by Stephen R. Smith | Jan 29, 2018 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Erik heard them in the lobby, dividing up the elevators and the stairwells. He owned the building’s cameras and their audio.
The Situation Commander barked orders. Under no circumstances was the hacker known as ‘HvnSvn’ to be allowed to escape. Under no circumstances was he to be killed.
He was safe.
A streaming waterfall of data cascaded over the displays before him. This was old school. Nobody appreciated the living artwork that was other peoples’ lives being stolen from one place and delivered to another in a sea of glyphs even a child could see the beauty of.
This was a personal piece of performance art, in the stolen vacation property of a media mogul.
As the last bit crossed the threshold, the system began to eat itself. Portals forced open collapsed, tunnels caved in, pathways of light dissolved into darkness.
They were in the hall now. He could feel the thunder of boots through the soles of his bare feet on the polished granite floor.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.”
A line, from a poem, immortalized in a movie.
“But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
Somewhere in Erik’s brain, a series of bits flipped. Old pathways disconnected and new ones formed. Parts of his mind were closed off behind doors, the bolts on heavy neural locks slammed into place, memories locked away in boxes without apparent keys or lids.
There was a hammering at the door, then it shattered off its hinges. Police with guns drawn stormed the room in a line, fanning out around the man in pajamas sitting cross-legged on the floor, as he rocked back and forth, keening.
“Kitchen clear.” Voices sounded off as the uniformed figures swept the apartment. “Bedroom clear.”
An armored faceless suit was waving a wand around him.
“He’s a no-mech. No mods. No tech. He’s clean.”
A teary-eyed Erik looked up into the face of the Sit. Comm. and stuttered, “I want my mom.”
He was handcuffed and his ankles shackled, then dragged by two faceless figures down the hall and elevator, out into a waiting van where he would disappear into the system for months without a trace.
There were tests. Physical intimidation bordering on torture.
“He’s got the mind of a child,” the psychologists reported.
They brought in new psychologists. They administered drugs, polygraphs.
The middle-aged man named Erik was clearly stuck at a fourth-grade developmental level. He cried a lot, called out for his mother day and night, anytime he was allowed to believe he was alone before the beatings and the questions began again.
“We’ve been set up.” The task force leader poured himself a whiskey, not offering one to his subordinate. “You,” he corrected himself, thinking on his feet, “you have been set up.” He downed half the glass in a single gulp. “He knew we were coming, and he skipped out. Or she, Christ, we don’t know anything, do we? We’re back to square one here.” He waved off a half-hearted defense from the belittled agent before him. “He left this bloody half-wit sitting there, knowing what we’d do to him. That’s cold. If this ever gets out…”
He left the thought hanging in the air.
“Get him out of here. Take him home. Get relations on this, flag it up code black to legal, make sure nobody knows this was our op. Set him up so he doesn’t want to start looking, but make sure he understands we’ll come back if we need to. See if you can get that through his thick skull.”
Erik was back in his own bedroom by dinnertime, in the apartment listed on his guardianship file. They had stocked the kitchen with groceries, and someone had clearly cleaned the place before giving him a stern warning and closing the door behind them.
He was alone. Finally. Safe and once again on his own.
He lay on his bed staring at the ceiling, counting the glow-in-the-dark plastic stars that had been stuck there when he was a child, right next to the smiling cartoon moon.
“Goodnight Moon,” he spoke out loud.
Somewhere in Erik’s brain, a chemical bootstrap loaded.
“Goodnight light, and the red balloon,” he continued after a moment, having run through some almost forgotten mental checklist of things to do to be sure he was safe.
Pathways reconnected, and doorways to his memories unlocked.
Erik sat up, put his feet on the floor and looked around. Clearly, he’d lost time, but the memories of whatever had happened between the data breach and his reboot were safely tucked away for him to review later.
At the moment, HvnSvn needed to get dressed and slip whatever surveillance he’d been assigned.
He’d finished the job, and he was long overdue to get paid.
by submission | Jan 28, 2018 | Story |
Author: Kim Kneen
Recently I have taken to sitting at portholes. I angle myself so I can see my reflection; reach out as if to clutch a hand or stroke a cheek. I choose remote locations where Gala can’t find me and remain as long as I dare.
My eyes ache from focusing on glass rather than the void beyond.
Gala has picked up on my discomfort.
‘Impaired function of the extra-ocular muscles.’ Her soothing tone is a welcome feature of the v.IX. ‘Common in middle-aged humans.’
