by submission | Jul 16, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Poets aside, the universe is not indifferent. It runs on love and hate. Attraction and repulsion. It has a physical obligation to bind or repel. Sometimes both.
Which explains my relationship with Enth. Like orbital and subatomic decay, we clung to one another, attracted and repulsed, in a pan-dimensional death spiral.
Sorry. That’s the heartbreak talking. Though not indifferent, the universe is far from sentimental. Life, not matter, invented the struggle bus. And I’m obliged to crash it. Drive it right over the cliff.
Or in this case, straight into a gravity well. A big ass gravity well in the Black Eye galaxy which got its nickname due to a dark band of dust surrounding its bright core. Likely the result of a cataclysmic collision with another galaxy eons ago.
Just like Enth and I were on a similar collision course.
Remember how the universe is all about love and hate, attraction and repulsion? Yup. That’s how it was. Enth telling me I’d never get it, never understand Enth’s planet, Enth’s family, Enth’s dreams. All the while, I was risking my life to save Enth’s planet and everything Enth cared about.
Which, at the moment our little jumpship entered the aforementioned gravity well, didn’t seem to include me. Enth’s planet was facing a runaway wafuco: wave function collapse. In essence, that’s a quantum identity crisis that messes with consciousness. In this particular case, the collective consciousness of Enth’s entire planet. Not something from which most relationships can recover.
So, we were diving down the gravity well trying to achieve a relative point of decoherence that would, in theory, cancel the wafuco and keep everything peachy on Enth’s planet. I was also hoping it might help reset our relationship. You know, stop us from chasing our tails, our impulsive actions, our general snarkiness—all seeming to be what the universe and my inter-planetary relationships were predicated on.
Anyway, the plan looked to be working. In our little ship, things were becoming less coherent. Enth’s sharp words became soft glances. Gravitons pushed us ever closer and we were not repelled. Heat created less friction. We melted together, our beings bonded, as we finally achieved relative decoherence.
Enth’s planet became mine. Enth’s family became mine. Enth’s being became mine.
The great swirling vortex no longer sucked. It wrapped. It surrounded. It embraced us.
Equal and opposite. Enth and me.
The universe sighed. Then exploded, obliged to see what would become of us.
by Julian Miles | Jul 15, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The scream of fighters passing overhead fades. Silence resumes. The three sat at the undamaged end of the table return their gazes to rest on the woman sitting at the other end. Minutes pass. Finally, the middle one of the trio speaks.
“I’m not sure ‘you’re late’ adequately covers this.”
The one on the left adds.
“Good point, Virgo. Maybe ‘treason’? What do you think, Runcie?”
The right-hand one shakes their head.
“No, Shane. More likely ‘cowardice’.”
The woman smiles.
“The thinking behind those three sentences is reason enough for my tardiness.”
The Virgo raises a finger.
“I’m thinking it’s more about the cost of Project Bifrost.”
The woman whispers.
“Money or power. Every time.”
Runcie leans forward.
“What?”
She looks up.
“Have you read the report?”
Bemused glances are exchanged. Shane replies.
“My people prepared an executive summary. The short version of it is: you failed.”
The woman bursts out laughing.
“The failure lies not with Project Bifrost.”
Bemusement turns to astonishment, then scorn. Runcie points at her.
“We brought you in on a frankly ridiculous proposal as part of a worst-case scenario initiative. Three years later, the worst case is rapidly becoming true. Yet the initiative we spent trillions upon can offer nothing to save us.”
The woman shakes her head.
“Project Bifrost does. The criteria are very clear. You have chosen not to meet them.”
Virgo shakes his head.
“That nonsense? I fail to see how suicide gets us anywhere, unless you’re working for the other side.”
She brings her hand down on the table so hard they hear it crack. Splinters of wood spin away from fingers sunk into the tabletop.
“Then listen well: the concept of immortal warriors has fascinated those obsessed with war for as long as man has had gods. Project Bifrost proposed that the mythical rainbow bridge is, in fact, a novel variant of an Ellis-Deutsch wormhole. It further proposed that establishing a link from our world to the one regarded as, or containing, the mythical destination Valhalla would yield a near-inexhaustible army of hardened veterans for the principals to draw upon.”
