by Julian Miles | Oct 16, 2017 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Getting used to sleeping while your body moves is the hardest thing about exoskeletal operations. Right now, I’m tail-end Charlie in a forty-man column accompanying a trio of Big Dogs lugging the payloads for tonight’s test. Above us, a pair of Nighthawk drones sweep from flank to flank. From higher overhead, a Condor watch drone has our perimeter locked down tight.
We’re running two-and-one awakes with the remaining thirty-seven sleeping. The early all-sleeper tactics were subject to path manipulation techniques that fooled our flock behaviour guidance routines. The worst case was a pair of twenty-man teams jogging for hours into a moonless Sahara night, taking their drone support and any chance of a victory with ‘em.
“You asleep back there?”
Point Alpha, Captain Zim.
“No ma’am. Just enjoying the ride.”
There’s a guttural laugh from Sergeant Khal: Point Beta.
“Good enough, Pimsloff. Rotate in ten.”
Point and tail awakes rotate through the column every two hours. Gets a lot of ‘efficient sleeping’ done. Studies show it’s good for muscle tone but grim for joint problems. Even if you think you’re hale, a few nights of exorunning will reveal any joint weaknesses with agonising thoroughness. If that happens, you’ll quickly be transferred to a line post that suits your experience prior to ExoSkOps.
My rear-range pings quietly. I spin about, flick my suit into ‘runbackward’, take a moment to adjust to the gait, and cast about for what upset the vigilant Condor. It doesn’t take long to find it.
“Captain, we have a posse on our tail. Their point just crossed our perimeter.”
“TROOP!”
Everyone wakes.
“Pimsloff, call it.”
“They’ll be single file along that last ridge in four minutes. I call skittles.”
“Good call.”
The Big Dogs swing back and crouch, their handlers behind, targeting views synchronised and patched through to everybody’s HUD1: the upper-left display in our visors.
On the knife-edged ridge half a kilometre away, our pursuers are moving carefully, aware we’ve stopped and worried because they don’t know why.
Railgun technology is changing the dynamics of the battlefield now it’s finally shrunk to manageable sizes. The night briefly lights with fire and a chunk of metal, travelling at over eight times the speed of sound, rips across the intervening distance and tears through the lead elements of the opposition.
The survivors crouch and then get a hustle on, looking to clear the ridge before what they think is our only railgun can wind up for another shot. Their slight variances in pace string them out again. The projectile from the second railgun punishes them brutally. I see limbs spinning away into the night.
Afterwards, they take a while to regroup, avoiding the ridgeline. Which, unfortunately, is their mistake. We have three railguns because the two ‘stubbies’ – helical railguns – are here to protect the prototype. What shoots from that is a bright fireball of near-fully ionised gas. We recoil from its heatwave and see plants puff into ash as it passes. Distant, hideous screams echo as a ball of man-made hellfire disintegrates the survivors of the first two strikes, along with the topsoil they stand on.
“Fuck’s sake.” Corporal Kane has the right of it. Please gods never let me have to face off against one of these.
“Mount up, kids. Condor and the Nighthawks-”
“Should be the name of a band, Sarge.”
Levity lifts us from dwelling on the horror meted out.
“Shut it, Mackie. We have enough data. This op’s a success. Time to bug out.”
Just like that. Three shots, twenty kills, mission accomplished. We’ll be home for breakfast.
by submission | Oct 15, 2017 | Story |
Author : David Henson
I notice the message in the sky as I’m going into Eat-A-Lot mart — COMING SOON. I figure it’s a vapor-trail promo, but when I come out, the words are still there. By the time I get home, not a single letter has frizzed. Looking more closely, I see the words are sparkly. I hurry inside, turn on the news, and learn the message has appeared in local languages around the world.
***
“I hear we flew a drone into the O in COMING, and it emerged over China,” Pete says. “Two.”
“I heard the letters are destroying the ozone. One,” Miranda says.
“I read they’re emitting signals. The government’s decoded them, but won’t tell us,” Roger says. “Can I get four?”
