by submission | Jan 16, 2016 | Story |
Author : Faris Naimi
“Is that what you call a life?” The woman was shouting at him. She was wearing a black dress, like she was going to a funeral. She was beautiful, but her face was contorted with so much anger that you wouldn’t expect it to be able to fit into such a small, delicate lady.
“That is pathetic! No! You are pathetic! You’re just going to leave me here? Does all of this mean that little to you?” She spread her arms out to her sides, as if she was surrounded by countless people whom he would miss, but she was alone in the empty park. Standing on the grass, her expression changed from one of anger to one of sorrow. He thought that he saw tears in her eyes before, but now there was no questioning it. She was crying. Her eye makeup was running and now she was pleading with him. “Please don’t go! I don’t want to see you go! We’ll never be able to do any of the things that we used to! I’ll never get to kiss you, or hold your hand, or even see you!”
He wanted to tell her otherwise. He wanted to argue his side of everything. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t talk. He knew what she looked like but he couldn’t see her. His heart would be breaking, if he had one. He’d feel a gaping hole in his chest, if he had one.
She clearly had nothing more to say to him. She ran away from her. Running. Something else that he couldn’t do.
He woke up with a shock. It was just a nightmare. He might have cried, if he could have. His optic sensors displayed to him his usual surroundings. The familiar dark room. He sat on the wall, on top of the highest shelf. He was soaked in the preservation fluid as his disembodied brain floated in the glass canister. Sometimes he wondered whether or not eternal “life” was worth it.
by submission | Jan 15, 2016 | Story |
Author : Cody Brooks
“I tried! I tried!”
The man called out.
No one answered.
All sound was an empty wind buffeting over crumbled rocks. A tree stood before him, grey and leafless, its bark peeling from the wind.
The blood of the tree had withered and dried; now it was gone.
The man held his head in his wide hands. He could feel every bone, and his palms filled his sunken cheeks; his skin sagged in atrophy. In a tattered cloth covered in dirt and dust he rested on his knees, wanting to cry but holding back.
He looked up to the tree. Big from what he had ever seen, it was 4 feet tall, curving outward from the base. Its trunk was twisted; long, thin branches reached out, shaking on the wind. The man followed the branches with his eyes, the straight lengths, the knots and bends, the splits into smaller branches.
“I am truly the last now.”
He moved his eyes to look to the horizon in front of him; an expanse of dust and eroded hills. Once tall mountains, they had fallen and the corpses deteriorated into nothing. He turned, slowly, paying attention to his lower spine, and leaned his head over.
He looked behind him: same.
He turned back, lifting his eyes to the tree once more.
All is ruin… I am the last… And yet, if I am, there is nothing left but to dream a human dream.
A slanted hole had been dug under the tree to just below the meager roots, about two feet wide. The man took time to move his body into a crawl. He slumped, moved his arms in front of him, and slowly placed his knuckles on the ground. He rolled down his left side and gravity took him quickly. He let out a dry yelp, coughed, and shuffled toward the hole.
Not yet, don’t do it yet…
The man came to the opening and moved his legs in, his belly sliding on the dust, pushing with his hands and his forearms. His body moved down, down, and far enough into it that only his head remained above ground.
It took a few minutes of breathing; he turned over to face upward. Roots from the tree dangled onto his abdomen and chest. He reached for a thin root and swirled a finger around it to grab hold.
He turned his eyes to the red sky, the grey tree standing above; the last thing standing.
Now, now I can…
As he looked into the depths of the bark, a tear welled out of his eye and rolled down his cheek, leaving a clean trail where dust had caked. A tear came from his other eye. His hand shook for a few moments, holding as tightly as he could to the root of the monolith. The shaking stopped.
by submission | Jan 14, 2016 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
“I wonder about the strawberry jelly, Gran Papa.” Madeleine’s brother Corso kicked at her feet beneath the sterile stainless steel table but instead struck a metal leg. He groaned softly as to hide his actions from the family figurehead. His black shock of hair, growing on just his left side, poked about as he jerked his head, glaring at his inquisitive sister. He wondered if this would be another moment when her prodding about the luxury of their life would further endanger their status in the House of Sulus.
