by Alastair Millar | Oct 16, 2024 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
The Company had refused Karl’s request to have his wife join him on Mars again, he explained; this time because “the dependents’ travel budget was cut, and it’s run out for this budget cycle.” As usual, Accounts had the final say, and being just a manager, even one with the right to attend local board meetings, cut no ice. The sad fact was that even his generous salary wouldn’t support an interplanetary relocation without help; especially since he’d probably be rotated back dirtside in a few years’ time anyway. But he and Angela had hoped; oh, how they’d hoped.
So he’d ended up in Marvin’s, feeling sorry for himself, intending to get blissfully inebriated. That was when the pretty, leggy, tatooed blonde girl had slipped onto the floatseat beside him. She already had a drink, and when she struck up a conversation he was lonely enough to respond. Her name was Carol, she told him. It had taken him a good twenty minutes to realise she was a working girl, and by then he’d vented out his problems.
Amy Edwards of Security raised a weary eyebrow. She could already see how this was going to go.
“Maybe I can help,” the woman had said, gesturing around the dimly lit bar. “The girls here, you ask them their names, and they’ll tell you it’s ‘whatever you want’. But I can do far more for a proper gentleman like you. Whoever your fantasy is, you pay for the bodymods and I’m yours for however long we agree. Exclusive, guaranteed. Anyone you want. Your favourite sensie star? No problem. Your wife back home? Easy. I won’t judge. No strings, no questions, no complications, no comebacks. But no BDSM, okay? Too many men get their kicks out of mistreating their ex’s double, and it’s just plain disturbing, you know?”
He’d liked that she was still ordering her own drinks, and was just far enough from sober to take her proposal seriously. A last scruple had flashed a fin, and “Isn’t bodymodding illegal?” he’d asked.
“On Earth, sure,” came the reply. “But you’re not on Earth, honey. There’s a place here in town that does discreet work. A deposit now, tell me what you want, and meet me here tomorrow evening. You can be happy again. I promise. Think about it. And hey,” she winked, “why not put it on your entertainment chip, and have Accounts pick up the bill?”
Put like that, it had seemed like a no-brainer. He’d sat in Marvin’s for three hours the next evening, waiting, the nervousness in his gut slowly changing to an empty panic as the time passed. The morning after, he realised it was hopeless, and sent a report in to Security. Edwards had been at his apartment within the hour, trim in a smart uniform and pretty in a severe kind of way.
“You should have sent the money to a chaincode,” she sighed, closing her datapad, “then we’d have a hope of tracing it. As it is… I checked the survelliance footage, but I don’t think we’ll get a match. Too much facial baroquing for recognition. And by the way, bodymodding IS illegal here too. Chalk it up to experience. But look,” she winked, “if you’re in the mood for a drink and no strings attached, give me a call, okay? You’re not the only one up here who gets lonely.”
Karl looked up; perhaps, in spite of everything, something good might come out of his predicament. Suddenly, things didn’t seem so bad after all, and he smiled.
by submission | Oct 15, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
They stared right through me. It used to bother me. Now, it’s essential.
I uncoupled the mag-links while Symplex’s security personnel looked past me. I didn’t fit their profiles, didn’t merit a glance. That’s what it is to be me.
I live by a pair of simple rules. The fact that they come from fantasy novels doesn’t make them any less realistic. Especially, in this reality.
Rule One: Amateurs obsess over strategy. Professionals obsess over logistics.
Rule Two: A good thief goes unseen. A great thief goes unnoticed.
When the last mag-link unhitched, the brainframe froze and everybody at Symplex knew they’d been jacked. They just didn’t know the jacker was freaking out alongside them.
It did freak me out. I hadn’t really thought I’d make it this far. You don’t go from feeling invisible most of your life to suddenly feeling invincible, so actually bringing down Symplex’s touted brainframe was a shocker.
Which was good because I had the same stunned expression as everyone around me. I completely fit the scene. Unworthy of note. Easy to dismiss. Something I was very used to as a clugee.
Actually, a child of clugees. My parents fled Louisiana after superstorm Naomi, whose cat 7 tidal surge never fully receded. Trying to make a new start farther west, my family was marked. Our hurricane-devastated zip code and area code became code for clugee.
Climate Refugee.
Unwelcome. Unwanted. Unrecognized.
