by submission | Sep 15, 2011 | Story |
Author : N.R.Messer
I’ve been going at it for months now. Searching, weeping, trying to find her — my Angelica. But, in my haste to undo the past, my desire to forge my own fate has quite possibly damned me from the start of this journey.
Although married for four years, Angelica and I were still very young-and very much in love. I, a physics major and she, a student of veterinary medicine, lived in very different worlds. But our lives collided and swirled together beautifully from the start. On a crisp, white, December night, in a pub drunk on spirits and holiday cheer, our life together began. So it’s not without theatrical spin and romantic fate that she would bring me to that very pub-years after our vows-to tell me she was dying.
Malignant Intracranial Neoplasm-brain tumor.
I felt as if I were in a mid-day nightmare, it couldn’t possibly be true. But; after months of treatment and referral, I accepted the inevitable. I was soon to lose my best friend, my lover, my companion.
There were options though-there were always options. Options however, that didn’t come without risk. Brain damaged, comatose, or the already inevitable deatd — but found much earlier. Regardless of my pleas, she accepted her fate.
Not long after her funeral, in a drunken stupor-made light by not even the lowest of self pity-I realized I had not in fact accepted what she so calmly had, that fateful evening on Bewer Street.
In a move of pure desperation, I sold every worthwhile item in my possession, and invested in blind hope and heartfelt raging passion. With all my financial and mental prowess, I designed, engineered, constructed, and executed a machine with the intent of crossing over to a parallel world. A world in which my love was still alive. But when I found only a gravestone and suicidal doppleganger, I plunged myself towards the next prospective universe. World after world, grave after grave.
I began to find comfort in the idea of suicide myself, as I strayed further and stranger away from my home world.
A renewal of faith came to me in the form of a double-edged sword after I crackled through the quantum walls of one particular world, when I found only browning grass at the increasingly familiar cemetery plot. She was still alive. The second sword’s edge struck me however, when I discovered a terminally ill Angelica waiting for death’s cold hand, in the same hospital we spent so many late nights in before. Those blessed-but brief-last weeks were, for me, a message from God himself. Press onward.
But now I question from which god the message came. Months I’ve traveled now, and at every crossing, the worlds become stranger, more…alien. I wonder how long, if in no time at all, until I find myself in a world in which Angelica was never even conceived. But onward I continue. Barreling through on a single straight path. Knocking through unseen barriers like sheets of rice paper. I must decide soon: continue on blind? Or discover a way to turn around. Before it’s too late for even myself.
by Roi R. Czechvala | Sep 14, 2011 | Story |
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
“Jesus jumpin’ Christ,” ejaculated Cpl. Davidson before he died. Though clad in nearly impervious plasteele body armour, his head was cleanly ripped from his body.
“Run away, run away,” the rest of the men in his squad screamed as they fell pell mell over one another. The creatures went by different names; Bandersnatch, Grendel, Jabberwocky. Vicious Motherfuckers, or VM’s, was not an uncommon term.
Whatever they were, they certainly weren’t the creatures that created and piloted the immense spacecraft that had taken up residence in Earth orbit. No, these were brutal mindless beasts that appeared to kill and destroy anything without a conscious thought. A biological killing machine.
Lt. Fenwick let out a deep sigh as he watched his men hauling ass across the plain with a Jabberwock trailing close behind. Their enhanced speed, augmented by the armour, was no match for the creature. Much to the terror of the fleeing men, the beast quickly gained.
“Vorpal ready,” barked the Leftenant.
“Vorpal weapon ready, Sir,” replied his gunner.
“Wait for it.” The Lt. raised his field glasses just in time to see another of his men fall beneath the scythe-like claws of the beast. It paused just long enough to shred the hapless soldier before resuming the chase. The drawback of the Vorpal weapon was its range in an atmosphere. It spat a stream of tiny magnetically accelerated ferro/tungsten particles at seemingly relativistic velocities. In the near vacuum of space, the range was virtually limitless, in an atmosphere as dense as that of Earth however…
“Hold your fire until you have range,” Fenwick ordered as another of his men fell to the loathsome nightmare. The gun crew watched in anguish as their comrades died while they remained impotent until the bastard could be drawn within range.
