by submission | Mar 26, 2024 | Story |
Author: David Dumouriez
I thought I was ready.
“I was on the precipice, looking down.”
Internal count of five. A long five.
“I was on the precipice, looking down.”
Count ten.
“I was on the precipice, looking down.”
I noticed a brief, impatient nod. The nod meant ‘again’. I thought.
“I was on the precipice looking down.”
No nod. But the Experts looked at each other and not me.
“I was on the precipice … looking down.”
Count of four. Too short?
“I was on the precipice. Looking down.”
“No …”
“No?” (Perhaps I shouldn’t have said it.)
“No.”
One of the others agreed, more emphatically. “No.”
***
Time wasn’t a factor, I thought.
The movement of the head was ‘when you’re ready’. Or I interpreted it as such.
“I was on the precipice-”
“No. The other.”
“Ah. Sorry.”
I looked in front of me. I didn’t think about hurrying.
“When the value exceeds four, begin.”
Ten.
“When the value exceeds four, begin.”
Ten.
“When the value exceeds four, begin.”
They said nothing. They made no movement. I sat up straighter.
“Save one and play one.”
Ten again.
“Save one and play one.”
Ten.
“Save one and play one.”
They offered nothing. Nothing – I was sure – was advancement.
“Suspension …”
***
I looked ahead. I felt utterly relaxed. I took my own cue.
“Egress. Confess. Regress. Ingress …” I held up my hand. I knew it was wrong. “Sorry.”
Smooth stone expressions confronted me. It wasn’t so bad. You just go again. Right? When you’re ready.
You’d guess you need to think, but you don’t. Thinking is the last thing you should do.
I took a breath, perhaps audible only to myself.
“Egress. Confess. Ingress. Regress. Obsess. Transgress. Address. Repress. Digress. Success.”
“Again.”
“Egress. Confess. Ingress. Regress. Obsess. Transgress. Address. Repress. Digress. Success.”
“Again!”
I went faster, because I could. “Egress. Confess. Ingress. Regress. Obsess. Transgress. Address. Repress. Digress. Success.”
“Repress, digress, success?”
“Repress. Digress. Success.”
“Obsess, address, transgress, regress?”
I stated it firmly. “Obsess. Transgress. Address. Repress.”
“Dispossess!”
Was it a joke? Whatever it was, they seemed to appreciate it.
“Suspend …”
***
For how long, nobody said anything. For how long?
Finally, one of them said: “Suspended …”
I wasn’t sure whether I was glad.
***
It was like we’d all left and come back, but we hadn’t.
Each one of them in turn looked at me and nodded. Mostly, these movements were uniform in duration and execution.
“I was on the precipice, looking down.”
Ten.
“I was on the precipice, looking down.”
Twenty.
“I was on the precipice, looking down.”
Thirty.
They looked at each other.
“Where were you?”
“I was on the precipice, looking down.”
“Were you on the precipice?”
I said nothing.
“Were you looking down?”
I made no response.
“Were you on the precipice, looking down?”
Still nothing.
“You don’t need to answer …”
I don’t know why I said it. “It wasn’t me. I wasn’t there.”
“Thank you very much.”
That was it.
They deliberated. They conferred. After a fashion.
“Yes.”
Another nodded.
“Yes …”
“Permiso …”
Were they convinced? Had I convinced myself?
I stood up and went towards the door. I didn’t look back.
by Julian Miles | Mar 25, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“The only things I work with are killers and currency. You don’t look dangerous, and I don’t see you waving cash.”
The man brushes imaginary specks from his lapels with the hand not holding a dagger, then gives a little grin as he replies.
“Appearances can be- aack!”
The man coughs blood and stares at his empty hand in disbelief.
Ragnar holds up the bloody dagger.
“Tested easily.”
He wipes it on a lapel as the man folds slowly to the ground.
Evi tilts her head in fascination, pointed ears twitching while she watches the man bleed to death.
Ragnar chuckles.
“Humans don’t do anything while dying.”
She looks up.
“I live in hope, Inspector. My kind reveal their true forms in death. Your kind show the scale colours of their next incarnation. Surely the most numerous biped in the multiverse offers some truth in death?”
The man at their feet expires with a sigh. Ragnar shrugs.
“Nothing beyond private realisations.”
Two security guards rush around the furthest corner and charge towards them. Ragnar nods towards them.
“No killing.”
Evi charges towards them, bouncing from floor to ceiling, running with equal ease. The two figures slow at the sight. She leaps down, twisting in the air to pass between them. Slashing the arm of the one attempting to draw a weapon, she touches down with the offhand and hooks her legs in hard, sending the other guard stumbling backwards. Folding into a short roll, she comes out of it next to the stumbling guard and chops him unconscious.
