by submission | Sep 14, 2016 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix
I’m awake before dawn. No alarm, but my internal clock must have a reason. Another job interview today? Can’t remember. Might as well get up, check messages, have something to eat.
Might as well get up.
Can’t move. Frozen in my favorite sleeping position, left side, cuddled up to a large pillow… No, not a pillow. Warm. Smooth. Soft, yet somehow firm. And a scent of… Oh. Ohhhh. I can feel every inch of my skin that is touching hers, from the top of my foot on which hers rests to the tip of my nose nestled in her hair… Who is she? And where am I? And why can’t I move?
I must have really tied one on last night. I don’t remember a… This is seriously wrong. I really can’t move. Did I stroke? I must have stroked from the excitement… She’s moving, stretching away, reaching for something. A blast of light shocks me. I want to close my eyes, but can’t. She turns toward me, blocking the light. I see the silhouette of her exquisite body. She brings her face to mine, to kiss, and just before our lips meet, I recognize her. The recruiter, Yvette. Thirtyish. Attractive. She interviewed me at the hotel. It went well, very well. She invited me to her room for a drink. Is that where I am?
She rises and heads for the bathroom.
I tell her to go ahead and shower first, though I want to join her. I say it in French, a language I do not speak. But it was my voice, and I understand what I said. I feel my body rolling over to the right side and sitting up, seemingly of its own accord.
I remember that I have a meeting… No, HE has a meeting with his executive team at 8:00, when he will present his new body. I realize that I know what he knows simply by entering his mind. And from that vantage I realize that he is unaware of me. I try to communicate, but there is a barrier I cannot penetrate. Mentally scanning my muscle groups, I attempt to move them — eyes, head, shoulders, arms, hands, torso… Nothing. They, too, are unaware of me, responding only to him.
Yvette emerges from the bathroom in a fluffy white robe. She opens it and I gasp virtually, but he hardly takes notice, heading for the shower. I take stock of my situation. She is no recruiter. She is his mistress. He is a 63 year old billionaire, CEO of a French conglomerate, who is, was, dying of pancreatic cancer. One of his labs developed the technology to transfer minds from one person to another. Writing his over mine was supposed to erase every trace of me, and yet here I am. His body was disposed of, so there’s no turning back. No turning back for what remains of me, either — powerless, a vestigial consciousness in a stolen body, personally selected by Yvette, who was given carte blanche to shop for one that could satisfy her carnal passions, who test drove several in New York and brought one home on a corporate jet.
Screaming on the inside, my reflection in the mirror is that of a smiling young man. “Dieu! Que tu est beau,” he says as he steps back to admire his body. And it IS his body, because of a physician’s declaration that I was brain dead, because of a forged document which says I donated my body to science, because possession, as the Americans say, est neuf dixièmes de la loi.
by Julian Miles | Sep 13, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I hear the mugger running off as the echoes of the gunshot fade.
Opening my eyes, I’m still standing. There’s a bleeding body at my feet that hadn’t been there when I closed my eyes. He rolls over.
“Michael!”
He looks up, tears streaming back into his hair.
A career in trauma care tells me his wound is mortal. I drop to my knees and rest his head on my lap. Fighting back icy shock, my words come out in a rush: “How? Where did you come from? Where did you go?”
The last time I saw him was during our final semester. We were planning a life together, then the science centre blew up and took him with it. In the intervening twenty years, there hasn’t been a day when I didn’t think of him.
His voice is a whisper: “The temporal flow experiment. It worked. But only for things I had a personal connection to. Saw us. You. Two decades ahead, alone. One night, you left your friends and walked down a side road. The mugger attacked, you fought back. He shot you.”
I know what he did, the beautiful, brilliant, stupid man.
He wheezed on: “That moment. This road. Worked out I could save you, but only by removing myself from causality’s reach. Adapted the experimental gear and sent myself here. Now. For you.”
I stroke his forehead and tears fall onto his face: “You idiot. If you hadn’t left, I wouldn’t be here.”
His bloody hand rises to touch my cheek: “Yes, you would. No matter the decision path, you ended up here, dead. If I’d stayed, best option was that we were childless and divorced after I became a drunk. Saw that my life went nowhere, no matter what I did. Decided then and there I would do right by you. I did the thing the flow didn’t show. To make good for once.”
My lost-and-found sweetheart coughs and just like that, he’s dead and gone.
I’m trying to make sense of it all when the shock overwhelms me. I tumble into a darkness that, thanks to a mad love, and with a little luck, I should wake from.
by Stephen R. Smith | Sep 12, 2016 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Jessica sat in the corner booth at the back of O’Tooles with the best sight line to the door. She wanted to see him when he arrived, Taylor Jacobs, highschool sweetheart.
Well, he might have been. He’d always been polite, and they grew up on the same street, so that was to be expected, but she never fit in with his crowd. He played quarterback, she hated the cheerleaders. He bowled on Friday nights with the ‘in’ crowd, and she spent most Friday’s at the library, or jogging laps around the outskirts of a town she wished she could feel at home in. She went to watch him play hockey one night, and his team mates pointed and made jokes that she couldn’t hear. She toughed it out for a while just to spite them, but she left at second intermission and never went back. She always thought one day she’d be interesting enough, or ‘in’ enough for him to see her.
