by Duncan Shields | Feb 2, 2015 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Are we robot zombies or are we the pinnacle of humanity? Are we ahead of the evolutionary curve? Did we make the leap that all creatures with a finite lifespan have to or are we freaks? The universe remains as silent as it ever has on the subject.
No one dies of natural causes anymore.
We count our blessings but we’re scared. Dr Hansen saved us and doomed us all at the same time.
The year was 2020. “A year for vision”, they called it. And Dr Hansen delivered.
Immortality, eternal youth, the cure for AIDS and the Big C. All a person had to do was cease to be human.
“You see, our spirits are not our bodies. Our bodies are not our selves,” Dr. Hansen said. “Our brains are meat but our minds are something altogether different. We decay too quickly. The problem is what we’re made of, not who we are.”
He proposed a consciousness transfer into mostly artificial bodies. Sausage meat into a bullet casing. Nervous systems became calm systems. The hot red of blood became the cool blue of coolant. Neurons became nanocapacitors. Shreds of the original brain and nerves survived but were coffined into layers of hermetically-sealed exoskeletons.
The eccentric rich went for it. After that, Hansen cut corners and lowered prices, extolling his wares on telnet and oldweb. It sold well. The older folk, the terminally ill and the daredevil visionaries lined up. It created a very lively debate amongst the existentialists and religious scholars.
The military departments loved him. Living weapons were a reality; more predictable than the alien algorithms of flaky A.I.s. Unregistered mercenaries loved him as well.
Dr. Hansen became rich off of the patents involved, the factories that made the equipment, and the laboratories that made the switch. The black market, the grey market, and the legitimate downtown offices all were booming.
The thing that freaked the naysayers out was that it was a one-way switch. Just a glance at the metal skin of the warmechs or even the plastic skin of the short-lived humanomorph fad made a lot of people shut their eyes and shiver.
Sex was no longer possible in an artificial body. Orgasm programs and virtual reality were available stims for the fakebodies but it wasn’t the same. That fact made the young people stay away.
Dr Hansen was trying to figure out how to pitch to their demographic when the plague hit.
An airborne flesh-eating virus dubbed The End with a 98% communicability rate killed all the non-transferred people, Dr Hansen included. The higher primates all died as well. In one year, the population of the earth nosedived.
Everyone in Shells survived.
The earth is populated now by the minds of out-of-work soldiers, old people, and the once rich. Hulking metal weapons and artistic interpretations of the human form. Basic automaton models mixing with shining, high-end custom jobs. The population is holding at ten million, two hundred thirty thousand, and sixty-six.
Scared minds in tin cans.
We’ve been building shells again in an effort to propogate the species but we’re finding it difficult to clone new nervous systems with the virus still in the air. It hasn’t gone away. And most of Dr Hansen’s notes were lost in The End riots.
We are a closed system now. A finite population that can only get lower unless we figure out how to reproduce properly. Our scientists are working on it but not that many of them made the switch, oddly enough.
Until we can figure out how to reproduce, we wait.
by submission | Feb 1, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
Log Entry: Friday, August 19, 2033
I doubt anyone aboard will miss me, but how to go? No cords or a decent rope for hanging. Not a belt on the whole ship. Velcro won’t cut it with the smooth walls on the Jones. If I had a decent cook’s apron I could use the ties, but no, I have to wear my single-issue jumpsuit. If nothing else, having to wash the thirty crew members’ undies while I have to stand nude would be reason enough for suicide.
It’s not the adventure the recruiter described: cleaning walls, clothing, cutting hair, and preparing meals. I can’t fly this heap, navigate, perform science experiments or make repairs. My spec sheet says duties as assigned, basic labor. I might as well be a toilet shadow…another thing I have to keep clean. Four went to Mars on the first 2029 exploration. I can’t figure why these thirty need special consideration. Why depend on me to make their travel pleasant? True, I can make a gourmet meal out of rat’s guts and straw, but for all that why treat me like a stowaway? And when we get to Bush Argo 1 I’m assigned to tend the hydroponic garden because of my green thumb. We’re only a week from landing. I can’t face that.
Why didn’t I use an air lock? They put rotating codes on the locking keypads. Only the CO and Exec have numbers. I just want out. They use me for amusement; first just short-sheeting the bed, or hiding my pillow; then, peeing in my boots or hiding shoe polish in my toothpaste. Lately the mad crapper leaves piles around the rig. I have to clean it and listen to laughter as I walk to recycling. If that wasn’t bad enough, someone is going through my stuff. I’m still missing Granny’s wedding ring. Why take that?