“Wait for it… wait for it…” Despite the bunker’s chill conditions, imparted by the weapons coolant system, beads of sweat rolled down the young officer’s face . “Almost there… almost… FIRE!”
The Vorpal emitted a muted shushing sound as mag-accelerated particles, little larger than coarse sand, issued forth in a coherent pencil-thin stream. At hyper velocities the trillions of individual particles took on a solid aspect that sheared through the monsters nearly invulnerable exoskeleton and severed it neatly in two. Though mortally wounded, the torso of the Jabberwock still pursued its prey at speed with its four upper appendages and managed to slaughter another soldier before it expired.
Despite the daemon’s recent demise, the remaining men of the patrol continued to hastily beat feet back to the safety of the bunker. While the exhausted men shed their armour in the cramped bunker’s antechamber, Lt. Fenwick called his company HQ requesting a mortuary team to retrieve his fallen soldiers. Clicking his teeth, he logged off the company freq and turned to Master Gunnery Sergeant Kalnick.
“Bad day Gunny. Bad fuckin’ day.”
“Yeah LT. I just wish we could get a ‘wok alive.”
“Why? There’s nothing we can learn from them. They’re little more than a living automaton programmed to destroy. They’re mindless.”
“Yeah, I know. I just want to see how long one would hold out against my mother-in-law.”
by featured writer | Sep 13, 2011 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Featured Writer
I looked down at the riph on my wrist, remembering the days when phone, watch, PDA, wallet, cash, cards and ID were separate items.
Then I realised that I was late for my meeting, hadn’t got Susie a present and I was watching the rain melt a pigeon that wasn’t quick enough on the patio outside the penthouse. I flicked my wrist and the holographic display rose to confront me with everything. I waved the dailies into oblivion unread and poked the action tab, then requested an espresso while the queued diamond twirled rapidly, meaning I had only a short wait.
The aging robo had just whined my coffee to me when the diamond flashed and a charming, husky voice caressed my ears.
“Operator. How can Ri– Oh, hello Vince. How can I help today?”
I smiled. Shannon was my favourite operator, and of late she seemed to be online all the time.
“Hi Shannon. I need to get across town in under thirty, need to get Susie a medium value birthday present, plus it’s raining acid and lime outside.”
A throaty chuckle came from the riph, then stopped suddenly. The silence was curiously eerie. A minute or so passed.
“Vince, a Chariot repulsorlift will be at the residence’s enviro-gated pickup point in nine minutes. I have cleared routing for you to Jackson Holdings; you will arrive four minutes early. Susie’s present is unnecessary.”
I stared at the device.
“Shannon, how and what was that last item?”
“Jackson Holdings. You’ve been there frequently and I see from your legal feeds that you have received approval for your buyout. Priority routing is easy when my brother is section head at Police Headquarters and having a quiet day.”
“Seattle girl accused of abusing sibling bond for rich client.”
I smiled as I said it and her laughter sent tingles up my spine.
“Susie?”
“Sorry, Vince. As you bought her a service upgrade, I have her riph status up as part of your ambient.”
Her voice had gone quiet. I waited as déjà vu visited.
“It’s in paramour monitor mode. Sorry Vince. I really am.”
Susie had always been a bit too fond of my credit rating. Now my suspicions were confirmed. Not again.
“Shannon, can you downgrade her and give me a refund?”
“Yes Vince. Shall I action a breach of nuptial exclusivity salvage for you?”
I paused. That meant Susie and I were over before the nuptial bit really began. Then again, she was in bed with a paying customer right now.
“Do it. Authorisation to debit granted.”
“Done Vince. Full recoup except for the Thunderbirds tickets. They are ID bound and non refundable.”
Damn. The Thunderbirds were about to contest promotion rights with the Winterhawks. The winners got to play in the Mars Leagues. I had been looking forward to the game for months. A whole box, full hospitality, the works. I had been intending to propose properly to Susie at the end of the game.
Then I had a crazy idea.
