipped the jar with the sun inside into another pocket, plunging them into absolute darkness. He gripped her hand tightly, and in the distance, she thought she could hear herself screaming, just one familiar voice in a cacophony of confusion, then a moment later, silence.
They stood together on a beach of polished glass, purple waves shushing the shoreline next to them, the sky a shimmering haze, the patio, the people, the noise, all gone.
“What…”, she started, “where…?” The question left only partially asked.
“Gotcha!” he smiled, letting go of her hand and taking a step back. “As I said, I’m in acquisitions; moons, stars, the occasional starlet.”
“Did you really take those things? I don’t understand, without the sun…” she didn’t finish the thought.
“Yes, there will be a horrible mess, but it was inevitable, I just got the pieces I wanted while they were still available and in good condition.”
She stood once again speechless.
Nathan produced another glass jar from an inside jacket pocket, and before Nadia could protest he plucked her off the beach and dropped her inside, closing the lid and pocketing his prize.
“Now,” he said to the empty beach, “I could use a drink.”
by submission | Jun 22, 2019 | Story |
Author: Andrew Dunn
Some would call it a sin, that one man would blindly follow another without question. If it’s a sin like they say, christen it loyalty and all of us that followed Rory Holloman vagabonds sailing far beyond virtue’s bounds.
Rory captained the Scarlett. She was small, but a fantastic ship in her own right. In Scarlett’s early years – they called her the Bedford back then – she ferried loads high up into the hills, going as far as thinning mountain air would let her. Rory saw something in her and saved that hard-working lady from the drudgery of cargo runs on charter. Rory reimagined Bedford as an airship primed for adventure, christened her Scarlett, and made rounds looking for wayward aeronauts like us. Under Rory’s helm, we crisscrossed the skies in search of it all.
We found it too. Rory piloted Scarlett on strange zephyrs that took us to the place of giants. We huddled low on our side of the gunwales while the beasts swatted at us as though we were a gnat. Then we waited inside a fat cumulus, camouflaged in mist until Rory gave the order to strike. Scarlett dove fast and low so that we could pluck a button off one of the blokes’ shirts. That button was cast from pure enchantment and earned us a poor man’s fortune when we tied up
alongside home wharf. Word of our exploit invited every eccentric soul with generous pockets to hire out Scarlett for expeditions each more exotic than the last – every deckhand and coaler on the skyfront envied us as much as they wanted to sail with us.
A scrawny hand called Cooper got the chance. Rory hired the boy off the captain of an airship stripped down to her frame for overhaul. “He’s loyal. Quick in the head and on his feet too.” Cooper’s captain beamed. Rory took those words on faith – Rory had to, the smallest of mistakes suffered at an ill-timed moment aloft could be the end of us all, especially where we were going.
Rory told us over too much mead at an hour too small and distant from first light what our next run would be. Avorna Tor. The Avorna Tor loomed far in the north, its peak pierced the clouds. The mountain’s sides were nearly vertical toward the top; their surface glassy and lacking textures that would afford human hands purchase. Climbers perished trying to reach the top in quests to see if there really was an aperture that led into a dragon’s den. Scarlett would fly to the top of Avorna Tor, where no man had been before.
“It’s weird, Rory hiring Cooper on?” I said to coaler Brice as the two of us staggered back to the Scarlett. “We’ll need to drop a lot of weight to make altitude.” It was true. I’d been thinking through calculations for the Avorna Tor run since Rory told us we were going.
“What do you mean?” Brice chuckled.
“Cooper,” I lowered my voice, “he must weigh 150 pounds.”
“Cooper’s essential,” Brice replied.
“How so?” I wondered, my mind awash in mead and the mathematics of flight.
“Think about it,” Brice explained, “if there’s a dragon up there in Avorna Tor, we’ll need something to coax it out of its den, right?”
“Bait?” I asked.
“Let’s just hope Cooper’s more loyal than he is quick in his head and feet,” Brice replied.
by submission | Jun 21, 2019 | Story |
Author: Joshua Alexander
Disaster.
Hacklett wheezes in my grip. His face is slicked with sweat, his eyes ringed and dark. He’s dying.
Our research on the station has been for nothing. One containment breach and it’s all gone to hell. I drag Dr. Hacklett along the red-lit corridor to the escape pods. The fungi’s advance will be suppressed by the lights for a short time, but I don’t mean to just suppress them. The pathogens are free-floating, the worst of them anyway, spores dust everything, and the pods are the only hope.
But it’s the fungus I’m worried about.
I lodged an official ethical protest when the board cleared the newly-discovered cordyceps-like fungus for Schedule II experimentation. It should have been left on the hell-hole world we found it on, but the pharmaceuticals boom is an unforgiving mistress. When it was cleared, I volunteered for the project with my old doctoral advisor, Dr. Hacklett. If I couldn’t stop it, I’d at least make sure it was done right.
That’s almost funny now.