Virgo snorts derisively.
“Ignoring the obvious limitation that if the place exists, the beings who oversee it might have a few things to say about us borrowing their army, not matter how righteous our cause.”
The woman nods.
“A factor taken into account by the offering of whatever war being fought here as an extension of the training regimes legended to be performed every day by those in Valhalla.”
Shane shrugs.
“A good idea, that.”
Runcie chuckles.
“So, you covered all the bases and made your variant wormhole. Why am I not seeing Viking berserkers with XM7s rolling the opposition up like a rug?”
“You know why.”
Virgo sighs loudly.
“Suicide again? Pathetic. This failure will ruin your career, Professor Gefna.”
She stands.
“Gefna gave everything to save those she worked with. Such dedication persuaded me to come here.”
Virgo leaps up.
“Hold on. If you’re not Gefna, just who are you?”
She waves her hand dismissively.
“One final time: the criteria are clear. Will you rise to meet them?”
Virgo grins nastily.
“One final time: suicide is not an option, woman.”
Her eyes start to glow.
“You refuse to prove your worth as leaders of warriors in the same way you expect of them. Thus, you offer nothing. Therefore nothing shall be given. I, Valfreyja, have spoken.”
She vanishes.
Shane slumps back in the chair.
“That could have gone better.”
Runcie throws a pen at him.
“Oh, shut up.”
Virgo runs a hand through his hair.
“Well, fuck.”
by submission | Jul 14, 2024 | Story |
Author: Steve Kemple
For one thing, they don’t prepare you for continental drift. How could they? We aren’t equipped to think on a geological time scale. You live eighty, ninety years and the tectonic plates move what. Thirty feet? Try this on for size: “I remember the Himalayas.” Not “I remember when the Himalayas were yay high” or “I remember when the Himalayas were over here.” I remember the Himalayas.
Sure, you’ll outlive your friends and family. That’s what everyone seems to focus on. It makes sense, because love is the biggest thing human minds are equipped to comprehend, I’m convinced of that. Bigger than the missing Himalayas. You feel lonely. Always an outsider. But you find your way. It stays with you, loss, but it fades into the background. Lives pass like flashes in the dark. Your eyes adjust. You learn to love on a different scale.
Think of it this way. Are you the same person you were ten years ago? Twenty? Of course not. Think of someone you’ve known and loved for more than a few years. Are they the same person you first met? Yes and no. We’re all a ship of Theseus, shedding cells and rebuilding ourselves. We accept continuity, even if it’s fiction. You learn to accept continuity across time and individuals, is what I’m saying.
Language evolves. You’re reading this in early 21st century English, barely a blink from the English of Beowulf. (You can read that, right?). That’s just a thousand years. Imagine ten or a hundred thousand. Your patterns of thinking change, and your way of being.
Language is living technology. It evolves with use. All the futuristic stories focus on technology, but they take language for granted. Then again, a mirror takes its silvering for granted, so there’s that.
To say nothing of governments and civilizations. Geography is fluid (paging Mt. Everest!). Nations rise and fall. Tyranny is irrefutable and inevitable, a phase no less regrettable in any form. It’s a trickier problem to manage your status as an individual in the gaze of states calibrated to typical lifespans. But, you manage. The State is an idea that sticks around for a while, but it’s just one idea. “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Whoever said that was on the right track.
Religions? I’ll leave that up to you. “Of that which we cannot speak we must pass over in silence.” Again, not my words. I do know I look up at the stars, and now you wouldn’t recognize the constellations. I remember Achilles and Medusa. Our stories are more enduring than our relation to the cosmos. Let that sink in.
Speaking of stars. Before you decide on this immortality thing, you’ll need a plan on what to do about the Sun. Sure, humans messed things up for a while. I’m talking about Earth’s climate. I won’t downplay that, and neither should you. But wait til the Sun expands. Now there’s a situation.
