by submission | Sep 3, 2012 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey
“Twenty-five quid”, the androgynous doorkeeper said, looking bored despite the deafening beats and boisterous atmosphere in the club behind him/her. I waved my hand over the ID scanner/ electronic debit transfer and hoped I had enough cash left for tonight’s shenanigans.
The bouncer was practically a wall of muscle and eyed me with impassive scrutiny. Even his eyeballs looked like they spent time on a universal gym. Guys like him were bred in test tubes, raised on steroids, protein and barbells and hired out to places like this by private security companies. What a life.
I slipped past him into the humid, smoky, inferno. My ears naturally adjusted to the volume, filtering out the damaging frequencies as my eyes compensated for the darkness, smoke and ultraviolet light.
I scanned the gyrating crowd. The usual suspects were here. Dougal stood out like a sore thumb. At nine feet, he towered over the other patrons and his mane of platinum hair glowed vividly in the black lights. Lennix was prowling. Her lithe figure moved with feline grace as she shamelessly seduced an obviously blitzed out emo-infant sucking a blinking soother. I wondered what his parents were thinking when they ordered that particular mod for their unborn. There was simply no accounting for taste. Tabitha was all breasts and hips, as usual, flashing her excessive cleavage to all who cared. Someone told me her gene mod included ample back support. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least.
I couldn’t see my chums, so I elbowed my way through the twisting, spinning, bobbing, slithering dancers, aiming for the bar. Someone caught my arm.
“Oiy, Maggie!” Damian squealed, his forked tongue darting salaciously across his thin lips.
“Hello, Damian. Long time no see.”
“Felicia’s looking for you.”
I nodded and let the crowd push us apart. I didn’t like being too close to Damian. Something about his pupil-less red eyes gave me shivers.
“There’s a ghirl what makes me horny”, a musky satyr slurred in Scottish brogue as I sidled up to the bar. His furry legs were obviously fake, but the horns and hooves looked real enough, as were the overpowering pheromones radiating off him like waves. “Cannae I buy you a drink, pett?”
I ordered a triple scotch. I was anything but a cheap drunk. My mother’s work, I’m sure. My mods included a ridiculously high metabolism and resistance to alcohol, which usually sucked, but at times like this it was a blessing. You take what you’re born with, I guess.
Thirty quid later he was less impressed by my womanly charms, but his pheromones were starting to affect me. I was grateful when Felicia tapped me on the shoulder and broke the aroused trance I was settling into.
Felicia’s unique epidermal mod was fascinating and beautiful. I don’t know how they did it, but the constantly changing melanin patterns were truly breathtaking. I kissed her long and hard, releasing my mounting desire triggered by the Satyr’s chemical excretions.
“Care for a third?” goat man crooned when we finally broke apart.
“Toss off, Puck.” Felicia said as she led me toward an empty booth, arm around my waist. “I’ve got wonderful news”, she whispered in my ear.
“What is it?” I asked as we cuddled in the shadows.
She patted her belly and grinned coyly.
I knew immediately what she meant. After six attempts, our in vitro transgenic hybrid had finally taken root in her womb. I smiled. Extensive gene mods had left us, like most people, infertile, but with enough cash and skilled doctors anything was possible.
We were having a baby!
by submission | Sep 2, 2012 | Story |
Author : Sierra Corsetti
He’s late again, which is becoming the norm. Unless he decided to jump off a high-rise on Level Three without his parachute again, I have no reason to worry.
I’m on Level Twelve in a bar that stinks of vomit and cheap liquor. Like Rex’s lateness, that’s not unusual either. Toilets don’t flush up, and when you’re at the bottom of a twelve-story city, you’re fresh out of luck.
I strum a few more notes on my guitar and unplug from the amplifier. Nobody’s listening and I’m not getting paid, so what’s the use?
They finally want me up top. The Dean sent a nice little note this morning saying if I come up, I’ll have all my training paid for and my mom will get the best care they can give her. And I’ll have a job where I can get a view of something more than gutters. But…
Rex shows up and throws back the rest of my drink before I realize what he’s doing.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says.
I sling my guitar across my back, toss some money to the bartender, and follow him outside. We step onto his hoverboard, me with my arms wrapped around his waist from behind, and take off.
He smells like fuel and grease, with a hint of the soap he uses to try and scrub the grime off. It’s all familiar to me, a part of me that I can’t imagine living without. I reach up for a moment to ruffle his hair, and know from the way his head tilts that he’s smiling.
The ride takes an hour, with transfer stations and all, but we finally set down on the top of the med center on Level One. We can see the sunset from here, but I suspect Rex chose here tonight because he knows something’s up. When I called him, I told him I wanted to talk. We both know that’s never a good thing.
