by Julian Miles | Aug 24, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The metallic grey blob shot across the cavern and landed with a wet ‘splat’ in the circular tub of turquoise gel. The conical lid had an aperture the exact size to admit the blob, and a length of cone precisely calculated to prevent any gel splashing out.
“What the hell is that?” Walt pointed at the assembly through the glass.
“That is the first 9-Cronin Adsee in the Kuiper Belt, Mister Thrumyn.”
Walt turned to face the willow-thin, native born woman who had spoken: “In plain terms, Miss-” he paused to pointedly read her name tag, “Hayvers. Preferably non-technical English.”
She smiled: “It is the most advanced Autonomous Digital Synthesis Engine – ADSE – ‘Adsee’ – outside of the laboratories of Mars. A ‘Cronin’ is an abstract unit of capability and performance, allowing the many different styles and types of chemputer – chemical synthesis computers – to be compared easily.”
“Thank you. Now why is it occupying an entire Class-One processing cavern in my headquarters asteroid?”
“That is better demonstrated that explained, Mister Thrumyn.”
Walt turned his attention to the tub. Inside, the blob seemed to spinning, or maybe see-sawing incredibly fast, he couldn’t be sure. But it wasn’t a blob. He saw shining flakes spurt into the gel from one side, a glittering stream that disappeared into the blob that now seemed to have a blurry shape visible within its frenetic movement.
Three more streams of material were shot into the mass, then the sides of the tub turned opaque and a hatch snapped shut over the top of the cone. From within the tub, flashes of intense light showed up every fine gap in the closures. Then the hatch over the cone aperture opened and bright beam of energy shot into the tub.
“Intense heat. That and a near-weightless environment allows the Adsee to do, in minutes, a growth assembly that would take a week on a planet.” She nodded toward the cone, which was lifting.
Walt gasped as a silver-grey drone lifted from the tub, oriented itself to the local ‘up’, then exited through the slot opposite.
“Belt mining has always been fraught with danger. Drones have lowered the fatalities, but replacing lost drones was difficult to keep pace with. Switching to modular assemblies with common Power and Control units allows us to keep up with that. In the event of an incident, the P&C unit will, if possible, rotate the drone so it takes the impact. Usually, the function module survives and we can just mate another P&C unit with it. As you can see, P&C units are something we can make in under half an hour. The cavern size is necessary because those drones are eight metres across.”
Walt drifted slowly across the viewing chamber, face pale, eyes wide: “Oh.”
Miss Hayvers tilted her head: “Anything else?”
Eyes fixed upon the device in the chamber, as another blob landed in it, his reply was barely louder than a whisper: “No, that’s fine, Miss. I’ll just wait and watch, if that’s okay.”
She shook her head and exited the room, while Walt watched the machine that ‘grew’ spaceships do its thing, experiencing a wonder he hadn’t felt since childhood.
by featured writer | Aug 23, 2016 | Story |
Author : Olivia Black, Featured Writer
“Some things are too good to be true.” That’s what my mom would say if she were here. Of course, if she were here she’d also be telling me to tuck in my shirt and watch my language, so thank god she’s not. No, it’s just me here, trying to figure out how I got myself into this situation…
Yesterday, I was an esteemed runner for Handy Delivery Services (nationally syndicated). You need something delivered fast and relatively undamaged? I was your guy. But today, I’m – well, I don’t actually know. Been hiding out in a burnt out mega-structure site. Supposed to be condos, I think. Tall building at any rate. Without the microfab wind shielding walls, it’s real cold up here. I miss feeling my toes.
Anyway, what was I saying? Right, so yesterday, Armpit Joe sends me out on a simple dead drop. Take the package to an apartment build on West Elmhurst, leave it in the trash can in the lobby. You know, the usual SOP.
Deliveries like this always have a deadline, so out the door I scoot. Don’t make it two blocks before my phone starts blowing up. Joe’s probably got a pick up for me on the way back.