Ragnar applauds. She rises and gives him a little bow.
The doors at the other end of the hallway explode inwards and a group of armed police charge in.
“Nobody move!”
Evi grins at Ragnar. He gives a little shake of his head.
The police slow as they see Ragnar’s horns and Evi’s ears. The officer of the team pushes his way to the front.
Looking down at the puddle of blood about the man, he shakes his head.
“Well, this is unusual – for a Monday.”
Ragnar indicates the guard clutching a sleeve gone glossy with blood.
“That one needs attention.”
Evi steps out the way as the team medic rushes past. The officer nods.
“Thanks. So, you are?”
Evi points to Ragnar.
“Inspector Ragnar Ocke, Orion-Cygnus Rangers.”
He points to Evi.
“Sergeant Evi Lai. Same.”
The officer points to the body on the floor.
“And this?”
“Evlon Rostalic. Premier assassin for Orthus Roper, leader of the Shokarn.”
The officer nods.
“I know them. Run all sorts of non-organic contraband. Unreasonable beings.”
Evi nods.
“That’s them.”
“I also heard their higher echelons are impossible to find.”
Ragnar nods.
“Usually, but I exploited a weakness.”
“Do tell.”
“Evlon was a knife collector. His position allowed him to indulge his passion, acquiring the rarest of the rare. His one unfulfilled obsession was to obtain a Lenkormian Forever Blade. So I let mine go onto a specific market. It’s taken two of your years, but I knew he couldn’t pass it up. The Lenk no longer trade them: they cause too many crimes.”
“I heard they’re special.”
Ragnar hands the dull grey dagger to the officer.
“An owner always knows where their blade is. It’s a sort of remote viewing. More importantly, an owner will always have their blade when they attack.”
He takes a step back, then lunges. The dagger disappears from the officer’s hand and appears in Ragnar’s. The officer retreats, eyes wide.
Ragnar straightens up.
“In some civilisations, buying second-hand blades is considered bad luck. A stolen Forever Blade ensures it.”
by submission | Mar 24, 2024 | Story |
Author: Gabriel Walker Land
In every direction there was nothing but baked dirt, tumbleweeds, and flat death. The blazing sun weighed down on me. I didn’t know which way to walk, and I didn’t know why. How I’d gotten there was long since forgotten.
Being lost wasn’t the pressing problem. No, the immediate threat was that I was thirsty, more than I’d ever come close to knowing. I was stumbling thirsty, the kind that makes you hallucinate refrigerators where cacti stand. This was the kind of thirsty that killed within a day.
I stumbled and I fell. I couldn’t get back up, not past my hands and knees. Now I was the kind of thirsty that killed within an hour. Still I clawed my way through the dirt. If I kept going perhaps I’d reach a ravine, some shade, a spring, anything. In such a survival situation, everything’s a gamble.
Then I stopped. There right in front of my face was a Gulp Brand hydration pouch, the kind marketed to athletes and mercenaries as a way to boost performance on the field. The neon purple package sweated, with beads of condensation collecting on its surface. I didn’t believe my eyes but I picked it up anyway. It was ice cold in the palm of my hand.
After wrestling with it with my weak grip I finally tore the cellophane open and drank. Saccharine electrolytes cascaded down my throat and cooled my guts. There had to be few contrasts in life so stark as that between deadly dehydration and the relief bestowed by chilled, life-saving liquid.
“You have arrived at Century City,” the speakers inside the Tesla Taxi said as the curbside door opened.
The wireless neuralink connection to the taxi’s system was severed. At once I was snapped out of virtual and back in the real world, my commute over.
“Due to your participation in the paid Gulp advertisement, your wallet will be deducted a reduced sum of only fifteen Satoishis.”
“Great,” I said as I exited the vehicle, briefcase in hand. “Only fifteen.”
The car didn’t leave. I looked up. It was a hot midsummer Los Angeles day. Beyond the top of the nearest skyscraper a cloud seeding blimp floated across the sky. It wasn’t doing its job very well. There was no rain and the sun beat down on me again.
The car door closed as I stood by.
“I’ll be sure to purchase a pouch next vending machine I see,” I said.
“We can service you from the on board supply, sir, at the cost of only one Satoishi.”
I held my hand out, open palmed. It was good for one’s social credit rating to demonstrate brand loyalty.
“That’ll be fine.”
A pouch shot up out of the Tesla’s sunroof, like a single slice of bread ejecting from an over-zealous toaster. I reached to catch it then slipped it in my brief case, wiping the condensation from my hand onto my shabby corduroy sport jacket.