I concur, pleased to have deceived the bot, and in the spirit of co-operation suggest she adjust the resolution on my screens.
Deprived of the companionship of my reflection I watch the old propaganda films. The splinter of stone as earth ground to a halt. The lengthening days. Broken children hurling rocks at the camera before retreating on all fours shrieking like monkeys.
“Your child deserves a better life.” I mouth the words in perfect time with the narrator. I must have watched this film a thousand times. When I was six, broadcasts like this persuaded my parents to move to a camp, like the one on the film. The race was on to find The Bridge; a child with the attributes required to reach old age.
The morning the army came, Mum tied a bright scarf to the door of our tent. She ran alongside the truck for as long as she could, shouting, “When you get back, Lena, look for the yellow.”
My results were so promising I made the shortlist with six other children.
I never went back.
“Congratulations, Lena.” Sally, our tutor, crouched by my desk. “You’re going to save mankind.”
I never saw Immy again, or Dai, or any of the other four Select. I often wonder if they were returned to their families, to the tattered tents on what was once the ocean floor.
It was the first time I’d been above ground in three years. This time I wasn’t bundled in the back of a truck but seated up-front, next to Sally, at the head of the convoy.
The Core rode in the vehicles behind. One hundred strangers I had pledged to maintain on the journey to Hydrax. They would lie dormant. It was my job to ensure their survival, to bridge the seventy-three years between this world and the next.
A gate opened in the perimeter fence. The ship hovered above the bedrock, edges undulating in the heat.
Sally described how the launch site had once offered rich pickings for redshanks; the shellfish that used to live in the mudflats and sustain the migrating birds now long gone.
“Safe trip, Lena.”
I succumbed on my birthday, seven years after Comms ceased.
The Core slept silently; the tranquillity broken only by the occasional drip of condensation that fell from their respiration tubes. I whispered their details.
“Daria, nineteen, Triage Nurse. Samuel, thirty-six, Architect.”
I bent over Samuel and probed the transparent wrap that clung to his face; the need for human contact overwhelming. I hooked my index finger beneath a crease and pulled, slid a finger inside the hole I’d created. His skin was cold and rough. Disappointed, I breathed warm air against his cheek, pressed my lips to the pink that bloomed on his skin.
When Samuel opened his eyes, I stayed calm. I couldn’t risk him waking the others. I hooked my finger around his respiration tube and squeezed.
Still nine years from Hydrax, I keep up the pretence of maintaining The Core. They’re almost all dead, of course, eased gently by me into the next world rather than the new world.
I resolve to stay away from portholes. If Gala found out about my on-going struggle with loneliness she wouldn’t hesitate to initiate behaviour mod. My state of mind is her priority after all.
For I am The Bridge.
by submission | Jan 27, 2018 | Story |
Author: Ajith S Nair
It was a Friday and in Saudi Arabia, Friday is a holiday for most people. I just got home after finishing the night shift. I am not supposed to be back for work until Monday night. Though I was tired sleep eluded me. I turned the TV on to see if there was something interesting on.
The TV was not working. The screen was showing a white background. I changed the channel, nothing happened.I turned the TV off unplugged everything, plugged everything back and turned the TV on.No change. The white screen mockingly stared at me.
I absentmindedly picked up my phone. Maybe I will stream something on the phone. And the phone also was showing a white screen. This sometimes happened with my phone but what are the odds of it happening to my phone and TV at the same time?
I turned the TV off and went to the kitchen. I needed some tea. While making tea I noticed that something was running down my face. I rubbed my cheeks and was astonished to see blood on my fingers. I ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I was weeping blood. But there was no pain. My eyes looked the same but this was obviously something serious. Maybe I had an internal injury or a tumour?? I was panicking.
There was something else. A part of my mind was impassively observing these things. That part of me was not alarmed but rather amused. I found a large towel and kept it pressed against my face. I needed to get to a hospital. On the way out I couldn’t help but glance at the TV. There were parallel red lines all over the screen now. For a moment I forgot my bloody eyes and I walked towards it. My fingers touched the red lines. It felt like I was touching something which had life. My vision became blurry and I lost consciousness.
.
When I came to I was in the bathroom removing my eyeballs with a screwdriver. I felt no pain but could hear inhuman screams escaping from my mouth. The impassive observer in my mind was devising things now. Even without eyes, I could see where everything was. After finishing I covered my empty eye sockets with the towel which soon turned crimson.
On the way outside I had no difficulty anywhere. Everything around me was white like the TV screen. But I could sense everything around me and navigate accordingly. There were others like me. I could sense it.
