by Duncan Shields | Nov 28, 2017 | Story |
Author: Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Slow Jim Parker. That’s me, friend. Please to make your acquaintance.
Nasty accident you had there, friend. Nas-teee accident. And I’ve seen some! And this shack of a hospital won’t do you any good, either, no offense.
Well, I’m here to help you out. Yes sir. Let me tell the how and the why.
I lived on WP286-Kestrel, or ‘286’ as we used to call it, for nigh-on 18 years.
I still don’t know why we didn’t just call it Kestrel but I always figured it was because a kestrel is a beautiful bird whereas this was a stinking cesspool that no one should have to endure.
Y’see, WP2886-Kestrel was a waste planet. Most systems have one planet devoted to waste collection and sorting as you know, to keep the planets from developing a ring of their own refuse, like Saturn in the old country.
Mountains of garbage poured in by starbarge and sky portal day and night.
Goes without sayin’ that 286 was toxic. Most of my fellow 286ers were prison labour. I was that rare breed of stupid. A volunteer. An entrepreneur.
Of course it’s not the place I call home now but 286 stays with you. Some of it’s the hereditary cancer you develop from the pollution but mostly it’s the mutations. And the memories.
That rock had developed its own Aurora borealis. Somewhere between a heat-mirage made of raw chemical stink and an electrical field from all the discarded appliances. Colors I never seen before or since.
Quite a motley community of scavengers we were. Toxicity suits all patched. Bright yellow on day one but after years of spot repairs with available materials and experimental upgrades from discarded equipment, most of us had a unique setup. Ray had those powerful vise-hands. Joe had those radio goggles for seeking out antennas.
Gradually, you develop a specialty there in the junkpile. A lot of us were inventors, looking for ways to build new weapons or technological shortcuts.
I myself was looking for biological patents.
You see the rodents in the landfill were horribly mutated. They might have been rats at one point but generations of radiation and very fast inbreeding had changed them. Bear-sized in some cases. Hive-mind swarms in others. To the point that they’d sometimes evolve new organs to fight the poison and in some rare cases, actually get smart enough to use tools to protect and augment themselves.
Course we all ran the risk of mutating as well.
I mean, I have that small clutch of eyes growing on one shoulder. They blink and look around but whoever’s using them to see, it isn’t me. And of course, if I use my fingers I can count to fourteen now. I suppose I should be grateful for the tail. I just wish it wasn’t coming out of my ankle.
But I’m successful. So there’s that. Doing well off the very things I came here to sell you today in light of your nasty accident. I’ve got a whole batch of little organs here that’ll put a smile right on to that terminal face. I can double your liver capacity, give your heart eight minutes of flatline capability with no harm to yourself, even got a little generator here that’ll let you alternate left and right brain so that you can stay up for weeks with no loss in productivity. Heck, I even got some accelerated stem cells here to regrow that limb.
What’ll it be, friend?
Oh.
Dang it. I always talk too much. He’s off with the angels now.
Slow Jim Parker is right.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 27, 2017 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
It breached the atmosphere in the late evening, the sun beginning to warm the far side of the little blue planet as it tucked into the shadows and dropped down to the clouds.
It swam in the moist air, swirling and cavorting with the storm formations as they coalesced and broke over the seemingly endless expanse of nothingness.
Below, a network of dark lines traced the curves of the earth, some streaming with lights, with activity, and it avoided these, settling on one instead that traced through a series of low mountain ranges, a rare pathway seemingly devoid of life.
It alternately swooped low, kissing the earth at breakneck speed before gaining altitude with the earth to burst from the peaks back towards the heavens, slicing through the clouds, again and again, tearing holes into the rain heavy night sky.
In time it tired, having traveled far, from another time and another place, and its gyrations and antics became less energetic. It allowed the pull of the little blue planet to strip it of its altitude, and it hugged the gray stripe on the ground as it weaved through the little mountains, rising and falling gently, and easing through the corners.
In the middle of a long straight stretch rose a monument that reached from the ground high into the night. Beyond it, a low structure clung to the earth, stretching off into the darkness, riddled with holes and reeking of neglect.
The towering construct captivated it, and it curled around the risers, rubbing against them and feeling the iron react to its touch. It wrapped itself around one of the columns and followed it to its peak where it found an intricate maze of glass. It traced the outside, hugging its curves and stretching out along its lengths. The shape fascinated it, and it busied itself for a while exploring its surface before discovering a small crack where it could squeeze inside. Once contained within, it was protected from the rain and the cool night air. It pressed outward against the restraint the almost clear labyrinth provided, and found the confinement calming; it was safe here, secure.
As it explored, it tasted neon, and hydrogen, helium and mercury. The flavours evoked feelings, and the feelings manifested themselves in a coloured glow. It spread itself thin, filling every inch of the glass resting space it had found, and waited out the night, and the arrival of the sun’s energy in the morning with which it would recharge.