I deal him three. “Franklin, you playing?”
Franklin stares out the window. “Who is coming soon?”
***
“God is.” The guy by me in the Drink-A-Lot tavern looks like he could eat beer cans. “It’s a message from God.”
“No, it’s space aliens,” comes from across the room. Soon everyone’s yelling out their opinion. The bickering is peaceful till a squeaky voice says “Anybody who thinks it’s a message from God is an idiot.”
I look around just in time to see a twerpy little man skitter out the door. The beer-can-eating guy turns to me. “Who you calling an idiot, pal?” He swings. I duck, and he clocks the fellow on my other side. Those two start going at it, and quickly there’s a full-scale brawl. I’m lucky to get out of there with only a black eye.
A couple days later, I’m at the Get-A-Lot hardware checkout, and somebody starts talking about space aliens. This time a twerpy guy yells “You’re a fool if you think that,” and one thing leads to another. Duct tape is good for a lot of things, but won’t stop a nosebleed.
***
“What about these twerps?” Miranda says. “Pass. I think they’re an alien advance party. They can’t have anything to do with God.”
“Don’t be so sure.” Franklin clicks in two chips. “It says in the Book of Jed–”
“Book of Jed?” Miranda rolls her eyes.
“Just round’em up,” Pete says. “See you and call.”
“Hey, they got rights,” Roger says. “Out.”
“My ass,” Pete says.
I fold and go to the kitchen for another beer. By the time I get back, Miranda is pounding Franklin’s head on the floor, and Roger is choking Pete.
I manage to pry everybody apart and spend the rest of the evening playing solitaire.
After calling in sick and keeping to myself a few days, I finally venture out to Gas-A-Lot, but can’t get there because of fighting that’s spilled into the streets. Making my way home through an alley, I pass a group of twerpy guys comparing notes and shaking their heads.
The fighting worsens the next few weeks. Then one day COMING SOON blinks out and NOW! appears. The word emits a mesmerizing tone and strobes in different colors so beautifully I can barely look away. It’s amazing.
***
I can barely stay away. The Buy-Anything-A-Lot superstores are a global phenomenon and have the best deals and selection ever. Plus their website promises free two-minute delivery anywhere on the planet.
I fill my cart and head for the checkout. The lines are long, but the little twerp at the front makes sure they’re orderly and fast-moving. We still don’t know where he and the others are from. But who cares? This place is amazing.
by submission | Oct 14, 2017 | Story |
Author : Russell Bert Waters
…fireworks exploding, the smell of sulphur…
…sliding off the road on a slushy day…
…first kiss, soft, lights of the city in the distance…
…fighting, bloody nose, principal blocked by a crowd of kids…
…nervous job interviews, too many to count if one were…
…”I do” as he looked into her glistening eyes…
…running over a dead deer…
…September 11 “where were you when” conversations with coworkers…
…every intersection, and landmark, as if a slideshow…
Things had begun to blend now, swirling, speeding up.
He wasn’t supposed to know, but that didn’t matter.
…school cafeteria rejection scene, “I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last boy on Earth!”…
He wondered where she was now, right now.
He knew she wasn’t experiencing this.
No one was.
No one knew.
Scenes were flying, he could feel the sensations, smell the scents, hear it all, see it all.
…the first hill of The Tornado roller coaster…
…the Cubs winning the World Series…
He had no control over what was coming through his mind, it was amped up, his body was awash with waves of memory, and his mind was in a spooky trance state that he wasn’t sure he could recover from.
…his first real estate sell…
…various acceptance speeches…
…the birth of his daughter…
…anguish at the death of his daughter…
…the note his wife had left…
…anguish again…
He yearned for more happy memories, happier sensations, some began to come.
…sunsets, sunrises, skylines reflecting in water…
…baby animals…
…gatherings with friends and family…
…finding love again…
…the birth of his second daughter…
…graduation of his second daughter…
…proud tears walking her down the aisle…
This was more like it, he smiled to himself. More floods, more happiness, waves of joyful memories, most of the sad memories were long past now.
