by submission | Jul 2, 2017 | Story |
Author : David Henson
Bridget goes to the DBG keyscreen in the kitchen, taps in a detailed proposal for Frank and her to host Clarise Jenkins and Tremont West for dinner, then hits SEND.
“Please specify reason for engagement” appears on screen.
Bridget rolls her eyes and keys in “Getting to know a new couple.”
“Proposed menu includes wine. Please specify.”
Bridget shakes her head. “Chardonnay.”
“Please specify dessert.”
Bridget taps “Vanilla ice cream!” backspaces over the “!” and hits SEND.
“Proposal approved pending acceptance of Merlot and cheesecake.”
Bridget swears under her breath. “Accepted.”
“The DBG hopes you have a pleasant evening.”
***
“House Helper,” Frank calls out, “wine service.” A small, tracked robot whirs into the dining room carrying a tray with four glasses of Merlot. Tremont takes a glass, pushes his nose into it and inhales. Seeing Frank is about to laugh, Bridget casually squeezes his earlobe. Frank cries out.
“You OK?” Clarise says.
“Yes, just a little cramp in my … ear. You folks have one of these House Helpers?”
“Actually,” Tremont says, “the DBG approved us for the new release. Legs instead of rollers. Very maneuverable.”
As they wait for House Helper to bring salads, Frank twirls his fork. Bridget squeezes his knee under the table. “Were you delayed at the checkpoints?” she says. “I hate those things.”
“The Greeting Stations? I don’t mind them.” Clarise sips her wine. “We’ve nothing to hide.”
“We can’t take our safety for granted anymore.” Tremont adds.
“We’re hoping to visit the lake next weekend,” Bridget says. “Honey, is our trip approved?”
“Not yet.”
“Patience,” Clarise says. “I’m sure the DBG’s Recreation Optimization Division is giving your proposal a fair review.”
“I don’t understand why –” Bridget says, then feels Frank squeeze her knee “House Helper’s taking so long.”
“Everything’s better now with the DBG,” Tremont says.
Frank squeezes Bridget’s knee again. “More wine? House Helper, more wine,” she says.
***
Bridget brushes her teeth. Frank inspects his thinning hair. Clattering sounds come from the kitchen as House Helper puts away the dishes. At midnight the DBG keyscreen in their bedroom beeps. Bridget puts in her code and leans in.
“Bridget Simmons confirmed in place,” a computerized voice says.
Frank also gets confirmed, then returns to the bathroom.
“Curfew in force. Stay in place next six hours by order of the DBG,” the voice says.
“House Helper, turn down,” Bridget calls out, then goes to the window. The night flares as bright beams rake the streets. A drone, red camera eye blinking, swoops to her window and swings side to side to peer into the bedroom. Bridget slides left and right blocking its view. The drone darts faster till Bridget finally screams and closes the curtains. A siren blares.
Frank runs out of the bathroom. “Bridget!” he says, dropping a tube of Magic Hair. He runs to the window and flings open the curtains.
“I couldn’t take it any longer.”
“It was our private rebellion when we withheld them during The Donation. We agreed we’d never close them.”
“I’m sorry.”
House Helper rolls into the bedroom and starts pulling down the covers.
A voice outside booms: “Violation of Regulation RD/22 — Prohibition of Window Coverings. The Department of Benevolent Guidance will now take appropriate action. Who’s responsible?” Frank raises his hand before Bridget can stop him.
The drone emits a series of tones. House Helper rotates toward Frank and radiates a bright red light. He disappears. Bridget screams. “The DBG hopes you have a pleasant evening,” the voice outside says, and the drone zips away. House Helper turns back to the bed and starts fluffing the pillows.
by submission | Jul 1, 2017 | Story |
Author : David Barber
“Yes,” answered Moreau. “A landmark legal verdict.”
Absently he trailed a fingertip between the vorpal racer’s eye-nacelles and down the streamlined wedge of her face. They had opened windows but the crowded room still sweltered beneath the lights. His touch might have been intended to calm her.
Networkers and mediafolk proffered their mikes and lenses, hoping for headlines, willing Moreau to outrage them.
“All winners make sacrifices,” he replied offhand to another question. In her case, gonads, gut and breasts. Also a much-reduced lifespan, but he did not say this. “The New Olympics insist competitors are human. Which is to say, at least the 98% we share with the DNA of apes.”
The vorpal shifted – they do not sit – easing her limbs into new postures of discomfort.
