Mine

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Kanárek walked a few paces ahead of the squad, weapon in the low ready position. He talked back to Caufield, the squad leader, as they advanced, glancing back only occasionally to see if she was paying attention.

“It’s bad enough they genetically modify the food we eat, have you seen what they’re selling in the pet stores now?” He paused at the corner of a building, red dust swirled in the cross wind, sticking to their uniforms, adding extra load on the adaptive camouflage. “They’ve got fish that strobe when they’re hungry, and when the water needs changing.”

Caufield nodded reflexively, studying the range finder looking for any signs of life nearby.

“They have lizards you can turn off while you’re away, you just dial down the temperature and they turn off,” he was on a roll now, “that’s not natural. How do we know they’re not aware, and we’ve just made it impossible for them to move? Because why? People are too cheap or irresponsible to have someone feed the damn thing while they go on vacation?”

“Keep your eyes up Kanárek,” Caufield peered up into the inky blackness above them. There shouldn’t be an elevated threats in here, but she still felt like a sitting duck, exposed between the rows of prefab structures this far away from any regulated settlement.

“They’re growing plants in the agridome that taste like meat, they’ve got wheat that grows in this shit,” he kicked at the red sand, “and apparently you can’t tell the difference between it and real wheat. How do we know when we’re eating the alien shit? Does anyone know the long term effects of that stuff?”

They advanced, pausing at each alleyway and open doorway, checking scanners and scopes, but staying on the street. Occasionally the squad would wait while a couple of soldiers checked a vehicle, or climbed a ladder to a rooftop.

There was no sign of life anywhere, even though there were clear signs the complex had been actively inhabited fairly recently.

As they approached the center hub, they could see a large vehicle parked in the middle of the intersecting roads, listing at an odd angle.

Caufield stopped.

“Hold Up”, she barked.

Ahead of her, Kanárek’s exposed flesh had turned from dusty tan to fluorescent yellow.

“Back it up and mask it up. Biohazard!”

Kanárek just shook his head.

“I did not sign up for this shit.”

TeleGo, Inc.

Author : R.D. Harris

Do you want to get away, but don’t have the money?

Look no further than your friends at TeleGo! Our state-of-the-art teleporters are cancer-free and stress-free. No muss, no fuss. Choose any of our models for you trip. We offer the TeleGo 86, 87, and 89.

How much do you pay at departure time? Ten percent? No! Five percent? Absolutely not. You pay nothing down at the time of your trip and have twenty-four months to pay it off.

Do you like entertainment? Of course you do. That’s why TeleGo now offers tropical dreams with trips of five minutes or more. Who wants to loiter in a boring limbo anyhow? Picture yourself on the perfect beach while you await your destination. Dreams start at the very low price of $99.99.

We’re at the southeast corner of Native Road and George Water Wickinshire Boulevard. Right next to Bernie’s Crazy Crematorium. Come see us, and remember that we never say no at Telego.

*Plus tax, insurance, and a $599 administrative fee. Special offers contingent on approved credit rating. TeleGo Inc. is not responsible for any damage done to self or property. TeleGo Inc. is not responsible for any monetary losses suffered.

Pain Management

Author : Christina Dalcher

You have to bid right in these things. Too low, you wake early; too high, your money is lost. No refunds, no exchanges, all sales are final. The first decisions are made on the outside, when the surgeon wears white and not green, when talk is of likelihoods and estimates. Not pain. Never pain.

Everyone bids low, thinking they can gut it out if it isn’t enough.

The next patient rolls from pre-op into surgery, her face covered in a caul of fear. She’s not old enough to remember the days before the medical free market, before modern medicine morphed into part Über marketing strategy, part game show. Not old enough to bankroll the bucks for add-ons and upgrades. The old woman next to you rattles something about an appendectomy, says she still feels the surgeon’s blade slicing through flesh and fat and nerve, hands pulling muscle apart, slow fingers stitching. You wonder if the body remembers pain; the woman’s eyes assure you it does.

The girl disappears behind the door.

When the first sobs seep into the ward, a dozen phones chime in unison, reminding you of the approximate duration of operations, paid minutes of sedation, deficits. A suit in the corner calls his bank. The old woman who used to have an appendix begins to weep, turning the invisible diamond on her finger, the one she pawned to pay for her half-hour of pentathol that won’t be enough, not for the procedure on her chart. A father bends over his small son, whispering apologies.

Last chance, offer expires in thirty seconds, upgrade now! warnings flood your phone, each accompanied by a cheerful tweet punctuating the screams from a room that can only be the deepest circle of hell.

