by submission | Apr 29, 2017 | Story |
Author : Russell Bert Waters
Kyle staggered a bit, the bank line in front of him morphed into a field, then a grassy patch of hill, then back to the line.
The man ahead of him shot him a suspicious glance, then looked back ahead as though no one existed.
Kyle’s transaction went well, and he was on his way across the wood, then marble, then bare dirt, floor of the bank.
He held the door for a lady who became an angry black man then the lady again.
Next would be the hardest part, as the sun became moon, then sun, then white-out blizzard, then sun again.
He had teleported so many times, once he had perfected the ability, his mind would never quite be the same.
You can only mess with your surroundings so much, it seems.
He hailed a cab, bus, weird little radio-controlled train, cab, and got into the leather, vinyl, crushed velvet seat in the back.
The driver asked him where to, and he just said “home”.
This wasn’t the answer the driver wanted, but he started driving down the road, wooden bridge, patch of desert, anyway.
In his line of work he knew his passenger would eventually come to his or her senses and be more specific; if not, well, the fare would just keep on creeping up.
Kyle did come to, as he sat in the VIP lounge couch, bar stool, park bench, back seat, and looked out the window at all of the ever-shifting scenery.
“Four four five Park street, driver. I’m sorry. Not myself today.”
The Armenian man turned into a mid-thirties white midget and said “not a problem, we’ve all been there” and then he turned into a bearded Amish-looking fellow as he navigated the roads before him effortlessly.
It didn’t start out like this, but it sure hadn’t taken long to progress to this point.
The worst aspect was probably the random nosebleeds, those could be embarrassing and hard to explain to the random stranger, whose shoes you’ve just dripped on, in an elevator.
When he made it home he thanked the driver, who now appeared to be an elderly Jewish man with eyeglasses.
The doorman at his apartment building was always glad to see him, as the door behind him shifted, and he changed repeatedly, he mentioned that Kyle had a visitor while he was out.
Kyle didn’t bother to ask for a description, because if he saw the person, they would likely not appear the same for more than a second or two anyway.
He collapsed onto his couch, pile of discarded tires, abandoned piece of plywood, and began to channel surf on his TV.
He wasn’t really paying attention, because, as with every other aspect of his life, Mr. Clean just became Jamie Lee Curtis, and it was just all getting so very disquieting.
There was a specialist in Minnesota he could see, who could maybe help him somehow, but he was increasingly afraid to teleport anywhere again.
“Maybe I’ll go tomorrow” he said to himself, as he stared at the wall, mountains, sparkling field of snow, behind the TV screen.
He lay his head down and decided he’d take a nap and dream of things that become other things, while longing for the day something inside his head would finally pop and end all of this. “I will go tomorrow” he mumbled, as his world went black.
by submission | Apr 28, 2017 | Story |
Author : Henry Peter Gribbin
In the far corner of a basement laundry room of an apartment building a portal to another dimension was located. One of the tenants, a young redhead with bright green eyes by the name of Maureen, had a strong feeling that something wasn’t quite right about this room every time she did a load of wash. One day she found what she was looking for. In the corner of her eye she saw a flicker of movement. She went over to the corner and behind the water heater she stuck her hand out. It disappeared. She could still feel it so she stuck her shoulder and eventually her whole body through. She appeared on the other side, but the other side of what? Everything felt the same but everything felt different. She went upstairs and went outside. It was her building and her street, but then again it wasn’t. The street she had known for years was a bustling avenue full of cars and trucks. This street was bustling with bicyclists and pedestrians. She decided to take a walk. The air smelled fresh and clean. Fast food establishments and taverns were replaced by bookstores and vegan restaurants.
Maureen discovered she was very thirsty. She found a corner store which she entered. She could find no soda or for that matter no cigarettes, candy bars, potato chips or any form of fast food one was used to seeing in a corner store. She did find a glass bottle of cold water, but when to tried to purchase it the sales clerk returned her money. “No funny money here, Miss,” he said. The bill felt right but the face wasn’t right. He could see she was perplexed, so since the store was empty at the time he has a chat with the young woman. His name was Eric, and he was not just the clerk but the owner.
