by submission | Jun 27, 2011 | Story
Author : Brian T. Carter
Baritone, protesting groans shudder through the cramped cabin as the shuttle strains against the upper atmosphere’s turbulence. Simon braces himself against the console wondering if he sent the distress call before he set the self-destruct. A rush of white, dense mist engulfs his view out the broad windshield as water drops streak up its surface obscuring his trajectory even more…as if he actually had a planned descent. Getting to the shuttle and off his foundering scout ship was his only concern three whole minutes ago. A heading, besides simply planet-bound, hadn’t broached the immediacy of the situation until now, when he can’t see anything beyond the claustrophobic, gray-white shroud around him. Of course sensors are barely functional probably due to the low position on the maintenance list the escape shuttle occupied.
An expanse of green rolling geography erupts into view as the shuttle plummets out of the cloud cover. “Oh SHI….!” Simon exclaims engaging the breaking thrusters slowing the plunge into the forest below. A peripheral flash of orange draws Simon’s attention and a furrowed brow out the front of the craft as a second pulse breaches the air ahead of him. A percussion radiates from the rear of the craft. Simon’s surroundings are thrown forward then back against the chair as the cabin is sent into a gyre, the view outside reeling into blurred streaks.
He wrenches to dislodge an arm from the intensifying mass bearing down on his body. His fingers in arthritic spasm claw a path along the chair’s arm gaining ground towards the console and survival. Blackness encroaches from the the periphery of his vision. “Argh!” he screams protesting the physical forces against him. His foundering consciousness focuses on the hand willing his outstretched fingers to their target. They gain a hold, pull themselves up along the console pounding frantically on section he prays the stabilizers are located.
The weight reluctantly lifts from his body, blackness recedes from his vision, exhausted muscles collapse deeper into the chair as chaotic thuds begin rumbling through the floor. Simon glances sidelong through the front. A solid jolt from below bounds the view upward displaying the overcast sky and a fleeting glance of a dark shape emerging from the low lying clouds.
Gravity’s hand takes hold dragging the front down, a headlong dive into an immense bark covered trunk. The impact slams Simon into the console. His surroundings pivot from the rear as another wrenching collision thrusts him back into the chair. The sense that he’s the ball in a game of keep away between the forest and the ground passes through his mind. The cabin lurches again, as the front window implodes and he’s engulfed in a flurry of needled roughage, accosted by pine scent. The ship tilts and drops, the branch pulls away delivering a solid fleeing smack across the ridge of Simon’s nose. Gravity exerts itself once more leveling the interior and Simon’s senses as the ground wins the game. Waves ripple through the craft sending protest screams throughout its punished structure.
__________________________
Simon inspects his broken nose in a remnant of the shattered windshield as a stuttered, metallic thunder crowds the short-lived tranquility of the forested floor. He drops to his knees as a battered I-beam shaped ship shears the tree tops above, its engines’ sputterings pounding the air around him. Simon checks his pistol’s power cell, holsters it and bounds off through the trees in the direction of the ship noting he now has two against which reprisal will be exacted, those who attacked his scout ship and the tree that busted his nose.
by submission | Jun 26, 2011 | Story
Author : Julian Miles
“Twenty-nine, twenty-eight…”
She felt the first bead of sweat follow the knap of her close cropped hair before running cool and smooth down her jaw and into her uniform collar. It was so quiet on the bridge; she swore that her exec had heard it.
“Twenty-five, twenty-four…”
Sixty people made less noise than a creeping cat as they watched the dizzying host of screens. Beyond the shutters, warp space sang to their dreams. No-one had slept much in the last eight months.
“Twenty-one, twenty…”
It had taken twenty years to reverse engineer Borsen warp technology, five more to work out navigation. Four years to build the first warp dreadnought. Even now, the Borsen still did things with warp that made grown scientists cry.
“Seventeen, sixteen…”
This was the crux. The first warp dreadnought, Excalibur, hurled like a vengeful spear at the Borsen homeworld, loaded with atmosphere igniters and stealth fighters for a genocide raid to finish the war that mankind was no longer confident of winning.
“Thirteen, twelve…”
Providing the bastardised warp technology brought them out at all, of course. Command had decided that since the Romala debacle, speed was of the essence. This test flight would also be the greatest raid at the furthest distance by the biggest warship ever built.
“Nine, eight…”
She thought of spring in Providence, her daughter playing on the swing while her husband made Irish coffee on the range. This was why they all fought. For all the families, ensuring their children had a world to grow up on and a future worth living.
“Five, four…”
A vibration ran through the two kilometres of the Excalibur, causing wide eyes and white knuckles for every one of the thousand plus crew. She prayed to a god hopefully nearby that they would see real space again.
