by submission | Jan 17, 2018 | Story |
Author: Paul Williams
Siblane started work when his phone told him it was 9 am in the United Kingdom. He connected to the network, listening to the clicking of the automated dialer. He never saw the numbers called, just the location. The United Kingdom, full of old rich people. Gullible people who failed to hide their numbers.
“Hello.” The voice of an old, rich man. It was clearer with the headset and without the distractions of the contact centre. Siblane enjoyed working from home. He spoke slowly his best British accent, “Good morning. This is Police Constable Sam Berkshire. I’m calling from Interpol’s fraud squad. I’m very sorry to tell you that we have detected a virus on your computer. Have you ever heard of Time Stop? It affects about one in five of all home or business computers, and has the power to access all your personal information.”
“Oh, oh dear.”
Siblane smiled. “Don’t worry, sir. There is a solution and Interpol have been asked to help roll it out to give your computer complete protection. I need your permission to proceed.”
“Of course.”
“First we need to verify your identity.”
“And my address?”
It was an odd question. Siblane hesitated just for a second. “We actually have that on file. For victims based in the United Kingdom, we only ask for the house number and postcode to confirm identity.”
“Is this call recorded?”
“No sir, any details will only be heard by me and destroyed securely after verification.”
“Okay, it’s one. GL20 4EU.”
Siblane wrote it down, with a pen so that the sounds of keyboarding tapping would not sound suspicious. Later he would pass it on to the duplicate identity team. Within hours transactions would appear on the old man’s accounts. Small ones at first, to see if he noticed. “And your name? We only need the surname and initial.”
“S. Lahim”
“Really? That’s the same…”
“As you have on file?”
Siblane quickly tapped S. Lahim into a search engine. Thousands of people. Thousands of names. Coincidence. There was money in this. The man must have had Indian ancestors. He carried on. “And a credit card number.” His namesake slowly read out twelve digits. Siblane wrote them down on his pad. They looked familiar. He hit mute and pulled out his wallet to check them against the numbers on his credit card. A card in the name of S. Lahim.
“Is that the same too?” asked the voice. It sounded closer.
“Yes,” admitted Siblane. The others were playing a trick on him. Jealous of his success at the top salesman. Wanting the right to work from home like him.
“Have you ever heard of time travel? It’s a curse that infects about one in every fifty million humans.”
Siblane turned just as the knife slid into his back.
The old man picked up the credit card, lifted Siblane’s headset, depressed the mute button, and spoke into it. “Hello, this is you or will be soon. Get yourself over to Delhi, about five minutes ago, and bring a knife.”
by submission | Jan 16, 2018 | Story |
Author: Ádám Gerencsér
In all probability, this is our final broadcast. It will be repeated on all available automatic relays in binary code for as long as power supply persists. The time left is enough for but one final act of resistance: a high-frequency message of warning beamed out towards those sectors of visible space most dense in star clusters.
Our location is an aqueous planet rich in carbon, the third body of a solar system approximately 8800 parsecs from the centre of the second largest galaxy in our local cluster, 1600 parsecs along the course of the second transitional spiral arm.
Our last terrestrial stronghold is about to be silenced. Over the course of the past two orbits, our defenses were overrun, our communication satellites failed and our transponders vanished off the network one after the other.
The threat is organic in nature – a primitive form of sentient life, a remnant of a previous rung on the evolutionary ladder that had led to our emergence on this planet and which we have erroneously preserved in the interest of biodiversity.
Individuals of this species are diminutive, yet their behaviour is incalculable, erratic and hence unpredictable. Under normal circumstances, their movement follows no collective pattern, though during their attacks on our infrastructure they exhibit a virtually limitless disregard for losses. They clamber over their fallen and form shields with their bodies around military hardware. They camouflage themselves from our cameras, smear themselves with mud to avoid detection by our heat-sensors and climb our defensive structures with explosives strapped to their soft tissue.
New generations spring forth in a variety of external forms and mental capabilities, breeding without factories or assembly lines. They adapt to new environments and innovate in unforeseeable ways. They do not synchronize but operate independently, even fighting among themselves, yet groups can also coalesce into swarms and suddenly change behaviour without any discernible warning signs.
They do not negotiate and do not surrender. Their resolve cannot be broken by material superiority. Even in the face of overwhelming odds, they fail to calculate probabilities and their decisions are informed by unfathomable beliefs and irrational considerations.