America’s newest pariahs, pushed to the bottom of the ladder, the back of the bus. My parents gave up trying to fight for their rights to be counted, to be heard, to be repatriated into the country they’d never left, but which had abandoned them.
Clugee turned out to be a pretty apt slur for us because we constantly had to kludge our lives. Constant barriers. Push back. Marginalized to the extreme, but I didn’t give up. I fought. Tooth and nail to get an education, a decent career. To be seen. To be noticed. To be rewarded. Until I realized the real power I’d been given: invisibility.
I’d taken for granted the power of being taken for granted. A spit-upon cloak of invisibility.
Perfect for a thief. Unseen. Unnoticed
I schemed to steal all I was owed from the privileged, to re-jigger the balance sheet of justice. And I worked hard at it, grew wilier, grew richer. But my outlook remained poor. Nothing important had changed for my fellow clugees.
Until. I hit upon the perfect job. A caper that would turn the country on its head. Almost literally. The beauty of this heist was that I wouldn’t be taking anything. I would be giving.
Over the last two decades, Symplex had grown into the nation’s most reliable, highly touted, data security and privacy consortium. Its massive brainframe housed the personal and professional data of the everyday elite.
Once the Symplex brainframe was down, I inserted my viral “gift” that on reboot would automatically change the zip and area codes of the ruling classes to those of the disaster-fleeing masses. The security status of the privileged would turn to pariah in a matter of nanoseconds, and they would quickly experience what it is to be a clugee, feeling the disconnect, dislocation, and disdain my family and all the families like us had suffered as outcasts.
Unseen. Unnoticed.
And, maybe, that would finally unite us.
by Julian Miles | Oct 14, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The squad’s sitting there having breakfast when Tommo’s head explodes. Just like that, we’re all on the deck.
Except Bert. He’s still sat there noshing his way through a bacon butty.
“Bert! What the frack?”
He swallows before replying.
“When was the last time they missed? We’re the ones who shoot everywhere.”
Well I’ll be a unicorn’s other horn. He’s right. We all grab our nosh – although nobody sits back up at the table.
Sandy grins.
“Got any more insights, o bacon oracle?”
Bert nods.
“Why are we still alive? Check our sensors. Nothing spotted anything, yet we’re a trooper down.”
Clem nods.
“Just like when we lost Avro.”
Just like… I stand up and look about. Three hundred and sixty degrees of sodden moorland, with a pair of turd-brown duck-billed hawks flapping their ungainly way eastward.
Damon hisses.
“Billy. Don’t be a hero. Get your head down.”
I reply without complying.
“When was the last time we lost more than one in an attack?”
That starts something. Notes are compared. Clem even calls his oppo in Unit Two. End result: nobody can remember.
Bert burps softly.
“I seem to have started something. Try this: how often do we lose that one trooper?”
The casualty schedule checking is easy after Clem calls Sergeant Winifred, his brother-in-law, and head of the field hospital guard.
Winifred returns the call quickly.
“Twenty-five days ago. Twenty-one before that. Then twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-one, twenty-three… You get the idea?”
Damon curses under his breath.
“Full moon.”
Oh, frack. Of course. This place has a twenty-odd day lunar cycle.
“We lose a trooper on the night of each full moon.”
Sandy pulls out his datapad and starts hunting hard.
“What’s up?”
He replies, but doesn’t look up.
“We’re tasked with maintaining a presence so the locals don’t molest our scientific expeditions.”
“So?”
“Before we arrived, they took casualties. I’m reconciling their losses with ours,” he points at the screen, “and it ties up. Every full moon.”
Sergeant Winifred chimes in.
“Didn’t early survey reports mention something about sacrifices?”
Bert nods, then speaks, realising Winifred can’t see him nod.
“Yes. One of the positive influence points was us being able to persuade the locals into stopping the ritual killings.”
Sandy states it.
“Persuade? Or offer up disposable, non-local victims?”
Damon shudders.
“That’s fracked.”
Bert shakes his head.
“Just because you’re not paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to sacrifice you.”
We laugh. Then go silent.
Sergeant Winifred breaks first.
“What next?”
Clem points at me.
“If the kills are arranged, then whatever’s doing them has clearance for our detectors. I think Lieutenant Billy should raise a zero-tolerance alert next full moon.”