“One. Phase transit.”
With a disconcerting lurch, the Excalibur arrived in the Borsen system. Sensors awakening galvanized people into frantic motion. They had to be on target in moments. She smiled a thin smile as the shutters withdrew. Time to see what colour your air is, you bastards.
“Oh god. Sir?”
At first, she just could not absorb it. The system had no planets. The reason was right there, waiting. It reflected the distant sunlight from its myriad surfaces, and she was sure that she could see the Excalibur reflected in one of the facets facing them. She gathered herself, years of training and bitter, bloody combat culminating in a defining command moment of grace under pressure;
“Exec. Shipwide, please.”
The general broadcast fanfare rang hollow.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived and I am sure you see what I do. No-one could have envisioned this. Please, stand down and make your peace with whatever gods you hold dear.”
She regarded it. So big. Could you call something the size of Jupiter a spaceship? The movement and weapons detectors homed in on the behemoth’s one acknowledgement of the Excalibur’s presence. The figures coming from the mass detector alone lit the board red with scale queries. Her second expressed the thoughts of all present with the rendingly appropriate line of defiance, prayer and dark humour;
“Sweet Lord, for what we are about to receive…”
She felt her face become calm as she watched a railgun the length of Texas send a projectile the size of Rhode Island at them. Her words ended the data stream that reached Earth eighteen years too late;
“Dear John, remember me. Raise Millie well. Love from Captain Mum.”
by submission | Jun 25, 2011 | Story
Author : Phil Manning
The light above the door flashed green and she stepped into the hall. Synthetic grass covered the floor, a lush carpet which sprang up, undamaged, after each of her hesitant steps. A vast pool lay in the centre of the hall; the scent of salt water touched her nostrils.
Her yellow skin gleamed under the harsh fluorescent light, a simulation of a life bringing star long extinguished. The yellow skin was tattooed with a swirling mixture of codes and writing blended together to create an alien set of tribal markings.
On the edge of the pool a dull grey box began to shake and break free of the floor. Rising up to the height of her chest two black cables emerged from the sides of the box. The box’s grey exterior began to darken to an earthen brown and the once smooth surfaces were now scarred with texture. The cables snaked on the floor until she stood in front of the earthy pillar then lifted into the air to attach securely to her temples.
She took handfuls of earth and began to rub them slowly onto the top of her skull. Instead of falling to the floor the earth clung to her strands of hair. As she placed more of the mound of earth onto her skull her hair began to rise. The hair formed the outline of mountains and valleys which shifted and writhed, filling with trees and vegetation. When the mound was half broken away she stopped placing the earth onto herself. Taking small handfuls she cast the earth out over the pool. Islands and continents were shaped, shifting against one another before coming to rest in odd and beautiful land masses. The cables fell from her temples into the pool. They swirled and drifted beneath the surface of the water. Waves crashed against the newly formed land further changing and shaping the formations.
Sitting beside the pool she hummed as she cropped at the synthetic grass with her hand and tossed random handfuls of her harvest over the pool and newly formed surface. As her humming grew louder, the tune became more complex. The shape which had formed on top of her skull began to slow in its growth. The markings on her skin began to shift, dancing in and around each other. Changing patterns, words, codes, language swam on her skin. She opened her mouth and broke into a crescendo of song which harmonised with the sound of her humming still echoing throughout the hall. Small creatures began to appear in the mountains and valleys which sat upon her head. The patterns on her body danced up her skin and disappeared into her temples. Blue electricity crackled above her head as her body drained itself of the markings. The small creatures began to evolve; some grew wings, others leapt for the pool, and they began to hide and hunt. A small group began to think and stumble forward, upright and afraid.
She finished singing and started to whistle softly as she stood and reached for the shape now pulsating with life atop her head. As she broke the shape away from her skull it fell into four pieces. She floated each one toward a different area of the pool and the newly formed pieces of land. As life began to take hold and shape itself she slowly walked around the pool, whistling soft gusts over the once empty surface.
by submission | Jun 24, 2011 | Story
Author : Z. J. Woods
There seemed nothing wrong with the guy when he backed through the door. A little nervous, maybe. A little too long since he’d shaven. But otherwise? And for whom were such descriptions untrue?
Sloan produced glasses from a breast pocket and fingered them up the bridge of his nose. He put a fist over his mouth, cleared his throat. He said, “What can I do for you?”
The guy swung a denim sack up onto the counter. He untied it, reached in, produced books. Four books. Four hardcovers bound in honest-to-god cardboard and paper. Sloan pressed his glasses against his face, hard, for a moment. He watched as the guy arranged the books beside one another. Carefully.
