by submission | Feb 26, 2013 | Story |
Author : Alex Grover
Hessy ventured down the railroad mound when he saw the glint.
The desert was a cruel place: for the little lizards that scurried in the shadows, for the sparse yucca plants and tall grasses that sprigged in the dust, for the humans that toiled in the godless heat. The desert was a decree against life. Hessy had known it too well over the past few months. He was a bony boy no more than seventeen, wearing orange and cuffs around his swollen ankles. The Billingswood Continental, owned by Roland Corporation, ensured that Hessy would be no delinquent, no fool in the streets. Mr. Ofsprin, with his broad beard and wide-brimmed hat, was a stout former colonel in Lincoln’s war and managed the Fenton Center for Learning Juveniles. He watched Hessy and the other boys who were there on that 1869 speck of a Western dream.
The large hammer fell to Hessy’s side as he rushed bull-like to the glimmer in the sand.
Hessy dropped to his knees and gently sieved the sand with his fingers. The glint became metallic, rounder, more perfect, more strange. It was a thick-rimmed monocle. Hessy noticed it didn’t have a chain, but an ear-piece, something like a half-frame to a full pair of glasses, but a construct that wrapped underneath the lobe. Ankles forgotten, Hessy picked up the monocle. It was heavier when he held it, for sure, but on further inspection Hessy noticed the misleading thickness of the rim. Uncovered from the dust, the monocle showed an extra, slim band within two uncanny shades of tealish-gray. The band displayed a numerical range from 10 to 30; along one of the outside rims was a black arrow pointing inward.
With blistered fingers and uncommon stupor, Hessy instinctively clicked the band around its circumference to the middle, at the 20.
“Hestian Phelps?” Mr. Ofsprin called.
Hessy had already put the monocle on, the frame fitting snugly on his right eye. Without sound and, for some reason, without fear, but respect, Hessy looked upon the large mound that would carry the Billingswood Continental into miles beyond. Instead of sand, the railroad lay in place. A fantastical, sleek-looking train with a “Billingswood” decal. It was a train Hessy had never seen.
“Hestian Phelps, get back to the rails, boy.”
He looked up the mound. Mr. Ofsprin glared from above. The other workers were supposed to continue, but many of them slid their glances to Hessy, hammers held like torches to their chests.
When Hessy saw Mr. Ofsprin and the workers with his right eye, he saw grand and torturing differences. The boys had become men; their faces, some already scarred, were now dignified with subtle wrinkles. They looked stronger. Their chests were pronounced—they stood taller. Mr. Ofsprin appeared like an ancient. His back was arched; his face was a leathery bag; his beard was long; his eyes were weary and dark.
“I tell you, boy, get up here and avoid a beatin’.”
Hessy instead moved the numbered band without looking to 22. Giant buildings he could have never fathomed materialized before a second could pass. They formed a grid that crafted a behemoth shadow, soaring from the base of the tower-like structures like a terrible, terrible sea. A large sign for “Roland Corporation” was fizzling and shining on one of the towers, joined by a yellow-skinned, black-haired gnome who was the caricature of a man long dead. There were people there, underneath the buildings, walking with posh bags and alien clothes, silent, all silent except for the desert breeze; the railroad was gone, covered by a bizarre new railway of zooming glass carriages; Ofsprin and the workers had vanished.
Yet, Hessy’s left eye still saw the railroad, the workers, and the warden, who trampled down the dune with a small black club. Mr. Ofsprin did not resist; he began beating down the teenage world of Hestian Phelps. The mother of his history cried somewhere. But Hessy continued to shift the band of the monocle.
When he clicked the 30 to the black arrow, the buildings had returned to desert as if nothing, all had returned to desert as if nothing, the desert, oh the desert, oh the dust.
by submission | Feb 25, 2013 | Story |
Author : Jonathan Pigno
There were weapons stashed in the Frigidaire. Alien toys. Things Elaine kept nestled under her dress for safekeeping when company arrived.
But her house-guests didn’t know it.
They remained unsuspecting and silent as she leaned in to reach for the cola bottles.
“So tell me again why you’ve come to Boise, gentleman?”
The suits looked up from their plates and stared at the middle-aged housewife. She was as inconspicuous as any Midwestern beauty queen – chestnut hair curled ever so gently over the base her shoulders, sparkling green eyes that matched the lawn outside.
