by submission | Sep 12, 2014 | Story |
Author : Dan Larnerd
Doctor Grace Virchow sat at her computer desk with her eyes closed. Her office was dark and full of deep shadows. Only the flickering blue light of her computer monitor illuminated the scene.
Next to her sat a cold cup of coffee and a picture of her family that lay face down. The wall that stood behind her was bare. The diplomas and professional accolades lay scattered at its base. Her humanitarian award sat in a nearby trashcan.
An anguished cry echoed from down the hall. Doctor Virchow opened her eyes.
On her monitor was a high-priority email from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. It began with a long list of recipients followed by an urgent message set in a giant type.
Attention Hospital Medical Personnel:
Several cases of a parasitic infection have been reported in your region. It is highly contagious. This parasitic organism may be extraterrestrial in nature. Please report any cases to the CDC for immediate military quarantine. See attached photo.
In the upper corner of the email was a paperclip icon showing a photo had been attached to the email. Doctor Virchow frowned and clicked on the file.
A picture of a young military private appeared on the screen. He glared bitterly at the camera with his hands cuffed behind him. Across his neck, and growing up the side of his face, was a swarm of turquoise-colored spores. Some of them were the size of marbles while the biggest were the size of ripe plums. Two armed men stood in the background pointing their weapons at their infected comrade.
“No! Don’t put that on me! No!” a patient screamed from down the hall.
Doctor Virchow deleted the emergency email and the picture of the infected solider disappeared from her screen. She sat back in her chair and gently stroked the spores growing across her own face.
by Duncan Shields | Sep 11, 2014 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Luminaris.
They called it a slingshot planet. It had what was known as a linear pendulum orbit.
So far it was the only one on record. It was caught in a gravity well between four stars of different colours. It was a planetoid that tried to thread the needle and failed every two months, nearly escaping before being pulled back through. Like a giant playing catch with itself.
Uniquely stable as far as the scientists could tell, it had been going up and down (or back and forth depending on how you looked at it) for nearly half a billion years.
The four suns were a white dwarf, a blue dwarf, a red giant, and a yellow sun like Earth’s.
The ‘orbit’ took two months. Standing on the Luminaris, a person would see the four stars huddled on the horizon to the east while at its furthest point, a bright quartet of glittering color nearly lost in the endless field of billions of quiet points of light. Then the ‘left’ orbit started and the planet sped backwards, the four zenith stars growing larger and brighter as they got closer to Luminaris. Those four stars spread farther apart, obliterating the sky with light as the planet passed through the eye of the needle and experienced a four way ‘sunfall’ from each compass point. It sweltered in the kiln of the four eyes of a cruel god as the suns washed it in radiation and then spat it out again. Then the suns dwindled to the west and the sky got dark until they huddled on the opposite horizon, waiting to grow and return to the east during the ‘right’ orbit.
For one month in between the suns, it was a permanent sunset of plaid in the sky. Sunrays shone from four different directions in four different colours, making the clouds into a circus-clown cotton-candy rainbow gallery of stripes and swirls.
The most brilliant aurora borealis of any recorded planet rippled through the clouds to add to the fun, riddling the magnetosphere with greens, yellows, purples and reds so bright that they were clear during the daylight. Shades of every colour bloomed and washed through the sky. Even new colours were invented here.
Artists wept. Writers tried in vain to capture the hues. Some people went mad from looking at it.
To go there was very expensive. People could be heard saying for the rest of their lives, with as much condescension as possible, “Oh that’s a nice green but it’s not a Lumigreen. You know what I mean? Of course you don’t. It’s like, well, it’s hard to say. You just had to be there.”
I’ve been here for eighteen years now. I was the mankind’s first trillionaire after finding a way to mine the asteroid belts. I tired of the pressures of big business and allowed a few squabbling mining corporations to buy me out. I can afford to live the rest of the days here on Luminaris and I plan to do just that.
I’m a nomad by choice here, walking from resort town to resort town across the desert of Luminaris while the storm of colour comes and goes above me. I’m mistaken for a vagabond for the most part and I don’t mind.
The sky talks to me. The colours riot. People have told me I’m delusional but the sky tells me the truth. The colours have told me how to live a life of complete peace. Buddhism seems belligerent in comparison.
The colours wash my smiling face as I walk under a kaleidoscope rainbow firestorm of epiphany.
by Julian Miles | Sep 10, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Dad said that the nannybots inside would stop the monsters from getting me. I liked that. The first night after the injection, I slept with the lights off. My nannybots would protect me. Even when mum died the next day, I knew that bad things couldn’t get me and only cried a little.
There’s a knock on the door. I know who it is before the voice comes.
“Chloe? It’s Pietro. Can I come in?”
“Of course.”
Pietro is bigger than dad ever was, and has a physique like my dad thought he had. But the main reason I like Pietro is because my nannybots like him. Having someone who can hold me without going into spasms or being turned to sludge is wonderful.
“How are things today?”
“Better. My arm has stopped itching.”
“Can I see?”