“You could have all this,” he says after a long silence, and sweeps his arm to indicate the horizon. The honey-red sky lights the reflective windows of the tall buildings on fire, nearly blinding us if we look at them from the wrong angle.
“You could help people,” he presses when I don’t reply. “Sick people. Like your mom.”
But nobody can help my mom’s ALS. Even with all the prosthetics and drugs that enhance liver performance and muscle tone and eyesight and whatever else a person can possibly want.
“I could give her nurses and painkillers, nothing more.”
“It’s better than nothing.” Which is what she has right now, but he doesn’t say that.
And what would I have? More money than I’d know what to do with, a posh apartment, glamorous clothes, and people calling me Doctor Allie instead of ‘hey you.’
“But I wouldn’t have you,” I say, and turn to face him.
The look in his eyes could kill me, I swear.
“You’d make do,” he manages.
“And would you?” But he can’t answer that, and neither can I.
The sun’s nearly set now, and we’ve both begun to shiver in the growing dark. We’ll have to leave soon before the night security force comes out, but we can wait a little longer.
by submission | Sep 1, 2012 | Story |
Author : Chris Louie
Zanth was cool. He had this bad-ass helio-rocket that could take us out to Moon 2 and be back before curfew. We were always adept at breaking the rules, which was no small feat, considering the punishments for some of the stuff we did. Smoking space-pot, punishable by limb reallocation. Swearing, punishable by castration. And most of all, drawing, punishable by banishment to Io.
Drawing was his favorite activity. In my lifetime, it’s always been illegal to draw anything that doesn’t exist in the natural world, but Zanth would draw the most bucolic, crazy scenes. “This thing standing next to the tree, that was called a cow,” he’d say, pointed to his latest masterpiece. I was fascinated. Not only was the tree missing its electrical panel, there was this four legged–THING that was unlike anything else I’d ever seen. “An animal,” he’d say.
“An animal.” A scant two paragraphs in our grammar-school history books. “Animals: Extinct by the time of the great Fusion Revolution of 3:RR67, animals once littered the landscape, ruining the environment with their feces and using up valuable resources that could have been used for humans,” the books said. No pictures.
“I dream these,” Zanth would say, and the oddest things would appear on the paper. “Cats.” “Kangaroos.” “Beetles.” “What kind of cities did these things live in?” I’d ask. Zanth told me that they didn’t live in cities, that they were free, freer than the beta-humans whose wings took them to StrataCity and beyond, freer than the astronauts laboring in far-flung colonies, freer than ourselves. They had no language, yet they lived in violent peace. There was no order for the animals — there was just existence.
“They were assigned no Purpose by the Administration at birth?” I asked. “They had no purpose, except when we forced them to work in our fields or raised them to be slaughtered and eaten,” he said, and it frightened me, that this “cow,” this peaceful looking creature, once lived solely to be gutted and devoured by people. The playful-looking “dogs” had their tails cut off or ears clipped. The fascinating “insects” were killed outright, exterminated by home dwellers. “This went on for thousands of years,” Zanth told me.
“Until the Fusion Revolution, right? That’s when…they became extinct, because they hadn’t evolved to modern life like humans and beta-humans. They were obsolete,” I said, but Zanth was shaking his head. “No. They killed themselves. As unintelligent as we thought they were, they all acted in concert. When the first blades of grass started to glimmer with enhanced circuitry, it was like they all knew, all the animals at once, that the earth wasn’t a nice place to live anymore. Not that it had been in a long time for them, but it had become…hopeless.
“And so the next day, after the Fusion Revolution, people woke up to find that all the animals had died. They had given up.” Zanth started to cry, which I made him stop, because a patrolman was nearby and crying is punishable by electric flogging. We flew out to Moon 2, but the volcanoes didn’t seem as beautiful that day. We were both silent.
That was all a few years ago. Zanth went on to pursue a Permission to Create Art grant, but was kicked out of school when he was caught doing unauthorized doodling. I eventually went to medical school, and now I screen humans who are potential Beta Morph candidates. I never heard from Zanth after his stint on Io, but occasionally, in my sleep, I dream of Them. The animals, running across hills, swimming through oceans, climbing about trees. And silently, carefully, I cry.
by Julian Miles | Aug 31, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Space glittered as if strewn with crystals, millions of fragments ranging from a few kilos to hundreds of tonnes reflecting the distant sun. Colonel Defarris turned from the screens, right hand waving in frustration as the left raked his hair back.