The Tesla sped off as I walked towards the doors for my job interview. The distance was only a hundred meters but it was also a hundred degrees outside, so I started sweating beneath my suit. Good thing I had a Gulp brand hydration pouch on standby.
by submission | Mar 23, 2024 | Story |
Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks
I live in Mississauga, a city that builds dozens of downtown towers every year, the finest towers in the world. Each morning, I watch cranes move like long legged birds along the pond of the horizon. They bow and raise their heads, plucking at things which they lift toward the heavens in a stacking formation. The cranes also like to fasten things together. They cross a soundless, formless space. I find their avian ballet dazzling.
I live in an older tower that is not downtown. It is short and squat compared to what now goes up. If we still had a concept of history, people might say my building and those around it are historic. But my tower is an embarrassment. It is fat and slouches while the new ones are rail thin with perfect posture. Every new tower, so long as it remains new, throws a message across the night sky: ‘I am the thinnest building in the world! If you live inside me, you will become thin, too!’
This message is for people like me, who live far enough away from downtown that we can actually see it suspended above the sky like a rain cloud.
These new towers really are a marvel. On each floor, they sport condos that are mere 200 square feet in total surface area. The height of their ceilings is but six feet, which allows a two-thousand-footer to boast over three hundred floors.
My neighbors complain all the time that our tower is an abomination. Why would anyone need 450 square feet, and how to justify seven-foot ceilings? I tell them that I have been inside the new towers, more than ten of them, and I insist that our appliances are superior, our rooms more commodious and better furnished. But they do not believe me. In Mississauga, what is not new is old no matter how new it was. If it is not the newest, it cannot be new.
A few months ago, the builders dynamited our city park which used to sit smack in the middle of downtown. The park was filled with oaks that remained green year-round. They were ancient trees, some with trunks fifteen feet around. But what I liked best about them was how they dripped with webbed, wispy moss. Every time a slight breeze shook the park, the trees looked like a woman shaking out her hair.
The explosion came early in the morning. When I heard it, I rushed to my balcony in time to see trunks shoot up into the sky like rockets. Splinters of wood rained down over the city, and part of a branch landed on my porch. To my relish, it had intact leaves, and a slight piece of moss. I lacquered it for display over my couch so cocktail guests would take notice. So far, no one has while our former park has become a canyon filled with land moving equipment. I think our city’s motto should be, ‘What you want today you will scorn tomorrow.’
I recall that park in spite of myself. It was kept alive by a fleet of drones that made rain showers each dawn, dusk and, when it was especially hot, in the late afternoon. I used to watch the rain drones make their daily deluge. The sound of the rain’s swish had the power to cool me off. And since water can only be purchased in our city, no one was permitted anywhere near the park during rain time. I was fined when a single drop landed on my arm as I stood, beyond the cordons, more than 100 yards away from the park boundary. That one drop cost me 100 dollars.
But what I remember best is the feeling I got from those trees when their moss touched my face. I had a woman once who caressed me like moss. She’d come to visit and spend hours running her fingertips along my forehead, temples, cheeks, nose, around my lips, and along my jaw. She would not touch me anywhere else, and her fingers stirred my skin like a breeze. After she moved downtown, I never saw her again.
In the downtown, every resident lives behind a series of screens tuned to one of six channels. You can pick a forest, a shore, a desert, a garden, a mountain top, or a game park. No buildings allow natural light or the outside landscape to filter in, so when you live in downtown Mississauga, you never see Mississauga. I struggle to think of my city as an actual place since most people talk only of where they live and where they should be living. And if someone lives where they should be living, they talk of nothing at all, they merely wait, anticipating what comes next.
I miss being touched. I run my fingertips over my face but do not get the same results. I have thought of moving downtown, too, but I doubt I will encounter that woman. After all, there are so many buildings now and who is to say she has not found other faces? Which is why I regret lacquering the moss on the dead oak branch.
What if I had hung it in my shower to keep it growing? I could have gone to it each day and tickled my skin with its webs. But it is too late for that.
by submission | Mar 22, 2024 | Story |
Author: TJ Gadd
Anna stared at where the panel had been. Joshua was right; either The Saviour had never left Earth, or Anna had broken into a vault full of sand.
She carefully replaced the panel, resetting every rivet. Her long red hair hid her pretty face.
When astronomers first identified a comet heading towards Earth, national alarms were raised. Governments tried to work out how best to save the human race, and, unsurprisingly, none of them could agree on anything. It wasn’t until Ben Jamerson, oh he of QuestX and ClickCart fame, put together a plan. Most of it were ways to lessen the impact, but his primary strategy was to protect all the world’s best thinkers. He devised a list of people needed for a mission to send humans off Earth: biologists, engineers, scientists, doctors, agricultural experts, etc. All these specialists would board The Saviour and depart Earth until it was habitable again.