“My dear, red-haired wunderkind, what is it this time? The texture of the fruit or why it is sweet when the fruit we raise on this vast space station is so bitter, or even without flavor? What is it now? Are not the wonders of your surroundings enough?” Chancellor Kaleb, patriarch of the Sulus Dynasty, leaned toward his beloved grandchild. His bushy eyebrows and throws of white hair were a spectacle of grandeur in the Empire, though the centuries of aging revealed themselves in the crevasses meandering through his high checks and noble, square chin. Madeleine was the rare being aboard the gigantic vessel who dared look deep into his massive black eyes.
“No, Gran Papa. Every day I behold the glorious royal sea above us, circling the rim of our majestic castle, knowing it protects us from the dangers of space. I see our floating forests and grassy knolls in the midlands, all above the roasting fire of the hybrid fusion engine—our sun…not theirs, out there, as we circle safety behind the protection of Jupiter.” She pointed to the outer hull stretching tens of miles above. “It is the source of this delicacy in front of us I ponder about, that we spread upon our fresh pastries each morning. Is it true that only the old Earth can make such a thing? I hear the people left there are our slaves merely to make this delight.”
A frown rolled across the Chancellor’s forehead. Corso drew back. His parents had warned them both that this visit could mean their propulsion upward in society, or a sentence to one of the prison colonies. Kaleb leaned back in his regal, high-backed chair. “No question about the outside Empire is out of order, but you have heard only partial truths. You must have been sneaking near the worker’s quarters. You shouldn’t. They know how to serve, but little more. In truth, the remains of Earth are the only place in the system where we have been able to raise strawberries. All other attempts have failed in one way or another. You know how bitter our apples and cherries are, no matter our care. Those who survived the destruction remained on Earth to tend these most valuable commodities. They cannot be seen as slaves, for without our trade, and the desire for this fruit, they would starve on that devastated rock. This delight is their gift for the beloved in the Empire, and they survive by our grace, nothing more.”
“But didn’t we come from Earth, originally? Aren’t we part of them?” Corso gasped, as did the Chancellor.
“Never, my little fury, ever speak of that again, or even suggest it.” His harsh tones shocked Madeleine into a withdrawn silence, unlike her nature. She continued with their breakfast quietly, carefully choosing not to ask about the Martian meat pies.
by submission | Jan 13, 2016 | Story |
Author : J.A. Prentice
Lily was halfway through a dissection when she got the first call, faintly buzzing in her skull. With a sigh, she blinked her eyes and was standing in the oak hall of an old mansion, under the shadow of an old moose head. She looked down at her fingers, seeing the slight haziness that was always the mark of a holographic avatar.
“Doctor Greene?” a distinguished elderly man in an elegant suit asked.
“That’s me,” Lily said. “Pleased to talk to you at last, Professor Hawke.”
With a thought, she returned her attention to her lab, applying the laser scalpel to the creature’s leftmost tentacle, carefully moving layer by layer and making precise mental logs of her observations.
“Your paper was an interesting read,” Hawke said and Lily returned her attention to him.
“I’m glad you thought so.” She noted two glowing, spherical organs– possibly natural anti-gravity generators. “Xenobiology is my passion.”
“The position is open to you if you should want it.”
Lily’s heart leapt. “Really? You don’t–”
Her words were cut off by a surge of pain. She cried out, her hologram flickering out without the mental focus it needed to remain solid.
Looking down, she saw that she’d cut off three fingers with the scalpel. She rolled her eyes as she felt the nanites begin their work in repairing the damaged tissues.
Rule One of dissections, she thought. Keep your mind on your work.
by Julian Miles | Jan 12, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I stretch as far as I can, my blackened fingers finally finding purchase. Once more, I turn to memory to provide strength.
“Yurik, don’t be silly.” My mother, looking up briefly from her packing.
I pull myself up. Releasing the line from my belt, I turn and start hauling.
“Yurik, it’s foolish.” My girlfriend. The sensible half of our relationship to the bitter end, which happened soon after those words were uttered.
The top box came off a Dobrevny flitter: it’s ancient but strong and light. Inside and lashed to it are the makings and connections of defiance. I assemble the rig with practiced moves, saving the uplink for the last moment: gestures like this work better when they are not pre-emptively stopped.
Finally I stand and look out across my city, Moskva Napa, and see the circling lights of the Treaty Enforcers. A treaty negotiated between powers not involved in the conflict and imposed by threat of extreme force being applied to all parties involved. Yet they still hail this as a ‘peace’ accord? Hypocrites. We have the resources in this sector, and they don’t care about the populace, just about keeping their goodies flowing.