To make a long story short Eric and Maureen went into business together. After appearing in her world how could he not believe her story. They made a bundle together. While people in his world were generally healthy and ate all the right foods, when they had the chance to smoke cigarettes or gorge themselves on chips and cookies they jumped at the chance. Three times a week Maureen would slip back to the other side and return with goodies. They sold at Eric’s store at a very steep price. Since she couldn’t spend the money she earned in her old world she made her home in Eric’s.
Maureen quickly made the transition to her new world. A big corporation made a deal with her and Eric. They were going to mass produce the items that Maureen was bringing over from the other side. Unfortunately for Maureen, the portal closed while she was on her way back with one last haul. But don’t fret for Maureen. She is a very resourceful young woman and one day she may find another portal. Let’s hope it is to the same dimension.
by submission | Apr 27, 2017 | Story |
Author : Craig Finlay
It seemed fine, to place it there. You were on the weekly trip to the greenhouse with Mom and Dad and Stella holding your hand the whole way as you skipped 10 meters at a time through the light gravity of the inner ring. It was warmer there, drawing heat from the power core. Perfect for plants and the misting sprays hung so long in the light gravity you didn’t need to pretend like you’d ever seen a cloud.
The odd way things impose when you’re too damn small to use the world correctly. Not just the adults and the air you could see but the banks of ferns and the ever-novel soil that held them. You’d taste it, quickly. And every time knew you missed it somehow, despite never having had it, never having walked on Earth.
And really, that was it. The knowing of it all. What Stella told you. That we’d never leave the ship. That we were born to fly the ship and we would die, too. We’d teach our children the ways and workings. Let them fly into the orbit of some other sun. Your parents were so angry when you asked them about death and children and Stella promised to never ever tell you a secret again you little twerp.
So it seemed fine, you found a tree frog in the greenhouse that clung to the underside of hemp tree leaf. There were very few but you found one. Low, where you could see just fine. Uncle Mack said you could be a Southerner, not a Yankee yet. As if such had meaning still.
And it clung to glass when you placed it there. And to your hand when they told you to put it back, clung green and still. You managed it into your hands. It seemed fine that you squeezed tighter and tried one great leap to get out but your hands closed too quickly. And fine too when you returned it limp to the leaves.
Stella was right and she had a way of saying something that was self-evidently true and somehow make it seem profound. But you had nothing to say to Mom and Dad and Uncle Mack when they asked you again and again about the frog and why you squeezed it until it went limp and laid it back on the leaf. Staring then, just staring and not saying anything, at the same knot of grain on the tabletop Mom’s heirloom, real wood. Staring and hoping you could bore into the rings of the knot and make a whole big enough to climb in, just you and a frog that still breathes and clings, and finally make an escape.
They didn’t ask me, of course – how could they? But everyone finds themselves in odd atmospheres now and then, something that felt fine. There’s no damn reason for it, no greater take.
Not when you’re six.
Six is such a goddamned mystery.
by submission | Apr 26, 2017 | Story |
Author : Josh Thompson
A planet full of gods is not a nice place. Ancient humans knew this and their legends were full of betrayal and conflict and suffering. If anything, the inhuman powers of the gods brought out what was most human in them. That was the ultimate lesson of those tales, but humanity forgot, as ages passed and gods changed. As civilizations rose and fell, perhaps they became uncomfortable telling the stories of powerful and violent deities because they were slowly becoming what they had told of.
Alberta woke up.
She still needed to sleep. She wondered if that made her at least a little human. She wondered what being human even meant. She looked human. Her thoughts were human. She didn’t feel human. It had been a long time since that.
She stretched her arm forward. Its brilliant, stark outline extended in contrast to the endless ocean that engulfed her. The pure ceramic white of the layer shielding her fragile body from that emptiness shone brightly. She watched it contort and flex. It was not a suit of armour; it was an extension of herself. In the depths of space, it was her.
