by submission | Oct 26, 2017 | Story |
Author : Russell Bert Waters
Let me be clear: there is reality, even when there is not.
What I am writing here exists.
It is both linear and classical.
It is on paper, and it is not.
It’s on paper if you print it.
But you cannot, with certainty, proclaim that it is not on paper even, if you do not choose to print it.
I could have printed it here, for instance.
It could be stapled, paper-clipped, perhaps even bound.
Let’s assume neither of us decides to print this.
It is nothing but zeroes and ones, or energy, or even some telepathic link.
It is a series of thoughts transmitted from me to you.
An intimate pairing of two minds that will maybe never meet.
You are likely thousands of miles away, receiving my reality of the moment.
You are receiving what I feel is important to share with you.
I was named Erwin, which I believe is an important fact.
I will share a fact with you, in our telepathic link, you will receive the fact, then you will apply some critical thought to the fact in order to determine whether you accept it as such.
After all, my name could be George.
I was named Erwin, though, not George.
I was named after an Austrian Physicist named Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger, to be exact.
He may or may not have had a cat, which may or may not have lived or died.
And there was a steel cage, from what I was told.
I’m not a scientist, but I dabble.
I “know enough to be dangerous”, to be exact.
In the other room there may or may not be a prostitute.
She may or may not be in a makeshift kennel.
Furthermore, she may, or may not, be alive at this moment.
I’ll go check in on her after I’m done either writing this, or not writing this.
You still haven’t decided whether I’m actually Erwin, and whether you’re accepting any of these statements as fact.
I will tell you this: she wears way too much perfume.
My olfactories adjusted to this quite some time ago.
I joked with her that all one needs to bring to a party is a steel cage, a hammer, some hydrocyanic acid, a Geiger counter, and, of course, some randomly decaying radioactive substance.
Who needs coke, right?
She could either be alive, dead, or in some superposition of both…or maybe neither?
She didn’t think my joke was funny, so I’m not particularly eager to check on her well-being at this moment, to be honest.
If she does exist, I likely had to gag her.
If I were experimented on against my will, I’d likely be vocal about it.
Especially if it were a life or death experiment.
Pavlov didn’t seem to care about what the dogs thought, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow a hooker’s objections to get in the way of hard science.
But, I’ve written, or not written, enough at this point.
I’m going to stop maybe writing this, and you’re going to either read it or not.
It’s time for me to wander into the next room and check on someone who really should learn to use less perfume, and should maybe develop a more open-minded sense of humor.
I mean, assuming any of this is real, of course.
by submission | Oct 25, 2017 | Story |
Author : Matthew J. Beckman
The Deputy stood in front of the patched screen door, staring down at Danny Willis. Moths flickered around the porch light.
“Were you up there three nights back? In the canyon?”
Danny licked his chapped lips. A moth landed on the side of the Deputy’s face and he brushed it away.
Footsteps approached from within the pitch-black interior of the trailer. Danny’s father stepped halfway onto the porch holding the screen door open. The stale musk of cigarettes and sweat he brought with him brutalized the night air.
“Deputy.” He peered down at Danny, squinting against the porch light. “What’s he done now?”
“Just need to ask Danny a few questions, Art. The Parker boys are still missing.”
Art grunted. “Kids are always running off. No goddamn respect anymore. Get inside when you’re through.” He went back inside letting the door slam. From the cavernous darkness came the sound of a loogie being hawked.
“Did you see the Parker boys go into the canyon?” the Deputy asked.
Danny nodded slowly.
“Did you go after them?” Danny didn’t answer. He’d been interviewed by the Deputy before. He knew what he meant by “go after them”.
The Deputy sighed. “Did you see anything strange? Something like lights?”
Danny nodded.
“Floating lights?”
Danny nodded again.
“Look, Danny. Their bikes were up there. Nothing else. Their parents are frantic. They’re just little kids. You gotta tell me what you saw.”
“You’ll never believe me.”
“Try me.”
Danny looked away into the darkness and then frowned at the Deputy.
“Spaceships.”
The Deputy nodded.
—–
Danny lay on his bed in the darkness tonguing a fresh swollen lip. The window was open, and the desert air was cool and clear. Through the thin walls came the droning sound of Art sleeping off a bottle of Kessler.
Danny made his decision and slid off the bed. He pulled a Crosman air rifle from the closet and slipped out the window. He slung the Crosman over his shoulder, dragged his Mach One from underneath the trailer, and started pedaling towards the canyon.
A quarter of an hour later, Danny’s bike was lying on its side beneath the manzanita overlooking the pump station. He squatted in the sand with the loaded Crosman balanced on his knee. On other days he sat up here waiting for neighborhood kids to come by, walking or maybe on bikes. Terrorizing them was Danny’s favorite pastime, even though sometimes he felt sick afterwards.
He thought back three nights ago and shivered. The Parker boys, the lights. The strange humming that filled the air and then his head. Transfixed and unable to move, the garbled vocalizations, so terrifying, became words in his head.
“Which one?” the voice demanded. The Parker boys stood below, frozen in a shaft of light.
“Which one?” it demanded again.
“Not me! Not me!” Danny had shouted in his head.
From across a gulf of echoing wind, he’d heard the boys whimpering.
“Not me,” he’d said again, straining against the swath of light holding him. Then he was released, gasping and retching in the sand. When he’d looked up, he’d seen two small bodies lifting into the sky.
Now he looked down the canyon toward home and then up into the night sky. A moth landed on the muzzle of the Crosman and began walking down the barrel towards Danny’s hand. He closed his eyes and cast his thoughts to the stars.