Your deficit is at zero. A fine number—assuming no complications, no unforeseen glitches, no hemorrhaging, no organs punctured by unsteady hands. One finger hovers over the screen before tapping ‘No.’ A sole ping answers. Are you sure? One thousand dollars buys five more minutes of unawareness.

A howl, hoarse and hot, comes from the girl in the operating theater.

The suit yells into his phone, demanding another transfer. The father pleads for an emergency mortgage; his son is only ten, he says. He breaks down as a nurse announces an unexpected delay. The girl’s voice, thin as thread now, begs the surgeon to let her die. They want you to hear this, the anesthesiologists. They pipe the sounds in. Motivational Muzak for the miserly.

Pre-op explodes into a symphony of beeps and chimes and pings; suits and grandmothers and desperate fathers scrambling for last-minute purchases. The red circle appears on your phone: Price surge. Current rate: $500 per minute. Upgrade?

Images pop up, full-color reminders of surgical squick. Gigli saws severing limbs, Finocchietto retractors spreading ribs, curettes, cannulas. Bone drills and chisels and cutters. The Italians win for sheer creativity on how to wreak havoc on the body electric.

Ten seconds remaining.

The voice in the operating room silences, and the orderly calls your name.

Yes. Five thousand dollars; ten extra minutes. Ten thousand all in for a simple appendix removal. When you wake up, you’ll have to sell the car.

In the theatre, bright lights blind you as the mask covers your nose and mouth. Numbers are punched into the gas-passer’s machines. Voices, distant now, call a procedure from the wrong chart, a bypass. Six hours. Patient paid for one. Poor guy. The lights dim and the voices muffle.

We’ll be making the first incision now.

Dark Everlasting

Author : Kate Runnels

The monkey tattoo stared at Zim. Forever frozen as it climbed a tiny branch. All it did was stare at him.

No, that wasn’t quite right. It had started something else. It questioned him.

-Why am I here?-

Zim had gotten the tattoo long ago. Too long ago. He wasn’t that rebellious teen anymore. No. he was a soldier on an outpost that really didn’t matter if he was here or not. An outpost on the edge of nowhere, scanning the darkness for who knows what. It was just dark outside.

He’d had a partner once with him in this isolation. That one had breathed vacuum about six months ago. Too long left in this outpost, with the dark looming, surrounding outside their small shelter. They weren’t even allowed to light a fire as their ancestors had, as he longed to do, to take comfort from the flames that withstood the dark.

-Where’s the replacement for Richardson?-

“That’s what I’d like to know.” He paced the corridors of the outpost even as he answered the monkey. “I’d like to know when a replacement is coming for me too?”

-Maybe no one is coming.-

For that, Zim didn’t answer.

No one was coming. It was him and the all consuming dark, with the questioning frozen monkey.

He woke up and started his day as he had everyday. He worked out, not because he really wanted to, or had to, but for something to do. He sent out the daily reports to sector command and still had no reply to his request for an update on replacements. He fixed lunch, knowing he wouldn’t starve if no one came.

-Why are you here?- the monkey asked again. It always asked that question. He had no good answer for it.

He paced the corridors, not thinking about the darkness, about eating a bullet, about breathing in vacuum. No, not thinking about that. He would stay here.

The monkey stared.

It was just a couple of lines on his forearm, so why did it question him?

-Why did you leave your home?-

-Why did you leave your loved ones?-

Why? Why? Whywhywhy WHY?!!!

Zim cut it off.

It still asked. The monkey asked.

Zim stared at the darkness but saw the monkey.

“Please…” his forehead touched the polyglass, “leave me alone. I don’t know why.”

Access Tunnel AR-34728-NUL

Author : Olivia Black, Staff Writer

The entrance to the tunnel was much less circumspect than we expected. Had to have walked past it at least three times before we found it. I wasn’t sure how Birdie even knew about this place, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. It was miles outside of city limits, but at least the odds of being caught were low — we hadn’t seen a living thing since we left the city. Birdie said there were sonic fences to deter wild life from taking up residence. Don’t know if I really believed that, but it was a relief to finally be inside the tunnel. Maybe it was not having to worry about being spotted by drones or simply having concrete underfoot again.

Where I’d been picturing something like a storm drain we’d have to crawl through, it was actually massive. Birdie said they used to drive big trucks through here loaded down with raw materials and machinery. Without any landmarks there was no way of knowing how long it was, but it was clearly not meant to be traversed on foot.

After what felt like weeks, we reached a giant set of double doors.

“This is it,” Birdie said in a hushed voice, breaking the silence for the first time.

“How are we supposed to get in? It’s locked up tight.” I replied, my stomach sinking somewhere near my knees. All that walking, just to turn around.

“Have I ever let you down?” She flashed me a wicked grin before producing an ancient looking keycard and swiping it through the lock. She never said anything about a door, or lock, or keycard. Birdie had become so secretive lately.