She uncurled her legs and looked downwards towards herself. Her body was shiny and perfect and the same as it had always been. She looked to her left, then rotated until what had been her left was above her head. There was a cloud of hydrogen a few thousand kilometers away. In a white hot veil of fusion and energy, she was there. She barely noticed traveling there. Her arm still extended in front of her, she watched the gas swirl around it. Maybe this fog would one day make a star. She pulled a swathe of the cloud into an infinitesimal glow in the palm of her hand. She couldn’t be human, she thought, as the tiny ball of light dimmed and shaped itself into a bowl of cereal. Humans could never do this. Was she a god, she pondered, as she turned the hydrogen around her into breathable air in a fiery outpouring of radiation and heat? Her undented, blank white mask disappeared around her mouth, and she raised a spoonful of cereal to her lips. She still ate cereal every time she woke up. She had never heard of any gods that did that.
She wondered if she would ever get bored of her cereal. She doubted that. She’d had a long, long time to get bored of things, but she’d never failed to do this one thing. She didn’t need to eat anymore, but it was some measure of normalcy. Very long ago she’d instructed the artificial intelligence augmenting her own to remove the number of bowls of cereal she’d eaten from its array of tracked data. Even though it was the only constant ritual left in her life, knowing just how many times she’d done it was depressing.
She still had emotions, though she probably had a slightly different perspective than most humans had, she mused. The gods of human legends had been jealous, and proud, and vengeful. She wondered if the absence of other humans caused the absence of those feelings in her, or if the absence of those feelings was in fact the absence of her humanity. Those gods had also been loving, and righteous, and generous. She was none of those things. She wondered if humanity’s legends would have been different if those peoples had known what it was like to experience godhood, but then she caught herself. She knew far better than that.
by submission | Apr 25, 2017 | Story |
Author : M. Irene Hill
A whisking wind stirred up a cauldron of crows that congregated amongst the remains of the centuries-old pagan temple. Accompanying the wind, a young woman of tempestuous temperament and flaming hair.
Unconcerned by the rumbling heavens, Akasha knelt down in the tall grass that sheltered the ruins. A rounded stone fragment, once part of the temple’s altar, invited her near. A cacophany of caws from the trees did not deter her. The wind whipped her long hair and pried at the ribbons of her bodice, but she was oblivious to everything but the ruins.
She traced the stone’s mosaic patterns with tactile reverence. Along its jagged edge, inscribed symbols of an eagle and a lightning bolt beckoned her soft touch, eliciting a resonant hum and crackling sound through the valley, and sent a frisson of excitement through her; the subtle change in the aether invoked a primal feeling that she didn’t understand, didn’t care to, but instinctively yielded to. Earth tremored in response to the exploratory touch of her fingers against the rough stone; its vibration penetrated deep into her marrow.
Akasha’s sonorous voice rang out, the mystical song carried by the wind, inciting more clamorous cawing from the crows that now assembled near the edge of the ruins. She stood amongst the stones, face turned into the wind, singing her siren song.
The crackling and humming sounds were almost palpable. A frenzied wind ravaged the treetops, scattering leaves, branches and startled fauna. Rumbling heavens reached their crescendo and, rather than cower or cringe, Akasha stretched her arms upward, like a small child wishing to be swept up in an embrace.
The frothy clouds boiled over, and the rain fell in a deafening roar, drowning out the crow’s cries. Akasha’s gown and long hair were wet and plastered to her willowy body. She stood stoically, a trembling, wet offering to the gods.
The murder of crows watched in silence now, from the safety of the hilltop cairns, while a colossal spacecraft fissured the sky and descended into the valley.
To the crows, the spacecraft looked like a fluid, rippling bird of prey, its shimmering exotic wings outstretched. It exhaled lightening bolts, and deep rumbles issued from its belly. Elder crows that had seen the giant bird before, long ago, feared its return, but respected its impressive might. It always took the females. They eventually were returned, similar but different.
The hovering craft captured its prey, shocking her into paralysis before carrying her away to its nest in some faraway Galaxy.