He’s right. The system won’t allow tampering, but a hostile action state negates all exceptions, and lasts two days before it’s queried.
I nod to Clem.
“Excellent idea. Plus we service all weapons the day before.”
Twenty-three days later we’re having breakfast when the intruder alarm howls. Sentry batteries snort out a barrage of lethal. Something crashes to the ground over by Unit 2.
We get there in time to meet Sergeant Winifred.
“Big, winged hostile carrying a standard issue sniping beamer. Verified by serial number.”
They even provided the weapons!
“Secure imagery and evidence.”
I look about.
“Units One and Two, pack it up! We all RTB, then kick up a fuss. Go public and wide.”
I’m betting the few responsible will fade back, letting selected idiots take the fall. Doesn’t really matter. We’ll stop losing friends.
Revenge will have to be done carefully, but it’s inevitable. There will be an accounting.
by submission | Oct 13, 2024 | Story |
Author: David Tam McDonald
Colin gave a polite cough to start the meeting. As team leader he sat at the head of the table. Brian, the secretary, sat to his left, perusing the agenda, which was blank and absolutely not taking any minutes. Tony, Richard and Lyndsey sat facing them, all eager to begin.
“I just wanted a quick meeting today to finalise the schedule for August, especially as Brian and Richard are on holiday, at the same time, and we’ll be a little shorthanded.” Colin began.
“I can’t believe you’re both going to that UFO conference.” Lyndsey put in, “Isn’t that a bit sad?”
“Actually, we should be able to gather some useful data whilst we’re there, some real-world insight.” Richard replied, making quotation marks around the words ‘real world.’ There was a chuckle around the table, though Richard looked slightly offended.
“OK, moving on, what have got programmed over the rest of summer? Brian, what’s in your workstream?”
“Well, we have the big cigar over Macclesfield on the fourth, and the big humming disc over Falkirk on the twelfth.” Brian enthused.
“Not Falkirk again surely!” sighed Colin, couldn’t we move it about a bit?”
“Not really, no.” said Brian, looking at Lyndsey for support.
“It would defeat the point really.” agreed Lyndsey. “It’s about having a concentration there, y’know, to attract them there.”
“What about Cumbernauld then?” Colin said reasonably. “It’s been a few years since they’ve had one.”
“I know that!” squeaked a clearly exasperated Brian. “But it’s not in the Triangle, the Falkirk Triangle. You can’t go blurring the lines of the triangle. A triangle has lines, clear lines. You’ll make it a rhombus if you’re not careful.”
“Or just some generic irregular polygon. Which won’t work at all.” Lyndsey offered helpfully.
“That’s a good point actually,” Richard said, now the neutral party. “You can’t infer anything from irregular polygons, they could mean anything, which means they mean nothing.”
“Fair enough,” Colin conceded “Falkirk it is then. Tony what about you?”
“I was going to send the rings out over Slough and then the collapsing pyramid out over the Isle of Man, for a bit of a laugh.”
“Great. Yes, to the Isle of Man, but better send the pyramid to Slough as well. The Olympics are on, and people might think the rings are advertising a well-known soft drink or something. You weren’t here when the hyperbolic paraboloid over Wigan caused a spike in sales of a particular snack. Let’s not have that again. OK, Richard what’s your plan?”
“I’m hoping to debut my new one over Cookstown on the 23rd. There’re still a few kinks to iron out but fingers crossed it’ll be ready for then. I’m quite pleased with it, it’s actually quite hard to describe. It starts as a disc but then expands into a kind of DNA helix type shape and then shoots off. It’d be too complicated to build physically but the new projection system means we don’t have to.” he sat back in his chair, looking pleased with himself.
“Cookstown’s out for now, sorry.” Colin’s voice was quiet.
“How come?” Richard asked sadly.
“Well, it’s top secret obviously.”
“But we’re top secret.” said Tony. “Aren’t we the most top secret secret department of all? What could be more top secret than us?”
“I can’t tell you. It’s too top secret obviously.”
“What are you saying Colin? The only thing more top secret than us would be a real one! Is that what you’re telling me Colin?”