Her polka dot dress looked like something off the newsstands. A perfect cover for Wink magazine. Things that drove the jukebox crowd wild.
Inside the oven, a pie was cooking. The strangers wondered if the recipe was secret, something only she had knowledge of and concealed ever so well.
But that was exactly what they had come looking for.
They gazed at the woman once more. Something told them she was an atom bomb. A nuclear explosion waiting to blow. But the fallout wasn’t caustic. It was historic.
The mystery men shook it off.
She smiled, placing the beverages onto the linoleum tabletop. She pulled out a seat and reclined next to them.
Both visitors looked at one another.
“We came to talk about your husband, miss. There has been investigations lately by the local law enforcement concerning the lights that were seen over this community. Our division has given us clearance to search the house for government property.”
She uncrossed her legs and straightened herself in the chair.
“My husband is a senior ranking official in the United States military, gentleman. His business is most certainly not mine…”
She pushed her bra up, narrowing her eyes and pursing her mouth. The red lipstick glistened. Her male guests soaked in the sight of her cleavage. The woman breathed in.
Underneath the table, Elaine heard a click.
“You fella’s are looking for the hard way, now am I correct?”
She clenched the holster tucked inside her black garter. She could feel the nose of the weapon against the darkened nylon stretched over her thighs.
The trio traded stares. That’s when the oven timer went off.
Elaine drew her gun and fired. It was a liberating bliss, a revolutionary kind of spark. She saw it in the smoking crater where her former guests smoldered.
Things were changing in Boise.
The housewife stood up and brushed soot off her clothing. Walking over to the window, she lit a cigarette and smiled into the dusk. She wanted to disprove it all, the misconceptions of who she was.
“I’m packing heat like Friedan’s publishing books.”
Elaine heard the screen door out back.
“Since when you get home?”
Her husband trotted over, still in uniform, and kissed the side of her face.
“I took the spaceship for a spin. Ran some tests at the hangar.”
Distracted, he turned to the pile of ash where his breakfast nook used to sit.
“They said the commies might show up.”
He paused.
Elaine was always different. The killing wasn’t the problem. She’d become a new woman. Right around the time he’d trusted her with weapons even he didn’t comprehend.
“So…how those ray guns work out?”
A distinct cocktail of fear and envy brewed in the room. The couple lingered in stillness.
She knew what needed to be said.
Some moments couldn’t be understood knowingly. They had to be explained.
Elaine opened the oven door and stared at the finished pie.
“Well. Let’s just say…you fucking men will never understand. Not for a long time.”
by submission | Feb 24, 2013 | Story |
Author : David Barber
The pale young woman had a tap in her wrist. The time-traveller asked for a glass and we watched her fill it with blood.
“Bring her salt water.”
“Salt.. like sea water?”
“If you have that.”
There were isotonic sports drinks somewhere in the back, but I didn’t turn away quick enough. He raised the glass and I saw his throat throb as he drank.
I’d shut the Chronos Tavern during the riots. My wife said I shouldn’t open today. In fact she’d said it was pig-headed and reckless.
She worked at the Canaveral Timeport before all the trouble. She’s been stuck at home a while now, looking for jobs, and she’s been kind of short-tempered. Lot of anger about time travel these days.
Perhaps you have to be married to understand how I ended up in the Chronos, giving the place a furious mopping, when the time-travellers came in.
“I smell your worry,” The morlock bared brutal teeth. “But you are safe.”
I asked the pale woman if she wanted another drink but she didn’t even lift her eyes.
“Is it your scientists causing this trouble?”
“Scientists?” My foolish grin faded. Predators don’t need to make jokes. “No, nothing like that.”
After time travellers arrived, the notion had escaped that lives were like films you could fast-forward to see how they end. Choices were inevitable. Or irrelevant. The idea just wouldn’t flush away. Emptiness, unrest and dismay hung in the air like carrion crow.
The blood-stained glass still stood empty on the bar when the three men walked in.
“Sorry guys, we’re closed.” The Timeport was always off-limits to the public.
“Those two look like customers to me,” said the tall one.
“Just friends.”
“Look like travellers,” he insisted.
We all needed to stay calm, to keep talking. He held a Saturday-night special against his leg.
“I want to know who invited their sort here. From the future.”
The morlock was blindingly fast. I heard an arm-bone crack before the gun fired into the floor. The morlock stood frozen over the whimpering man while the other two backed outside.