“An arbitrary limit, but otherwise where would be the skill, the art? Just geneered cheetahmorphs cruising at two hundred miles an hour.”
His questioner hesitated, not sure if she had a sound bite or not, and if she did, what it meant.
Moreau shrugged. “I understand you can still find the Old Olympics on some midnight channel. Feel free to watch them wallow in the pool or lumber down the track.”
His gaze returned to the teenage networker at the front, the one who challenged him earlier about his vorpals having no choice.
“I love to hear the media preach. A skin as pale as yours – there are viral fixes now, by the way – courts melanoma. Did your parents choose? My vorpals have discovered what they are. They live to run, since I bred them so – unlike the ancestors who fashioned you so carelessly.”
The vorpal trembled beneath his hand. They found it torture to be still.
“One final question.”
“No,” he snapped, before the reporter was finished. “Manimals were my grandfather’s work, his knife as crude as athletes training years to shave a second from their times. All that pain was pointless, based on an out-dated paradigm. You demand the fastest and the best, a race that vorpals won. Soon humankind will metastase into something new.”
More than one networker typed that, though none believed it.
“Why don’t you let the creature speak for itself?”
A lens or two turned at the shout from the back, but most lingered on Moreau, awaiting his reaction.
“She is not a creature. The Supreme Court ruled today that Atalanta here is human and has the same rights as you.”
“Because animals can’t speak!” More heads turned. The man shrugged off his jacket to reveal a t-shirt spelling out a warning from God.
“I protected Atalanta from the media because of her youth, but perhaps it is time she answered questions herself.”
There was a rustle of anticipation.
“She communicates via a keyboard, since vocal chords restrict the flow of air at speed.”
“So, Atlanta…”
“Her name is Atalanta. Read your Greek mythology.”
Chairs tumbled and there was a gasp of alarm as the protestor pushed his way to the front.
The vorpal sees it all, the spittle flying from the man’s mouth as he bawls his slogan, the gun he tugs from his pocket, and her hearts thunder.
She vaults over people posed like statues, through an open window, into blinding sunlight and much too late there is the rumble of a shot, and lethargic screams.
She accelerates smoothly across the grass, strides lengthening, until her feet barely seem to touch the ground. Father has promised her the freedom of a run. Her limbs pump faster and faster and ecstasy swells in her beyond any comprehension of the Slow.
by submission | Jun 30, 2017 | Story |
Author : Phil Rejmer
Humanity and its lost tribe met, finally, in between the stars. We faced each other, the representatives of each clan, standing in the metal halls of each others’ vessels.
It had been so long since humanity had abandoned Earth. Almost as long since the Schisms split our family in two. At the time, we had been glad to continue without them. But, after our wrath had bled into the darkness, we began looking for our brethren, once again.
We drained gas giants of their nectar, and bathed in the life of alien suns. We shattered frozen asteroids and farmed their dirty ice. But the last of humanity did not stop searching for our lost kin.
After years, the halls and galleries of our vessels lost their light, and so our gene-alchemists adjusted our bodies to survive the Dark. The Emptiness leaked into us and gnawed our thoughts, so our psycho-surgeons adjusted our minds to survive that as well.
And then, as if by chance, we stumbled upon our wayward siblings, following a herd of asteroids in the Emptiness between the stars.
We hailed each other. We boarded each others’ vessels. There was silence.
What else could there have been? They were so strange, so different from us. They had changed so much. We wanted to welcome them, but did not know how. There were no rituals to follow, no instinct to grant us wisdom.
Finally, they said, “We have been looking for you.”
What shock! To learn that they had been on the same quest as we!
Overjoyed, we told them that we too were looking for them. We said that they could rejoin us now, that they were no longer lost.
After some silence they said, “It is you who were lost. We have come to bring you back to us.”
What disrespect! What lunacy! For them to suggest that we had strayed! To be ungrateful of our outstretched hands! We could not ignore such a slight upon our pride. We went to war. What else could there have been? How could we not strike them when they were so blind?
Blood was thrown across the Emptiness. Riven vessels were sent careening into suns and dead planets. We hunted each other along the same paths we once had searched. We warred with guile honed by the Emptiness and with strength honed by the Dark.
In the end, after all the death, there was peace. But even so, after all that had passed, they never let us forget who had spoken first.
by submission | Jun 29, 2017 | Story |
Author : Jules Jensen
She needed a couple more voice samples. And then this would be the perfect catch, exactly what the buyer wanted.