But that was highschool. That was years ago.
He walked through the door just like he’d done a hundred times before, blonde gelled hair combed over neatly to one side, faded and worn varsity letterman jacket open over a plain white t-shirt, stretched out in the belly more than she’d remembered, but still handsome, and he still walked like he owned the place.
“Hi, ” he smiled as he sat down, “sorry I’m late. You look great.”
He was exactly as she remembered him.
The waiter arrived and announced the specials, and as she opened her mouth to order he spoke first.
“Budweiser,” he said, “I don’t need a glass.”
It was ten o’clock in the morning.
“I’ll have a coffee, with milk. In a mug please.”
He didn’t catch the sarcasm.
As she worked her way through a second and then third cup of coffee, Taylor polished off five bottles of Budweiser while listening intently.
“…and after the academy graduation, I spent a year flying research crews between Starlight Station and Io. On one flight, we almost got blown into orbit when Prometheus, a really large volcano, erupted without any warning. I was hovering over top of the crater so the imaging team could get a better vantage point, and we almost got too close a look!” She laughed, remembering the exhilaration of the moment and the flood of relief when she was sure they were safely clear of the blast zone.
Taylor peeled absently at the label on his most recently emptied bottle, and smiled. “That sounds really exciting.”
“Yes,” Jessica sat back and regarded the fattening, mildly inebriated former football hero as he scraped bits of the beer bottle label from under his fingernails.
“Hey,” he perked up, “why don’t you come to our hockey game later? Me and the guys usually bowl afterwards, you could come have a drink and maybe keep me company for a few frames.”
“That sounds like fun, but I don’t think so.” She motioned for the waiter as she reached for her pay-card. “There’s a shuttle leaving at eighteen hundred, and I’d like to get back home.”
He slumped back into his seat, but the pretty boy pout that might have worked at one time merely served to cement her decision.
They said goodbye, and he gave her a hug that he held for a little too long after she let go. The smell of beer and sweat lingered as she walked towards the exit.
“Don’t be a stranger, Jess,” he called after her as she pushed open the door.
Jessica turned and smiled across the dimly lit bar, struck with the nostalgia of the moment played out in reverse. She’d heard a familiar and hopeful wanting in his voice, something she remembered from her youth.
But that was highschool.
That was years ago.
by submission | Sep 11, 2016 | Story |
Author : J.P. Quinn
Arron sat on an outcrop of rock. He’d stopped to watch the sunset. He knew he shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help it. It was the shift from copper to blue. That extended interlude between day and night, where, for a few fleeting moments, he could almost be home.
A blip interrupted his musings. Wiping away a layer of dust, he checked his wrist unit. They were close now. Two rovers and a utility vehicle. Climbing back to his feet he pulled his scope. Before, their faces had been as familiar as his own. Now, he could barely tell them apart. It was this loss of humanity that scared him most. Terrified him, almost.
They had been drilling core samples, checking for signs of mud volcanism. The initial results had looked promising, until Blake had dropped the casing. It had happened back at the lab, the cylinder slipping through her fingers to split apart on the durbar plate floor. She’d been furious. Her rage rolling in like a summer dust storm. Arron, who had never been good with conflict, had left her to salvage the sample alone. That had been the start of it.
Replacing the scope, Arron abandoned the sunset and climbed into his ATV. It was low on power. There was enough for a few miles maybe. More if he shut down the non-essential systems. Pushing the actuator into drive, he started off toward the nearest crater basin. They’d catch him soon, he supposed. Sooner, if he couldn’t find some rocky terrain.
A transmission crackled through his earpiece. They were calling him. The sounds little more than guttural barks. He tried to break the connection, but couldn’t remember how. He guessed it was the stress. The situation was starting to get to him. Starting to wear him down.
Perry had gone to help Blake with the analysis. She’d let him in, and then turned on him. He’d fought back, but neither of them had come out of it well. Arron had watched from the control room. That was the first time he’d noticed the change in their voices. The others had screamed at him through the intercom. Their words jumbled and fragmented. He’d only worked out what they wanted when Koskov had tripped the contamination alarm and sealed the lab himself.
The ATV took a slide. Arron struggled to regain control but there was little he could do as the slide became a tumble. They’d tried to seal him in the control room. He’d watched on the closed circuit as they burst the door hydraulics and shorted out the relay. That was when he’d decided to run. Pulling up the floor panelling, he’d crawled through the service conduit to the equipment store. There, he’d suited up and made a break for the transit bay.
Arron’s helmet collided with the dash as the ATV flipped onto its roof and then back to its wheels again. A crack swept across his visor. Instinctively, he reached for it, the plastic giving way in a single gust. A fizzing sensation swept through his body. It was worst in his eyes, ears, mouth and chest. Above, the evening star had emerged from the horizon, its pale hue cool and serene. Arron watched it rise, his transformation nearing completion, his breathing coming to a halt.
The last thing he remembered was the whine of an electric motor. Then the crunch of boots through dust.
