by submission | Dec 30, 2016 | Story |
Author : J.D. Rice
My hand shakes as I desperately try to keep myself from pulling the trigger. I stare at the man who wears my husband’s face, my eyes filled with tears. He looks hurt. Concerned. Maybe even betrayed. So convincing.
“Sarah, put the gun down. Please, baby, you know it’s me.”
The stranger’s eyes are welling up, tears forming to match my own. We cried so many times in this apartment, my husband and I. We cried when my mother died, when his cousin was diagnosed with cancer, when we found out he was being shipped out.
“Baby, please, put it down.”
The man approaches me again, and I feel the pressure in my chest deepen.
“Stay back! I’m warning you!”
My husband is dead. This man is not him.
“Sarah. . .”
My finger finds the trigger, but I do not pull it.
Does he deserve to live, this creature who calls himself my husband? He seems so real, so sad. Even if he isn’t the same man who left six months ago, doesn’t he have a right to live as much as anyone?
“Sarah, this isn’t you. . .”
I point the gun back in his face, hating him for remembering how foolish my past self would find me now. I was heartbroken when my husband left, but only because I feared he would die in some war-torn planet half a galaxy away. I never concerned myself with the superstitions surrounding HOW he would get there; I only cared that he came back.
But he’d never come back. This crying stranger is not my husband. He is a copy, a soulless shell built from the atoms leftover after the transporter picked my husband to pieces. This man speaks the same, carries himself the same, and remembers even the faintest details of my husband’s life. But he is not my husband – just a soulless replacement. Dead inside.
My finger twitches, my resolve strengthening. I take a deep breath and wipe the tears from my face with my free hand. The stranger does not move closer.
“Do you want to live?” I ask.
For the briefest of moments, I wait for the man to keep pleading, to keep begging me to put the gun down and embrace him, to recognize him as my lover. Part of me wishes for that future. But instead, the stranger only nods.
“Then leave,” I say, fighting tears again, “and never come back.”
I keep the gun on him as he gathers a few belongings – not letting him take anything my husband really cared for. This creature already took his face. He would have no more. When at last he is gone, I collapse into a heap in the center of the apartment, the floodgate of tears opening fully. The gun clatters to the floor as I accept the truth. My husband is dead, replaced by a soulless replica. And there are more of them out there. A hundred thousand replicas walking the streets, empty husks of those murdered in the name of convenience.
by submission | Dec 29, 2016 | Story |
Author : Beck Dacus
The week was ending. I was typing up my summary report, excited to enter the weekend and chill at the house with my girlfriend for a couple days. My spreadsheet was half-done when Bertin came up to my desk and “checked on me.”
“How’s it going?” he asked casually. He looked over at my spreadsheet, pretending to be interested. “You know, I already finished mine. And– need I say it?– it’s spotless. I think I’m due for a promotion in a week or two, whether or not I ‘keep up the good work,’ as they say.”
Normally, I would’ve given him a half-hearted “Wonderful,” but I wasn’t in the mood to say even that much. I was not about to ruin my end-of-the-week stretch by getting into a conversation with him. Met with no response, he just changed the subject. I guess he figured he’d get more out of me if he went to something personal.
“So, your girlfriend’s pretty hot, huh?”
I looked at this freak, wide-eyed.
“Yeah, I saw you two at the store the other day. She’s smokin’. A good catch. I’m sorry you got her before I did.” He laughed at his own joke. I remembered that I was supposed to smile, and managed an approximation.
“Man… if you guys ever break it off, just gimme a call. She was wearing a skirt when I saw her, and all I could think about was the wonders under it. You know what I mean?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, standing up. “I know what you mean.” I rolled up my sleeves and curled my fingers into my palms.
“Hey man, calm down. I was just–”
Too late. In a split second, my hand was around the back of his head, and I thrust his skull into the edge of my cubicle as hard as I could. A horizontal line of blood formed on his forehead, and as a I let go, he fell to the ground, unconscious. The funny thing was that no one in the office reacted. I had barely enough time to get confused by this, and to regret my huge mistake, when the sim ended.
Somebody lifted the headset from my scalp, revealing the small testing room to me. I started to remember my situation as they removed the straps from my wrists and ankles. “Uh oh. Shit, no! Please let me redo it! Come on, it was an accident, it won’t happen again–”
“Actually,” the interviewer said, “yes it will. Trust me. That’s why we don’t give redos, Mr. Adderman. This test elicits responses straight from the subconscious, and your long-term memory is suppressed the whole time. You can’t trick this system.”