When the clouds retreated and the Earth’s tremors subsided, it was deemed safe to return. The murder of crows reconvened at the temple ruins. The tall grass was parched and brittle around the mounds of stones. Foreign smells lingered. Only a green ribbon from Akasha’s gown remained.
The youngest crows tried to make sense of it all. Others blamed themselves for not stopping the abduction. The elders reminded them it was not their place to understand or interfere. Their role was to bear witness. That was all.
The eldest crow grasped Akasha’s lost ribbon in his beak, and flew home to his nest. He added the ribbon to his growing macabre collection, which included myriad items like bones, teeth, scraps of fabric and metal, gadgets and gizmos, dried flora, shiny coins, totems and talismans.
His role as curator of alien artifacts would be passed on to the next generation soon enough, likely before Akasha returned to the temple.
by Julian Miles | Apr 24, 2017 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The Amour Club is light on love and heavy on by-the-minute. It’s popular with non-johns as the full-time privacy mode prevents surveillance and squashes infobuzz down to a whisper of priority feeds.
I usually enjoy being anywhere that quietens my ConstantTouch and serves JD in liquid form. But the Amour’s regulars are lowlifes who’ll never make it, because talk is cheaper than decisions and appearances are cheaper than experience. Tonight, however, I’m being paid to put up with them for a while.
“Lincoln Shields, as I live and breathe. Who cracked your rock and drove you into the light?”
The comedian on my left is Vinny Roe. The cybernasty on my right is Vinny’s latest goon, Clem. No surname on record. No specialities, either; he’ll do anything that pays him to hurt people.
Vinny waves at the ancient robot bartender – this place is so cheap it won’t even hire an android.
“Get Mister Shields another of whatever mouthwash he’s having. I’ll have Venusian Absinthe.”
Making a production of getting a RealTaste Winston out, I pocket the pack, then pause with a bulky lighter in my hand: “Why the generosity, Vin?”
I see him wince. He hates being called that. I hear Clem’s Gaffin Bodyframe power up. Time to offline my cyberware.
“Can’t a condottierre buy an old comrade a drink without implying ulterior motive?”
He’s been at the thesaurus datachips again. Just what I need when the world has turned dull and my body weighs a ton. I hate being offline.
“We’re not comrades and you never led. If you didn’t keep avoiding me on the streets, we’d have fought and I’d be drinking alone.”
Vinny stiffens. The locale goes quiet. Different jungle; same danger signs.
A skeletal hand wrapped in Gaffin exoskeleton alights on my shoulder like a twenty-kilo parrot. I hear my tendon reinforcements squeak.
“Mister Roe don’t like your tone, Lincoln.”
“Mister Del Crista didn’t like what you did to his daughter, Clem.”
I see Vinny’s eyes go round, which tells me Clem’s making a move. I squeeze the very special lighter and it compresses with a ‘click’. I feel the EMP gallop up my arm and wallop my inactive headware. My vision goes squiffy and my guts flip-flop. I wouldn’t want to have active cyberware right now. Or be bonded into a street-spec exoskeleton – something like a Gaffin Bodyframe.
Clem squeals, gargles, and oily vomit spatters my shoulders.
As the semi-synthetic mess runs down the back of my duster, I turn to look a dying murderer in his one natural eye.
“You went too far with bodmods, yet still expected women to swoon over your implanted macho bollox? That would be sad, except for your problem with rejection. You had yourself hardwired for violence. Did you really think your cyberpsychosis wouldn’t get bloodily creative when a pretty girl slapped you? Or didn’t you care?”
No answer: I’m ranting at a corpse.
Bringing my wares back online, I turn back to see Vinny draped across the bar like a cheap overcoat. A quick status check via his medihost confirms that his half-cybered ticker wasn’t EMP-hardened like all the legal ones are.
I slide him off the bar, then reach over and take the bottle of JD from the EMP-fried bartender’s grip. Pouring a shot, I turn to eyeball at the surviving punters.
“Word of advice: never skimp on your bodmods, people. Cheap cyberware will always fail you when you need it most.”
I down the shot and leave. The crowd parts before me, then mills about indecisively behind. Like I said: never going to make it.