I’m not brave. I don’t get paid for that. I only left to get out of debt. They clear all that when you sign for a one-way. I simply can’t get up the nerve to slice myself with my butcher knives or try to find a loose wire to put in my mouth. So, I’m going to make up some special chocolates, just for me, with some of the sleep meds I slipped out of the dispensary cabinet. I’ll just go to sleep and they can take care of my mess for a change. I’ll bake the fudge bars tomorrow and cover them with a killer dose of frosting. So when you read this, know that I had a sugar high before I left this crate, so you creeps couldn’t make me your pendejo gardener on Mars.
Mom, I’m sorry. I know you expected more. I love you. See you someday.
“That’s the end of the log?” Inspector Connolly asked his associate, Spenser Willis, as he finished reading.
“That’s it, Chief.”
“The crew must have distracted Hernandez long enough to break into his room, take the chocolates and consume all of them. That seems clear. Agree?”
“Perfectly, except for the missing body.”
“Sure, we got all the crew after the John Paul Jones landed, except him. Any clues?”
“No, and there’s no suits missing. No sign of Hernandez. That’s a big one driving Space Central nuts. It’s causing a Press circus. It could set back our program a decade. We’re going to be hurting if they don’t send more ships.”
“We’ve got plenty of useless pilots and navigators, but no one to keep our gardens going or cook.”
by submission | Jan 31, 2015 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix
“I don’t see anything, mommy. I want to go inside.”
He was lying in his child-sized lounge chair next to her adult-sized lounge.
The nights were clear and warm in Stella’s corner of the world after the astronomers’ announcement, so people looked up at the sky expecting to see new stars pop into view every few minutes, like flashes of light during a meteor shower. They were disappointed. It was too soon to see the phenomenon with naked eyes. Not enough photons reached earth. Only telescopes with special lenses and cameras that accumulated light over long time periods and recorded them as digital photos proved the astronomers correct. Since only astronomers had such equipment, a lot of people didn’t believe. They thought it was a scheme to get government funding.
“All right, Todd. Get ready for bed. I’m going to lie here awhile longer.”
The photos weren’t very convincing. Views of a distant glowing cloud. And there was no catchy name for the phenomenon, since scientists weren’t sure what it was. A rebound from the Big Bang — the Big Crunch? Or the opposite, cosmic expansion speeding up and tearing the universe apart — the Big Rip? Or another universe crashing into ours like a tsunami, piling up galaxies in a wave of debris sweeping towards us — a Cosmic Collision? Even ten years later, when the brightening night sky was apparent to all, scientists still couldn’t agree on what it was or what to name it, but a journalist called it “Starshine,” which caught on.
Through the screen, “Mom, that guy is at the door. Should I send him back here? I’m going over to Kristi’s house to study.”
“All right. Send him back. And you be home by 11:00. No excuses.”
As her son’s car backed out of the driveway, Craig pulled a lounge next to hers and joined her looking up at the night sky.
“Todd still won’t call me by my name.”
“He’ll come around.” Unbuttoning his shirt, “And I’m glad you came around.”
“What if Todd comes back?”
“He’s going to have sex with his girlfriend… so you can have sex with yours.”
As more years passed, people grew increasingly fearful, turning to religious leaders, to politicians, and to scientists for answers. Could the stars be stopped before Earth was destroyed? Amidst prayers and proclamations of martial law, scientists explained that even though the approaching galaxies appeared to be a solid wall of light, individual stars were actually far apart and none might pass close enough to collide with our Sun and its planets. Of course, they downplayed the likelihood that even if it escaped direct hits, our solar system would be torn apart by the gravity of massive objects passing nearby and pulling us into the wave.
Stella closed her eyes against the starshine. She didn’t know what time it was. She didn’t care. When nights became as bright as days, daylight saving time was abandoned. Time itself was abandoned by many. Unless you had a job or other time commitments, what did it matter when you slept or ate or did anything else?
As Craig closed the screen, Todd whispered, “She hasn’t said a word since we got here. The baby’s sound asleep, but maybe we shouldn’t go to the service.”
“No, no, you two go ahead. I’ll watch the baby… and your mom.”
He sat in a lounge next to hers and took her hand.
