by submission | Mar 10, 2017 | Story |
Author : Madison McSweeney
It was 9:30 AM on a Friday when the Martians landed on Dave McQuilty’s farm. The ship, which was more spherical than saucer-shaped, touched down in the midst of some cows. A long silver platform descended and a little grey man stepped out.
Dave waved. The little grey man made a strange hand gesture and said, “Take me to your leader.”
“What a marvellously egalitarian system the Martians must have!” Dave declared, as he set out to make the arrangements.
He started by calling the office of the Prime Minister, whose number was conveniently listed on the Parliamentary website, and requesting a meeting between himself, the Prime Minister, and a special foreign guest. A pleasant secretary told him that the Prime Minister was very busy, but should his schedule free up they would contact him.
Dave was not surprised by this. The Martian, however, did not understand. “How can this man be your leader if he refuses contact with his citizens?”
Dave shrugged. “I suppose, in a way, it increases his esteem. Perception of exclusivity and all that.”
Dave’s second step was to contact the Government House Leader, who, he figured, had an impressive enough title for the Martian’s purposes. The House Leader, however, was also very busy that day. Dave then tried to call his local Member of Parliament, the provincial Premier, his local Member of Provincial Parliament, and the Mayor. No luck.
He decided that the best he could do was take the Martian on a nice tour of Parliament Hill. So he and the Martian drove an hour to Ottawa and parked in an underground lot. Reading the list of hourly rates, Dave hoped the tour would be quick.
To partake in a public tour of Parliament, visitors must wait in line at a Service Canada building across the street from the Hill. It being a Friday, the building was packed with other tourists waiting for the same thing. Dave and the Martian settled into the back of the line.
After waiting forty-five minutes, Dave reconciled himself to the fact that they would not be getting a tour of the Hill any time soon. He pulled the Martian out of the line and the two walked back to the lot, where Dave paid his $30 parking fee and wondered why the alien could not have landed on the Hill itself and saved them both a lot of trouble.
“So, to summarize,” the Martian said, adjusting his seatbelt, “I travelled fifty-four-point-six million kilometers from the planet Mars on a diplomatic mission to make contact with the Leaders of Earth, and I cannot meet your Prime Minister, your Government House Leader, your Member of Parliament, your Premier, your Member of Provincial Parliament, or your Mayor. I cannot even set foot in your Parliament Building.”
“Listen here,” Dave snapped. “If you wanted any of these meetings you should have called ahead. It’s a Friday, for Pete’s sake. I’m doing the best I can.”
His options exhausted, Dave took the Martian to the Canadian War Museum. The Martian interpreted this as an aggressive act, and an invasion was launched.
by submission | Mar 9, 2017 | Story |
Author : Trevor Doyle
Sex droids don’t do it for me, but I’ve never had a problem with clones.
My most recent Romeo, for instance. The last time I saw him, he was standing on my gold plated balcony, his back to the city that worships at my feet. He looked like a pop star in the clothes that I’d dressed him in.
It’s a thorny problem, of course, getting them to forget everything I’ve done for them without making them tame. The first one forgot too much; the second one, not enough. This one had found his footing somehow on his own.
Memory implants and hypnosis can only do so much, after all. Put a shirt on your clone’s back, and he resents it; teach him to be civil, and he becomes soft, a sorry putty you abhor. I’ve learned the hard way that virility and duplicity are inextricably linked; the noblest man alive will spin incredible yarns in obedience to his first master, that metamorphic creature that he keeps hidden in his pants.
This one was different though. His desire to please was genuine; he was gracious but never fawning, capable of maintaining his self-respect even though he had no place in the world aside from the one I’d made for him. And yet he wasn’t docile or subservient; he could be unpredictable, which I liked, and he was forceful when my mood called for it.
Only last week, the psychiatrists who’d supervised his training and conditioning told me that he’d passed his total personality test. We’d succeeded where others had failed, which meant that we had the complete package, a clone who would be the perfect companion for any woman who could afford him. They showed me the numbers, the graphs that always bore me, and assured me that I was going to be a thousand times wealthier than I already am. But I wasn’t convinced, not entirely. There was one more test he had to pass.
Because it isn’t enough for a man (or a clone) to say that he loves you, is it? This is a fundamental truth, and that’s why I had to ask that all important question while he was standing there on my balcony with the wind roiling his perfect hair.
“So you love me. What would you do to prove it?”
He nodded to show that he understood, and then he turned around. He swung one meaty thigh over the railing, then the other, and he looked at me one last time.
“This,” he said.
And he jumped.
I had to smile. I couldn’t help myself, because it was the ultimate answer, the only answer that could expel my final doubts.
So he was perfect, a little too perfect. But I’ve learned my lesson; true love is overrated anyway.
We’ll do better with Romeo-4.
by Julian Miles | Mar 8, 2017 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
It’s another tediously quiet evening in Watchpost 113 at the western edge of the Sonoran Borderlands. Fred is making waffles while Adey idly flicks through the long-distance views. Fred glances round as Adey jerks upright in his chair, paging back to the previous view.