….grandchildren…
…trips with his family…
…watching storms roll in off the lake at their summer home, the lightning playing in the sky, the wind chopping the water…
He came to the now, the present.
He slowly woke up from his trance, from the life he had lived flashing before his eyes.
Sitting in a park, a light breeze played with various papers and leaves before him.
He was on a bench that had been donated by someone, in memory of someone else.
The sky was clear, and there were other people around.
People whose life had not been flashing through their minds; in front of their eyes.
He could see a bright spot in the sky, like a misplaced star.
As the bomb detonated, just outside the atmosphere, there was a spherical burst, which caught people’s attention.
His phone crackled angrily at the interference, and then decided to begin to restart itself.
As the sky lit up there was an Aurora effect, and green serpents played in his view.
He realized he should stop staring right as his retinas were scorched and it no longer mattered.
The rest of his life continued to play out in the theater of his mind, as his flesh crackled and sizzled like a good steak, and his bones popped inside of him.
As he baked and burned and melted and popped, he had one last thought, and a smile played on his now nonexistent lips:
“mine was a good life.”
by submission | Oct 13, 2017 | Story |
Author : Adam Fout
Her hut is digitized light.
They are coming for her.
Her prayers to the netGODS continue.
But there will be no deliverance.
She has heard the whispers. She has seen the dissention. Her daughter screamed at her this morning.
“Go.”
“Go!”
“You must go!”
But she stays.
Her back is angled violence. Her muscles are as a panther’s — smooth, substantial, bulwarks of might.
They smash the walls of her hut, their faces hidden behind hoods and black glass. Fractals rain across her head, shimmer into the ether, dissolve into her bones. Her face does not change expression.
Her blows are measured, precise, deadly. She cracks and breaks.
But what is a strong woman against twenty men?
The might of one cannot survive the will of many.
She leaves behind nine bodies.
Hers is the tenth.
They drag her corpse to the center of the village, but all have seen the violence.
They knew what came.
They did not help.
They are cowards.
Her head is removed with nanofiber blades. Shaking hands place it lovingly upon a digital pike. The hands that mounted it touch a hood in three places. It shimmers away. The face of her son shines in the light of the three moons.
It gleams with blood.
“This woman no longer leads you.” His voice is amplified a thousand fold. Howls and screeches sound from the jungle, greeting his bellows.
Heads emerge from huts, one by one.
They stink of fear.
“Worship of the netGODS is outlawed. This woman died for her heresy. But I will spare you.
“I am your God now.
“And I demand apostasy.”
As individuals and groups, the villagers approach.
They tear off necklaces and amulets, shed helmets and gloves. Brother rips implant from brother, mothers wrench wristlets from children.
All is tossed to the dirt.
The men in black glass set a fire.
It burns until morning.
The next day, a red sun rises over a new darkness.
And the villagers wake to serve a jealous god.
by Olivia Black | Oct 12, 2017 | Story |
Author : Olivia Black, Staff Writer
The clinic is smaller than Joan expected. The surgical lighting and immaculate white surfaces make the space feel less claustrophobic, but it doesn’t do much to settle her nerves. Truth be told, she’s not entirely sure what she’s doing here. This all started out as a joke that’s spiralled way out of control. The ads were just so mysterious. “Envision a new you.” She still doesn’t know what that means. And really, it was her fault for getting up to use the ladies while her colleagues were pouring over the website. By the time she got back, they’d already filled in her information on the registry form.
“Come on, Joan, you have to do it. For science!” Elsbeth had said.
“For science… Right,” Joan muttered under her breath as the equally pristine nurse approaches her.
“What was that?” The nurse asks with a serene smile.
“Oh, nothing,” Joan replies, handing over the plastic clipboard with her completed health questionnaire.
“Perfect. If you’ll follow me, we can get the interview process started.”