Everyone thought this idea was dubious; of course, Ben Jamerson would just invite all his rich buddies. But everyone was proven wrong; the billionaire graciously said he was a businessman and wouldn’t be useful to the next generation and declined to join. He would stay home with his family (he had nine children by four ex-wives) and wait out the end of life as he knew it.
Anna’s childhood friend, Steven, had always been “wick’d sm-art,” and consistently excelled in every academic endeavor he put his mind to. Unsurprisingly, he was on Ben Jamerson’s list.
“Of course, you should go – the next generation will need thinkers like you!” his family said, knowing they would never see him again.
But Steve didn’t want to go alone.
He arrived at Anna’s apartment with a bouquet and a ring. At first, she had refused – she had never loved him that way. And he said that maybe she could learn; after all, she probably would never get the chance to love anyone else if she stayed on Earth. She relented, and they were married the following week. And the day after, they accepted Ben Jameron’s invitation.
Anna tried to wiggle the panel, but it was sealed firmly.
Joshua watched her from the hatch entrance. Considering.
“Now what?” Anna asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“Why do this at all?” she waved her arms at the ship.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Joshua looked at her, head to the side. Anna hated when everyone assumed she wasn’t smart because she was a “plus one.” And she hated it even more when they were proven right.
“Think about every emergency on the ship,” Joshua paused. “Out of every single one of them, a piece of tech is improved or invented. None of that would be possible in the real world.”
Anna looked at the floor, then at her watch, “I’ve got to get back.”
“The old ball and chain?” There was some spite in the way Joshua said those words.
“I don’t want him getting suspicious about us.” She looked down.
“I get it.” He was also a plus one, although a far more useful plus one than her.
“I’m going to show Steven this tomorrow,” Anna pointed at the replaced panel.
“Don’t.”
“He is my husband – I owe him that much.”
“Anna… Steven is in charge of the artificial gravity engine – He already knows.”
Her heart went cold.
by submission | Mar 21, 2024 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
The uniformed Da’Ri officer saw me enter the bar and nearly ran to me. He was at my booth before I had a chance to settle in and was talking at light speed before the first round hit the table. Things did not go well for the Da’Ri today. As an observer for my people, it was with mixed feelings I watched the humiliating unconditional surrender of the Da’Ri empire to the Human Confederation. Still, I was looking forward to some quiet time at the bar. Ah, the grinding life of a diplomat!
“Mr. Ambassador I formally request asylum in the Zrall Republic.”
That was a shocker. Other than a Da’Ri functionary (a military attaché I believe) I had no idea who he was. Before I could make any further inquiry he seized the conversation.
“I am, was, a junior officer in the military intelligence division.”
I nodded and motioned for him to continue.
“About two cycles ago my boss said the humans were getting close in boosting warp drive efficiency and we needed to distract their scientific efforts. He threw a dozen certifiably insane theories and proposals on the table culled from our Ministry of Science trash bin. None of it classified, most of it insane and ridiculous rantings. Some even circulated amongst the scientific community as jokes.” He paused. I motioned for the barkeep to bring my new companion a drink. I was intrigued, it was at least worth a drink. “Please continue.” I said mustering all the sympathy and concern I could.
He sighed. “The plan was to float this nonsense as “secrets” through our agents. Our plan worked. Money, personnel, and facilities were being re-directed into all the pseudo-science double speak. Blither-blather our own intelligence service let the humans ‘capture’.” The aid was looking around. He leaned in. “The plan was working so well we began to make headway in the war. Resources were already stretched tight for the humans and we were now grinding them down. Our comrades in the war plans department told us the humans would fall in less than a third of a cycle.”
I motioned for another drink to be sent. He went on.
“Two days later the Human armies materialized on our home world and every strategic world and colony. No warp signature, no fleet, no drop ships- just their armies and they materialized everywhere including inside our high security zones.”
I nodded. Space folding. What any race would give to understand that technology.
“And how they were equipped! Personal shields for every soldier! Filters that made our bio weapons harmless. Psionic force fields that enabled their adepts to toss about divisions, actual divisions, like toys being swept from a table!”
I nodded again. All this was known. It was a reversal that would go down in galactic history second only to rise of the humans as the undisputed super power of our galaxy. Their new technology made all our advanced sciences seem quaint at best.
My nameless Da’Ri attaché reached across the table and grabbed my lapels. “Don’t you get it? Their super weapons, their break throughs, their godlike powers! It was all our disinformation…the ravings of lunatics and mad men. They made it work! But the most terrifying thing is there’s more they haven’t perfected yet!
I granted his asylum request right then and there and got him off planet as soon as possible. This attaché might not have any detailed plans, but he might remember just enough for us to capitalize on what the humans will bring forth next.
