by Julian Miles | Mar 14, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
After Grandma died, Grandpa settled into being the selfish octogenarian teenager he had always been under the veneer of wisdom and mischief. When his body started to fail, he didn’t notice for a while as he played so much. Eventually we had to intervene to save him from himself. Today, he’s viewing his new home, one fully approved by Decade Eight and thankfully affordable.
“But they don’t even have a megabit network interface!”
Give me strength, Grandma. How did you not throttle him with the power lead from his vintage PS4?
“Look; the room doesn’t have a vari-pos screen and the armchair is unpowered.”
At this point, a bright and distractingly bouncy nurse in a blue-green skinjob under her transparent nurse’s suit enters the room. Grandpa’s eyes go saucer-wide, like the first time he’d seen Ellen without the modesty panels in her daysuit.
“Challene Deathblade?” He sputtered.
With a megawatt smile she crouches by him and Ellen, my wife, has to look away from the intimate view provided as Grandpa leans forward to get a better look.
The nurse in cosplay bodypaint has a dazzling smile and her cleavage is seemingly bottomless. “You’re a fan? Oh great. I’m outnumbered by the Empire players.”
Grandpa looks ready to cry. “I used to be a mercenary guild Reptiliad, but I’m useless without enhanced play.”
I know that Grandpa, you spent our inheritance on neural accelerators to compensate for your slowing reflexes. The painted but fundamentally nude nurse leans close and stage-whispers: “Why do you think this place looks so ordinary? We put all of our investment into wireless care. Everything you need is available from dropdown menus, we monitor your body state all the time and prevent more than we have to fix. Plus it gives us a multi-hundred gig bandwidth to parallel you with a fully persona’d neural assistant.”
The look of stubborn non-cooperation on Grandpa’s face vanishes like a switch has been thrown. Ellen doesn’t see because the male counterpart of bouncy nurse has entered the room. Her eyes nearly suck this red-skinned Adonis with brown tattoos clean out of his suit. I need to get her out of here before comparisons with my blatantly ungym rounded padding are made.
“When can I move in, ‘John Carter’?” Grandpa’s voice is querulous and Ellen catches my eye. The advice from the Octogenarian Gamer network had been spot on.
“I see you’re persona non-abode due to mandated residential care, so you don’t actually have to leave, sir. You can scan your flat from here and eyetag everything you want brought over. I’m Doctor Evander Morgan. It’ll be a pleasure and honour to host a veteran gamer like yourself.”
Doctor Morgan’s voice is businesslike, but his pecs flex slowly and I see Ellen’s eyes widen.
Grandpa smiles for the first time in forever. “Do it. Adam, Ellen, you can leave me here.”
Morgan looks at Ellen and smiles. I see the flush spread down the back of her neck.
“We’ll need one of your family to drop in a couple of times to finalise the details. Challene; sorry, Nurse Burton will see to getting ‘Grandpa’ bedded in and implanted.”
Ellen steps forward. “My husband’s very busy right now, but I have no problem coming in when you need me to.”
She smiles straight at Morgan’s chest and I decide that work be damned, whenever she comes to ‘see Grandpa’, I’m coming too.
by Duncan Shields | Mar 13, 2013 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
It’s a time traveler thing.
I’m always walking up to people that I haven’t met yet and saying ‘hello’. I jump around so often that I can’t keep it straight. Then I have to go back and stop myself from doing it. It can get confusing but as long as I keep all the distortions to my own timestream, things are okay. A lot of people think I have a twin who occasionally appears, angry, and gets my attention.
It’s cool. I’m my own guardian angel, I guess.
I like seeing these people who I’m not going to meet for years by their reckoning. Some of them will be recruits, some of them will be lovers, some of them will just be pals with no idea of who I truly am.
I do enjoy a good ruse. I’m also quite the practical joker. I like to go around and leave little traps for myself. I’ve had people come up to me in public places and slap me silly because of what I did ‘last night’. I know my future self is laying down more shenanigans for me to find out about. It’s a gas.
What has me worried this time, though, is this woman in front of me. She’s crying in a way that suggests that she’s witnessing some sort of miracle.
“David?” she’s saying through her tears, hope warring with disbelief on her beautiful face. “Is it you?”