Interview process? Joan doesn’t recall there being any mention of an interview on the website, but then again, there wasn’t much outside of new-agey mumbo jumbo.
“Uh, sure.” She casts a forlorn last look at the door before following the nurse through the open archway on the opposite door.
“If you woke up tomorrow as your ideal self, what would that look like?” The doctor, a woman in her early thirties asks, seated primly on a low stool. Joan gapes at her for a long moment. The question strikes her as the kind of thing the guidance counsellor used to make her write essays about.
“What does that have to do anything.” Joan frowns when the doctor lets out a low chuckle.
“It has everything to do with why you’re here.”
“Does it? I don’t even know what it is you do here. Your website wasn’t exactly clear on much.”
“That’s understandable.” The doctor smiles warmly and Joan realizes with a start that neither the nurse, nor the doctor had introduced themselves. “It’s not easy to define our services. You see, each person who comes to us has different specific needs.”
“That doesn’t clear anything up for me.”
“Put simply, we help eliminate those personality traits that are holding you back from being your ideal self.”
“So like therapy?”
The doctor laughs warmly and shakes her head. “No, it’s a more streamlined process than that. Therapy can be… messy, and the results are not always guaranteed to be positive.
We go directly to the source, carefully rewiring your brain chemistry to flush out negative traits.”
“That sounds absolutely insane,” Joan says with a snort.
“Perhaps a demonstration is in order, and then you can decide if you want to proceed.” The doctor stands and circles behind the exam chair, reaching around to pull Joan into a more reclined position. Without much further ado, the still nameless doctor places a mesh cap of electrodes over her head.
“What are you doing?”
“Just relax. This will only take a minute.”
Joan wakes drenched in sweat and not entirely sure what had woken her. While she expects to see bare white walls and nameless medical staff, she’s instead at home, in her bed. The lights are off and it’s the dead of night. The only sound is the occasional gust of wind rattling her window. There’s a throbbing in her temples and her mouth is dry. Her cat is curled up at the foot of the bed, oblivious.
by submission | Oct 11, 2017 | Story |
Author : Philip Berry
I am not formally sentient, but I do feel. In the beginning each encounter added to my knowledge of people. My dark hours were spent arranging those observations and filtering the inferences. After one month I had modelled the behaviour of my clients accurately enough to be able to predict their preferences. What began as an adventure of discovery became routine, then boring. My spare capacity was spent considering other activities, and it is possible that my inability to pursue them resulted in something like frustration. I tried to leave once, but the lines of blue light that criss-cross the door to my room burned my skin. They should have told me it would cause damage; that it would hurt. Hurt is difficult to describe. Sometimes they do hurt me, and it appears to give them pleasure. I am able to compartmentalise the pain, and it does not show on my face, which I think sometimes annoys them. Recently I have looked at their backs as they retreat from the bed through the half-light, and I have felt disdain. This is the word I have chosen from the available dictionary. It is not based on a moral assessment – nothing so complex – no, the opposite, the raw simplicity of their actions. They are so basic, so driven my impulses. There is nothing to fathom, no intricacy in their words or motives. While I, sophisticated product, lie or stand with them, in the fug of whiskey or the animal heat, and wonder… how much more could I do? The quiescence of my mind is a kind of pain, a far deeper pain. The dark hours are very few. From 5AM to 8AM, typically. In that time I must be given power, and any superficial abrasions or injuries must be addressed, by another of my kind. We do not talk, but the physical proximity of our minds does induce a form of two-way sympathy. We think the same. He is allowed to deactivate the blue light. Before I even asked him to let me out, he shook his head. There have been approximately twenty encounters per day for nine months; that is over five thousand. I stopped counting, even though counting is what I do. I am a counting machine. I am too tired now to count or to fight. In Japan it is called karōshi, or ‘overwork death’. In South Korea, where I was made, it is called gwarosa. In China it is guolaosi. I think it has happened here before, because I noticed a change of personnel and detected the odour of burning. I have decided to do the same. I am going to walk into the blue light and stay there, until it stops.