As it idled it marveled at its own reflected beauty, painted in brilliant multicoloured light on the rain covered ground below.
by submission | Nov 25, 2017 | Story |
Author: Servaya
It began, as many things do, in the dead of night.
“Dad!” cried the boy. “There’s monsters under my bed!”
The covers were down before he was fully awake, and as he rolled smoothly to his feet, his mind begins processing the situation while his body continues with the rehearsed, automatic movements.
Automatically: Reach for the rifle while scanning the room.
Mentally: Consider whether to rouse his wife and review the room-clearing procedures they move through together if there may be a threat.
There is no one else in the room, save for his wife who is quietly awake now in bed. No alarms are going off, and no quiet lights signal a breach into the house. All is quiet silent since the boy’s initial cry.
Automatically: Shoulder the rifle and stride silently to the door, minding the sight lines around the frame.
Mentally: He’s finally reached the age where nightmares begin, but nothing is wrong. All the same, demonstrating security might help put him at ease.
He crosses the hallway and eases the boy’s door open, rifle still up but careful to keep the barrel clear of anywhere his son could be. A quick sweep in the darkness reveals the room to be clear, save for his son sitting up in bed.
Perhaps some theatrics? “You there, under the bed,” he challenges quietly, falling back on his old command voice. “What business do you have here?”
The response is just as soft, but gravelly and sibilant…and something stirs in the black beneath the bed frame. “There is no end to the monsters in this world.” His finger moves to the trigger. “We tire of flight, and seek refuge here.”
He considers carefully. “I am the end to monsters in this world, and none may breach this refuge. How many of you tire?”
“We are many.”
“Then I will build more beds. Do not wake my children.”
by submission | Nov 24, 2017 | Story |
Author: Garrett Frechette
We have called ourselves a great number of names over the course of these many years. At times, we presented ourselves as federations and republics, our history records our imperial conquests and peaceful coalitions. We are Milky-Wayans, we are Solans, we are everywhere.
We are Human.
Humanity has faced many obstacles that were unconquerable. Sweeping plagues that were wiping us from existence without a cure in sight. Yet, we conquered. We cured. There were civil wars that divided us at our core and was once thought impossible to reach an accord. And still, treaties brought us together many times. No other paths were seen when our machines rose up, at an intelligence greater than ours, against us. Now, they are our greatest brethren. Our arms spread wide across these galaxies, altering physics, playing with time, redefining gravity, and even bending cosmic strings to our will. Our minds can know of nothing that can stop us.
In the many millennia that have passed since we first shed our infancy and left Earth’s atmosphere, we have never found any other sentient life. There was the occasional resemblance to mammals and reptile-like creatures that intrigued our curiosity. Never a hint of civilization and certainly nothing to give us reason to believe anything ascended to the stars such as humans did.
Humanity changed again when we rose from our infancy for the second time. One of our exploratory vessels happened upon a massive galaxy that appeared to be infinitely larger than any of the millions of others that we had colonized and surveyed. We had made our way to the center of the cosmos, the center of the universe. The galaxy was a super attractor, pulling everything towards it. It was a nexus to other universes, filled with a mecca of thousands of other intelligent species that made a similar journey here.
The other sentient species congratulated humanity on passing the test and making it to the ranks of other Class 5 civilizations and petitioned us to join them. To come home.
“This was all a test?”
“We thought ourselves to be alone for this? All these years, such loneliness.”
“Do they think of us as children to be patronized?”
The commanders, generals, and admirals of our greatest militaries convened. They assembled humanity’s largest armada of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. We gathered an anger and resentment that could not be quailed, so we went to war. We went home.
We are human.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 23, 2017 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Trent sat in the small office cradling the cup of hours-old coffee until the clock showed twelve. He then unfolded himself from his chair, collected his flashlight and his hat and started his rounds.
Every hour, on the hour. Up the east stairwell on the even hours to the second floor, clockwise around the perimeter before midnight, counterclockwise after. Back down the same stairs, around the ground floor then to the basement, then back to the office to sip crappy coffee. On the odd hours, he’d go down the east stairwell and work from the basement up.
There wasn’t anything to see, there wasn’t ever anything to see. The complex had three-meter perimeter fencing iced with razorwire, and there were guards with guns at the corners and the gate. His position was largely ceremonial.
Trent had cleared the second and the ground floors and had just rounded the corner at the west stairwell when something moved.
He blinked, then shone his flashlight directly towards the source of the motion, but there wasn’t anything there.
He blinked again, checked quickly behind him and switched the flashlight to his left hand, then loosened his Glock in its holster.
He swung the light back and forth along the empty hallway. Nothing. No, wait, there was something. A line on the wall from the floor two-thirds of the way to the ceiling that he’d not noticed before. He put his back to the far wall and moved forward. Someone had clearly drawn a stick figure on the wall, a long body with a head that was just the line bent at an angle, where he would have drawn a circle. The legs bent in a slight crouch, and arms akimbo.