“I don’t wanna trick–”
“I’m sorry, sir, but you’ve failed. I regret to inform you that I must decline your application, and in fact, because your response was so violent, I will need to report you to the authorities for a mental examination.”
“No! I need this job! And I can’t get a black mark on my record!”
“Sorry, there’s nothing I can do. I’m oath-bound to do this. Better luck next time.”
by submission | Dec 28, 2016 | Story |
Author : Philip Berry
My music teacher, Miss Herenka, gesticulated through the blue-tinged, sound-proofed glass. I watched her thin hands glide. Her voice came down from speakers in the circular ceiling of my training cell.
“Jenna come on! It’s not enough to go through the motions. Close your eyes, use the full length of the bow.”
I sighed. I gripped the bow more firmly.
“No. Soft hands! Tease the charge from each string. Find the frequency that maims.”
She could sense that my motivation was off.
“This simulator, I accept, offers little satisfaction…but in battle… oh, the chords will resonate.”
So passionate, this old musician. And I had to accept, she had seen it all. And survived.
“Death will dance forward. Together, Jenna, we’ll watch a black tango weave through the ranks, leaving doubt on every fingertip she touches.”
Yes. The power I could wield. I had seen glimpses of it.
The first school concert, high summer, out in the field. My playing caused half the school to collapse in a swoon. Three children and two parents died. I was taken to the mountains where I joined the Conservatory at the age of eight and entered higher training.
The nature of my gift was explained to me – the ability to match the frequency of the music I made to a person’s emotions… and more, the power to manipulate those emotions. As the first year progressed the broad strokes of feeling were dissected and re-arranged, through tiny adjustments in technique: the speed with which I sawed the horse-hair bow, the pressure of my fingers on the cat-gut strings, the way my body swayed. Soon I was able to give instructions, or orders. Prisoners of war were made to stand within earshot, and I watched them tremble. My orders could not resisted, because they were packaged in strong emotion.
My music had been weaponised.
Danny.
My first friend.
Miss Herenka sensed my sadness. Yet, monster that she was, she seemed to have forgotten his name.
“Oh Jenna. Your friend, the boy. I know you are sad. But you should have seen him last week. He requested the Eastern front, he knew we were weakening there. Dropped into the field, he didn’t even look up. His parents watched from the orbiter with me. So proud.”
I knew the truth. He had understood the child soldier’s fate, so he chose the most dangerous theatre.
“The chords, they were beautiful, entered their collective consciousness… and led the sixth army off the Galen plateau. Victory! After two years of bloody attrition!”
It was true. He induced mass hysteria and ran a feared army off the high ground. I had seen the war report. But it had not mentioned Danny. And he had not come back.
“His name will live long. You have that talent Jenna, more. I am confident in you. It has been privilege. Now, come out of there and follow me. The General is here.”
The time had come.
My parents.
Would they sit in the orbiter looking down into the fire-lit smoke? Would they see me standing alone behind the enemy lines, playing, playing, playing… hoping to find the resonant frequency before a patrol picked me off with a single bolt.
“Come Jenna. Come.” She brushed my head affectionately. I knew Miss Herenka was genuinely fond of me. A bond existed. This would make it easier, I knew, to throw out a few toxic notes just for her during the final performance. Relayed to the orbiter, they would enter her mind and avenge each child doomed by her lethal tuition.
by submission | Dec 27, 2016 | Story |
Author : Riley S Meachem
I passed a filling station the other day. It was covered in some sort of vine, kudzu maybe, and the roads were cracked, so no cars could get through. (Hey, remember cars? They used to be everywhere!) I stepped cautiously over bleached bones, picked clean. Whatever they were, once, a small child or a dog, I couldn’t tell. The skull and the limbs were gone, mostly, carried off by rats, I’d wager. I checked inside the darkened store; Grey rainy light poured through the windows (Windows? They’re like holes you can touch. I’ll show you one, sometime.) It was mostly empty, racks overturned, and the food had been taken back twenty years ago when people still thought there was a shot. At what or why, I don’t know. There was a jug of Hawaiian punch, half empty, that I was too nervous to taste, (Trust me, you’re glad you’ve forgotten that stuff,) And a CD (It’s like a silver ring that plays music—yes, music is the sound that speaks to you without words) that I took, even though I’m not sure how I’d play it.
I miss that stuff the most. More than food, or sex, or civilization. Any of it.
