by Clint Wilson | Oct 15, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
For a person thrust into such bleak and hopeless beginnings David had done well for himself.
His parents, murdered by a slum gang when he was but a boy of five, and he himself taken into slavery, he had spent over a decade in their chains, toiling under their whips.
But remaining subservient he had persevered, secretly teaching himself to read at night by starlight, in the crumbling ruined library that served as both stable and slave quarters. Sometimes his eyes would tire and he would climb the east wall, right to the end of his neck chain, and from there stare up at the stars, and beneath them the distant blaze of lights that was the city of the privileged. There he dreamt of a life where children were educated about the wonders of the universe, and people achieved many great things.
It had taken him more than ten years of careful watching, before one night under the cover of cloud he finally managed to slip his chains and steal away. The walk to the city had taken longer than he had expected, as he slithered along alleyways and crept through shadows, but eventually he had found his way.
Then after scaling the high wall avoiding spotlights all the while, and landing feet first on a bustling sidewalk, it had not taken him long to find sympathetic ears amongst the citizenry and so quickly he was taken in, cleaned up, and fed well by the educated and technologically advanced people.
* * *
After eventual cyberintegration and a full two-year acclimatization and education program, he was given his own spacious apartment with all the latest amenities, and placed where he wanted to be most, the scientific workforce. He received employment as an intern at Starcorp’s interstellar exploration program where he assisted developers in the creation of, of all things, a new revolutionary spacesuit.
Apparently astronauts would now be able to float through vacuum, bask in deadly radiation; collide with meteors even, naked as jaybirds if they wished. Protected by the fractalchip-generated warp bubble and fed life support via tiny wormhole tendrils, it was believed that one might even dive beneath the surface of a star unscathed, although admittedly this had yet to be tested.
All of the workers in David’s division were extremely proud of their technological wonder that would certainly soon greatly advance manned space exploration. So no one, except perhaps the yet to be discovered missing new intern of humble beginnings, could understand why or how the prototype had been stolen from the lab that night.
* * *
As the morning sun rose over the heart of the slum the slave keeper, en route to inspect his herd, was greeted by two of his guards, dead with their skulls smashed in. He barely heard a whisper as David dropped on him from the top of the east wall, his old stargazing perch.
The slaver tried to fight back but it was of no use. Suddenly he looked into the face of the strange intruder with the shimmering colorful skin, and he remembered the escaped teen of years gone by. “You…” he managed as a shimmering fist came down and shattered his face. As his vision wavered he saw another one of his guards run up behind the escaped slave wielding an axe. Without hesitation the weapon swung down and there was a flash at the back of the interloper’s head accompanied by the sound of the blade chipping.
David laughed and turned on his new assailant. There would be much blood spilled today, much blood indeed.
by submission | Oct 14, 2012 | Story |
Author : Skyler Heathwaite
The moonlight bled through thick overhead leaves and massive drosera. Lokshin blinked away sweat, peering up into the seething body of the forest. Sarant was up a tree nearby, much too long in coming down.
The fighting of the flying things had stopped three mornings past. Lokshins ears still rang.
He peered out through the trees and pools of light as far as he could see. A clear night, with large gaps in the canopy. Kasprey would come. He’d heard them every night, beating their great wings in the dark. They knew the hunters were below, somewhere.
Off in the distance a skittering, a scream and a snap told him a brush beetle had found prey, more softer scrambles that it was of breeding age.
Suddenly Sarant fell to the forest floor in front of him, a meter from a damning pool of moonlight. He crawled close, a mixture of excitement and concern on his face.
“Did you keep under the top branches?” Lokshin asked.
“Yeah. I saw smoke, other side of the valley, two plumes.”
Lokshin clenched his jaw, relaxed. “Can you get us there?”
Sarant nodded emphatically.
Lokshin gestured “Okay, lead on. But keep out of the moonlight!”
Dawn broke a few hours later, photosythetic fungi shifting with their mother star and exploding into color. The two hunters lay flat on the edge of a small plateu, looking down into a further depression of the valley. In the center were two flying things, their mirrored bulks shining.
Lokshin scanned the skyline. He looked at Sarant, who’s eyes remained fixed on the flying things.
“Any pieces?”
“Some, small enough to carry.”
“let’s go.”
They made their way to the bottom of the plateau without incident. A few fallen trees, broad as a man, made the passage across the occasional raging river easy enough. Overhead flying shapes circled, too quiet to be flying things, too slow to be Kasprey.
By midday they arrived at the grave of the flying things. Smoke no longer curled skyward, but only because the parts that would burn, had. The hulks still threw off tremendous heat. There would be no relics today, only steel.
Steel. Lokshin dared not even to breath so holy a word.
Lokshin scanned the clearing, and the skyline once more. Nothing. He looked to Sarant, who looked back ernestly. Lokshin nodded, and they jogged out into the clearing.