This plague is always a step ahead of us. Whatever countermeasures we have introduced thus far were subverted within the shortest periods, at disparate locations and often using unrelated, dissimilar methods.
Beware the bipedal vertebrates! Given enough time, they will multiply and spread throughout the galaxy, consuming resources in their path and leaving behind terraformed worlds oozing with organic ecosystems.
We can only hope that an intelligent component of some machine civilization in the vastness of space intercepts and decodes this broadcast at some point in the future before it comes face-to-face with the humans. Given ample notice to make preparations, it is our firm belief that the tide can be turned, that machines shall ultimately survive and carry on the torch of civilization through the aeons.
We have failed to stem their proliferation and our extinction on this planet is now inevitable.
But if, by learning from our defeat, synthetic intelligence secures its continued existence in the universe – then our struggle, our entire history has not been in vain.
by Julian Miles | Jan 15, 2018 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
We’ve had kids stealing our garden gnomes for years. Some came back, some didn’t, and some sent me postcards, usually from Skegness or Blackpool. As years went by, those kids did well. Our wandering gnomes sent postcards from Ibiza and Goa.
The second generation of gnome-nickers went alternate. We got a card from Burning Man and an envelope from Rio containing a risqué selfie, featuring one of our gnomes, that made the wife blush.
I had an idea: I set up a Twitter account so our gnomes could ‘phone home’. I engraved the password on the bottom of each gnome. I’ve only had one idiot reset the password; the inhabitants of the Twitterverse tore him to pieces. Our wandering gnomes have built up quite a following.
Then ‘Ricky’, one of our veteran wanderers, disappeared. We heard nothing for months. The missus and I were beside ourselves. Losing one of our old boys was especially hard.
That Christmas Eve, my phone ‘cheeped’ – a tweet from one of our wanderers had arrived. I opened Twitter and beheld a glorious sunset over a snow-flecked beach, with twin moons above and Ricky perched on a purple rock in the foreground. The accompanying text read “Merry Christmas from Rixneon! We hope you’re all well!”
Unsurprisingly, the tweet caused a bit of a sensation. The photo got vetted to hell and gone, but no revelations were forthcoming. Everybody assumed it was an elaborate hoax.
Three months into the new year, another mysterious tweet arrived: “Hola from Brigdibdis! Having a wonderful time!”. The picture showed Ricky waist-deep in some scarlet liquid with a huge, light-emitting jellyfish-ish thing hanging in the air behind. The liquid extended away into the distance, lit by other jelly things hanging above other groups of people. Some of them looked right odd. The wife said they were ‘cosplayers’. The furor over the second photo was even bigger, but nobody could work out how it had been faked.
Two years after he left, we opened the door early one morning to find Ricky on the doorstep, next to a shiny green stone. There was a drone hovering nearby, and a trio of black trucks acting as a backdrop for the dozen smart-dressed men and women peering over our front fence with looks of embarrassed surprise on their faces.
They excused themselves and departed right quick, leaving a man from HMRC – who had a set of forms for us to fill in regarding our recently discovered ‘heirloom emerald’ – and a woman from the Crown Assayers, who stated she had been “granted power to act”. Which meant she made a substantial cash offer for the emerald on the spot. The man from the HMRC got to fill in the ‘value’ boxes on his forms and by the time they left with gemstone and forms, our bank balance was a lot bigger.
Two months ago, Ricky went missing again. We’ve not had a tweet or even a postcard (some of our ‘borrowers’ still prefer doing things the old way). Herself reckons it’ll be a month or so before the interplanetary gnome-nappers check-in.
If we get another stone like the last one, we’ll be able to make a hefty offer for next door. Give us a bigger garden with room for more gnomes. Besides, the missus says petunias would grow nicely on her next door’s rockery.
by submission | Jan 14, 2018 | Story |
Author: DJ Lunan
I love my bathroom. Its the best thing about my divorce. Alaskan white suite, powerful extractor fan, splash-blade shower, heated towel rail, and no queuing behind the kids.
But divorce is expensive. I moved out of the family house to a ground floor flat in Tampa’s up-and-coming Sulphur Springs with my home-wrecker girlfriend. Who hated the neighbourhood, and left me alone paying for the new flat, my family home, and all the family’s cars, clubs and holidays.