What do you do when your planet becomes uninhabitable? I don’t mean the royal you, I mean YOU, survivor of mass extinctions and the atmosphere boiling away. You, hovering over the lifeless and empty Earth. You, the thing that persists after everything solid melts into the vacuum of space. You, the thing that persists in the shiver of cosmic radiation for nameless eons as the stars wink out and Newton’s first law of motion reaches its final, terrible equilibrium, and a perfect calm spreads over the universe.
What then?
If I were you, I’d start planning now.
by submission | Jul 13, 2024 | Story |
Author: James Flanagan
Lying on the gurney, I slowly succumbed to the anesthetics. The last thing I recalled was a bright light and a frantic “Oh, shit.”
***
I opened heavy eyelids and blinked.
“He’s back.” My wife’s voice, distant, unsure.
“Dad?” Andy, my son.
They each held one of my hands. Restricted, restrained. I tried to shake them off. Retreat!
Judith’s smile hid bruised cheeks, her eyes hid hope.
Never again, I told myself. I turned to my son. “I’m sorry.”
Andy hid his broken arm beneath his jacket. “We want you to get better, Dad.”
“The anger-ectomy was a success,” the doctor said, stepping forward. “However, there was a complication. Another emotional center was partially ablated requiring radical reconstruction.”
“It’s ok, Doc, it happens.” I smiled.
“Those cross-wired emotions will eventually regenerate their synaptic networks.”
“Fine.”
Judith and Andy helped me stand. I flinched at their touch. Discharged, they escorted me to a cafe; a safe public location to test out my rearranged brain.
“How’re you feeling?” Judith’s voice was calm, but her white knuckles betrayed the truth.
I tensed. “I’ll be okay…” Flee!
Andy put his hand on the table. “Dad, I want to do a test. I got caught at school with some of this.” He lifted his hand. Marijuana.
I shrugged. “Fine.”
“And, I crashed the car.”
“Insurance will cover it.”
Andy turned to Judith. “I think he’s better.”
Judith reached to kiss me, but I shuddered backwards. Sweaty hands slipped on the chair. My heartbeat rose, bladder released, I turned my head to hide.
“That’s ok.” She tried to smile, but failed.
A crash thundered through the cafe. A man in a balaclava smashed tables like a bull. “Everybody on the floor!” He held a shotgun aloft.
Screams ricocheted around the cafe. Customers threw themselves to the floor, whimpering, cursing and praying. Judith and Andy dove under their table.
I stood up.
“Dad, what are you doing?”
Striding towards the gunman, my arms wide like Christ the Redeemer. Tears filled my eyes as my heart swelled. Like sunlight bursting through my vision, a field of wildflowers scented the air and the songs of distant youth came unbidden to my mind. Nothing could fill my soul more, love brimming over the lip.
“What the fuck?” The gunman walked towards me and leveled the gun at my chest. I stood still, gazing into his eyes.
Brushing the gun aside, I threw my arms around the man and held him tight. “It’s alright. I love you.”
“What’s wrong with you, man?” The burly gunman shoved me. “Do I know you?”
“No,” I replied.
“Get outta here, man.” The gunman shoved me again and backed out of the cafe, muttering, “Not worth it.”
The customers in the cafe emerged to thank their savior. Me. Judith released the breath that she had held, and approached.
“I understand now. Fear and love,” she said, reaching to hold my hand.
I pulled away, nodding. “Fear and love, but no anger.”
by submission | Jul 12, 2024 | Story |
Author: James Flanagan
Iain opened the car door for his father, Tom, inviting him to exit.
“Three decades I worked for those uncouth S.O.B.s,” Tom muttered. “I raised you kids…of all the betrayals…”
“I’ve heard great things about this retirement home,” Iain said, pleading with his father to step out of the car. “It’s affordable…”
Tom eventually stepped out. “Thank you Driv… Oh.” Tom reached in but found the seat empty.
“Floox taxis haven’t had drivers for years, Dad.” Iain placed his hand on Tom’s shoulder and carried his bags up the steps.
The lobby smelt as if the flowery carpet had been shampooed with calamine lotion. Sitting at the wide bay windows were two old ladies that looked as stuffed as the cushions they sat on. An overly cheerful lady greeted them.