“They threatened,” he explained. I realised he was giving them a head start. Then with a terrible cry he was gone, and the door banged shut.
The woman still sat at the bar.
“You should get down here with me.”
She made no move, and shamed, I went to see to the man. He was cradling his arm and moaning.
“Never touch the prey,” she warned with the voice of a child. I stalled with indecision.
“They do not share, there would be violence.”
“Are you his wife?”
“His eloi. Hide if you ever see one without an eloi.”
Brief shrieks came from outside. I almost picked up the gun.
“He is considered very enlightened. Other morlocks are more… aggressive in their feeding. I am fortunate.”
My wife would say I was being sensible. I hadn’t realised I was a such a coward.
“He did not treat you like prey,” she called, as I eased the door open. “But if you interfere…”
Under a streetlight, the men lay amongst their own entrails.
“Your age is an Eden,” said the morlock. “Still, best to go now.”
“What…”
“Yes, send her out.”
I whispered to her that our laws would protect her, but she only asked if I wanted her blood.
“Then what use am I?”
I dialled an ambulance, then threw the glass away. Beginning to tremble, I called home.
My wife answered and I didn’t let her get a word in. I had a lot of things to apologise for.
by submission | Feb 23, 2013 | Story |
Author : Lisa Play
Daphne scared me when I saw her take the stairs to the catwalk this morning. The way she moved, I wouldn’t have given her a second glance. That was a problem. Normally there was a slight tick that gave her type away, something stiff in the knees or the elbows. Her steps were so effortless, it made me think she must be new, fresh from Development. Her skin was taut yet supple, not a blemish or a scar anywhere. The Mast Laboratory Natural ASUORI Line was finally beginning to look, well, natural. This was better for hospice work, sure, since the androids don’t need to eat or sleep and can be constant companions for dying, their voices (male or female) calibrated to a soothing pitch, their movements finally powerful yet fluid after six developmental generations of testing.
We didn’t need to make the ASUORIs as strong or good-looking as they turned out to be. They had to look convincingly human and they had to be efficient. ASUORIs are for the dying, they needed a face like a mother’s, friendly and nourishing and gentle. Hands that would stay at human body temperature so that the patients would not be reminded of the chill of death as Nancy (or Jill or Anne or whatever) gave them a sponge bath or changed their clothes. It was very considered. We were designing farewell bots, not to be worn down by the emotional toll of their work, to be a comfort to the survivors.
Corporate was only contrary on one point: “Moms don’t sell, guys. It’s not going to look good in the catalog. Can we have a little more Sofia Loren and less Susan Sarandon?” It wasn’t a suggestion. So the skin tightened up, the waist came in, and the bustline perked up a bit. The softness of the face fell away to reveal intense cheekbones. The features we had designed to mellow the beholder were overtaken by those that would intrigue, excite. We, my development team, considered ASUORIs differently after their redesign, worrying if our patients’ families would regard the technology less seriously because the androids looked closer to Victoria’s Secret models. But they did sell, regardless. We expanded into a “male” line as well, endowing them with biceps sculpted enough to imply strength without brutality and a gentle jawline. The face of death was becoming a pleasant one.
by submission | Feb 22, 2013 | Story |
Author : Matthew Wells
Clink. Clink. Clink.
Aden’s chains struck the floor like bursts from a lazy pulsar. The voices from the other side of the clear partition, chaotic and full of rage, were strangely mute. He saw the crowd without really seeing it, and he knew only the sounds of his chains.
Upon some unseen signal, the inflamed gathering reluctantly took a seat while he was fixed to a steel chair.
As he looked, two faces in the front row stood out. He knew the family. They had testified at his trial. Thru a fluke, they were the only ones to have directly survived the disaster. Today, a young man with black hair sat between them.
Members of the gathering, a small selection of families of victims, took turns lashing threats and oaths, rebukes and rancor into the microphone.
To be fair, while the accident was a devastating catastrophe—a colossal failure, it was wholly unintentional. He had set fire to a star. The Deep-well Boson Cascade, his experimental magnum opus, had burned a solar system to ash.
After the poisonous words ebbed, he was given the chance to speak. Instead, he hung his head and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” came the soft reply.
Aden looked up, surprised to see the young man with black hair standing at the microphone. The crowd behind him watched dourly. His father looked baffled. The young man observed Aden without malice.