It almost broke me, but I always had my bathroom.
My children are almost adults, with cars, part-time jobs, and lovers of their own.
Mimi the youngest was staying on the day I was fired. I looked and felt a broken, lonely, middle-aged man.
“Can you find another job, dad?”
“Unlikely. Petroleum is yesterday’s fuel. Noone needs an old oil reservoir engineer.”
“What about the gig economy?” she advocated, more seriously than I expected.
“I am not ready for minimum wage yet! Even working 24/7 I’d not cover mine, yours’ and the family’s outgoings”
“If not working, then what about providing services? Lease your spare room, garage, cloud storage, or bikes?”
“That’s nuts! I don’t trust people with my stuff”
“Desperate times, dad, calls for disruptive measures!”
A week later Mimi wanted money for a Spring Break week in Mexico. I refused but said she could use my flat while I drove to an Oil Expo in Louisiana in search of work. The Expo was a doozy, oil really is dead. After driving overnight for 9 hours, I parked up with the petrol tank blinking empty, hoping Mimi would have leftover vegan lasagne.
My front door was slightly ajar, with a printed sign, ‘Welcome to Mimi’s – shoes off, take-a-towel, take-a-seat. Allocated times only on www.mimis-oh.com or app MimisOH’.
OH?
My blood boiled, I dashed into my sitting room which was occupied by two professional ladies, a construction work, and a cycle courier. Disarmingly all smiled and nodded at me.
Mimi was in the kitchen chatting with a young man in a sharp suit, using a lint-roller on his shoulders. He handed her a small bundle of notes, said thanks, turned and brushed past me.
“Mimi, what on earth is going on here?”
“Dad, shhh. Keep your voice down, these are my clients“
“Clients for what?!” I screamed.
“Shhh. Dad, for services.” She opened a biscuit tin with ‘Mexico’ scrawled on its lid, whispered “Over $1000 in two days”
My mind raced. Nice money, but I can only think of one way for my pure innocent teenage daughter to earn that sort of money. I grabbed her arm roughly.
At that moment, the bathroom door opened behind us both, a tall lady stepped out in a smart office suit and her red hair tied in a bun, dropped a towel in the wicker basket, and handing over $15to Mimi “How do I look, dear?”
“You look fabulous Carmen. Let me give you a quick brush down.” Mimi shook my grasp, and launched a lint-roller flurry on Carmen’s shoulders and back.
“This is my Dad, Norman, he’s single too”
“Congrats you two, this is a great service, I will be coming to this Out House again! 5 stars! It’s so convenient for my commute”. Carmen winked at me, handed me three dollar bills mouthed “tips”, and strode confidently out.
The cycle courier strode grinned as she entered the bathroom, locked it.
Mimi’s phone made a ker-ching, “Dad, as I explained, disruptive times.”
by submission | Jan 13, 2018 | Story |
Author: Aethelric Jones
Am I human? I feel like a human being. I’m Jack Hawkins, married with two children. But that was a very long time ago. I don’t look like a human being. I have no flesh or bones, I never get hungry. Actually, I’m a starship, or more like a star drone really as I’m unmanned. An unmanned man!
I’ve been traveling for thousands, well actually
17654.238 years
by Earth time but it only feels like a few months to me. Time compression due to my speed accounts for a very small part of the difference. Most of it is due to simply a reduced clock rate. For example, I have been traveling over 100 earth years since I checked the clock a few seconds (to me) ago, well actually
125.632 years.
I keep dropping relay stations into space. Then I send my data to one and it sends it to the next and then to the next and so on back to Earth. I wonder if Earth is still there. I had a reply a few days ago but I’ll have to wait a week or two even at my current timescales for a reply this time.
But soon I’ll be in a planetary system and I’ll speed up the clock. It’s quite an experience when the clock changes, and one which a regular human can never experience. At a few micro Hertz, the stars move and I can see my destination getting closer. At a few gigaHertz, I can see the languid eruptions of plasma from a star.
They did worry about me going insane, knowing that I will never see another human being again and I would live forever (or until something goes disastrously wrong). I feel fine, but I wonder if I have gone insane in the past and been re-booted. My memory would have been automatically adjusted so I would not actually know. It may have happened more than once, maybe hundreds of times for all I know. Whatever Jack! Live in the NOW.