She looked over, “They said it was billions of light years away. That’s billions of trillions of miles.” Looking up, “And yet, twenty years later, here it is.”
by submission | Jan 30, 2015 | Story |
Author : Richard D. Deverell
My name is Jackson Smith. I work as the coroner for a large county with a small population and even smaller infrastructure. Last week, a train derailed in our county, dumping toxic chemicals that killed more people in the week after the accident than the derailment itself. I hadn’t slept in nearly forty-eight hours when I had a conversation that forever changed my life.
It was nearing three A.M. as I wrote up my notes on one of the victims of the chemical spill when I heard a noise from the other room. At first, I attributed it to lack of sleep and the depression of seeing so much of my community come through my office. A clatter followed the indeterminate noise, so I went to check it out, fearing that some reporter had snuck in to get photos of the disaster.
Inside the other room, one of the corpses was sitting up, bent at the waist with its legs straight out. I thought it was the result of rigor mortis or outgassing until the body turned to look at me.
Now, I’ve seen plenty of zombie movies, but this wasn’t some horror-show grotesque that looked at me. The skin way ashen, but the eyes shone with intelligence. The corpse looked at me and said, “Have you seen my liver? I feel empty inside.”
I was at a loss for words, but, my parents raised me to be polite and the corpse was looking at me expectantly, so I stammered, “Um, it’s with some of your other organs in sample jars in the fridge. For testing.”
The corpse paused a moment, processing, before he shrugged. “Okay, just remember to put it back when you’re done.”
“Uh-huh.”
The corpse paused and looked around. Seeing the clock and the late hour, he looked back at me and asked, “Shouldn’t you be home?”
I rubbed my temples, overcome with weariness from the lack of sleep and because I was barely able to process the current situation. “I should be,” I said, “but there’s a lot of work here and nothing there, so I’ve been working.”
The corpse gestured to a chair in the corner, “Sit down and tell me about it.”
I accepted his invitation, thankful for anyone to talk to, even the dead. “It’s been a rough week. Do you remember what happened?”
He shook his head.
“Okay, well, you and many others were killed as the result of an accident. As the only coroner in the county, I’ve been pulling double and triple shifts just to keep up.”
“Yes,” he said, “but why isn’t there anything at home?”
“I don’t really have anything besides work.”
He scratched his chin. Such a strange gesture for a dead man! “Is work fulfilling, at least,” he asked.
“No, but it distracts me.”
“From what?”
I thought about it. Why did I work here? I’d been in this job for nearly a decade without advancement or improvement. Most people barely knew me and I made no effort to get to know them. Afraid I was being rude or taking too much time, I said, “I suppose it distracts me from life.”
The corpse pondered this and gestured to the refrigerator. “My organs are in there,” he said, “but you’re the empty one.”
I turned to the fridge, following his gesture, and when I looked back he was lying down again and still, as though nothing had happened. At a loss, I went back to my office and work. I’m not sure what frightens me more: that we had a conversation, or what he said.
by submission | Jan 29, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The President of the United States watched the viewscreen in the Oval Office as it displayed what appeared to be mist condensing on the lens of the camera that had recorded the video. After a few seconds, the tiny droplets started coming together and sliding to the edges of the screen in rivulets.
“That’s helium-neon rain, Madam President,” said the administrator of NASA seated next to her. After a few minutes the mist dissipated and the video showed a dark, copper-colored liquid flowing slowly around the camera. It gave the impression of the view from a submarine sailing through an ocean of maple syrup.
“That’s liquid metallic hydrogen,” said the administrator. “We’ll jump ahead because this pretty much stays the same for most of four hours.”
After he advanced the video, something started to appear in the flowing liquid. Over a span of two minutes, a few circular objects materialized. The circles multiplied and resolved themselves into dome-shaped structures. A few people in the room gasped. Lines started forming, connecting the domes together. Small oval shapes moved along the lines. A few spherical objects appeared to float above the domes, moving slowly in various directions.
“Is that what it looks like?” asked the President.
“We believe so, Madam President,” answered the administrator. “We think this image is an ‘aerial’ view of a city.”
“There’s a city on the surface of the core of Jupiter? So at Jupiter’s core conditions are Earth-like?”
“No, ma’am,” said the administrator. “The pressure inside that part of Jupiter is around 600 million gigapascals.”
“In English?”
“Normal atmospheric pressure on Earth is a little less than 15 pounds per square inch. At the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, the pressure is eight tons per square inch. The pressure inside Jupiter at that depth is on the order of 300,000 tons per square inch. That’s why the Jupiter Deep Exploration Probe was so expensive and took so long to build. Whole new technologies had to be developed to survive the conditions that deep inside a gas giant.”