The folks whose eyes were not opened came for us. Their attacks did not affect us. They were so few in number and we are so many. Soon they were extinct.
Soon we all heard the call. Something was coming to free us.
I lied down and removed the towel covering my eyes. The sky was blood red. There were white lines in the red sky which appeared to be flowing. Slowly the whiteness engulfed the sky and we all were no more. We are the whiteness…
by submission | Jan 26, 2018 | Story |
Author: Mina
I don’t know how I came to be. I only know that I am the only one here now. Immortality is not all it’s cut out to be. Not when you are alone in the vastness of space and time. The others like me have chosen to travel beyond my reach – either by disappearing down a black hole to explore new universes or by choosing voluntary annihilation. We are so indestructible that we can only cease to exist if we are in the vicinity of an exploding star. I choose to stay here because I’ve literally seen it all before – why move on to new galaxies when it’s same old, same old? And I must admit I am afraid of non-existence, empty as this existence feels at times, especially since I lost Him.
When my “siblings” (this language leaves me no other way to describe them, even though we have no gender, not even a physical form) were in this galaxy, we played games. Quite childish games, really. We were young and enjoyed tricking little humans into thinking we were gods – they built intricate mythologies around us and called us names like Enki, Inanna, Anubis, Isis, Odin, Thor, Freyja, Zeus, and Poseidon. It didn’t matter how contrary or contradictory our behaviour was, they still burned sacrifices for us. I can’t say it bothered us much, the carnage carried out in our names.
But then, gradually, my siblings left and I found myself with just my thoughts. I’m not sure if it was boredom or frustration (can I even lay claim to those emotions?), but I decided to create a religion with one God (myself of course). It was a resounding success, even with all the tantrums and the smiting. I must admit I was feeling rather dissatisfied with it all after a while (how can it keep your interest when you always know how things will turn out?) when He came.
He changed me in ways I cannot describe. He was a mere puny mortal, but the first who could hear my voice. He would spend hours arguing against what He considered my crushing sense of superiority, my cruel indifference to the fate of what to me were transient ants. I cannot claim that I guided or influenced Him in any way. In fact, He would usually do the opposite of anything I suggested. He told me He loved me. As proof of that love, He said, He would change the religion I started as a game into a shining tribute to me. I’m not sure I understood the love He offered. All I know is that I did not stop His fellow ants from nailing Him to a cross, merely out of spite after one of our many disagreements. And then He was gone. And I knew desolation for the first time in my existence.
My tribute to Him is that I have done nothing to change what He created. Not even when it has been repeatedly and wilfully misunderstood by so many. It is all I have left of Him.
I still fear non-existence but I am considering it. There’s a nearby star set to go nova in the next millennium. I’m hoping that, by then, I will have found the courage to see if there is another existence beyond this one, in which I can find Him again.
I miss our talks.
by submission | Jan 25, 2018 | Story |
Author: David Henson
The table is still set, and one of the plates is untouched— baked cod, peas, potatoes. Cold. Ruined. I was so upset at work, I forgot to call and tell Helen I wouldn’t be home for dinner.
I hurry upstairs and find the bedroom door locked. “Helen, I’m sorry. Helen?” Shit. Looks like the couch. Again.
Next morning, the door is still locked. “Helen, don’t be mad…. OK, see you this evening. Love you.” I hesitate at the door a few seconds then leave for work.
***
I’d always enjoyed my job at SETI, had been totally dedicated to it. Too much so in hindsight. But lately it’s making me miserable. Since we’d developed a breakthrough signal processing algorithm based on quantum gravity waves, progress had accelerated exponentially. In fact, during the first 60 years, my predecessors searched a portion of the universe equal to a glass of water in the ocean. In the 10 years since, we’ve drunk the whole ocean. Now I think we’re about to make a huge mistake.
***
“I’ve taken what I need. I won’t be back.” I crumple the note and run upstairs. Helen’s side of the closet is practically empty. I go back downstairs and smooth out the paper on the kitchen counter and read it again. Simple and elegant, just as the universe prefers. Just as Occam’s Razor would — Simpson, you fool. I’ve just learned my wife’s gone, and my mind’s reflecting on scientific philosophy. No wonder she left me.
***
I don’t know how much I’ve had by the time I stagger outside. The sky is bursting at the seams with stars. Bursting at the seams. How’s that for technical accuracy? I lose my balance, fall flat on my back, and stare at the Big Dipper. “Fill’er up,” I laugh, stretching open my mouth.