They called it cordyceps-like after several entomopathogenic fungi that affect certain arthropods back on Earth. We were going to call it Pseudocordyceps Hacklettii. That almost seems funny now, too. The main difference between Earth’s fungus and this one was a much shorter incubation period.
Hacklett groans beside the console as I initiate the sterilization protocol. He needs help, help I can’t give him, and time is running out.
After the incubation period, much like the Earth fungus, a fruiting body erupts from the host. But this one is much larger than even the biggest cordyceps fruiting bodies and erupts with a speed unheard of among macroscopic lifeforms. Once the pseudocordyceps spores entered the ventilation system, each of our non-fungal test subjects became ticking time bombs. Literally. Hence the now-broken containment vessels.
He hoped to extract extremely promising compounds from the fungus. Immunosuppressants, cancer drugs, even one compound that regrew damaged brain tissue in mice. We would have been immortalized in pharmacology.
I step over the orange spikes of fungus anchored to the floor. The husks of beetles and grasshoppers were buried beneath the bases of the “small” ones, some foot and a half long, but the mice produced fruiting bodies as big as a man. Dragging Hacklett to the pod, I’m now intensely aware of the weight of a full-grown man. I never want to see the fruiting body that would make.
And I won’t. Technically speaking.
I open the pod door and shove Hacklett inside. It knows where to go. The decontamination process inside will at least clear the spores. His rescuers won’t be contaminated. The other pathogens, well…
But me? I’m done for. When the door slides shut, I turn to a nearby console. If I can’t stop it, I’ll at least make sure it’s done right.
FULL STERILIZATION IN 10…9…8…
I quickly type in commands, and the pods all jettison. Tight-beam couldn’t compress our data before the sequence ended, so our research parishes with me. Well and good.
7…6…
The fever is intense. No time. I can feel it growing.
5…4…
I shut down the cameras. A deep breath. Nobody needs to see this.
3…2…1…
by submission | Jun 20, 2019 | Story |
Author: John F Keane
‘Envision a world,’ said the guide, ‘where photography was discovered much later than it was. Imagine no ancient discovery of light-sensitive chemicals, no early Greek photographers like Hilo of Tarsus. Imagine, if you can, a world where photography only emerged in the nineteenth century – a world where all visual representations prior to that were by draftsmen and painters. What kind of reality would have resulted? What kind of world would we live in now?’
Selema shivered. The cave was cold and the darkness troubled her. From somewhere distant she could hear the sound of dripping water.
‘In our world,’ the guide continued, ‘the existence of photographic representation has probably repressed the cults of personality required for religion to develop. Most mystics were bald, fat old men with dirty beards and missing teeth, to judge from the photographic evidence; consider the Buddha or Moses. But imagine a world where artists cloaked these men in veils of dream and legend, where reality never impinged on high ideals. Transformed into stately patriarchs, these unimposing figures would soon acquire semi-divine status.’
Selema found such a thing very hard to envision. Yet in a curious way, the guide’s words made sense. She shivered again as he resumed his talk.
‘Similarly, war in such a world would probably be far more commonplace. For us, major international conflicts are rare, occurring once every few centuries. But a world where no cameras recorded the rotting dead of Issus, Cannae or Hastings might well cloak violence in false ideals of heroism and chivalry. With vast resources being expended on war and religion, science and technology might develop far more slowly.
‘And that reality – a reality quite different from ours – could very easily have happened. If the Greeks had not been inspired to find light-sensitive media to capture pinhole images, such an unfeasibly different world might well have occurred. But what inspired the Greeks? What do we have, that such a world does not? Simple, we have… these!’
The guide flicked on his infrared lamp. The crowd gasped as the famous Photos Culture images leapt from the cave walls. Though inverted, the ancient Cro-Magnons in each scene were clearly visible, waving and grinning with spears and clubs held aloft. In one they posed before a slaughtered woolly rhinoceros, its wounds still bleeding. How astonishing that people from thirty-thousand years ago could still be seen, immortal in light! And even more astonishing how such primitive people made such images, all eighteen of them.
‘By sheer chance,’ the guide continued,’ these caves contained a light-sensitive fungus named photus clavatus. These people noticed their shadow imprints forming on the walls whenever they lit a fire. By trial and error, they learned to produce real photographs using holes in the cave walls, fixing these exposures using salt water.’
The guide made a sweeping gesture with his glittering arm.
‘These amazing images are the result. Some historians believe they represent the very foundation of our world; for, without them, we might be living in a totally different place. Of course, that is pure conjecture. These images might have had little effect on historical events. Still, it’s interesting to speculate what effect their non-existence might have had on Tlon, Mervek and the other great nations of the Earth: not to mention our colonies on Mars and Venus.’
Interesting indeed, thought Selema, checking her holographic timepiece: 14.28 on September the third, 1858. The gold transponder behind her ear chirped but she let her neural avatar handle the call, still feasting her eyes on those wonderful images.
by submission | Jun 19, 2019 | Story |
Author: Elaine Thomas
Somewhere, in a forest, lightning strikes a tree.