“What is that?” Adey points at the screen.
Fred sighs, moves the waffle pan to the cool plate and steps across to peer over Adey’s shoulder.
“Extreme buggy race. Looks like they’re really goin’ for it.”
Adey shakes his head: “Seen that before. This is one rooster-tail, straight for three miles, headed for Bessamy Ridge.”
“The Ridge just been finished. Thirty-foot high ‘impregnamesh’ topped with sprung razor wire, set on damn great H-beams backed by buttresses that are bedded fifteen feet back from the line. Whatever that is, it’ll turn off. But I still say it’s some desert dragster.”
Fred goes back to the waffles. Adey watches the rooster-tail of dust approach. As it gets nearer, he can see just how big it is.
“Freddy, don’t think this is a dragster.”
With a loud sigh, Fred puts the pan back onto the cool plate and rejoins Adey.
Squinting at the screen, his eyes widen.
“Damn me, that tail’s gotta be over a hunnerd feet high! Ade, git some infrared on this.”
The screen switches to show an ambient temperature nightscape, except for the blazing heat at the front of the approaching dust storm. Fred puzzles over the heated upper section of the dust cloud before noticing that the rooster-tail is hiding several hot objects.
“Ade, get Phoenix on the line. This ain’t no dragster.”
Adey presses the button. The screech and hiss of active jamming fills the room.
“Freddy?”
“Run!”
Adey beats Fred to the door. He grabs the handle and the booby trap delivers a jolt that lifts him from his feet and stops his heart. He drops with a grunt. Fred screams and dives under the nearest table.
The intruder removes his trap. As he exits the building, there’s a distant rumble of impact. With a smile that flashes white teeth against the camouflage paste covering his face, he sprints to his trials bike and is gone into the desert, his countermeasures drone wheeling above.
At the heart of that rumble, a 60-ton monster hybrid of snowplough and armoured loco hit the border wall at eighty miles-an-hour. The prow drove through, its flared trailing edges flinging the debris away and widening the gap.
Behind the colossal ram comes a pack of vehicles that trace their ancestry back to moonshine runners. They spray grit and flame as tuned power plants accelerate four- and six-wheel-drives. As they clear the dust cloud, countermeasures drones rise above each vehicle. Each pair heads for a destination known only to the driver. Rotors whine, countermeasures hum, off-road suspensions flex, and absorptive paint reflects nothing as they disappear into the night.
In a cloud of smoke and steam, the ram turns and rockets back across the border, off to disappear into its underground shed before the inevitable rabid response occurs.
Along the great wall, this scene is repeated over a dozen times. By dawn, enforcement efforts at many of the breaches are being hindered by the hundreds of people streaming through the gaps – going in both directions.
by submission | Mar 7, 2017 | Story |
Author : M. Irene Hill
Today’s sunrise is a Chinese watercolor painting, with inky tree branches in the foreground of an ombre sky. Below a band of monochrome cloud, a thin line of cinnabar melts into pink chrysanthemum in rhythmic balance. I imagine that a bird’s eye view would bring harmony to the richness and texture of the landscape. On cue, a profusion of chickadees bursting from their nests can be heard as they cheer on the sun god.
Lacking feather and flight, I can only revere this daily miracle from the comfort of my favorite window seat. My roots have grown deep into the earth since the last time I punched through Earth’s exosphere. People had once called me Space Cowgirl. Now they just call me Marie – or Mommy.
I had played my role in shattering the metaphorical glass ceiling. The number of female space travelers has quadrupled since Cosmonaut Valentina did her first spacewalk so many moons ago. At age 39, I decided it was time to hang up my spacesuit and step aside to make room for my sister space walkers. Space had been like a cornucopia of my wildest dreams. I greedily plucked each asteroid harvesting mission offered to me, but then one day I realized I’d had my fill.
Seeing the orbital sunrise on Earth from a vantage point in space is truly breathtaking, but my perspective is now limited by earthly matters of hearth and home. There is always that transient desire to uproot and set sail on a sea of stars, and I’m not sure it will ever fade completely. But for these briefest moments while my children are soundly sleeping and my mouth is filled with the rich taste of coffee, when the sun god awakens from his slumber and stretches, I am content on this blue planet.
Sun god kisses my lips good morning; his kiss is a song written indelibly upon my heart. I taste its essence, and breathe its color. Its warmth seeds my soul. I am a poet, a painter, a philosopher, a star walker, and a mother – or as Carl Sagan would say, I am star stuff harvesting starlight.
I hear the faintest stirrings of my little star mites. Sigh. I check my solar panel battery indicators on the inside of my wrist: four bars. I stretch my eyelids open wider to harvest more starlight. Five bars – Houston, we are go for launch.
“Who wants blueberry pancakes for breakfast?”
by submission | Mar 6, 2017 | Story |
Author : Russell Bert Waters
The moon stares down as I stand on the beach next to what once was the ocean.
Powerless to control the tide, or anything at all, the moon seems sad.
This is conjecture on my part.
The moon hasn’t said anything lately, so for all I know it is full of glee and merriment.