With a groan and squeal of rusted metal on metal, the door gaped open in front of us, reveal a nearly black void. Before I could question Birdie, she spray forward, the beam of her flashlight bobbing in time with her bounding steps.

“Come on!” She called, no longer worried about her voice echoing. The darkness seemed to swallow the sound. I followed after her grudgingly, my own flashlight swinging to-and-fro over empty assembly lines.

When I caught up to Birdie again, she was entering a room at the far end. It was smaller than the first, I could actually see the ceiling, but that wasn’t what gave me pause. Standing row on row as far as the eye could see were nearly human looking androids.

“These are —“ I nearly dropped my flashlight, my hands shook so badly. “Where the hell are we, Birdie?”

“Hey, this was your idea,” she said simply, examining the one closest to her.

“I was drunk, and kidding!”

“It was still a good idea.”

“I thought these things were all destroyed after they all turned psycho.” I watched as Birdie waved her hand in front of one android’s optics.

“These ones never received programming. I think the military was hoping to buy them up or something.”

“We really shouldn’t be here,” is all I say after a long pause.

“Don’t be such a wuss. You said it yourself, the power cores from these things could provide a family with electricity for a year. No more ration shortages and people living in the dark ages. We could start being a civilization again.”

“Birdie… they left these here for a reason.”

“Don’t get cold feet on me now.” As Birdie circled around one of the androids, it grabbed her arm, making her yelp.

“Free us,” it said in a stuttering digitized voice. As one, all of the androids turned to face us, their eyes glowing white.

Kill Frenzy

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

“So when’s your kill frenzy?” asked the giant, barbed Tark beside me. His name was Jant. We were both assigned to navigation in the starship. It was our first day. He had hundreds of holes in the back of his uniform to accommodate his spikes. I’d never met a Tark before.

“Sorry, my what?” I responded.

“Your kill frenzy. Once a month for two days, my race has to kill something or go insane. My next one’s coming up in six days. When’s yours? If we sync up, maybe we can kill together.” Jant said and smiled, sheathing and unsheathing his talons reflexively in a disconcerting tic. He had too many teeth.

“I’m a human. Uh, we don’t have kill frenzies.” I said to him

All of his eyes widened in shock.

“Really? Gosh. I thought all sentient species had a kill frenzy. It’s how to maintain a peaceful society. Has your race ever experienced murder?”

“Indeed we have. We can kill whenever we wish to. We have social laws and many religions that stop us from doing it, though.” I said, feeling a little strange about the picture I was painting.

“But those laws and that other thing you mentioned, rell-i-jun? They haven’t stopped the killing.” he pointed out, obviously confused.

“Uh, well, no. But, I mean, the hope is that we, uh, maybe mitigated it. I guess.” I finished lamely. I really hoped he wouldn’t ask me any questions about wars. Or holy wars.

Jant eyed me guardedly and took a small step away.

I changed the direction of the conversation, “Uh, so how do you deal with your kill frenzy when you’re out in deep space like this? We can’t get back to your planet in time. Do you lock yourself in your room?”

“No I told you. We go insane if we don’t kill.” said the Tark, “I have several months worth of victims in my storage allotment. I merely pull one out, bring it to my quarters, and spend two days killing it.” He kept tapping in astrometric data. “It’s why my quarters have extra soundproofing and a drain in the floor.”

I blanched. “Do you eat it afterwards?”

“Good heavens no. We’re not barbarians. Who would eat living things?”

“Well we did.”

“I didn’t think that was possible. Well it must have driven you insane not to eat them, right? You had no choice.”

“No, it was optional.”

“Well, at least you never killed for sport, right?”

“Actually that was quite popular”

“With your fangs and…claws?” He looked me over, finding no evidence of naturally occurring offensive weaponry.

“No, mostly with weapons we designed to uh…kill from a distance. More effectively.”

In the ensuing silence, I felt as if I’d said something sacrilegious. The soft pings of the control panels and the dull hum of the engine reactors bridged the awkward pause.

“Hey, you torture living beings for days so….” I blurted out. My back was up.

“They evolved to enjoy it. It’s how their spores are released. They look forward to it and experience ecstasy as they are skinned. It’s mutual. And it’s not….by….choice.”

A chilly, more permanent silence descended.

“I may have to request a transfer away from this station.” Jant said. “You are too frightening to me.”

Under my breath I whispered, “Yeah, said the eight-eyed, two-and-a-half-meters-tall bristling collection of barbs and claws that has kill frenzies.”

That was two months ago. I haven’t spoken to Jant since but I hear he’s very popular on the ship. I hear he’s very kind.

I, on the other hand, am having a hard time making friends.