Elsewhere, in a cabin, a man tosses a log onto the fire. Startled, the man jumps backward, then laughs at himself. He knows any slight moisture left in wood as it cures can emit a high-pitched whistle when flames lick at it. He has heard the sound many times. Still, this one sounded almost like a scream. He shakes his head at his own silliness, adds more wood to the now roaring fire, warms his hands holding the palms forward in the glow, then turns both body and mind back to other ordinary tasks.
The crackling blaze and radiant heat of an open hearth keep the dark and the cold at bay. Thus has it been since the earliest primitive residents of this planet discovered fire, millions and millions of flames ago, a powerful and comforting presence through the centuries.
Smoke crawls up the chimney and surfaces into the air, where it dissipates, although not really. Instead Smoke hangs above the roof, spreading, waiting, knowing more will come. So, too, has it been since the earliest residents on this planet discovered fire.
Once free and floating there, Smoke evaluates its situation. There is no loneliness here. It knows other trees in other forests in other lands all around the planet will replicate its being, are replicating it. It knows new forms based on mass production and chemicals will join it. It knows the process will move across the universe, planet by planet, from caves to cabins to corporations. Smoke will not be alone long, at least not as it understands time. Such is progress, Smoke reflects, in a manner of thought as diffuse and unsubstantial as its very being.
More and more Smoke continues to be released and spread, joining all that has already been set free, over eons covering the surface of the world. As it slowly blocks any warmth and light from above, the planet’s residents respond just as Smoke knew they would. They struggle to control their environment. They seek their own benefit. They light more fires, burn more logs, destroy more forests and other resources in order to create warmth and light from below.
As Smoke accumulates in the air, the process speeds up. Residents of the planet cease to see the sun burning in the heavens, yet heat becomes trapped and magnified by Smoke. No one sleeps well as light breaks boundaries between night and day. Forest fires rage. Polar bears starve as habitats change. Choked plant life withers. Water and wetlands recede. Food becomes more and more difficult to grow or obtain, then impossible. Generation by generation, the planet grows dark and lifeless, enshrouded in Smoke.
In the mythology of the planet’s residents, the creator they pretended to worship once destroyed life through drowning, then promised on a rainbow that would never again happen. It would be fire next time, they prophesied, but they forgot that where there is fire there is Smoke. And after the fire Smoke remains.
by Hari Navarro | Jun 18, 2019 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
I killed something inside myself last week. It had been slowly killing me for years so, I have to say, it came as somewhat a relief.
I’d been contemplating it for some time. But the gumption to actually follow through wasn’t easy, you know? I’d always retract when the inevitability of its demise tap, tap, a tap tapped at my mind.
I looked into every aspect of its life, I took stock. I stalked its routines, passing judgement on every detail. Where even the scent I inhaled, as I stood in its bathroom and popped the lid of its favourite shampoo became proof positive of the wanton beast that it was.
It’s strange, but this desire to kill it seemed like it was an actual thing. A misshapen cog maybe, catching and clicking in my head. It got loudest when I was at the gym. I was so sure others could hear it too. So I would run, my legs churning so as the swelling blood in my ears out-thumped my brain’s loathsome and incessant taunt.
I couldn’t escape it even as I sat in the Bar Red Cafe and licked at my cappuccino and smiled out through my beautiful friends, and into the ruddy specks of dust that whip from the crags of this exquisite soundless world… tap, tap a tap tap.
I think, maybe, I am the most beautiful thing in this colony. I really do. I have it all, and a Gucci bag to carry it home in.
I graduated from college at the end of last year with honours but I shouldn’t have wasted my time, I have money. I think I should be a model. I look after myself. I catch the sun, not the real one, it’s far too dim to bronze my tight skin just perfectly so. Sorry, enough of my blessed, doomed, wasted, poor little rich kid lament. I just wanted the noise to stop.
I found hacking myself to pieces really was as difficult as it sounds. But I am very handy with a blade. I can hone that edge like those swords in the films that slice through candles without inducing so much as a flicker.
I stabbed it and left it for a day, you know, to let the blood congeal. That was one very long first night, I tell you, death is such a cold thing to have in your bed.
But I worked all of the next day, dividing it into manageable sections. Firstly, I’d tested my blade by running it along and scything the fine hair on my arm. Then the fiddly bit, shearing the meat from its host. I cut up the pieces as small as I could, cubed them, I guess, you would say.
I’m no expert when it comes to anatomy, so it would have been helpful to know just how best to dig. Stay in school kids. It was so deep and a fair amount of hack and slash ensued, but I got there.
I admit that, in the end, I was more than a little proud of my neatly stacked pounds of flesh. Then, I flushed the lot, not all at once mind, away and down to dissolve in the subterranean shit n’ piss sea.
And that was about it. I killed it, I think. And now all that is left is me.