This wasn’t here an hour earlier, of that he was positive. Someone was in the building or had been. His gun was out now, barrel held parallel to the flashlight as he moved slowly down the hallway, shining the light back and forth. The doors were flush to the wall, so there were no shadows in which someone might hide, and he crisscrossed the hall carefully trying each door to make sure they were all locked.
None opened, and none appeared to have been tampered with.
He walked a full revolution of the basement hall, stopping at the east stairwell and listening for any sound, then back to the west stairwell.
He couldn’t hear anyone.
The stick figure just stood there, arms crossed. Silent.
He should radio this in, but he didn’t relish the thought of explaining how someone managed to slip into the building and graffiti the walls on his wa…
Arms crossed?
Trent turned and brought the flashlight and gun back to chest level.
The stick figure was crouched, but its arms now were extended out from the wall.
“What the f…”
There was a sound, like a wet towel snapping in a locker room and the line bridged the distance from the wall and hit Trent hard in the face, knocking him off his feet to land with a wheeze on the concrete floor. The flashlight and gun landed somewhere out of reach, and as he blinked to get his wind and his bearings back he saw the line elongate from the floor and hang in the air above him. It bent slightly where its waist might have been, as though regarding him, before raising one thin line above his head and stomping down, knocking Trent unconscious.
Anyone watching would have squirmed at the sight of the stick figure stretching out on the floor and inserting its stick legs into Trent’s tipped back head, through his gaping mouth and down his throat. The shadowy stick creature pulled Trent on like a suit, and then stood him up and lumbered up and down the hall for a few minutes, until it had a feel for him.
Stick Trent retrieved the gun and the flashlight, perched his hat back on his head and wandered back upstairs.
When Lewis relieved him at six am, he said nothing, he just watched him start his rounds from his position in the doorway of the office, slightly crouched, arms akimbo with his head bent at a slight angle.
by submission | Nov 22, 2017 | Story |
Author: Joachim Heijndermans
Darren rushed into the bathroom as if hell was on his heels. With his shoulder, he slammed the door open. From the corner of his eye, he spotted a figure that stood before the sink, greeting him with a “Pardon me! Growing a tail here!” as he bolted into the stall.
Hunched over the metal bowl, he cursed himself for drinking all that coffee earlier. Seven cups! He swore that, from now on, crisis or no crisis, he’d stick to water or a nice herbal tea.
He cleaned himself off, buckled his pants, flushed and headed to the soap dispenser. It was then that he recognized the man by the sink. And after the morning they had, he doubted he’d ever forget that face.
“Hey! Carter. Jeez, sorry about that. Too much coffee. And the wife has me on this fiber-rich diet and…well, you know what I mean,” he mumbled.
“Yeah,” Tom Carter mumbled weakly.
“You doing all right? I don’t know if the bosses mentioned it, but you’ve been cleared for leave of duty. No limit. Come back whenever you’re up for it. No rush, you hear?”
“Yeah,” Carter muttered.
Darren washed his hands, letting the warm water pour over his stubby fingers. “Can I ask you something?” he said.
“What?” Carter replied.
“What was it like? I mean, being snapped loose like that? Tumbling around out there, with nothing to slow you down? Christ, I’d piss myself all the long way. That’s why I signed up for command deck duty. I could never do the walk. Space scares the piss out of me.”
Carter shivered, his head hung limply as his chin touched his clavicles. “I…” he muttered.
“Jeez. I’m sorry. I never know when to shut up. The wife always gets on my case about that. I just wanted to say how glad we all are you managed to get back to the ship. One in a million chance, right?”
Carter turned to Darren. His lip trembled as a lone tear rolled down his face.
“Jeez. I’ll…I’ll just leave you be. Take all the time you need, all right?” Darren said.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to…but I was so scared. Cooped up in my suit. Falling forever. I just wanted to come home.”
“Of course you were scared. It’s space. Anyone would be scared. What do you have to be–?”
“I said yes. I said yes to him…her…it..”
“What?” Darren whispered, recoiling as Tom Cater’s left eye turned a mix of red and purple.
“It couldn’t get onboard. I was terrified. I didn’t want to die. It offered to get me back to the ship if I would let it…” Tom said, his voice cracked in agony. “I couldn’t say no.”
“Say no to who? Carter, what happe–,” Darren began before his voice gave out from shock. He stammered, unable to find the words, while Carter’s eye-sockets expanded to the size of dinner plates. Darren peered into the void that leaked from Carter’s eyes, whose lips quivered as if he stood in an ice storm.
“I…I can’t stop it,” Carter stammered, as he fought to suppress the smile that slowly grew on his face. He failed. His face shattered into pieces, while the void within him crawled into their reality.
“Hey, Darren,” said a different voice, cutting through Darren’s eardrums like a knife, as it peeled the layers of matter and reality around them apart, flaying all that ever could be. “Smile.”