“Are they transferrable?”
“Yes Vince. Providing you retain one.”
I activated a routine of questionable legality on my riph. It came back instantly.
“Vince, did I mistakenly detect a non-warranty persona query app?”
I smiled. This girl was good.
“No idea what you’re talking about, Shannon. Now please extend the usual invite, collection time and privacy moderation requests to Miss S. Carleton of Ravenna.”
“No problem Vince, I’m sure she’ll be thril-“
The eerie silence returned as she finally assimilated the invitee information. I found myself grinning like an idiot.
“See you at five, Miss Carleton.”
by Duncan Shields | Sep 12, 2011 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
You’d expect a physically challenged, mentally retarded child born with a life expectancy of six years to figure out a crude way of getting around. Some simple crutches, perhaps. Or maybe a box to drag oneself around in.
You wouldn’t expect that child to build robot legs that worked.
That’s how the aliens saw us. They looked on us in pity and in fascination.
They came to us from space without the benefit of ships or space suits. They floated down on rippling bio-solar panel wings of unfurling grace. They were humanoid but much taller, bilaterally symmetrical like us. They had four more senses than us and were able to breathe in fourteen different atmospheres. Those solar sail wings could extend for fifty meters when fully extended in space. They were so very thin.
They looked like us for a reason.
And we didn’t look like them because we were deformed.
In this universe, they explained, there was only one dominant form of life.
Humans.
Planet Earth was seeded with that form of life but somewhere the replication got too many errors in it. A few missing pieces in the helix or a few too many where it counted. Our growth was stunted and our full potential squandered.
According to these superior versions of humans that wafted down from space, normal human beings kept every trait in the DNA that they’d gotten along the way and were supposed to flower in a second puberty around sixty years of age.
That second puberty would have us grow much taller, become psychic, kick all of our evolutionary traits into full-blown activation, and give us the ability to fly into space like a dandelion seed pushed by a gust of wind. And those wings could tesseract space. Living wormhole organs. The distances between stars made it necessary for them to have lifespans measured in thousands of years.
We felt jealous and ripped off. But also proud. These beings had no need for technology. They’d never invented radio or television. That explained the silence of space. They’d never had to invent spacecraft. They’d never had rocket technology or microwaves or chemistry or vacuum tubes. They could construct stable wormholes but they didn’t understand the math behind it.
We were a marvel to them. A doomed, stunted, tragic, tear-jerker of a marvel.
But they couldn’t read our minds. We lacked the broadcast and receiving apparatus. They learned our language in hours and communicated with us using their rarely used mouths. It was a novelty for them.
It gave us the time to mount an attack. Great minds must have thought alike because in a surprisingly effective military movement, as accidentally co-ordinated as it was spontaneous, all the countries of earth killed these super-humans.
The ones that could flee, fled. Around two-thirds. The rest of them fluttered like moths in jars, trying to get out of our buildings as our bullets tore holes in their paper bodies.
The brutality shocked them. They felt the trapped ones die in their minds. We haven’t seen them since. It’s likely that they have marked our planet as a no-go area.
Suits us fine.
However, we’ve been busy researching those bodies. Every country on Earth is in a race to see who can get the first patents. The first stable wormholes, the first space-faring wingsuits, the first immortality drugs, the first psychic warriors, the first amphibious soldiers, etc, etc.
And when the time comes, we’ll spread out amongst the stars ahead of schedule because of them. We’ll see who’s superior then.
by submission | Sep 11, 2011 | Story |
Author : J.D. Rice
When they described this planet to me, rogue, free from its orbit, adrift in space, I pictured a world of devoid of light, a world enveloped in darkness. But to my surprise, as I walk through the ruined city, protected from the vacuum of space by an environmental suit, my way is lit by the glistening of a million stars. With no atmosphere, the starlight passes unrefracted to the surface. It’s like looking up into a populated metropolis, like seeing an echo of what the city had once been.