Earlier, after the dehydration and lack of sleep began really playing their tricks, the moon had said plenty.
It wanted to know if it would ever regain its purpose.
I told it, in a cracked and hoarse voice, I didn’t know.
No one knew.
It seemed satisfied by the answer, as though it had known all along what the answer would be.
My nickname in the Army had been “Camel” because I was able to last the longest without worrying about taking a drink from my canteen.
I could hike, march, or run, for miles without worrying about hydration.
Some people are just wired that way, I guess.
But I am worried now, I assure you.
The moon turns its back on me and lets out an audible sigh.
It hasn’t been many days since the water inexplicably began disappearing.
Geologists were concerned it had somehow begun draining into the Earth, but drilling projects and advanced scanning equipment kept turning up nothing.
Bottled water sat on shelves, empty.
Their containers took on a “sunk in” look, as though the water had been sucked out of them.
Lakes, ponds, rivers, oceans, seas, wells, aquifers, all had begun to dry.
The humidity in the air was reduced to less than zero.
People began dropping like flies.
They’d have headaches, delusions, seizures, and one by one they would collapse.
As far as I know I’m the last person alive on Earth, or maybe there are a few more like me out there.
I guarantee none of us are in good shape.
I keep seeing things dancing, just out of sight.
My head hurts.
My mouth and throat are painfully dry and cracked.
My throat feels like a collapsing straw.
The moon looks down on me again, asks me if things will ever be the same.
Asks me if it’s going to be all alone soon.
Asks me if children will ever again watch it follow them in the night sky.
The moon is a bit choked up, as it asks its final question of me.
It wants to know if there will ever be another tide.
“I don’t know” I croak, “I don’t know.”
My first celestial friend seems smaller for the moment, as it continues its dance in the sky.
Before me lies miles of sand, littered with dead starfish, lost tourist sunglasses, the occasional instant camera. All the treasures one could ever want glimmer before me in the vast expanse that was the Pacific.
I would trade it all for one sip of fresh, cold, water.
I walk forward, daring to venture where riptides once ruled.
My final hike is to be one that no one has ventured before; at least not without proper SCUBA or snorkel gear.
“May I have this dance?” I manage to painfully ask.
The moon is game.
It dances in the sky, as I weakly dance on the sandy terrain, kicking the occasional shell, stumbling over driftwood.
I will drop soon, I know that.
But, for now, I will entertain my lonely friend.
For now, we will dance.
by submission | Mar 5, 2017 | Story |
Author : Dylan Otto Krider
Talmey is not a pervert, just very lonely. He tried to get dates, really he did. With the computer business, he didn’t have time. Plus, he was shy and — he could admit this – ugly. But a guy has certain needs; for sex, yes, of course, but female companionship above all.
He tried ordering one of those latex dolls, which were cold and inanimate. Then he tried VR, but had to strap on a vibrator, which buzzed and wasn’t the way he imagined it.
Then he came across this ad for something called Meat Market. They advertised “living flesh,” which grossed him out at first until they explained it: it was a human clone, essentially, minus the brain. Well, a tiny brain, a reptilian brain, so it was like owning a pet, So, there was nothing unethical about it.
When it arrived, it was fine to have sex with, but he was a romantic. He wanted something to love him, and which he could love back. This… this was… well, it didn’t even seem to be there, really, mentally. All it wanted was to sleep and eat. It wasn’t potty trained either, so you had to change adult diapers, which was gross and not at all what he paid for.
He tried to return it, but the operator told him there was a new, smarter model coming out, one smart enough to flush the toilet. One bred to adore you, the way dogs were bred. Dogs wanted to be with you. Nothing cruel about it.
When she arrived, she loved him almost immediately. She followed him around the house, and was always underfoot. She wanted attention constantly.
He returned her almost immediately.
He guessed he was a feminist. He didn’t want someone just to have sex with. He wanted more than that. He wanted someone to talk with, share his dreams and fears, discuss movies. His equal. Who would go out with him. His equal who would go out with him. That’s what he really wanted.
So, he tried a sort of mail order bride service, which wasn’t really a mail order bride service, but sort of was. They found you a woman from a third world country who was willing to overlook his ugliness for citizenship. They sent him a woman from someplace with arranged marriages, so it wasn’t weird at all. She was great at first, but eventually stopped having sex with him, and nagged him all the time, and once she got citizenship, she ran off with his brother.
He forswore all women after that. Some people aren’t meant to couple. But Meat Market kept calling, trying to get back his business.
“We have a premier sentient model coming out; one who is bred to want to be there, but can leave at any time,” the salesman said, “but won’t.”
They talked him into one last try.
She arrived at his apartment under her own recognizance. She smiled at him. It didn’t even seem to matter that he was ugly. She did all the talking at first, to draw him out.
They had the best conversations after that. They had arguments, too, sure, but she never got mad, and when they came to an impasse, would defer. She didn’t nag. She wanted to make love, and loved him, but not in a needy way. When he came home, she ran up and kissed him and would say, “I have been thinking about you all day.” She wanted to be there, and was his equal as she was engineered to be.
And she was all his.