“I’m not telling anyone anything.” Said Colin sadly. “It’s top secret.”
by submission | Oct 12, 2024 | Story |
Author: Martin Clyde-Wilkie
There’s an angel outside town, if you know where to look. Push through the gorse and scramble along the river bed, keeping your gaze away from the branch of lightning
frozen over the gully, until you reach the edge and can peer down at it.
It doesn’t look much like you’d expect. It’s tall and pale, and has wings but no feathers, just these burnt webs of bone stretched out over the stone.
The lightning is like a spear through its heart.
Mama says everybody knows it’s an angel but won’t say how. Papa says to forget it, that I have better things to do than gawk at something best left alone. He sounds scared when he says this.
Some nights I hear it calling out to me. Most just hear the wind but I can make out my name. Sometimes it’s a gentle whisper, and other times it’s loud enough to rattle the windows.
Last night it was a scream like a storm and the heavy clouds promise that tonight will be worse. Everybody is rushing about to nail their doors and windows closed, and putting out lights.
Nobody saw me slip away in the dusk, through the gorse that scratches at my bare arms, along the riverbed and down the side of the gully. This close I can hear the
crackle of lightning, smell the burn of ozone as it splits the air.
The angel lies still. The rocks all round its body are scorched black.
My hand, slick with blood, grasps the spear of lightning like it was pulled towards it.
It’s lighter than I was expecting, and slides out the angel’s chest with no effort.
The air goes still. It opens its mouth to draw breath, and pulls the storm with it.
by submission | Oct 11, 2024 | Story |
Author: Laura Jarosz
“Whaddya mean, gone? Like, dead?”
Dante shrugged. “The safehouse was totally empty. Door hanging open, no Homer inside. No stories, either.”
I pressed my hand against my pocket and felt the reassuring crinkle of paper. At least I still had last week’s story. As I walked numbly away, I let my eyes devour the lovingly hand-copied tale, taking in the voice, the characters (my favorite: a hyperintelligent, pipe-smoking orangutan named Sven) and, most importantly, the twist. ATTIS (that is—the Authentic Tale Telling Innovation Synthesizer) sucked at twists.
It ended in a cliffhanger. If Homer really was gone, I would never know what happened to Sven.
I couldn’t risk taking public transportation back to the flophouse, or someone might turn me in for disconnecting myself from ATTIS. It was a small price to pay for knowing your ideas were yours and yours alone (not that I had any worth writing down—not like Homer’s). Plus, walking meant I wouldn’t be force-fed any ATTIS-generated drivel while I ride. Not like I could escape it—on this street alone, I could see at least three giant screens streaming ATTIS-generated entertainment. I glanced at one and saw—
A pipe-smoking orangutan.
Adrenaline pumping, I turned and ran back to tell Dante. ATTIS found Homer. They’d plugged him back in.
*****
It was months before I heard from Dante again. I’d started to believe ATTIS caught him, too. When he showed up back at the flophouse it was almost like seeing a ghost, but before I could stutter out a question, he told me to go nick two laser cutters from the chop shop and follow him.
Now, he was making me carry them both through a part of the city I’d never set foot in before–in fact, it was so deserted, I don’t think anyone had in a long time.
He stopped in front of a crumbling building made of actual brick. Never seen one those before. The door was wood. We just kicked it until it broke. What did we even need the cutters for?
When we threw it open…
Rows and rows of real paper books, each written by a single, human author. I wanted to scoop them in my arms and take a big sniff.
“This was the first stuff they trained ATTIS on,” Dante explained. “It all got worse from there. But it’s why—”
He gestured. Looming before us were two thick, massive metal doors, bludgeoned into place where an antique brick wall used to be.
“—ATTIS is here.”
The whine of heated metal tortured us until we were finally able to cut through, and restrained to a gurney amidst the blinking bank of computer readouts was a small man that had to be Homer. Dante started cutting through the restraints while I went to the small port in his left temple to disconnect him again. “It’s an honor, sir,” I said awkwardly. “I’m sorry ATTIS stole Sven from you.”
As Dante helped Homer to his feet, I glowered at the bank of computers, imagining the laser cutter ripping through them. But before I could even lift mine, they all emitted a horrid, unending screech, the screens blinking one by one to a garish blue.
I turned in shock, covering my ears.
Homer seemed unsurprised. He yelled into my ear over the noise. “The last idea I fed it was a story about a man discovering the secret to crashing an AI.”