After that, I set back up the dirt road, through the forest, towards camp. The higher up I got, the more of the road below I could see. Trees have burst through the concrete in some places (Yes, I already told you what concrete was, it’s like the ground, but harder and smoother.) Soon, there won’t be anything left there at all. Just trees. And an old man who remembers.
by submission | Dec 26, 2016 | Story |
Author : DL Shirey
I pound shots of espresso until my vision tinges brown as a sepia tint. The tip of my fat finger barely touches the skin of my thumb through the hole in the handle of the tiny cup, small and fragile like half an eggshell, yet it nests another stiff dose of caffeine. I need more. I won’t be ready to work until my teeth are coated with gritty film, that welcome friction between enamel and lips to help me force a smile.
The cup clatters a return to the pygmy saucer, and finally, muscle control yields to caffeine tremors. In wide-eyed meditation I wait until seismic activity in my brainpan achieves the same Richter rate as my shaky hands. Now I’m ready. I must not fall asleep on the job.
There used to be other people to help me, to tie my light-blue gown from behind. They made sure the soap container was filled and small, aseptic brushes available to scrub my fingernails. Now it’s a one-man job with a light-blue jumpsuit that zips up the front. I pull a sanitary hair cap from the dispenser and matching latex gloves from the box adjacent.
I press controls with my elbow and the door to the sterile room puffs inward. A cool, filtered atmosphere mixes momentarily with the warmth around me. The fine mist is not unlike what happens when two weather fronts meet, however, this result is not rain, but a liquid chlorine compound used for final decontamination. One last breath of good, old American air and I pull the mask up over my face.
Behind me the door closes and its seal engages with resolute pressure I feel in my ears. My small but comfortable chair awaits, the clock on the factory floor visible through the viewing window. Three. Two. One. The only tool available to me is pressed; an indicator turns green from red.
Hands drop to my lap. I see parts compound, components build and modules become machinery. Mostly I watch the clock: one hand sweeps, the other two creep for twelve hours.
Ironic, the only job our robot overlords allow is someone to press the on/off button.
by KennyC | Dec 25, 2016 | Story |
Author : Kenny A Chaffin
“What is it you would want to know?” the synthesized voice asked. Johnson scanned the cryptic and stonewall faces assembled around him and the computer screen before typing. “Who are you? Where are you from? How do we know this is not some prank, some hacker?”
“You know where your antennas are pointed. You know the region we are from.”
“Is there a God?”
“That is irrelevant.”
“Where did life begin?”
“Everywhere. Surely you know that. Perhaps you are more primitive than we imagined.”
“You are our first contact. Assuming you are real. How can we know?”
“You know.”
“How old is your species? What do you look like?”
“In your planetary orbits we would be approximately four billion orbits old.”
“Do you mean since life evolved or since your species, your intelligent species evolved”
“What do you mean evolved?”
“Evolution. Biological evolution.”
“We are not biological.”
“How can you not be biological? What are you?”
“We are non-biological. We may have been once.”
“You don’t know?”
There was no immediate response, silence. Then finally a response.
“There was a lapse.”
“A lapse?”
“Yes, a lapse in our history. We exist as non-biological energy-based entities.”
“How are we communicating in real-time. How is that possible if you are beyond Alpha Centauri as our instruments indicate?”
“We allow it.”
“You ‘allow’ it? What does that mean? You can’t change the laws of physics. You can’t change the speed of light.”
“We allow it.”
Johnson could see this would go nowhere. “So you somehow change the laws of physics?”
“We allow it.”
Johnson shrugged at those around him. The exobiologist leaned over. “Ask them…uh…him…uh…ask about space travel?”
Johnson typed, “Can you travel through space faster than the speed of light as well?”
“No.”
The astrophysicist shrugged.
“Why did you contact us? Did you just discover us?”
“It was time.”
“And why is that?”
“It was necessary”
“But why?”
“Someday you will understand. It cannot be stated.”
“So you’ve know of us, of humanity?”
“Yes. We were waiting for this day.” The General’s eyes widened. His second in command whispered something in his ear. He nodded.
“Did you have a message for us?”
“No.”
Everyone looked perplexed. All thinking that if this were something important, something worthy of looking forward to, how could there be no message to convey.
At the press conference the reporters scrambled, each trying to outdo the others.
“What do they look like?”
“Where are they from?”
“Will they attack us?”
“When will we meet them?”
The press secretary held up his hands as if fending off an attack himself. “We’ve shared all we know. There are no images, no description just the synthesized English audio. There has been no additional communication.
“How do you know they are real? Maybe it’s just a hoax by some hacker.”
“We don’t think so. We’ve triangulated on the carrier signal, from Earth and from the deep space network. The signal is extra-galactic in origin, but has gone silent.”
“What now?”
“We wait.”