“You must be Tom. Welcome. You drove for Floox didn’t you?”
Tom shook his head. The smell was wrong, the silence was wrong, the walls were stifling, and Iain was smiling at the devil woman as if he had made a deal to hand him over. This couldn’t be *home*.
“They made me redundant.” Tom scowled.
“Dad, you have to sign this form to receive the subsidy.” Iain offered a pen.
Their suspicious motto adorned the page. “Nothing Cheaper, Nothing Better: Floox!”
Tom sighed and signed it.
After settling in, the calamine devil woman introduced Mr. Dimble. “This is our Head Master.”
“Our what?”
Dimble led Tom to an open plan classroom. Several seats were occupied, each wrinkled face hidden beneath a helmet and visor.
“You signed the non-disclosure agreement, didn’t you?” Dimble asked.
“I signed something.” Tom scratched his head.
“This is our school for the gifted,” Dimble continued, “for those who have been gifted to us. Please take a seat.” Dimble placed a helmet and visor over Tom’s head.
A virtual world descended on him, like a curtain being dropped over his eyes. Materializing around him was a vehicle of some sort and a steering wheel.
“Over the next few weeks, I will teach you how to drive our Floox cars. Do you understand? There is no such thing as self-driving cars. We pilot them all from here. No one drives smoother than an octogenarian.”
Tom tried levering the helmet off, but his arthritic fingers were no match for the magnetic clip fastened at his chin.
By the end of the first day, he had mastered steering, speed control, and navigation. There were no physical requirements as the controls were all mental, think “accelerate”, and accelerate, think “brake”, and stop. By the third day, he was completing full journeys. Once he got the hang of it, it was kind of fun. He tried dropping the clutch and spinning in a donut to see if it was allowed. Mr. Dimble’s hand on his shoulder said otherwise.
“I don’t think your customer will have enjoyed that.”
“Customer?”
“You have been driving customers all day.”
After a full week, Mr. Dimble said, “Tom you’re a natural. Have you ever thought of flying planes? Our Auto-Pilot program is always looking for new blood.”
by submission | Jul 11, 2024 | Story |
Author: Timons Esaias
This would be a nice planet, if not for all these places where the seabottom is sticking up out of the worldocean. It is most unseemly and immature.
We are trying to be generous about it, trying to convince ourselves that this planet is too young, that the worldocean will tear down these disgusting protrusions. But the worldocean only seems to nibble, nibble, nibble at the problems. Not very convincing.
Still, this would be a nice planet except for the worldocean’s phase-state issues. It cannot seem to decide whether it should be solid or liquid. Near the spindlepoints it tends to be solid, and it has established solid missions on parts of the extruded seabed — we simply cannot see the point of that, and those missions seem tentative about returning to the main body. In many places they convert to liquid before doing so.
Very confusing.
As I say, though, the planet might be something, except for all these inexplicable squishy things, which are everywhere. They seem to be a foam bubble formation, but they’ve become more permanent, somehow.
I guess one might define them as partly dried sea scum. Clearly they are a result of the extruded seabed areas, most of which are covered with layers of the stuff. Some of it is mobile, rolling across the seabedscape, or blowing through the atmosphere.
The physics of the scum seems to be quite complex, as it almost exhibits “behavior” independent of wind and wave — did I mention that the worldocean is full of bits of it, too? Much of it roiling around beneath the surface, some even adhering to the sea floor?
This scum stuff is quite annoying. It squishes underfoot, some of it adheres to one’s surface, and much of it is corrosive on contact.
Really, someone needs to take this place by the lattice, get it properly organized, and give it a thorough cleaning.
But who has that kind of time?
Finally, it must be admitted, this planet is an excellent example of the problems that arise with planets in the Useless Zone: neither hot enough to melt the surface, nor far enough from the star to be mostly stormcloud and worldsea, with the rocky stuff properly hidden deep in the middle, or decorously expelled into orbits.
For research purposes, it might be nice to leave a Watcher or two in orbit, but no actual beings should waste their time in this location.
One hates to just write off a planet this way, but one can really only look at it with pity.
Location, as they say, is destiny. Location is the great limiter. Location is all.
