by submission | Jun 10, 2017 | Story |
Author : David Henson
Ellen watches as the machine, bigger than Harold, starts vibrating, its red and blue lights blinking slowly. Gradually the vibration becomes a loud grinding sound and the lights a purple blur. When everything stops, Harold swings open the large door, reaches down and picks up two eggs from the floor of the device. “OK Honey, what’s next?”
Ellen looks back at the recipe book that she’s borrowed from the Library of Artifacts. “Two cups of sugar.”
Harold taps the keypad on the side of the replicator. After a few moments, he hands the sugar to Ellen. “I’m sure it’s not nearly as sweet as you.”
“Harold, you do say the nicest things. Next we need flour. Three cups.”
“Flour, you say?”
“That’s right.”
Harold grins at Ellen, then goes through the routine with the replicator. “Here you go.” He turns and hands her a long-stemmed rose.
Ellen feels her cheeks flush. “Harold, what’d I ever do to deserve you?” She chuckles to herself.
“I love how you’ve got your hair today. That swoop.”
“It’s the latest fashion on the Venus colonies.”
“Well, that’s perfect ’cause you’re my Aphrodite.”
“You’re going to turn my head, Harold. Now let’s have that flour, the powdered kind.”
Harold starts to turns back toward the replicator, then faces Ellen again. “Sweetie, I have a question. Why don’t we just replicate the whole cake at once?”
“I thought I’d try my hand at making it from scratch.”
“You’ll start going to the old-time markets next. Give up replicating altogether like the purists.”
Ellen shakes her head. “No, no, not me. I’d never want to give up my replicator.”
Ellen and Harold put the machine through its paces for the next half-hour or so. “That’s it?” Harold starts to hug Ellen.
“No. We’re missing the most important thing.”
“What’s that?”
“An oven to bake the cake in, silly goose.”
“Oven?” Harold turns to the keypad and scratches his head.
“O-v-e-n. The cake needs to bake for 30 minutes. Set the oven to expire. In an hour.”
***
“Absolutely delicious,” Harold says, patting his lips with a napkin. “Ellen my dear, you can add master chef to your long list of accomplishments.”
The oven begins to beep. As it does, it fades from view, then disappears.
After Harold cleans up, Ellen and he spend the rest of the evening listening to the Rings of Saturn Concerto and sharing a bottle of replicated merlot. Harold hangs on Ellen’s every word as she explains the finer points of how to appreciate classical music and a wine’s bouquet.
Ellen checks the time. “Well,” she says coyly. “I think I’ll go into the bedroom now.”
A big smile takes over Harold’s face. “Wonderful. Those are the words I’ve been … BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP.” Harold fades from view and disappears.
Ellen goes to the replicator and taps the keypad. After the machine stops groaning and flashing, she opens the door. A tall, rippling man with dark, wavy hair steps out and scoops her up in his arms. “Baby, you still got that Indian Kami Sooter book from the library of old stuff?”
Ellen puts her arms around Pete’s neck. “Oh yeah, Baby. We’re on page 41 tonight.” She closes her eyes and smiles. “Page 41.”
by submission | Jun 9, 2017 | Story |
Author : Jules Jensen
The world is dangerous.
“Yes, I know this.”
No, you don’t. People will kill you for water, for food, for anything you have that is even slightly better than what they have. They don’t care about your past, your present, your future. They don’t care about the things you’ve learned, the knowledge you’ve amassed, or the people and things counting on you.
“People are no more dangerous than the wild animals. You showed me how to survive against them.”
Animals kill to eat or protect themselves, nothing more. Humans can kill just for the sake of killing, or out of mere boredom. I did not spend twelve-point-five years taking care of you and teaching you just to have you meet your end the first time you encounter another person.
“So you’re saying you won’t let me go out and find another human? You know I can’t have only you as my companion for the rest of my life. I’m nearly an adult now. I want to start a family-”
This talk is nonsense. You want to go through the rigors of training an infant human how to survive? You know things are getting worse, right?
“I know, I know, you told me all about the lack of rainfall. Big deal. We live by the ocean.”
Which you can’t drink.
“What are you doing? Why are you looking at me like that?”
I am a robot. I have no ability to look at you in any way other than to observe.
“You’re doing that analyzing thing. Like when that dingo came too close to camp and it looked like it was sick.”
Correct. You’re recent attitude change has altered our survival rate.
“How?”
I am, as you say, a ‘robot’, and that means I can’t die of old age. I can’t forget the knowledge I’ve gained, or the skills I’ve learned. I am perfect. You are not. And yet, you talk about finding a potentially untrustworthy human here, one that might kill you and destroy me.
“No, no, don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to do anything to endanger you. Or myself! Come on, you’re the one that goes on about logic, why would I do anything to hurt us?”
My software has decided that I am worth more than you are.
“So I’ll just leave. J-just stay back. Don’t pick up the gun! I’ll go, and I’ll never come back!”
Doubtful. Humans, when in dire need of assistance, tend to go back to the places and beings they think may help them. I can’t risk you coming back here and bringing unwanted attention.