And then she says the words that chill me.
“I thought you were dead. I saw you die.”
Now, my name’s not David. I use a lot of aliases. But this woman seems pretty sincere. We talk for a while. She tells me that I died in her arms four years ago after a car accident. After her tears dry, she admits that I do look younger than her late husband but that the resemblance is still uncanny.
I died? Four years ago? I was married? How could I even begin to screw the timestream that much? That goes against everything I’ve been trained for. She has no idea I’m a time traveler, though, so I guess I at least kept that secret from her.
I’m very unsettled now. I hope all will be revealed. In time.
by submission | Mar 12, 2013 | Story |
Author : George R. Shirer
“Mac?”
“Yeah?”
“Um. I sort of want to eat your face.”
Raj said this in a sheepish tone.
“No, you don’t.”
“I know, I just. . . .”
I jerked a thumb over my shoulder, at the back of the car.
“It’s not you. It’s her.”
I hit the switch, activating the shock-collar the perp was wearing. She twitched on the backseat like an epileptic having a grand mal seizure.
“Better?” I asked Raj.
He nodded, rubbed his head. “Yeah.”
“You have to learn to keep ‘em out of your head, kid.”
“How do you do it?”
I shrugged and we drove along for a while in silence. Outside the car, the concrete highway glowed in the moonlight. Ahead, a neon sign flashed, advertising a truck stop.
As we drew near it, Raj sighed and drew his gun, pressed it against my head.
“Pull over, Mac.”
I looked at him. The ‘path was out cold, in the back seat. “You’re a sympathizer, Raj?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet bounced off my skull and shattered the front windshield. I jabbed two fingers into Raj’s throat, hard. He bent double, choking and I relieved him of his gun, slammed it into the side of his head. Raj slumped, unconscious.
I checked myself in the rear-view mirror. The bullet had torn through the synthetic flesh covering the side of my head, exposing the metal beneath it. Repairing the damage wouldn’t take much, but until that happened I would be walking around, looking like an escapee from a bad sci-fi movie.
“What . . . ?”
Turning, I saw the ‘path staring at me, blearily, through the perp-glass. On general principles I switched on the shock-collar again, a full jolt. There was an unpleasant stink of burning hair and urine.
Typical.
Damned telepaths.
Bad enough the war with them turned me into a cyborg, now this one had to piss all over the backseat.
I stopped and radioed headquarters, letting them know what had happened. They gave me the green light to sanction the ‘path, but wanted Raj alive. Living sympathists were rare. The spooks wanted to interrogate Raj before they sanctioned him.
I felt sorry for the kid, until I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window.
Bastard.
The interrogators were welcome to him.
I pulled the telepath out of the car and put a bullet in her mutant brain. By the time the spooks arrived for Raj, I was sitting on the car’s hood, sucking on a cigarette, watching the sunrise and feeling almost human.
by Desmond Hussey | Mar 11, 2013 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer
At 12:01pm Greenwich Time every vid-screen worldwide is interrupted by a mysterious broadcast. Every program on every channel airs the same ominous figure shrouded in thick shadow. “Greeting citizens of Earth,” speaks the mystery man after a brief, enigmatic silence. World leaders are called away from meetings or roused from sleep to watch the pirated broadcast, unable to stop it. Eyes and ears all over the globe are fixed on their media outputs.
“For two hundred years my identity and purpose has been carefully hidden from you.” The speakers queer voice modulates with a frog-like intonation. “But the time has come to reveal myself and my intentions. As of yesterday, by your own terrestrial laws, I have legally purchased all property, water and mineral rights, corporations, manufacturing and processing plants, patents, law firms and banks. I presently own 95% of the planet and its resources. I am,” an alien face looms into the light, flat and featureless, “your new landlord.” A thin crimson slash cracks the smooth, ebony salamander skin – a twisted smile. Twin, black pearl-like eyes gleam with inscrutable intelligence. The world holds its breath.
“My name is B’nar Khaffri Sul-nikat. I am what you earth people would call an extra-terrestraial, though I’ve lived on this planet far longer than any of you. I am an explorer from a solar system far beyond your current ability to locate. Even from a thousand light years away I was attracted to the wondrous beauty of your home; it’s variety of life and plant species so unlike most worlds in the cosmos. If you only knew how truly rare this oasis of life was, you would not have become so careless in your treatment of it.