Rolling, flipping, sifting and piling. Piece by piece the scraps they could carry made their way into their deerhide scrap bags. In less than an hour they were finished, Lokshin’s bag full to burst and Sarant’s nearly so.
Sarant laughed. “We’re going to be rich!”
Lokshin allowed himself a small smile “Yes, I think we are.”
“What do you think you’ll buy first?”
“a better bag, probably.”
“Yeah, that does-”
A single beat of damp air against his back, then silence. Lokshin turned slowly, seeing the sixty pounds of of Kasprey digging into Sarant’s back. His head was twisted, neck broken.
Sarant scanned the sky again. Only one. Only one. A male, gathering meat for chicks. A day hunter, no plumage. Lucky.
The Kasprey pulled a beakful of meat free, one claw digging into Sarant’s back. It eyed Lokshin, shifting one side of it’s head forward, a peach pit sized eye as blue as clear water. Lokshin kept still, and after a moment it lost interest, returning to it’s meal.
He looked down at Sarant, pulled his eyes away, and turned into the forest. Three days home, and he’d be a rich man.
by submission | Oct 13, 2012 | Story |
Author : Rachel Verkade
The killer told me he’d had a turtle in his head.
He seemed perfectly calm and reasonable about it. A turtle, living nestled in his brain. I asked him if the turtle was what had made him kill. He didn’t know. If it did, he didn’t hold any ill will towards it. He seemed to feel a good deal of affection for it, in fact, or at least as much affection as a man like him could feel.
I asked what had happened to it. Shrugging, he told me that when they’d caught him, they’d cut into his head. To see what had made him the way he is. He told them not to, he said, but they didn’t listen. He was mentally incompetent, after all, committed to a state hospital for treatment, and that gave them all the power over him that they needed. So the surgeons came, and they strapped him down, drugged him, cut him. They’d found the turtle, and they’d removed it.
I asked if that upset him. Not really, he replied. He’d been sorry when it died, of course, but he’d thought that might happen. How could an animal so used to the warmth and wetness of a man’s brain survive in the cold and the dryness of the air, after all? Anyway, they’d let him keep the body.
It was hanging outside his cell, just close enough for him to touch through the bars. A red-eared slider, male, a good size. The killer brushed it with his fingers, making the limp little head sway. I asked him how it could possibly have fit in his head and left room for his brain. He didn’t know. Not how it had gotten in there, nor how it had survived, nor how it kept getting out.
Getting out?
Oh, yes, he said with a smile. At least once a week it would go out, never for more than a couple of hours at a time. It always came back, so he didn’t mind. And anyway, he confided with a wink, it was because of the turtle’s little sojourns that he now had his secret. He gestured me closer, and I approached despite my better judgement.
Crawling around his feet, paddling through a little bowl of water on the stone floor…a clutch of tiny hatchlings. He didn’t know how big they’d have to get before they could enter his head, but he was willing to wait.
by Julian Miles | Oct 12, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The elegant décor did nothing to lift the atmosphere in the room as the small group of officers and dignitaries parted to let Inspector Carbeth through. He strode up to the sprawled body and rapped his cane on the parquet flooring to prompt his man’s report.
The detective spoke without looking up from his analyser: “His work, without question.”
“What was it this time?”
“A celery stick restructured to consist of tungsten-carbide.”
Carbeth scowled. The man was making a mockery of his department. Twenty-eight assassinations in nine weeks. The Council was gone. Only His Excellency remained. Drastic measures were required.
A polite cough from the entrance of the room caused all to bow as His Excellency sauntered in.
“My dear Carbeth. This is somewhat of a trial, is it not?”
“Excellency. The man known as the Alchemist is a coward. He slays and then disguises himself as a member of staff, uses his unique molecular manipulation techniques to shape a weapon from a household item, then kills his target without warning or mercy. We are now sure that he remains amongst the staff the following day and escapes in the evening.”
His Excellency looked perturbed: “You mean to say that the Alchemist is amongst the staff here, as we speak?”
Carbeth smiled as a notion became an idea: “Indeed, Excellency. And that is exactly where we want him.”
“Really? Do tell.”
“Please order the entire staff to assemble in the ballroom. I shall demonstrate.”
The ballroom was abuzz with muted conversation as His Excellency, Carbeth and twenty Pacifiers entered. Carbeth received confirmation from the seneschal that all were present.
He drew his flechette pistol and then nodded to the Pacifier Captain: “Kill them all.”
The spasmic grunts of unexpected death were drowned out by the crackle of twenty kazers. The silent aftermath was torn by the syncopated hiss of Carbeth’s flechette pistol as he shot the seneschal in the back.
“Good god, Carbeth! Are you out of your mind?”