I emerge from under the sheet and hold my arm out, smiling as his eyes widen. My skin is like the softest silver-grey silk, with purple filigree patterns that change colour with my mood. Dad’s notes called them ‘nanotattoos’.
Pietro takes my arm so gently. His touch makes my skin tingle and the filigree flushes a sparkling violet. He smiles.
“You’re complete.”
I nod: “Do you think that now it’s over, we could get a pet?”
His expression drops into a frown and my filigree goes dark.
“It’ll be the same, Chloe. Your nannybots wouldn’t like it.”
I feel a tear slip down my cheek. Of all the things that my nannybots don’t like, cute furry animals are the thing we disagree about.
What dad did to me made him rich and famous. He spent a lot of that money hiding the fact that my nannybots had only one response to things they didn’t like: they killed them. Didn’t matter if it was a common cold bug or the lady hired to teach me to play piano.
On my fifteenth birthday, Pietro came into my life, cameraman for a sneaky reporter. He picked me up from the floor where I cried over the puddle that the reporter had become when he tried to stop me calling my dad. My nannybots hadn’t liked that. I waited for Pietro to scream and die, but he didn’t. His words were kind, but his touch was like what mum described as ‘cool water in the desert’. I never knew that I desperately needed to touch someone, until that moment.
Then dad rushed in shouting, before falling silent as he saw me cradled in Pietro’s arms.
“Young man, you should leave.”
I felt the arms around me turned steely: “Sir, I don’t think I’ll be doing that until this lady sends me away.”
He called me a lady. Dads face flushed red and he grabbed Pietro’s arm. I saw the purple flash that travelled from me, through Pietro, to dad. Then dad went all stiff. He looked at me, nodded, and fell backwards.
My dad’s last words were: “Time to pay the piper.”
Since then, we’ve been together. Pietro taught me to laugh, fight, love, hide and lie. He also taught me to meditate, and that let me engage with my nannybots. They wanted to make me better. After Pietro and I talked, I let them. Today, they finished.
Something makes a noise. I see Pietro has his other hand behind his back. I grin: “Show me.”
His arm comes forward. In his hand is an Alsatian puppy. I can see the smoky grey filigree patterns on its skin.
“Happy Rebirthday, beautiful. From me and your nannybots.”
by submission | Sep 9, 2014 | Story |
Author : Charles E.J. Moulton
William felt relieved, actually.
One more hour of digging and his hands would have lost all their flesh.
William threw down his shovel, straightened his back, stretching his muscles and positively felt his 50 year-old bones snap, crackle and pop inside his body.
The termite nests he had found proved it.
The small parasites had caused the fairy circles.
“One more picture,” William whispered to himself, lifting his Nikon D4 and pushing the button. He triggered utter panic down there. He loved watching the little guys. Was that mean? William didn’t know. The fact of the matter was that lonely William found himself at last in the position of being able to deliver the geological institute a definite solution as to why these strange fairy circles were appearing along the African coast.
Fairy circles? Why had William become so interested in these things at all? That Spanish ufologist came to mind, that dark guy with the dyed blond hair. A whole evening’s worth of discussion had commenced and prompted William to prove the Spanish guy wrong. Standing here in Namibia five years later, that damn sun transforming his skin into a wasteland of wounds, William remembered yelling at that guy that Africa was not the U.S. and that the American crop circles were not to be compared with the African coast.
Termites.
William reached toward his back pocket and took out his lukewarm water. The liquid felt cool trickling down his throat, cooler than the African sun. In comparison with that sun, the wind seemed chilly. In comparison with the heat, the water seemed refreshing. In comparison with the surrounding grass, these bare patches of wasteland seemed desolate. Eaten by parasites, devoured by insects, all life extinguished to serve one breed of vermin.
William took a few tired steps toward the large stone, throwing the bottle into his bag. Too many years now, too much research. It was time to go home now, take all his research, all those probes, all those little bugs, all that red sand, and give it to the institute in Johannesburg.
William wanted to spend at least a month just doing paper work at his office, eating pizza with his kids over the weekend, making love to his wife on Friday nights, enjoying an Orange River South African Pinotage red wine and a Bobotie dish of South African ground meat with an egg topping. No more than a few jotting of words in his notebook and he could call his wife and tell her to bring out the Scrabble game and pop the pop-corn for the kids.
No time for phone-calls, only time for the dropping of William’s notebook and pen. Had he not been seated, William would’ve stumbled.
The sun darkened because of the size of the arriving spaceships. William now knew what the Spaniard had described and how it was to see a UFO: the disability to move, the increased heartbeat, cold sweat running down a spine, the tingling of the nerve cells, the fear, then three alien ships burning three new dead fairy circles into the Arican ground.
When the alien walked out and took him by the hand, William didn’t protest. Questions were asked, information was exchanged and somewhere inside one of the ships he saw him: the Spanish ufologist. He smiled. It seemed, he belonged there.
William left the fairy circles forever, drove home, made love to his wife, gave up geology and became a painter.
William’s UFO-experience remained a secret for the rest of his life.
Termites remain the official cause of the circles.
by submission | Sep 8, 2014 | Story |
Author : C. Chatfield
“Shoot it.”