“For reasons uncountable I have come to love this planet as much as my own, which is why, after a thorough examination of your backward economics and outlandish international and corporate laws, it became clear that I could simply buy it from you.” The being laughs, a sound much like a wooden bat being dragged across metal bars.
“It is ironic how much your species values so-called ”precious” minerals and metals, how much importance you place on ownership and legal rights, how much faith you have in an economic system so easily corruptible and flawed. I say ironic because the gold, diamonds and petroleum you deem so ‘rare’ and cherish so highly are, in fact, as abundant as the stars. I have seen entire planets made of diamond, oceans of crude oil, moons with rivers of gold. Yet on these common, base elements you would hang your happiness at the tragic expence of the unique and glorious diversity of life your planet offers; a treasure far beyond monetary quantification. Your backward obsession with shiny things, however, made it simple for me to amass wealth sufficient enough to purchase, over time and with utmost discretion, those industries and resources which represent your present civilization.
“It is time to protect my investment before your destructive tendencies reach their inevitable, tragic end. As of this moment, all mining and manufacturing will cease, all borders are dissolved, all banks are closed. I will grant humanity one year to vacate the premises before my new tenants arrive.”
B’nar Khaffri Sul-nikat fades back into murky shadow.
“Please, do not attempt to resist. You’ll find the effort most unrewarding.”
The television screen goes blank. The radio broadcasts only static. Seven billion newly homeless humans stare unblinking into thin air, like a gambler who has lost everything on a single bet, unwilling to believe the outcome; beaten at their own game.
by submission | Mar 10, 2013 | Story |
Author : David Stevenson
You had to have a hobby.
Sure, he had spent hundred of hours on this project, but at least he had built something.
You might as well do it right. He could use cardboard covered in metallic foil, but why bother? Far better to spend an hour or two at the lathe, cutting brass until you had the piece you wanted.
Finally it was finished. He had found the drawing online. Whoever had made it was another enthusiast. They had made it look like a genuine 19th century blueprint. If some Victorian mad scientist had come up with plans for a time machine then this is exactly what they would have looked like.
The attention to detail was astonishing. They even specified various supplies, such as gold coins, dried food, a pistol, that a time traveller might need.
And now the machine was done.
He would have to wire up some effects. Some humming, and an eerie blue glow; that sort of thing.
There was a hum, and an eerie blue glow illuminated the machine.
He looked over the machine. A minute ago it was still, but now brass wheels turned in polished wooden cages. Wires hummed, vacuum tubes glowed.
In the centre of the machine was a chair. He had used a green wing chair. It had been expensive, and he was not expecting to see it flicker and and disappear. When the chair reappeared the second most noticeable change was that it was now made of red leather. The first most noticeable change was the lady sitting in it.
“Greetings! What year is it please?”
He told her what year it was.
“Splendid! I was hoping for one hundred years, but almost one hundred and fifty is more than I had dreamed of.” She looked around. “Excellent work on the machine. I hoped that the plans I left were sufficiently detailed.”
He agreed that they were.
“Yes, the plans were mine. I could have made the machine better after building my prototype, but it was important not to change my plans. I don’t know if anyone else has attempted to build the machine over the years but if they did then it wasn’t sufficiently close to my own machine. I couldn’t test mine until you made yours.”
He asked the obvious questions.
“My theories predicted I could only travel to other times when the machine already existed. I could keep it well maintained for 10 years and then go back, but what would be the point in that? Going forwards would be impossible because, if I jumped 10 years into the future then I obviously wouldn’t be there for that decade to keep the machine working. Bit of a paradox, no?”
“So, the obvious thing to do was to draw up the plans and make arrangements for them to be distributed after my death. Arrangements which, from my point of view, I completed only a few minutes ago, before noticing the machine was operational. From your point of view, I assume that you have only recently completed the machine?”
He nodded.
“Good. I did regret leaving in the appendices, but then I reasoned that I would be able to travel forwards to the instant that the machine was finished, and that would be before the builder had collected the other equipment.”