She sidled up closer to him, and nodded to his wife as she browsed the wares for sale at the next booth in the bazaar.
“So, does your wife have an eating disorder?”
“No, she does not! What’s wrong with you?” He whispered back, just like she wanted, and he even did her the favour of offering up several inflections of horror and annoyance.
“You‘re just too cute.”
He blushed. Oh, that was gold. She sincerely hoped that she got that on her hidden camera. She winked at him and cheerfully bounced away. Just as she ducked into an alley, her phone rang and she answered.
“Christen, I need another identity before you come back.” The voice of her buyer barked over the phone.
“Another one? I just got the best hot-young-nerdy-male identity you could ever ask for.”
“Then get me the perfect one to go alongside it. Maybe an older woman, the cougar type.”
“Just what do you need these identities for?” Despite her hesitation, she was standing at the edge of the alley and already looking for the right kind of lady for the job.
“Foreign advertising, for those poor countries wracked by skin disease.”
“I’ll be done in an hour.” And with that, Christen dove back into the fray, stepping into the middle of the bazaar.
Not even an hour later, she had the perfect identity.
Back at her apartment, she uploaded the identities to her buyer’s server, and he gave her a code. She typed into her bank account, and watched the funds pour in. She decided tonight was worthy of being pizza night.
The next morning, she turned on the TV and snatched up a piece of cold pizza. She flopped onto the couch and watched the muted news while she ate.
The bite she just took fell out of her mouth. The reporter was talking on mute, but she could see that the man from yesterday was paused in a film where he was crawling all over a naked lady. Who happened to be the other identity she stole yesterday.
Christen scrambled for the remote to un-mute the reporter.
“-accusations are totally false, according to the man in the video. As the heir to a very successful hover-delivery company, this kind of behaviour is clearly inappropriate-”
Christen rapidly dialled her buyer‘s number.
“What? It’s too damn early.”
“The news!” She sputtered, nearly choking on a piece of pepperoni that was stuck to her tongue. “How’d this happen?”
“Oh come on, did you really buy that crap that those identities you steal are used for advertisements? I sell them to some skin-flick company-”
She hung up on him. She was horrified as she thought about all the people she scanned, what their identities were used for. She was never going to steal another identity again.
A knock at her door made her jolt. She reluctantly went to the door.
The moment she opened it, a man snapped a magnetic cuff onto her wrist. His black police uniform was unmistakable.
“Christen Dorden, you are under arrest for drug trafficking.”
“What? I have never-” She started to protest, but then she thought about her buyer. Who’d just told her the truth about what he does with stolen identities, when he had no reason to trust her.
And how many times has she walked into his computer shop, surrounded by all that recording equipment?
“That son of a-”
“Ma’am, I’d advise you to remain silent.”
by submission | Jun 28, 2017 | Story |
Author : Janie Brunson
“Welcome to the Talent Exchange Office. You must have a talent you would like to trade?”
“Yes.”
“What is it? Your talent?”
“I … I can write poetry. In two languages. Puedo escribir en inglés y español. Sorry, English and Spanish.”
“A poet! There’s a very high demand for a talent like that. Both musicians and politicians can always use that kind of gift with words. Right through here, please. Now Mr. …”
“Just Eddie.”
“Eddie, then. Lean back and try to relax. It only takes a moment, and it’s painless. Physically, that is.”
“Señora! What do you mean?”
“You’re trembling, Eddie. It will be more difficult if you’re nervous. Deep breaths. Now, why are you trading in this talent?”
“My fiancée. I want us to have the wedding she sees in her dreams, with a white-frosted cake and beautiful live music and everyone in our family there, even the ones de México who can’t pay to travel.”
“That sounds wonderful. I’m sure you’ll get enough money from this to make it happen.”
“The thing is, she doesn’t know I’m here. She said I didn’t have to do this but … do you think she’ll notice a difference?”
“I’m afraid so, Eddie. Your ability to communicate will be … not what it was. Don’t look so terrified. You’ll be fine. You just won’t be able to carry on with descriptions of things people see in their dreams like you just did.”
“But I …”
“Tell me, what do you do for a living?”
“I work in the fields. I pick strawberries.”
“I thought so. Those rough hands of yours. Does your poetry help at all with your work? It seems to me that it might even get in the way, be distracting.”