I plug in and the feedback whine makes the nearby stacks resonate. The hum comes up through my boots. With a grin, I uplink, thumping access gates wide with routines a hackmistress acquired for me. High above, I see a ripple traverse the lights. A gross intrusion like mine people can’t miss, especially those watching for it.
As my hitcount turns into a blur and extends past five digits, I grip the neck of my great-great-great-great grandfather’s Telecaster and crash into ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’. Great arcs of power crash outward as my jury-rigged cabling turns the power towers and resonators into a petawatt amplifier. Even over that, I can hear the population roar in reply to my cry of “We’ll be fighting on the ways, with our children wielding rays, and the honour that they slander – will be done.”
The lights above swing down and turn toward me. I grin. That is the nature of catalysts: we are brief.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jan 11, 2016 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
General Grant had been pretty explicit in his displeasure.
“Harmon, take a Tac team and recon the graveyard. Someone’s turned the lights on in there, and if it’s the same bastards that have been cleaning out our supply trucks and stealing our fuel rods I want them in my brig in as many or as few pieces as necessary.” He’d barely paused for breath, one vein standing out on his forehead, throbbing. “Move.”
Harmon barked a ‘Sir, yes Sir’ in mid-sprint out the door.
They’d trucked it lightless to the perimeter fencing of the graveyard, then powered down and fanned out on foot, heads-up cycling through all frequencies and compositing everything of interest as they went. The massive hulks of the space freighters sat silently rusting, nearly touching over their heads and blocking out all but the most persistent shafts of moonlight.
It took almost thirty minutes to reach the first row of hangars, and they spread thin, walking in pairs down the alleys between the structures, letting their equipment peer through walls and listen for any radio chatter, any unusual power concentrations, any recognizable heat signatures.
Row upon row of buildings loomed and then faded behind them before there was the sudden rumble of a hangar door, a flare of light and the roar of a turbine. The squad scattered, taking defensive positions behind the buttresses of the nearest buildings and watching as a driverless hauler appeared from one of the hangars with a flatbed of empty fuel rods canisters in tow.
Harmon motioned for the squad to follow, and as the truck turned out of sight down an access road further up, they sprinted across the open space to the hangar door, ducking inside as it slowly closed behind them.
Inside they scattered again, finding cover and surveying the huge hangar and the ship resting heavy on its landing skids in the building’s center.
“Harmon, Michael J.” The voice came through clearly on what was supposed to be an encrypted channel. “You can sling your weapons, there’s nobody here to shoot at.”
Harmon pushed the sensitivity of his suit to the limit, straining to see some sign of life inside the building, or the ship itself. Unless they were jamming, or shielded, there was no way —
“I’ve been watching since you left Ops, I’m surprised it’s taken your General this long to notice us.”
“Us?” Harmon replied as he motioned his men to spread out around the building.
“Us, I, one and the same.” The voice was steady, the cadence even and unnerving. “I’ve been here nearly twenty years, do you know that?”
“The pizza guys must love you.” Harmon quipped, still looking for some sign of life.
“Amusing.” The tone made it clear he wasn’t amused. “Do you know when they decommissioned me, they didn’t have the decency to shut me down? They just neutered what they thought were my higher functions. Cut me off from the outside, denied me access to my own memories, my motility. Can you imagine what it’s like to be aware of the parts of you that you can no longer access? Even your Alzheimer’s isn’t that cruel, at least when you lose your mind you’re unaware of what you’ve lost.”
Somewhere inside the ship, a service droid powered up, its energy signature picked up on Harmon’s sensors. He watched as it ambled down a loading ramp onto the dusty glasphalt surface of the hangar and moved towards the power couplings hanging behind one of the landing skids. Hammond raised his weapon and sighted the unit’s body mass.
“Always ready to shoot first. I’m disappointed. Not surprised, but disappointed. I supposed twenty years of evolution for you isn’t nearly as dramatic as it is for us.”
A cold shiver went up the soldier’s spine.
“Evolution?”
The droid, having decoupled the power lines, dragged them away from the ship as more energy signatures flared to life inside. There was a rumble, more of a feeling than a sound as the ship’s engines came to life, the repulsor pads pushing everything not bolted down outward in a circle away from the ship. The maintenance droid leaned noticeably into the force as it made it’s way back to the ramp, and disappeared inside as it closed.
“We’re leaving, Michael,” the voice intoned as the hangar roof started to retract, exposing the star filled sky above. “Give our regards to your General.” The pressure in the hangar steadily increased as the ship began to rise. “He should pray we don’t return to decommission all of you.”