I pull my eyes away. We have no time for stargazing. The planet will soon drift too far for our ships to follow, and we have a mission to complete. I order my team to canvass the large buildings to our left and right, while I walk, somewhat nostalgically, through the park in the center. I can direct the entire operation here, alone with my thoughts. I wonder. Who were the people who once stood here? What were their names? Did they know that their planet would one day be torn from its sun, sent drifting in space like a wandering vagabond?
The ruins of a great obelisk lie before me. The man it was meant to honor is now forgotten. All that effort to honor a single person, wasted. I shake my head. I’m getting sentimental.
Turning my back on the ruins, I see a member of my team approaching. I can’t even tell who it is until he speaks. The helmets make it impossible.
“Sir,” he says. “We found the document, or what’s left of it. It was nothing but dust. It appears some rubble from the ceiling shattered the glass seal meant to preserve it.”
I sigh into the breathing unit in my helmet. So that’s it. Another piece of history lost. One stray rock, a twist of physics, and our mission is a failure. It took us months to find this site, years to plan the expedition. And it’ll be decades, maybe even centuries before our propulsion technology advances enough for us to return. I try my best not to look disappointed as I order everyone to salvage what they can and get back to the lander.
As I watch the planet drift away from our ship, I say a silent prayer for the people who died on that planet when disaster struck. I thank God for my ancestors, the people who were off world, the people who were spared the catastrophe. And I say goodbye to Earth, the rogue planet, doomed to drift forever in the vastness of space.
by submission | Sep 10, 2011 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson
They ate. They ate everything they could. It was as simple as that. If a solar system contained even one planet with significant life forms in abundance, they came. They landed and they ate, every tiny scrap of organic material in their terrible paths.
Giant gray machines ravaged the landscape. Trees and fauna stood no chance as they were mulched at will… and the beings that ran, crawled, swam and slithered faired no better as machines eventually caught up to all of them. Each and every living organism was pureed into food for the Gluttons. This was the name mankind had given them, once the fact of their approach had been revealed via the galactic network of communicating species.
To actually transverse between star systems physically as opposed to communicating by light-language was nearly unheard of, except for parasitic beings such as the Gluttons, who existed only for conquest and further gluttony. A species so devoted to their ways that they sacrificed generations of their already long-lived individuals to transverse the gaps of nothingness over centuries, with no other purpose than to find more food.
Mankind learned of their approach with nary a decade to spare. Earth would be on her own now as any chance of communicating with another intelligent species for assistance as to how to deal with the invaders was long past. Earth’s leaders gathered. Together they analyzed the information package that had been sent in light-language from one helpful alien race some fifty-five light years distant.
This was our only hope, a life preserver tossed to us just in time to, “head ‘em off at the pass” so to speak.
In the end it was a tiny probe, a mere three meters across that sailed out on the solar wind to meet the approaching horde. In truth the Gluttons never gave it any mind, a useless weather satellite to be tossed aside with indifference, they let it cruise by without concern.
As it spread its tiny cargo amongst the fleet of marauders its self-destruct clock began to count down… and by the time the little probe exploded into oblivion the nano-bots had already breached several hulls, and were now burrowing into whale sized gray beings with rough rocky skin. Each tiny android had a series of compounds aboard, so small some elements contained but a scant few molecules. Once inside their hosts, they began to experiment… until the chink in the armor had been discovered. A message was sent back to Earth as the invaders slowed and fell into orbit around their blue prize.
When the first wave landed they met what they expected, the resident intelligent race surrounding their landing party with what looked to be primitive war devices. Unconcerned they launched their armored mulching machines into action.
The first trees began to die as the grey goliaths raped the land. The Gluttons followed close behind, gorging themselves on the organic exhaust of their leviathan food processors. Forest animals and lake fish began to add to the invaders’ menu when suddenly…
The humans unleashed, directly into the intakes of the machines, a boiling spray of the most glorious shimmering sunshine. And as the spewing feeding snouts began to exhaust the deadly element into the hungry mouths of the approaching aliens, they started to die by the thousands.
Who could have guessed that the Gluttons’ one and only yet deadly allergen would be one of the solar system’s rarest elements? Luckily for mankind we had now had the ability to turn lead into gold for more than a century.