“No, but it’s …”
“I’m about to start the procedure now, so please don’t talk until it’s done. Close your eyes. You’ll just feel a touch on your temple … Anyway, your talent will be put to good use by someone else. It will be used to lead people, to inspire them with art, to spread messages. It was always such a shame that so many of those with power and resources lacked that final component: talent. With yours, someone will do great things. Now, open your eyes, Eddie. It’s done. Didn’t hurt at all, did it?”
“No.”
“How do you feel?”
“I feel … it’s different. I can’t say.”
“That’s normal. It will be a bit difficult to express yourself for a while. But you’ll get used to it.”
“Did … did you take all of it?”
“Yes. I’m afraid that’s the only way it works. I’m sorry. Take a moment. Here, dry your eyes. This emotional response is normal, too. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Gracias. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I’m skilled at comforting people. That talent wasn’t mine originally. Now let’s see about your compensation.”
“Señora?”
“Yes, Eddie?”
“If I can’t use words, how will I tell her that …”
“Don’t get frustrated; just say it as best you can, even if it doesn’t feel like enough. That’s what the rest of us do.”
“That I love her. How will I tell her that I love her?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll manage. You’ll be able to bring this money home to her. It will be a lot. You are—were—very talented indeed.”
by submission | Jun 27, 2017 | Story |
Author : David C. Nutt
Major Janus took one last look at the soldier’s file. Rank & Name: PFC Johnny Benton Ralston. DOB: 12 SEP 2134. HOR: Southington, CT. Psi Aptitude: Off the charts. The accompanying progress reports told a familiar story. Phase I & II of training showed top marks and strong progressions- clairvoyance, telepathy, psycho-cognizance. In fact, PFC Ralston was only the second candidate in the US Army’s PsiCorps 100 year history that exhibited indications of apportation- the ability to materialize, disappear, or teleport an object. They had so much hope for him. Then, the mid Phase III decline. Inability to control mastered areas, lack of concentration, regression to level I skill sets, and finally, failure in all areas. Janus shook her head. It was a sad but familiar tale. Only 6% made it to Phase IV and of those, very few had weapons grade skills as opposed to just reconnaissance and remote viewing.
There was a halfhearted knock on the door.
“Enter”
A baby faced young man stepped into her office. “PFC Ralston reporting as ordered.”
“At ease.” Janus motioned for him to sit. “Johnny do you know why you are here?”
There was a heavy sigh. “Yes Ma’am. I’m failing. I’m here for you to tell me I’m out of the program.”
Now it was Janus’ turn to sigh. “You are correct PFC. It’s my job to tell you the bad news.”
PFC Ralston swallowed and nodded. Major Janus could tell he was holding back tears. “I figured as much. I know it means not only am I out of the program, but out of the Army as well.”
Major Janus nodded. “You’re correct again Johnny. We’ve found that once a soldier is bounced from PsiCorps, they really can’t be returned to the greater Army. If your skill set hasn’t degraded entirely, then you could, willing or unwilling, unduly influence your peers and superiors. We can’t have a rogue psychic influencing command decisions and troop morale could we?”
PFC Ralston shook his head. “No Ma’am.”
There was an awkward silence. Major Janus stood up and PFC Ralston scrambled to his feet. “Well, PFC Ralston even though you are out of the Army you’ll find that the PsiCorps severance bonus is quite generous and you automatically get education benefits so college is tuition free.” Major Janus leaned over her desk and shook his hand. “Good luck son.”
“Thank you Ma’am.” Johnny came to the position of attention, snapped off a smart salute and left Major Janus’ office.
Back at his room Johnny waited for his ride to the train station. Johnny looked into the duffle and noticed there still was some room left. He looked at his watch. There was just enough time for one more go around. Johnny took a deep cleansing breath and exhaled. He cleared his mind as his instructors taught him to do. With great effort he dialed down all of his senses and focused on his target. Johnny felt his face get hot then sweat. He felt the familiar “elevator down” feeling deep in his gut that made him feel queasy, but in a familiar and good way. Johnny nodded. Success. With great effort he closed the full duffle and went to meet the cab.
“Jeezum Crow son!” The cabbie complained, “What do you got in that duffle, gold bricks?”
Johnny Smiled. “No bricks. Just three million dollars in hundred dollar bills, sir.”
The cabbie laughed and they both got in. Johnny made a mental note to give the cabbie a good tip. After all, with his PsiCorps benefits, he could afford it.