***
I take a couple more aspirin and chug another bottle of water. “Sally, has management made a final decision?”
“Yes, Stan. Are you OK? That’s the third time you’ve asked me.”
“What about the ripple in the fractal pattern?”
“Mr. Quinnipen said, and I quote, ‘Tell Simpson that sometimes a fractal pattern ripple is just a fractal pattern ripple.’ Then he said something about a cigar and laughed. Seriously, boss, we’ve studied this to death.”
“So that’s it? We’re going to tell the world tomorrow that there’s no sign of intelligent life anywhere else in the universe? That we’re all alone and giving up the search? This isn’t helping my headache.”
“I’ve got my resume up to date,” Sally says.
***
People reacted more or less as we expected. Many rejected the findings. Some “rejoiced.” Most chattered about it a few days, then turned attention to the upcoming Global Trophy competition.
As for me, I’ve started my own small research group, and we’re studying the fractal pattern ripple in the data. I still don’t think the anomaly is natural, but we haven’t been able to prove it. Yet.
I’m also trying to adjust to coming home to an empty house. Well, not completely empty. I have a cat now. I take her out back with me on starry nights, always leaving the door open so I might hear in case Helen returns. Tabby sits on my lap, and I scratch behind her ear. It’s silly, I know, but I pretend she’s really an envoy from a planetary system that somehow has escaped our prying algorithms. When I ask about her home world, she looks right at me, and, sometimes, in the sparkle of her eyes, I swear I can see a galaxy, hidden and waiting.
by submission | Jan 24, 2018 | Story |
Author: A.K. Blake
“You can’t be serious.” The President squints, shielding his eyes.
“We find blunt assessments most expedient.” The agent from UPRA oozes twenty meters away, sunlight glancing off her transparent flesh in rainbow prisms that give all the humans headaches. She has a translator in one appendage, and the robotic voice comes out flat, almost bored.
“Well, what about the rest of us? You’re just going to take that purple frog thing—”
“Purple pig-nosed frog.”
“—and leave us here?”
“The solar flare is not due for another seven Earth years, during which all your species may apply for environmental refugee status. Though, as I’ve explained, they may not qualify. It’s really quite shocking how few unique life forms remain.”
“But…what about the pandas? Surely you don’t have any of those! And we’ve got some Komodo dragons left I think, big huge lizards. I’m sure you’d be interested!”
The agent sighs, the edges of her jelly orifices slapping together. “Unfortunately, variations of what you call a panda exist on approximately 1,735,196 planets. The Vice-Chancellor of Intergalactic Transportation himself is a species greatly resembling one of your black and white ursids. We were interested in your amphibian and reptile populations, but the last Komodo dragon expired before we arrived, and you failed to preserve any caecilians or even lampreys.”
One of the President’s assistants pulls up a picture of a hideous creature, an eel with a sucker and ring of teeth where its face should be. He yelps, knocking the phone away. “That’s what you want? You’re going to let us all die because we didn’t save that? It looks like a goddamned alie— ” The President stops, catching himself. He takes a breath, his voice beginning to tremble. “Look, there has to be something we can do. You didn’t give us any warning, how were we supposed to know we failed to meet emergency reservation status when we didn’t even know your organization existed?”
The agent makes a squelching sound that translates as a harumph. “We’re not responsible for your abysmal failure to keep your own planet clean. We tried, we’ve sent you messages for millennia!”
“A few crop circles and funny lights in the sky is hardly a legitimate attempt! That Janet woman you messaged thought you were a hoax!”
“Her MySpace profile said ‘Alien Ambassador’.”
“Look, we’re talking about the lives of 9.7 billion people. You can’t just leave us here to die because of some red tape when you could move the whole goddamn planet to safety at the push of a button! It’s unconscionable!” The President is red-faced above his collar. His voice cracks, jumping an octave. “How do you sleep at night?”
“See, that way of thinking is what’s gotten you into this mess!” The agent is riled too, tendrils of flesh coming off her body in silvery porcupine quills. Her voice thunders overs the translator. “There are 36.8 quintillion life forms on this planet, and it breaks all twelve of my hearts that they will die because of your species’ incredible hubris. That ‘push of a button,’ requires so much dark matter it can only be used once in a galactic decade, and it will certainly not be wasted here!”
The President is screaming incoherently now, spluttering curse words as several of his agents weep openly. The agent turns to go, trailing slime back to the ship. She looks back once, a sob escaping her glutinous body, like the sound of bubbles bursting. “I am sorry, but can’t you see there’s nothing I can do? You should have saved the lamprey!”