“You survived the blast too, didn’t you?” Aden said.
“Yes. My name is Bo,” he said softly. “I know you didn’t mean to do it.” No one challenged the young man. As the only survivors, his family held a unique status among the families of the victims.
“No, I didn’t. But, it was my fault.” The entire project board was indicted and the corporation assets seized, but he naturally took the fall. And, he embraced it.
Bo looked down at his shoes, then up again at the prisoner. “May what happens next be a reminder. Though, I believe this guilt is too much for one man.” There was a meaningful pause, then, “I forgive you.”
An angry murmur arose in the room as Bo returned to his seat. His father looked anxiously about the livid faces; his mother had gone white.
Aden’s heart had paused for a full second following those words. Emotion washed through him. Forgiveness had seemed unimaginable. Yet, here it was.
The chair began to swivel and the wall behind him opened. A stiff, ocean breeze shook the plank as it extended over fitful waters a thousand feet below. The sea was red under the coral sun. He wobbled involuntarily. The wall closed behind him, but they would be watching, millions of them, as they had twice before over the past decade.
His breath held and his heart quickened. He sensed the moment was now. In the brightness of full day, a brilliant flash filled the sky—his star, annihilated all over again. His arms pulled against the chains, his neck strained until he vomited over the rocks below.
It was some time before his pulse slowed and those imagined cries grew quieter. In silence, he gazed upon the shining suns. He would be left on the plank for days while the light faded. But, it no longer mattered. Near the pain, a renewed sense of purpose began to grow. What would it take to build a memorial the size of a star? Over the next seven decades, as he was taken from world to world to relive this event again and again, he would find a way.
by Duncan Shields | Feb 21, 2013 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
This was my fourth summer paving the flat parts of Nevada with solar panels. The project had been going on for four years and looked like it would go on for another six.
A summer under the cruel desert sun will teach you about yourself. The sun teaches you your limits and it teaches you the elastic nature of time.
The solar panels are printed off and cut into lightweight, paper-thin wafers before being loaded into heavy groups of four hundred panels each. These panel-blocks slot nicely into our backpacks.
To lay the panels, we reach back in a motion as old as archery to grab a panel, flop it down onto the dusty ground and latch two of the corners to the panels already laid. We dust the leads, spray the protectant and walk one step forward to do the next one.
We put the black thermal side down and the shiny blue solar side facing up.
It’s a mechanical and quick motion that needs to be done in a relaxed manner at a steady pace without being straining. New guys come in and race ahead only to burn out with tennis elbow or RSI halfway through the season.
People ask why this process isn’t automated but the answer is obvious. It’s always cheaper to employ meat to do this kind of work. You don’t have to repair a human. You just hire a new one.
A few Workers Board lawsuits had resulted in the relative guarantee of job safety but you needed to pay attention. Water rations, sunscreen, night tents, proper gear and clothing, everything was yours and needed to be looked after.
I thought of Fremen. I thought of Arabs dressed in pristine white robes on camels. I thought about the Egyptians and their capitulation to Ra, the sun god.
I felt like I could teach them all a thing or two about desert living by now.
Our crew marched forward up the dusty walkway until the edge of where the other team had stopped before us. The irregular border spread out in a jagged line for miles on either side of us. Half of us went single-file to the east and half of us went single-file to the west. All across Nevada, hundreds of other teams were doing the same.
From orbit, the tiles were bright, sky-coloured, shining, square kilometers with thin sandy walkways in between. We were turning the desert into a grid; an energy-producing azure powder-blue plaid. Vegas and Reno now sprouted from fields of shining sapphire glass.
America’s desert was becoming the colour of a tropical ocean. Baby-blue batteries. Powder-blue powerhouses.
The earth was done giving up her oil.
We didn’t have the number of bodies for the bicycle farms of China. We’d dammed up all of the rivers that we could. The wind farms, wave booms and geothermal drills were giving us a good deal of energy but still not enough.
Paving Nevada with solar panels was going to recharge the entire country’s economy. Regular repair and upkeep would keep just over ten percent of the entire continent’s population employed.
Panel People. Redbacks. Sunkids. There were many names for us, depending on where you came from.
The sun screamed down at all of us. We were ants on the hot ground. I looked up through reflective lenses and smiled at the sun’s punishment, daring it to do its worst.
I walked to my grid point designation, reached back over my shoulder for a panel, and got to work.