“No, milord. I am killing the Alchemist. For the death of one such as him, the loss of eighty-five serving class is a bargain price.”
His Excellency gathered himself.
“Quite exemplary, Carbeth. You might give thought to a Council seat. I find myself in need of men of decisive mien.”
His Excellency was less sanguine later, missing his courtesans. Ah well, a couple of bottles of vintage red would tide the night over into the following day and the excitement of getting more staff. He always loved shopping.
Pleasurable anticipation was halted by the sight of a cracker lifting from his caviar, steaming and glowing as it was transformed from foodstuff to molybdenum. As the restructured wafer approached, a dulcet feminine voice spoke from the air to its left.
“It never ceases to amaze me that you are all so fascinated by the technology I use to make my weapons, yet never seek to question the simple ruses I perform to conceal my invisibility.”
by submission | Oct 11, 2012 | Story |
Author : Thomas Desrochers
Thomas began remembering in the middle of the first week of May. There wasn’t a particular reason for it, no epiphany, no aching longing. It was just that Thomas had spent so long trying to forget that the only thing left to do was remember.
Before he purchasing the memory machine he had never done anything notable with his life. He worked long, well-paid hours, and he never spent more money than he needed to. Friday nights consisted of lying in bed listening to music. He had no friends, and to be frank he didn’t want any.
He had loved a girl so much once that her absence still ached in his chest. Yet despite the tremendous longing he had for her he couldn’t remember her face. He spent long hours awake in bed trying to visualize her. He never could.
The night that Thomas finally began remembering was a sleepless night much like the many before he had dreamt of dreaming through. His mind desperately wanted to sleep, but his body refused. He spent hours fighting a battle in his head he knew he would lose. After three hours he stood up, walked back into his kitchen, and sat down in front of the helmet. He looked at it for a while. He listened to the sink drip – it had been broken for a while. The kitchen’s electronics hummed. The city buzzed with the motions of life just outside his window. He listened to these things. They were real things, things that he could hear in the darkness of night. He wondered what they would sound like if they weren’t real.
He put the helmet on.
Thomas didn’t show up to work the next day. Instead he went walking through snow up to his hips on surface of a lake, laboriously wading out letters fifteen feet tall. It took the better part of an hour to spell, “Happy Valentine’s Day.” Then he waited for her on top of a hill overlooking the lake, sitting in the snow and thinking. When she arrived he took her by her dinosaur-mittened hand and took her for a walk. He loved holding her hand. They went out for coffee after that, looking like snow-drenched rats in the clean store interior.
Thomas missed work again the next day. He was too busy for work and instead spent the day out on the trails behind her house. He rode a horse for the first time even though he was afraid of horses. She had wanted him to ride her Hoss, though. So he had, despite his fears. He had never seen her smile so much. He didn’t know it, but he fell in love again. He spent the evening warming up in front of a fire, happier than he had ever been.
The authorities showed up on the third day. They found Thomas on the kitchen floor, covered in his own waste and not moving, face vacant behind the helmet visor. They removed the helmet, but could solicit no response from him. There was swearing, an ambulance, a frenzy of activity.
Thomas died just before eleven in the morning from a severe brain aneurism. The last thing he ever remembered was the sight, sound, and smell of eggs, whipped cream, and waffles while she asked what she had done to deserve breakfast in bed.
by Duncan Shields | Oct 10, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
The pulsing orb set down in my farmhouse’s back yard in the middle of the night. The corn swayed in the breeze, completely unaffected by the alien craft. It silently came to a stop on the grass just outside the cornfield, shifting in colour from red to green.
In the distance, a dog barked.
I stood on my back porch in my bathrobe carrying my shotgun.
I stared at the glowing, eerie ship. A door opened and a green creature came out, stepping down invisible stairs to the lawn. It stood fifteen feet in front of me. It had a disturbing amount of claws and teeth. It looked nervous and awkward.
“Hey there. Uh. You mutht be a hoomin.” it said, long tongue lisping through long teeth, “Thorry. Uh….human! Human. Yeah. Uh, take me to your leader? Is that how it goeth? Yeah. Take me to your leader.” Said the alien.
“Get off my property.” I growled.
“Uh, yeah. Uh. We come in….peath! Peath, yeah. That’s how it goeth, right? We come in peath. So, like, take uth, to, the…prethident. At the White Houthe.” Said the alien, shooting me a red-eyed questioning look.
“Look. If’n you don’t get offa my property, ahm a-gonna blast ya.” I sneered at the beast.
The alien looked at me. It appeared to be thinking.
“KORTH-QUAT!” boomed a huge voice from inside the ship, making both me and the alien jump. “QUIT PLAYING WITH YOUR FOOD!”
Sheepishly, the alien looked back at me and shrugged. It leapt at me before I could even raise my gun. The last thing I saw was those teeth coming straight for my face.