He was still working his way through the implications of this sentence when she took her hand out of the carpet bag on her lap and revealed it to be holding a pistol which was pointing at him.
The rest, as they say, is history.
by submission | Mar 9, 2013 | Story |
Author : James Zahardis
Glxxo-Rgm looks up from her console at the colossal androids. Above their heads is a transparent dome that separates the Denshari flagship’s methane-enriched atmosphere from space. Glxxo-Rgm’s foremost right leg extends and the Loom materializes. She centers herself in the matrix of spires, pulls a polypeptide strand from her spinneret, and the web forms.
The colossus with pinkish skin and blue eyes stares down. “You propose we’re going to this planet hastily and without an appropriate treaty?”
Glxxo-Rgm cross-links a strand to her web.
The second colossus, similar to the first, except for his baseball cap, sneers at Glxxo-Rgm, faces the other android and says, “Please, Admiral Ooghrt–”
“–Ooghrt-Lxi, the Ravager, cryosleeps. I am now Thaddeus. Do you understand, Nahum?”
“Yes, Thaddeus. Why do you listen to this old fool, sir?! She cost us victory on Denzbxx! We lost the–”
“–Silence! Be satisfied that you are now Chief Ambassador. She’ll never make planetfall again!”
A young, leggy Denshari strides toward the Loom, and bows to Glxxo-Rgm.
“Weave, larva!” booms Thaddeus’s voice.
As the Denshari weaves, Glxxo-Rgm’s pedipalps curl down. She remembers Ooghrt-Lxi webcasting her demotion and promoting his nephew to her post. He doesn’t know his air-sacs from his spinneret, she thinks.
Thaddeus reads the web, “Transport–momentarily.”
#
Andrea “A-Day” Dadelomis sees two customers in the car lot. Look like Escalade types–probably some of Jayhawk’s wannabe friends, she thinks.
“Welcome to Deal Master’s–you want it, we’ve got it!”
“We’ve come to make terms with your world’s leader,” Nahum replies.
“Oh, you mean Jason, my soon to be husband,” A-Day says. “You guys bill collectors?”
Nahum’s colloquial/slang app activates. “We ain’t bill collectors. Need to confab with Big Man–set things proper between our peoples.”
Holy crap!–Jayhawk’s mixed-up with gangbangers! A-Day thinks. “Follow me.”
Synth-blood rushes into Nahum’s cheeks as he passes under the banner that reads: DEAL MASTER’S–BEST DEALS in DELAND and the ENTIRE WORLD!!!
Jason “Jayhawk” Hawkingston tries to rap along with a YouTube video. He sees the men, their thick gold chains. Damn, big money playas! he thinks. He turns off the video and sniffs his underarms.
“What’s crackalackin, fellas?”
“You the Deal Master? best deals on the planet?” Nahum responds.
“That’s what the commercial says, right? What can I interest y’all in?”
“Everything.”
“Got Escalades, some–”
“Yes. Everything.”
Jayhawk turns to A-Day. “Excuse me, gonna show them the lot.”
Jayhawk escorts the men outside. “OK, what y’all really want? No disrespect–are you… Mafioso?”
“We want to establish a base on your world.”
“You want the whole place?”
“Yes.”
Thaddeus nudges Nahum. “I offer the following gifts for your world: a slap-chopper, an auto-tune microphone, a pair of–”
“–Hold up, big baller, I busted my ass flipping foreclosures to get money for this place!–I don’t care if you’re Sopranos–y’all don’t–”
“–Silence!” interjects Thaddeus. “We’ll also give you ten million freshly minted US dollars!”
“Serious?”
Thaddeus and Nahum escort Jayhawk to the Hummer parked across the street. Soon Jayhawk hightails back to the dealership with two duffel bags, and ten minutes later he and A-Day are driving home to pack for Acapulco.
#
Two weeks pass. A.J. Nelwood, an Apopka sod farmer, is inspecting damage to his turf incurred during a sudden hailstorm. He nearly trips over several stones lying on the grass. If thunderstorms can bring fish’n’frogs reckon hailstorms can bring stones, he thinks. As he walks away he fails to notice the spiders striding away from the stones or their tiny flag embedded in the grass.
END