“What up?” I answer, breathing hard as I peddle up hill. (Crank assist is for the weak.)
“Am I speaking with Radical Sam?” Instead of Armpit Joe’s coffee grinder growl, it’s a woman with a voice like silk. I’m so caught off guard that I nearly swerve into a parked vanguard.
“Who is this?”
“There isn’t time. You’re in possession of a package that must not reach its destination,” she purrs into my ear.
“No can do, Lady. Destination’s locked in. It’s out of my hands.” As much as I want to do whatever she says. Messing with a packing is a one-way ticket to being un-existed. The Mail Authorities take package violations way too seriously, if you ask me.
“I’ll give you ten grand if that package makes its way to me instead.” Her voice becomes hard as steel.
“This is a joke. Did Lexy put you up to this?”
“Bring it to Carla’s Cantina,” and she hangs up.
Here’s the funny thing; I can’t tell you what make me do it. Ten grand might be a lot of money, but it’s not enough to commit career suicide over. And yet, I turn around fast as can be and peddle my spandex clad butt off all the way up town with the deadline counter still ticking down on the precious parcel. I drop the package with the smokingest babe in exchange for an envelope. The mother load of all paydays.
A few blocks away, I open the envelope expecting to find a preloaded bitcoin chip nestled into protective casing. Well, it’s ten Gs, all right, in crisp outmoded paper bills. In other words, completely useless. Can’t spend it on the street, can’t take it to the bank without getting boned by income oversight. Only low brains use dead currency.
There goes my dream payday down the tube with the rest of my life. And now I’m here, wondering if I’ll manage to make it out of the city before someone comes looking for me.
Hey, did you hear that noi–
by submission | Aug 22, 2016 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
“You, Mister…” The pause came as the micro servers moved quietly in the administrator, shiny and stoic, with a mere chest and head. Minute flashes drifted over hardened aluminum oxide in ever flitting artificial eyes. Arms were unnecessary. Improved perforated urethane from the ancient artists of Kao Corporation provided just enough false humanity on its face to reduce interface stress—still a common condition for those remaining on Earth.
“That’s Kelso, with a K, not a C.” His overbite impeded his diction, but there was no distinct accent. Speech patterns were awash with sand from world travels.
“Yes, well, you are what we call in this bureau an accidental.” Mouth elements moved the straight, strict lips under a static set of nostrils.
“A what?” Grizzled, worn and filthy from the abandoned streets, John Kelso leaned forward toward his caseworker. His right hand wore the scars of loose ropes let wild on the last tuna boat to sail from Tuvalu in the Pacific. The left hand was short a pinky finger from his act of attrition for sleeping with a Yakuza’s wife.
“An unregistered birth that was probably unplanned and therefore unreported.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you are privy to no rights for support from the Society.”
“That makes no sense. My parents were both full citizens. You have their registration in front of you, on screen.” He leaned back, fuming, against his long coat made from a water buffalo hide prepared after a hunt in Thailand.
“I have the records of a couple from Indiana who had three registered children who are now meaningful and productive full citizens. Their records show no familiarity or acknowledgement of your existence.”
“Why should they? I was the oldest when my parents died. None of them were older than three. At twelve I was abandoned by my blood relatives and left to wander and survive in Indianapolis on my own.”
“Unlikely. No child could survive that.” The worker remained motionless.
“False, again. I found many like myself. I’ve since traveled much of this planet and made, I believe, a better place of it, which is more than I can say for many of your registered patrons.”
“Rumor, innuendo and slander—all useless attempts at your concept of validation. They have no effect on me.” Its face turned away from the applicant, fulfilling an algorithm to reduce conflict.
“I tell you I have a right to basic life support until I can get financially stable. My parents left a large estate behind. I’ve checked.” Kelso rubbed his arm where splintered bone ached during the changing weather. A fall in the Andes left a reminder of soroche and failed climbing ropes.