“Stop me if I missed anything: Twenty centuries ago, the planet of Salarden was united under a single leader. He decided that the use of range weapons weakened a warrior’s resolve and instituted hideous penalties for owning anything capable of killing at a distance. That has resulted in an interstellar nation that considers any race using ranged weapons inferior.”
Captain Reonid nodded. “Correct.”
“That’s FUBAR.”
“Not really, sir. It’s just strange to us. Their culture hybridises the British chivalric model with the codified society of feudal Japan. The military caste call themselves Ledarnin. They are masters of a new form of interstellar combat.”
Defarris deadpanned: “Space-fu?”
Reonid smiled. “Stilettos.”
Defarris looked horrified. “Transvestite knights?”
“Not shoes; knives.”
“What?”
“The Ledarnin went into space and had to find a new way to melee without breaching what had become a racial psychosis. They started with forms of jousting, then as technology advanced, their ships became their lances.”
Defarris spun and pointed to the screens. “Are you telling me that space-knights charged the Sixth Battlegroup?”
Reonid sighed. “They call them Sunderlaw. Imagine two stiletto blades mounted at ninety degrees to each other. Where the crosspiece would be is the cockpit. The hilt is where the engines are. The ‘blade’ is made of an incredibly dense alloy and is a hundred metres long. The cockpit is housed within enormous armoured shock-damping mechanisms and the engines are immense. Their commanders each have ridiculous cityships called Bowcastles. Each one has a complement of pilots sworn to dedicated service. Wars are settled by chosen champions, fighting one-on-one. The duels take days or minutes, depending on who makes the first error. The skills required to impale a cockpit or disable a drive are precise. The ships of the Sixth Battlegroup were nothing more than slow targets to them. Our energy weapons are useless against the alloy of the Sunderlaws and our shields cannot cope with huge objects travelling that fast; in normal space, there is nothing faster than the mark eleven Sunderlaw.”
“We have armoured hulls!”
“Our definition of adequate armour will need revision. There is vidmon of a Sunderlaw going through the ‘Vanquisher’ bow to stern without slowing appreciably.”
Defarris choked out: “That’s a kilometre. Good god. We’ll have to stand off and bombard Salarden.”
“And only kill non combatants. Their entire military caste is based in Bowcastles and there are hundreds of them. The bigger ones are damn near the size of our Moon.”
Signalman Talloe ran on to the observation deck, message pad in hand.
“Sir! Flash from Earth!”
Defarris took the pad, keyed it and paled as he read out the opening paragraph: “The Bowcastle ‘Dawnheart’ has appeared and deployed two thousand Sunderlaw inside Mars’ orbit. The Lords of Dawnheart have informed Congress that they will perform a ‘Glory Strike’ on Earth unless we recognise the sovereignty of the Salarden Empire.”
Reonid checked the glossary: “That’s using Sunderlaw as manned meteors. They have the speed and weight to penetrate atmosphere with multi-kiloton impacts.”
Defarris sighed. “We are ordered to stand down. Negotiations are underway.”
Reonid looked out at the sparkling remains, his voice sorrowfully quoting an ancient memoir: “When sufficient crosses cannot be found to mark our fallen and blades are at our children’s throats, let the battlefield remain unmarked, for we did not fight. We were massacred.”
by Clint Wilson | Aug 30, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
Well… here goes nothing. You’d think that when inventing a time machine I’d try it out on a few test subjects first. But just because I’m one of the smartest people I’ve ever met doesn’t mean I’m the wisest. Besides… I’ve been drinking pinot noir… lots of it.
I check the parameters one last time. Yup, the beam is zeroed in on me. No turning back now. Here we go. Engage accelerator… big sip of wine… there’s the hum of the reactor.
Ah, what’s to worry about? I’m only jumping a measly minute. No chance of paradox there… no one here but us chickens. Heh heh. “Make it so Number One!” My inebriated state almost causes me to miss the button, but I manage to hit it with my thumb.
I am surprised by a green flash. The clock had just clicked to 12:36… and there it remains. “What the…?” I wiggle the wires on the back of the beam dispenser. I shake the monitor array. Another sip of wine, this one smaller. Hmmm, doesn’t seem to be anything amiss here. Finally in frustration I pound the keyboard with my fist, causing the phrase, $%^&tybhuijnoo9876 to appear… followed by the machine’s response of, “Invalid Command”.
Then the clock clicks to 12:37, and there is another green flash. And I’m suddenly beside myself… literally.
“Oh what the mother hell?” I ask the exact copy of myself.
My other self answers, “Ha, I didn’t think it worked at first… but this, this is an entirely unexpected result!” Then he raises an identical wine glass and takes a swig.