“Even at the bottom of oceans on Earth,” said a Senator seated across the room, “we find life. Could life on Jupiter adapt to that pressure?”
“Not life as we know it,” replied the administrator. “Even matter itself behaves strangely under those conditions. The atmosphere above the city is composed of hydrogen in a supercritical state, neither liquid nor gas. And the probe registered temperatures in excess of 60,000℉. The core itself appears to be solid, which was theorized for some time. But no one imagined anything like…this.” He gestured at the frozen image on the screen.
“Could we communicate with them?” a congressman asked. “Radio, maybe?”
“Sir, we don’t know if what we’re looking at is the Jovian equivalent of New York City or the Jovian equivalent of a coral reef. It looks like a city, but it may not be. If this is a civilization, we don’t know how or even if their technology could receive any kind of signal we can send.”
“If that’s a civilization,” said the President, “we’ve already sent a signal. Even to beings so different they can live in that kind of environment, the probe would still be recognized as something obviously artificial, made by intelligent creatures, wouldn’t it?”
“There’s no way to be certain, Madam President,” said the administrator.
“Send another probe.”
“Madam President, the cost–”
“You’ll have the money.” The President smiled. “And to think that jackass I’m running against just announced he’d cut NASA’s budget if he got elected.”
by submission | Jan 28, 2015 | Story |
Author : Michael Jagunic
Brick stands motionless as mechanical arms snap the exosuit around him: torso first, then limbs, weapons, and finally helmet.
“It’s like God creating life, you know?” he says. “You start with a soul, slap a body around it, and then send it shrieking into the harsh light of the world.”
He’s trying to lighten the mood. He’s failing.
Outfitted in my own exosuit, I lead Brick down the dimming corridor. The dying lights are on purpose—no reason to maintain full intensity up here. Still, power has been ebbing for weeks. A few weeks more and the rest of the lights below will be just as dim. And then dark.
We waited as long as we could. We hoped as long as we could.
“Think they’ll be waiting for us?” Brick asks.
“Yes,” I answer. “And they’re legion.”
At the end of the corridor, we come to the hangar, where the last three Hoppers loom like dusty dragons before the hangar door. The hangar once housed twelve Hoppers, but the other nine are no more than scraps of mangled metal now, lost somewhere out there beyond the bunker walls. No matter. The only Hopper I care about is the one Maddox was flying when he tried to save us.
Maddox, Brick, and I had been thick as thieves even before the Solar Army landed this planet, and we stuck together through everything: the Door opening up, settling this bunker, the Anti-Event. Them pouring through from the other side, slaughtering us in droves, clawing our Hoppers out of the sky and cracking our tanks as easily as they did our skulls.
When it got down to just the three of us and our distress calls were still going unanswered, Maddox couldn’t take the waiting anymore. He offered us a quick goodbye, and then flew a Hopper directly into the Door. I watched the whole thing in the control room while Brick said a prayer in the chapel. The vidlink showed a view of Maddox’s cockpit as he took one last run at them.
And that’s when I saw something.
“Brick. We need to talk about the plan.”
“I remember. Stay stealthy, sneak away.”
I look at him, knowing that all he can see is my black visor. “No. That used to be the plan. Not anymore. You remember when the Door first opened? Solar Army tried to pass a drone through.”
“Drone just kept on flying like the Door wasn’t there. It’s a one-way door, for them.”
“No,” I reply. “It’s not. When Maddox flew into the Door—”
“He passed right through, just like the Drone.”
“His Hopper passed through. But when Maddox hit the Door he disappeared. He didn’t pass through…he passed through. His ship crashed, but in the second before it did, I saw. He wasn’t in it. The door, it must have to do with organic matter or…or I don’t know, but…”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because I know how crazy—”
“Yeah, it’s crazy. They came from that side.”
“You have a better plan? If we have to die, don’t you at least want to see what’s on the other side first?”
“The other side? Those things came straight from hell!”
“Maybe. Or maybe they’re guarding the gates of heaven.”
Seconds pass. An eternity.
“Okay, Johnny,” Brick says. “Doubt it matters whether we die in this universe or the next.”
“Right,” I smile. “Let’s go take a peek behind the curtain.”
With the slam of a lever, the hangar doors yawn open. In the distance, the first of them takes to the sky.