“No! L-leave me-”
Screaming is pointless. It will only draw attention.
by submission | Jun 8, 2017 | Story |
Author : Leanne A. Styles
The Guardian:
I watch with sadness as Anna tugs her brush through her damp hair, yanking unsympathetically when she hits a tangle.
She never used to be so angry and uncaring. She was fun and full of joy ‒ infectiously so. For twenty-five years I’ve had the pleasure of watching over and guiding her on her journey.
My first subject. My pride and joy.
I had so much planned for her. She was going to be somebody.
But as much as you nurture them and make contingencies to ensure their life goes as you designed it, it doesn’t always work out. Free will is essential for the game to be fair. And then there are the rogue guardians who thrive on causing mayhem ‒ or the plain careless. Anna’s spouse’s guardian had made many mistakes. Warning signs had been missed, lines crossed, and illness had set in.
When Daniel died, so did Anna’s faith in me. In her quietest moments, her dreams, I try to reach her, but she won’t hear me.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before the Architects marked her for deletion; paths cannot be deviated from this much without repercussions.
I follow her as she dresses, struggles through her breakfast and gathers her things for work, hoping that somehow, if I persevere, she’ll hear my pleas to wake up to the danger that awaits her.
I savour her every move as she walks out into the rain, down the path and through the gate, feeling her life rapidly slipping from me. By the time she reaches the end of her street, she’s just another number.
And I am just another guardian who failed their subject.
The Subject:
I barely feel the bristles of my brush as I rip it through my hair.
I used to care so much: about my appearance, my job at that pretentious ad agency ‒ about every stupid thing. I had such big plans. I was going to be somebody.
I am somebody. Somebody’s widow.
I feel that voice inside ‒ the one that was always there when I needed it, that spurred me on to becoming the woman I thought I wanted to be ‒ attempting to get through again, straining to be heard from the depths of my subconscious. But I drown it out with a tirade of abuse. It’s a liar. A fucking liar. Nothing is alright. And it never will be.
I dress, force down a piece of toast, and collect my things before heading out the door into the morning drizzle.
I walk down the path and through the rusty gate. As I reach the end of my street, an unimaginable sense of loneliness and fear hits me, and it takes all the strength I have to stay upright. I can feel the dread swelling in my chest, its toxic tendrils winding through my ribs and wrapping, constricting, around my ruined heart. The buildings on either side of me seem to rear up from their foundations. The rooftops stretch to meet in the middle; they’re closing out the sky, trapping me. The wind fires a round of icy rain that burns my face.
Terrified and blinded, I run, somewhere, anywhere.
I hear screeching of tires and the honking of a car horn. Daniel’s face appears, so clearly, in my mind, and I cry out for that little voice, begging it for help. But it doesn’t answer. And in the brief moments before the car hits me, I realise I’m just another person who failed at life.
Another person who failed that voice inside.
by submission | Jun 7, 2017 | Story |
Author : Philip Berry
Carl insisted that he travel alone. The invitation was sent to him, the wording made it clear that they were interested in his ideas, and the fact that he was only fifteen made no difference. His ideas were mature, that was all that mattered.
Standing on the mile long causeway, limitless blue sea to the left and the right, he looked up. The Lance’s summit was obscured by violet tendrils of ion clouds, an almost permanent meteorological feature at this latitude. In Carl’s opinion, and in the opinion of many others in the blogosphere, the pacific archipelago was a very strange place to build a mesospheric needle. But all agreed the ambition was laudable. Since its ascension, the Jekatek administration had followed through on its vow to advance interplanetary transportation and system-wide habitation. The Lance, albeit poorly functioning, was a symbol of its commitment to move out and find an alternative source of phosphorous before Earth’s supply was finally depleted.
Carl joined three other invitees on the sweeping steps; a bookish boy, a punk girl, and an intense-looking thirty-something with no hair. A woman in dark red uniform escorted the group to a bank of elevators in the tree-walled lobby.
“256th floor. You will receive instructions.”
They entered a circular hall where the air glittered with numerous, suspended screens onto which the designs and visions created by the people below were reproduced in real time. As they were signed off, these plans were rendered three dimensional by a projector under the ceiling’s hub. Here they rotated on all axes and were scrutinised by a long line of surveyors and advisors who stood on a raised ‘whispering’ gallery. Then the designs were either transferred into a visible ‘shortlist’, or collapsed to a point of light and erased.
This was the competition. To design habitats.
Carl saw clichéd wheels spinning in space, paired canisters tumbling on wires, interwoven spirals a hundred kilometres long, tetrahedral lattices of interconnected households, excavated moons, magnetic wells, towering castles of frozen methane…
He walked to a vacant workstation and sketched. Half an hour later he sat back, pressed ‘SUBMIT’ and saw his vision take shape and volume near the centre of the room. A surveyor was evidently giving it a thorough examination, as the virtual model was spun around several times. Briefly, an exterior part was removed and the inner parts revealed. Then the hologram moved sideways to join the shortlist. An assistant tapped his shoulder and led him to a smaller room where Carl joined a hundred others. The chief scientific advisor entered.