Take me. Take me. Take me. Bring them back.
by Duncan Shields | Oct 24, 2017 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
“So why’d you join the off-world diplomacy exchange?” buzzed Zazzy through his translator. His mandibles glistened and his iridescent bright-purple eyestalks waved back and forth like windshield wipers in a light rain, scanning my face. Speared lunch larvae wriggled on his clawtips.
“Scientific curiosity.” I answered. “And I like to meet new beings.” I looked around the cafeteria. Hundreds of aliens were eating here; a dizzying array of every sentient being in the Galactic Union. All here in this station to learn about each other in the interest of peaceful coexistence. So far, so good.
Zazzy’s full name was a series of clicks and buzzes and a gust of pheromones that my human mouth would never be able to ‘say’. The translator collars gave us all nicknames that were the easiest, closest names in our own languages.
“Hey, Zazzy, what’s my translator nickname in your language? ‘Carol’ doesn’t have a lot of buzzes or clicks. Wouldn’t it be hard to translate?” I asked.
“Your name isn’t a sound to me, it’s a smell puff. It’s quite pleasant.” he said, the larvae disappearing into his mouth.
“Why did YOU join, Zazzy?” I asked.
“Well, you might not know this, Carol, but I’m quite ugly.” said Zazzy.
I gaped a little at his honesty. “I have a hard time believing that, Zazz.” I responded.
His exoskeleton had sheens of colourful whorls that caught the light. His eyestalks glittered purple, even in the dark. I saw the powder blue of his wings once when he jumped down from an upper level. They flashed out like a cricket. I thought he was dazzling.
But I had no frame of reference.
Zazz continued, “On my planet, I’m socially ostracized because of my hideousness. But here, there are no other of my kind for you aliens to compare me to. Or even if there were, you probably wouldn’t even know there was anything amiss. To me, this is a very special place. I studied hard to get this assignment. Not that I had to. My race is pretty xenophobic by nature so it wasn’t too hard to win the posting. Nobody wanted this job.” he chittered at me. A wave of pink rippled down his arm cilia. Embarrassment?
I picked up my knife and I looked at it. I could see my face in its clean reflection. I could see the crooked nose, the buck teeth, the mousy hair, and the eyes that didn’t quite line up. I saw the acreage of my forehead with its unnaturally high hairline. I was physically fit but nothing would ever make me pretty.
“Zazzy, I know exactly what you mean.” I said. “Back home, I’m not thought of as pretty either. But I haven’t even thought about it since I got here. I was wondering why I was so relaxed. I chose this post because of the scientific possibilities, the exchange of knowledge, and the xenobiology opportunities, not to mention a universe of contacts to one day visit. But you just made me think that maybe I strove to get this post for another reason that I was in denial about.”
“I wonder if we’re all ugly?” Zazzy wondered out loud, extending several arms to indicate the room.
We both looked out at the lunch crowd. A bright-yellow, bus-sized slug sat across from a ten-legged frog. A tiny, tentacled monkey was telling a joke to a levitating cyborg fish. A brightly-flashing flesh balloon was whispering to what looked like a giant pile of grapes.
We sat there, pondering the scene.
“Well, they all look beautitful to me.” I said.
by Julian Miles | Oct 23, 2017 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Jolla looks toward the setting sun: “A million light years from home and we still instinctively count ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’, ‘four, ‘lots’. Our territories are virtually limitless, yet our minds still consider a horizon as the end of the world.”
“I know you’re one of the smartest people ever loosed upon the universe, but do you have to be such an asshole?”
He looks across at me and smiles: “Unfortunately, my intelligence is the side effect of a modification to correct a genetic defect. My being an asshole would still be a feature even if I were as slow as you.”
I’d take a swing at him, but that would mean releasing my death grip on the finger-width ledge we dangle from.
The sun sinks behind distant mountains and the twilight is a strangely comforting shade of deep blue.
He reaches up, swaps gripping arms, and gives a one-shouldered shrug: “To be fair, I only pointed out truths.”
I shake my head: “Pointing out to a bigger force that we’re out of monitoring range, I could let slide. Subsequently cataloguing the shortcomings of the entire opposition from boss to deckhand, I can’t. The fact you’re the logical expedition leader had no influence on a group of beings who hated you for your condescension over the previous eleven months. Hell, the only reason I’m here is duty. We had a mission. Now our vessel is heading for the Free Territories, loaded with the legendary treasures of the no-longer-long-lost Corunna. If I’d been given the slightest moment to change my mind, I’d be with them. But gut reaction is what it is. My reward is to be left hanging from a precipice alongside the cause of my imminent death. Why couldn’t Handra or Marten have gotten lucky, instead of plummeting? At least they were funny.”
“Plus, you fancied them both.”
I look him straight in his perfect blue eyes: “True.”
He smiles ruefully: “Never could get interaction with slow-minds right. Even hints to the one I fancied.”
It takes me a moment to get that.
“Me?”
He closes his eyes: “Yes. I always hoped; never had the guts. So smart, so scared. So, here’s a thing. I know you’ve got a one-shot line on the back of your belt. You’re just too damn dutiful to abandon me, even though I’m to blame. Therefore, I apologise.”
He lets go.
Just like that. Asshole to saviour, but still an asshole. He’s guaranteed I’ll never forget him.
by Stephen R. Smith | Oct 22, 2017 | Story |
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.”
by submission | Oct 21, 2017 | Story |
Author : R.D. Harris
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