Right away both of us eye each other, knowing exactly what the other is thinking. Then in unison we say, “Great way to make wine!” We clink our identical glasses, followed by large simultaneous guzzles.
Then the clock clicks to 12:38 and another one of us appears. “Oh shit,” exclaim the first two of us. I fill our glasses from the nearby bottle but the third me doesn’t require it yet as his glass is still nearly full.
He takes a long swallow and then looks at the two of me. “Anyone have any idea of how we got stuck in this perpetual loop?” The other two of us look at each other confused and then shake our heads.
12:39, another green flash. The fourth me appears confused. At least his glass is full. My bottle is getting low. Remembering my store in the other room I excuse myself, but by the time I return with a couple new bottles there are six of us. The others are mumbling drunkenly… but making no progress that I can discern.
We might have eventually solved our plight but then the crazy one, number fifteen or sixteen I think, suddenly does something highly unexpected. He picks up the beam dispenser and hurls it across the lab, smashing our life’s work to bits on the floor. “What are you doing?!?” the other twenty-five of us scream in unison.
“Just wait,” he says, holding out his hands. “Just wait a minute!”
The clock clicks to 1:02, another green flash, and another stumbling, mumbling wino, too smart for his own good, appears in the lab. “Damn,” says the destroyer of our machine. “I thought that would work.”
Everyone else groans. “Wait!” says the radical. “I have another idea.” We all look at him hopeful yet doubtful. “If we kill the original it has to stop repeating!”
I swallow hard amongst the unsure mumbles of my other selves and exclaim, “Yeah but how are we going to find him now?”
by Duncan Shields | Aug 29, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
‘Captain’ Hugh Manatee floated in the darkness of his chamber monitoring the remnants of his unsuccessful first strike. The bodies of his crew waved lazily in the current of the ammonia ocean that claimed them. It wouldn’t be long before the cameras themselves were compromised.
Back before Earth was destroyed, being an Earthling meant you were from Earth. Now that Earth is long-gone, being an Earthling meant to be like an Earthling. Greedy, fun-loving, militaristic, and tribe-like. A hoarder and a glutton for new experiences.
A fleet of pirates that called themselves The Earthlings had sprung up and was now scouring the galaxy, currently led by Captain Hugh. A group of aliens bent on violence and the pursuit of treasure through theft, battle and salvage. They had no uniform to fit the wide variety of legs, arms, eyestalks, beaks, and slugfeet but a pale blue dot was prominent on all of them, the symbol of Earth. The dot was on their ships and flags as well.
Pirates with many limbs and some with only a few. Pirates with hard bones and with exoskeletons. Pirates with tentacles and with articulated mandibles. Jelimorphs, hellicorns, annamen, retreads, and silicates. Every now and then an esper became corporeal, risking truedeath to join the fight and get a slice. All of them different but all of them poverty-stricken, uneducated and violent.
It’s the glowing catfish moustache of ‘Captain’ Hugh Manatee that gives the only light here in his personal quarters, his lower lips tracing through the dust on the cabin floor. He’s looking down through the monitors at a failed invasion.
Dead faces stare back at him through the personnel monitor cams, skull-holes hollowed out by crabs. Each pirate dot-tag wrapped around collarbones furring with pink algae. Fistfuls of lariats and breathing tubes stick up out of the ground like exposed wiring. Acid is perforating the gun barrels and disintegrating sword blades. Long strands of ammonia-weed are reaching up through ribcages.
First pick of the spoils, said the recruitment packages. But only to the survivors, it left unsaid.
This planet’s race had protectors. As soon as the Earthling pirate ship arced into orbit and dropped its shuttles, a wave of raw power had expanded out from the closest moon, ringing the other moons like chimes. Too late, the ships realized that the moons were automated sentries. The reverberations destroyed the shuttle’s orbits and guidance systems, forcing them down into the steaming, chemical ocean.
There were no survivors.
More shuttles would not be sent. A memorial service would be held in the mess hall for the fallen comrades. It was quite a huge loss, almost twenty-five per cent of the current crew. They’d been tricked into a quick assault by a seemingly defenseless target. Too good to be true. Captain Hugh berated himself.
Down on the surface, the planet’s dominant life form, red and child-like, played happily and innocently around exposed outcroppings of diamonds, gold, and valuable minerals. A pirate’s dream of booty.
They’d have to recruit hard for the next six cycles to make up the difference in crew before another attack run. And find a way to deal with those moons.
The captain floated in silence in his dark cabin by himself, scanning the nearby systems for likely ports to get more volunteers and maybe some moonsplitters.