“You represent the best of us. All of your ideas could work. Soon, we will need one of them. But only one. And that is the problem. We must all agree, and we must channel our resources in one direction only. Dissent will lead to waste, time will be lost. Our society cannot entertain competing visions. You are the best, but you must stop. We have made our choice.”
Carl looked around him. On every face, in every eye, disappointment.
“By accepting today’s invitation you gave over ownership of your concepts to the Western Hemispheric Government. Additionally, your departure today is contingent upon signing an oath that you will cease creating visions of the future.”
Carl felt the creative spark die within him. The punk girl, standing to his right, said,
“Yeah, well I hope the one they’ve chosen isn’t the same joker who built the needle in the Goddamn ion strata!”
And of course, it was. The chief scientific advisor. Envisioner-in-chief.
Carl moved away from punk girl. He wanted no trouble.
by submission | Jun 6, 2017 | Story |
Author : David Atos
You look like a worm to me.
No, please, don’t be offended. That’s the best way I can describe it to you. To your poor mind, trapped only able to see three dimensions, while you zip along on a fourth. Four simple dimensions, it’s so limiting.
A worm. That’s what you look like. A pink, fleshy worm. The head of your worm emerges from your mother at the time of your birth, and it stretches along your entire life.
Your worm tangles with other worms along its length. Each time you meet another person, shake their hand, dance with them, you tie an intricate knot. Your lives are tied together at almost every point along your length.
But as interesting as you all are to watch, you’re so much fun to play with as well. Cut the worm, and you experience a complete blackout, only to wake up later. Twist the worm into a loop, and your delightful minds call that, what was it? Oh, yes, “deja vu.”
I tried rotating one of your worms once, but it wasn’t pretty. Have you ever seen a man eighty-seven years tall, with a lifespan of only twenty-three centimetres? That was a little disturbing even to me.
But you, I don’t need to play with you. You’re such an interesting worm, without any interference from me. So many tangles with other worms. So many convoluted knots. And look, just look, at that knot there. At your tail. You’re so close to it. And tied up with so many other worms. It’s just fascinating.
by Julian Miles | Jun 5, 2017 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Abomination!”
“You’re very rude.” I rotate my right forearm through a rapid one-eighty. There is a ‘snap’.
“And dead.”
Bamid rises from cover: “Weren’t you supposed to capture him?”
I smile: “He was a veteran of Tobruk. His feedback-scarred brain is mostly hardware and his memories are now read-only. Why interrogate when it’s easier to download?”
I draw steel and take Gdenski’s head off tidily, rather than continuing to twist.
“Take that back, will you? They’ll get excited and I’m not in the mood.”
Bamid nods, bags the tête, and leaves me in silence.
My counter reads 15942 – the number of days since I became immortal. I didn’t plan it, nor did I plan for it. When I took a missile point blank, the last of the organics in my torso went. If my bones hadn’t been cerasteel, I’d have been nothing but a smear on the wall. As I hadn’t read the appendices of my top-of-the-line medical insurance, it was a surprise to wake up ‘deathless’ – a hypercybered being.
Many aspects of the human brain remain a mystery. The pertinent one being that it cannot be naturally sustained without 18% of its body attached. While they try to understand why, anyone under that threshold – and with the insurance – gets their brain carefully placed in a gold mesh container and immersed in a conductive preservative gel. Sometimes the brain stabilises. Other times it rots. After twenty-nine days, a stabilised brain is placed back within the modified cybercranium of its owner and ‘rebooted’.
I woke up and nothing seemed different. Even now, every waking comes with the same feeling: invigorated after a long rest. Then my brain interfaces with my ROM and the truth arrives.
The last night I remember was the night before I got shot. Everything since is stored on secure RAM in my chest. Of course, it’s not everything: storage is finite.
My brain is, in effect, pickled. There is no plasticity to the contents. The ‘memories’ in my chest are simply recordings from my eyes and ears. There’s no instant recall: I have to ‘look up’ anything that occurred sooner than 43-odd years ago. The delay isn’t discernible to anyone, but I know. It’s like watching television inside my head and it’s too disturbing. So, apart from essential data, I keep nothing.
Thus, my contiguous waking hours are precious: thirty-seven hours is the limit. Every minute after risks a cyberpsychotic episode that will inevitably end in my permanent death.
I have amazing abilities. Superhuman, in many ways. I’m haven’t failed a mission in over forty years. I am the first of my profession to go this route, and I may well be the last. The camaraderie of warriors is cemented by facing death, not working alongside it. Thankfully, Bamid isn’t a fighter. He has some odd religious views regarding the nature of my existence, but they haven’t stopped him becoming my liaison with those who don’t want to face me. He also handles things when I’m not in the mood for dealing with people who breathe.
I relax by plumbing the depths of silence. It’s never total. There is always an ant stomping around nearby or a dragonfly flitting over the ponds that dot my untended rooftop garden.
I always thought dragonflies lived short lives. I identified with their thirty-six-hour span. Turns out that primeval trait actually belongs to mayflies.
But, I’m still fascinated by dragonflies. I see patterns and colours in their movements, hinting at something I cannot grasp. In my darker moments, I think it’s life: something familiar, but no longer mine.