“Only for registered citizens. The Society only sets aside support for those registered. It has been that way since 2130. You are an accidental. There is no further action to take, but you have an alternative.”
“Such as?”
“Off world transport from Earth to one of the newer colonies on the created moons in the Kuiper Belt. There you would be assigned appropriate labor, food and housing.”
“You mean a prison sentence for simply existing. No thanks to that. I like sunlight and air that doesn’t come out of a recycle cartridge. I’d starve first.”
“There are hospice beds available down the street.”
“Does this mean nothing to you? Do you even care?”
“I am not programmed to care. I simply state facts based on evidence.”
“Oh, and how did you get your cushy assignment, sitting here all day, throwing those with real skin out the door?”
“Well, Mr. Kelso, it was not by accident.”
by submission | Aug 21, 2016 | Story |
Author : Christopher Ferri
“Wait, just one more look,” Mary said to Arthur before heading back into the house. Having just gotten seated in the car, he put the key into the ignition and let out a sigh before running his hands back through his hair.
Arthur gave a small pound on the steering wheel and got up to go inside. He had already caught Mary once trying to hide small personal items in her clothes.
They have scanners, he told her, they will only make you remove them then anyways.
The personal preference kits that FEMA had mailed were already as full as they could get. The contents of each had been mulled over obsessively for the last two weeks.
Arthur entered the house and found Mary kneeling on the floor over a cardboard box. The box was filled with children’s artwork, finger paintings of rainbows, hand traced turkeys, a snowman made out of popsicle sticks with cotton balls and several others.
“We photographed all these, right?” she said.
“Mare, theres nothing in this house we haven’t photographed.”
She got up and walked over to the dining room table, her eyes empty. Atop the table were several plastic pins, each labeled with their contents. Photos, letters, etc. She lifted a small box from inside a bin marked jewelry and took out a silver necklace.
“Come on Mary,” Arthur said. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
“The rest of our lives… we will spend on a ship. We’ll never even know if mankind makes it to…”
“Wolf 1061c. Though, I’m sure they’ll come up with a better name for it. Who knows? Maybe we can offer some suggestions? We’ll have all the time in the world.”
“No, we’ll have more.”
Mary sat down at the corner of the table and looked out into the backyard, the sun beginning to shine through the naked trees. Arthur looked over at the clock. He sat down beside her at the head of the table.
“But did you ever think you’d be an astronaut someday? I certainly didn’t. I mean, not that I wouldn’t be… but you? Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”
Mary let out a short burst of laughter before beginning to sob.
“Thank god for that fantastic body or I never would have been able to convince them to let you go with us,” he said.
Mary wiped the tears from her face.
“Be careful what you say. They might have to redo your mental health assessment.”
“Then I’ll have to fake it again.”
“How many days will we be in orbit?” she asked him.
“Us? We’ll be up there for about two weeks before the ark departs.”
“I wish we could just spend it down here.”
“That’s not how this works. We have to get in that car and never look back.”
Mary got up from the table, crouched beside the box of artwork again, and picked up some of the construction paper pieces. She gripped them tighter and tighter in her hand, not speaking a word. Arthur stood up from the table and slowly moved to approach her. Just as he was about to touch her shoulders she ripped up all the artwork in her hands and tossed it in the air like it was confetti. She got up and briskly moved toward the door.
“Well, what are we waiting for?”
by submission | Aug 20, 2016 | Story |
Author : Callum Wallace
Ain’t even the puppets that’re the problem, you know?
It’s the heroes.
Useless, mate. Zoomin’ in with their lasers, their super strength. Christ, gimme a rifle and a scope any day, never mind that bollocks.
Shit.
Goes to show, bein’ the world’s greatest detective, or faster than a speedin’ bloody train, matters bugger all if there’s seven billion hands clawin’ at you. Turns out they underestimated ‘em. Or, rather, the heroes overestimated themselves. Bloody knobbers.