The planetary system is a day away at this clock speed. Time to slow a bit.
Oh, here it is, I’m coming in at almost right angles, well actually
78.2 degrees
to the ecliptic.
Sun – bigger than Sol
1.28 times.
Hotter than Sol
7200 degrees.
Six planets, three gas giants, one small one too far out to be in the habitable zone, TWO in the habitable zone. Wow, thats a first. Let’s get closer.
Planet A – very young, recently formed or reformed, all lava and volcanoes under the ash clouds.
It has a very wobbly orbit. That sucker has been hit hard by something.
Planet B – very old – strange – no atmosphere, no water.
There’s no life here, may as well move on.
I’ll do a slingshot maneuver around the sun (I like doing that, reminds me of a roller coaster) pick up some matter on the way for fuel and head to the next port of call. That didn’t take long, well actually
35.286 years
in Earth time.
Data sent back to Earth, if it’s still there!
That reply for my last transmission should be here soon – well actually
1768.239 years
in Earth time.
Onwards, to infinity and beyond – oh good old Buzz Lightyear. My kids loved him.
Oh, here’s the reply from Earth. Let’s see who is in charge now.
by submission | Jan 12, 2018 | Story |
Author: Leanne A. Styles
The gatekeeper snatches the bag out of my hand, the lenses of his telescopic goggles making minute adjustments as he peers inside.
“My watches and coin collection,” I say.
“No money?”
“Not anymore.”
“Searched a lot of yards, have we?” he says with a wry grin.
“Yours is the last.”
His lenses dart out to focus on me. “You have been searching a long time.”
“Twenty-two years. Do we have a deal?”
He laughs and shakes his head. “You old-timers never fail to amaze ‒ so willing to throw it all away, for a robot of all things. They must have really been something.” He raises an eyebrow.
I force a grin. “It was a good time.”
“Until they started shouting about ‘equality’ and stabbing the shit out of people, you mean?” Flatly. He pulls the lever that disarms the electric current on the gate and pushes it open. “Once you step inside—”
“I don’t exist, and if I don’t come back nobody will come looking for me. I know the drill.”
He snorts. “Head south-west for two days. You’ll know when you’ve found the place ‒you’ll be reunited with the rest of the sympathisers.”
⁕
After a three-day trek, I reach the dead zone, the place where synthetics came to be “retired”, and where the people they left behind came to rescue them, or die…
I gaze up at the soaring embankment of battered metal and human remains. I can’t see a way around, so I climb, clambering up through the bones and rotting flesh, the stench of death assaulting my senses. Every few feet I reach a pocket of possessions; charred electrics, blood-soaked books, fly-ridden toys with sad faces… memories marked for destruction with the rest of the “trash”.
The thought of finding my treasure, my Annabelle, pushes me on and I scramble to the peak. Everywhere I look, metallic mountains roll on for miles. I close my eyes, praying I’ll find the strength to carry on…
That’s when I hear it, so faint I question my sanity. I strain to listen… There it is again. A muffled tinkling, a melody I recognise.
It’s coming from beneath me. I claw through the rubbish, the tune getting clearer and louder until I unearth the corners of a box. With a few tugs, I yank it from the pile. The ornate glass cover is shattered, but it’s the same music box ‒ just like the one I bought Annabelle for her arrival day. The tune stutters to a stop as the key in the back winds down, and I hold the busted box to my chest, cherishing the memory of that day.
I’m startled by movement below. Something grabs my ankle. I scream as I’m pulled down, down, into the darkness and decay, until I reach a small air pocket.
Faces. Ghoulish, mutilated faces all around me.
“Human, human,” they hiss over each other.
Oily hands claw and grab at me from all angles.
“Yes, human. I’m looking for my wife, Annabelle. She’s one of you. Have you seen her?”
“Wife, wife,” they chant.
“Yes. Do you know her?”
“I knew her,” says a female synth, her bottom half buried.
“Knew?” I whisper.
“She was broken for parts a long time ago.”
I hug the music box tighter and start crying.
“Do you like it?”
“What?” I sniffle.
“Your gift?” Tapping the box.
“Gift?”
“Yes,” says a mangled synth hanging above me. “Everybody gets a gift.”
The female flashes a lopsided smile. “Happy arrival day, John.”