“Shut up, Jim.”
“It might be dangerous.”
“A bear wanders into my yard, I call Animal Control. I’m not gonna shoot it just for being here, Gabe.”
“Sure. You got the number for Alien Control?”
“Quiet. It’s probably not an alien.”
“You ever see goo move like that?”
Next to the three men, a patch of rippling orange goo extended probing tendrils into the surrounding underbrush. There was a sizzling sound as the creature began to sink through the vegetation. After a moment of contemplation, it trembled and assumed the shape and texture of the dissolved grass and bushes: a flawless disguise, if not for the stubbornly garish shade of orange.
“What do you think you’re doing, Jim?”
“I’m just gonna nudge it.”
Jim eased up to the phony grass and poked it with the toe of his brown boot. He let out a yelp and fell backward, abandoning the boot, as the ooze reared up in one flowing motion. By the time his friends lifted him off his rear, all that remained was a bright orange boot sitting in a circle of dirt.
“Christ!” Jim grasped for Gerry’s gun, his eyes the size of golf balls. “Shoot it!”
The creature ballooned upwards until it towered over the terrified men. The pillar of ooze collapsed squarely onto Jim, cutting off his screech.
Gerry and Gabe stood frozen while the goo twisted and writhed into a humanoid shape. A moment later, the new Jim was shaking out his limbs and humming, surveying the empty meadow with satisfaction before turning to the two men.
“Weapon?”
Gerry nodded numbly and handed over the gun.
“Truck?”
Gabe gave him the keys.
The new Jim drove the car in a meandering arc before rolling down the passenger window to speak to them in a halting voice, choosing each word with painstaking care. “Thanks, guys. I gotta say, I’m sorry about your friend. If it helps, he’ll live on inside of me. In one way, I’ll give him a new life. It should be very exciting.” He paused and cocked his head, “You two probably don’t have much information about this planet that I didn’t already get from your friend, so I’m gonna leave you here. Go ahead and try to tell someone what happened, but I don’t think anyone’ll believe you.”
He waved and drove off, leaving Gerry and Gabe to gape. When the taillights had disappeared and the dust settled, Gabe sank to his knees. “Dear God, what’s going on? No one’s gonna believe us. They’ll probably say we killed Jim, if that goddamn maniac hasn’t taken over the world by tomorrow. And, oh Christ, Jim is gone, Gerry. Gerry? Are you okay?”
Gerry shook his head, his entire body racked with silent, hysterical giggles. He waved a shaky hand in the direction of the truck and the unsuspecting town,“D’ya think it knows it’s orange?”
by submission | Sep 7, 2014 | Story |
Author : Elijah Goering
My body was worn out. My organs were failing because they were simply too old, older than any human had ever been before. I would never speak again, and I had hours, maybe minutes to live. I asked the doctor to leave, and grabbed a pen and paper. Then I reached for the little red button hanging from a silver chain around my neck. I held It a moment, then pressed it down.
Today I woke in pain. It was nearly half an hour before I was up and dressed. Before I could leave my bedroom I found myself face to face with myself. I was familiar with the experience, and I waited for him to speak or act, but he did nothing. He looked into my eyes for a long moment, then reached into his pocket and handed me a slip of paper. It read simply, “It’s time.” I watched him press the button and disappear.
I recalled the day that I had met my guardian angel. I had just woken to another morning of my youth, and finding myself wide awake, I rose and dressed immediately. As I turned to leave my room a man appeared before me.
He was very old. His skin was wrinkled and his hair was thin and white. But he stood very straight, and his shining blue eyes spoke of intelligence. His jaw was set in a solemn expression and a single tear slid,almost unnoticed, down his wrinkled cheek. He stared right into my eyes for a long moment before I could look away.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Suddenly the man smiled. “I’m your guardian angel,” He said cheerfully. He took two long steps towards me so he was looking down at me, and reached for an unseen necklace beneath his formal attire. It was the button I had since come to know so well.
“This button,” he explained “Will destroy me when it’s pressed. After that, whenever you press it, It will take you back in time to the moment you desire. In that moment there will be two of you, one who has traveled back and one who has not. You can then act quickly but you must not linger. Soon, you must press the button again, and the version of you who has traveled through time will be destroyed. Have I made myself clear?” I nodded and he put the necklace around my neck.
“Never take it off.” Tears were streaming down his face now, but he was still smiling. “Now go ahead, press it.”
I tried to say something but I didn’t know what to say. I looked up at him and he nodded encouragingly. I pressed the button and just like that he was gone.
Later that day I met him again, in the youthful body that I recognized as my own. He was covered by sweat and soot. He walked purposefully over to me and stamped out an ember at my foot that had jumped from the fireplace unnoticed. Wordlessly, he had pressed the button and disappeared.
At last, I thought. In all my years he had visited me many times, but I had never pushed the button. Slowly, I had come to understand. Now at last, It was my turn. I closed my eyes and a tear rolled down my cheek. I opened my eyes and stood up as straight as I could, and pushed the button.