Wankers flying around, heat visioning and bloody chuckin’ ten tonne slabs o’ rock about, destroyin’ everything. Christ, I’d rather have a school of blind kids have my back then those caped clowns. You gotta be trained. And you gotta be ranged. Those lot that went in, fists raised, screamin’ about Valhalla, or whatever bloody planet they came from, know what happened to them? They got destroyed, or became a puppet themselves.
And when it takes two mags of bullpup to take a puppet down, it’s no joke. Bad enough we had regular pups to sort, we had to deal with those super charged mooks too. Ain’t no takin’ them down.
Lost thousands of civvies during, you know?
Shit flying everywhere, HQ banging on about pussy shit like public relations and that.
We’re fighting for our survival, defending humanity, that’s real humans, against the onslaught of infected, and who do they care about?
The fucking heroes.
The worst thing?
The worst thing is that people still bang on about ‘em. ‘Oooh, she has a magic rope, he talks to fish’, man o’ iron, blah, blah, blah.
Christ, no one talks about us.
Real heroes.
When some wally is chuckin’ cars about and some other wally is setting mooks on fire with his fuckin’ eyes, who has to deal with it?
Us.
The real heroes.
Shit.
by submission | Aug 19, 2016 | Story |
Author : Sharon Molloy
Every night, a man would look up at the moon and stars.
Astronomy had been his boyhood hobby. He knew about the ice volcanoes on Neptune, and Saturn’s diamond rain. Even more amazing worlds surely existed in outer space. “It must be a wonderful place,” he would say to himself.
All too early, he would have to go to bed, for he had to go to work the next morning.
One night, he awoke to a strange light in his room. Carefully he opened his back door. In his back yard, he saw something like a round plane with no wings, and a strange creature that could only be an alien. The man didn’t know what it was saying to him, but it sounded friendly enough.
The man and the alien spent the next few hours learning how to communicate. The alien cooed in amazement at all the ordinary things in the man’s house. They could have happily done this forever, but the man said he had to go to work.
The alien begged to go with him. If he stopped doing something as interesting as this to go to work, “It must be a wonderful place.”
The man told the alien to hide in his briefcase; they got in the man’s car and off they went.
When the man’s car slowed down, the alien asked, “Why are you driving so slowly now? What’s that noise?”
“The roads are full of other cars. Everyone else is going to work too.”
“Everyone?” Again the alien thought, “It MUST be a wonderful place!”
Was work wonderful? After a long, boring meeting, the alien still had to hide. People kept interrupting the man as he did hours of paperwork. The alien could travel in space far longer than any plane flight, but it had never before been this bored.
Finally, the man picked up his briefcase. “I’m glad this day is finished!” Driving home, he asked, “What work do you do on your planet?”
“If that was work,” said the alien, “we don’t do it.”
The man was so surprised, he nearly drove off the road. “You must get bored!”
“You were pretty bored today!”
“So you do nothing?”
“’Nothing’?” Now the alien was surprised. “It’s because we don’t work that we can do things!”
“What do you do?”
The alien laughed. “It’s more like, what *don’t* we do…”
On their home planet they didn’t do just one thing all day; they did many things. Mostly, they learned everything they could. That was how they had conquered space travel and why none of them ever got sick. “Why do you work?” the alien asked.
“I need money. For my car, to drive to work in; for my house, where I sleep, so I can work the next day; and for food, so I can work.”
“You just go around in circles!” The alien felt sorry for him.
“Do you work when you finally finish learning?”
“We never finish learning.”
The man was even more puzzled. “How do you get your money?”
“We don’t need money. Intelligent beings exchange learning for learning; learning *is* our currency. “You taught me this morning, like I am teaching you now.”
When the man got home, he sat looking at the spaceship for a long time. Finally, he turned to face the alien. “When you go home, please, take me with you, to your world.
“It must be a wonderful place.”