After that, he knew only rage.
by submission | Sep 10, 2016 | Story |
Author : Daniel Fairbairn
A wind that started a billion years ago ended today. It sighed past my apple tree and ended its journey. The breath of an age of warriors, poets, beasts and storms lay in the marks in the dust. The grass stood still as if in some moment of buffering. The clouds hung heavily in the streaked and azure sky. Even the Sun looked bewildered as it shone into my eyes between the white bulks. The birds usual shrieking and cawing had taken on a ponderous tone, as if they were gossiping around the subject, conjecturing what outcome was most likely.
The rest of my race were no better. The airwaves and internet abounded with debate, panic, ratings vultures pawing the carcass of our predicament. None of that changed the fact that as Autumn arrived, our leaves fell straight down, weather was a non event. The oceans calmed disturbingly, and wind borne seeds and spores simply dropped to the ground. Although it wasn’t entirely evident, there was a rising sense of panic, certainly among the thinkers among us. Unfortunately the majority of us remained pinned to our screens, awaiting instructions from the incessantly talking heads.
One thing did improve. Turbulence during flights had ceased to be. It was a pleasure to rise up into the eerily still yet diaphanous clouds, seemingly gliding across glass before slowly lowering to the next airfield.
I took lots of flights during that time. Lots! I felt as if time had somehow paused, and I was drinking in this moment for as long as I could.
War broke out in America first. A country of high tension at the best of times, it seems that excessive rioting escalated and finally the government collapsed. Next was western Europe, then across the Middle East. It seemed that panic had turned us inward. The UK and the Nordic countries seemed to be like quiet children in a room of fighting parents. Or, I suppose that could be written the opposite way, but you know what I mean. We clung to our dignity as all about us fell and burned. I stopped watching the news, YouTube and Facebook. In the end, I had to be here for me. I could no more help those people than I could turn the Moon with my hand.
My apple trees leaves lay dead and dried on the ground. A troubled Blackbird studied me for answers to questions it couldn’t understand, from the barren branches of my despondent tree. ‘You tell me’ I said to him.
I saw the last insect the next day, and the day after that, the last bird flew over my house and headed south. I noticed later that day the cows, sheep and pigs had all abandoned their fields and headed away from us too. In an effort to find some answers I admit I did turn on YouTube again. All over the world, those that could were reporting that all indigenous life in their areas were heading south. Even into the North Sea, the Channel, the Atlantic.
The next day it was apparent why. From nothing came the wind. All across the northern hemisphere, the winds roared for a day and a half, all in a northerly direction. Until they stopped again, as if an enormous deep breath had been inhaled, before a deafening shout…
by submission | Sep 9, 2016 | Story |
Author : Matthew Harrison
It was a struggle, but they managed to get the trainees ready just in time for the cocktail.
“I don’t see why we need to bother,” Simon said as he surveyed the work. He had crumpled his suit, and didn’t have a spare. “We can just explain the firm to the candidates ourselves.”
His partner Maggie, elegant despite the rush, would have none of it. “To attract the best law interns, we have to show them we have the best trainees.”
“And it’s not just getting them ready,” Simon went on, as if he hadn’t heard her. “They have to perform…”
There was no time for Maggie to argue. The first would-be interns were already at reception; Astrid couldn’t hold them for long. Maggie went briskly through the final preparations, glanced quickly at the trainees with their rouged cheeks and crimsoned lips, and then swung the door wide. “Welcome to Chancel Rose!” she beamed at the young visitors.
The cocktail went well. The would-be applicants were awed by all the smart suits and good looks. Maggie whirled around the room, introducing intern to trainee and trainee to intern, and smoothing all with her light banter. Simon, despite his grumbles, did the same, along the way attracting quite a gaggle of impressionable young girls.
“We’re tremendously proud of the professional work we do,” Maggie was saying to one group, “isn’t that right, Michael?” And before the trainee could answer, she had hurried on, “But one thing we insist upon in this firm is work-life balance. ‘Don’t let the law get ahead of the life’ – eh, Petra?”
Petra looked as though the witticism was beneath her. So Maggie took her arm and introduced her to the most talkative of the young male applicants.
That done, she rushed to another group where the conversation was slowing and got the waiter to pour more wine. Then it was on to ginger up another group, and another. Simon was keeping things going on the other side of the room. And Astrid was doing her bit with the young people in the corner.
Just as Maggie’s inventiveness was beginning to flag, Simon picked up a glass and tapped it with a fork. The room fell silent – and then the audio rang out with the firm’s song! Holding hands with Michael and Petra, Maggie led the trainees in a spirited performance, drawing applause from the interns. Simon, throwing himself into it, switched to pop, and cavorted about on the floor. The lights were dimmed, a revolving disco ball cast spangles of light over the proceedings, and the cocktail ended in general dancing.
As the tired applicants streamed out, Maggie was gratified to hear one of them say, “What a firm!”
“Sure,” said another, “they’re so alive!”
“Did you hear that, Simon?” Maggie said afterwards. “A good evening’s work!”
Simon could only agree. And, with Astrid helping, the two of them wound down the trainees so that they could go back into storage.