The guy said, “I wanna — I need to, to sell these.”
“Well.” Sloan took up the rightmost, navy blue, thin, maybe two hundred pages, maybe less. He opened to the title page. It’d been torn out — not an unexpected defect. “Well,” Sloan said, “this is a lot of books,” and in fact he hoped he could endure the expense. “I could give you more if there were dust jackets. But, still –”
He brought the blue book close. On the front cover, near the spine — a dark rectangle, maybe damp. He pressed a thumb into it, pulled away and met resistance. Pressed thumb and forefinger together once, twice.
He set the book down.
He said, “You stole these from a library.”
“No — no,” the guy said. “They were — in a library — before. Before before.”
“That’s relatively new glue,” Sloan said, pointing. “There was a barcode there.” He eyed the rightmost corner of the counter, the telephone. “I can’t take these.”
The guy did not look up. Had not made eye contact since entering. He set about stowing his books. “Then — I guess — I’ll take these somewhere else.”
“No,” Sloan said. He reached for the phone.
The guy contemplated for a moment. For a moment Sloan was still, three fingers on the plastic handset, wondering if he’d misjudged, if the guy had a weapon after all. He began to withdraw.
The guy turned and ran.
He was halfway to the door when the shotgun pump stopped him.
Every time Sloan looked down that foreshortened barrel he became convinced that it had rusted more since the previous time. But what did it matter? The nice thing about a shotgun was that it could do enough from five paces mostly regardless of its general state of repair.
The guy turned, slowly. He held the denim sack to his chest. Now he made eye contact with Sloan, or with the cycloptic weapon; it didn’t seem to matter. He said, “Fucking — readers. Goddamn fucking readers.”
by submission | Jun 23, 2011 | Story
Author : K. Clarke
One could’ve happened by accident. When the first one appeared, I was eating cereal. His machine had plowed across half the basement and stopped against the wall, nested in the remains of the treadmill and the dryer and most of the plumbing. It looked like a submarine and it was way too big to have gotten in by the door, even in parts. Standing in the middle of the floor, the pile of twisted metal behind him and me at the top of the stairs in boxers and wrinkled socks, pointing a milky spoon at him –I guess in that situation it’s hard to come up with a good lie, and he just admitted he was a time traveler. His name is Tim.
Two could have been random chance. Harrelson arrived two days later, in the backyard. His machine was more advanced and a bit smaller, and only took out a ten foot gouge out of my lawn.
Even three might have been coincidence. Or, actually, four. Sonya and Peter showed up in the living room with a handheld machine and didn’t destroy anything at all. They were wearing matching silver jumpsuits though.
The next day it was Gehris, then Jacob, and Terry the day after that. And Kevin and Dr. Morris and the one whose name I forgot, and Dewey and another Peter and all the ones that came after I stopped even asking their names. They must have some special way of recognizing their own kind, because they go out and bring back even more time travelers. I can’t have friends over anymore because of all the future people camped out in my house. There’s one upstairs who says his name is AoooOooOOooooOoo who won’t even get out of the bathtub. They laugh at how primitive the widescreen I just spent $700 on is and give huge complicated explanations I can’t understand when I ask them questions, and I know they’re doing it on purpose because they talk with a lot smaller words when they think I’m not around.
Well maybe I’m not a genius time-travelling scientist, but I’m not an idiot. Tim says my house is a lab when he’s from, and Dr. Morris told me there’s a power plant next door all convenient for him. Jacob has a factory in his time. AoooOooOOooooOoo says the house built here in 500 years is a very nice shade of green. Probably they’re all telling the truth. There’s a lot of time in the future for stuff to happen in, and I’m not surprised if some of it happens here. But one month is not a lot of time for fifty time travelers to all end up in. Even if none of them will own up to it, they know something.
They all came to now for a reason. Something’s about to happen. Something big.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 22, 2011 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Antonio geared the big Mercedes down, slowing to a crawl before pulling off onto the loose gravel of the motel parking lot. He pulled around the end of the building to his usual parking spot in front of room one twenty five. His mistress never summoned him, he was going to make this inappropriate reversal of roles well worth the trip.
Pushing open the door he stepped into the room lit only from behind the partially closed bathroom door.
“You’d better not keep me waiting now, bitch!” He closed the door behind him, too late catching the brief flash of motion as something heavy met his head. The floor raced up and darkness took him.
Tenn pulled two chairs into the middle of the room facing each other, then picked up Antonio’s limp body and deposited him roughly in one. He bound him with nylon cord, arms first, then legs, then finally wrapping the cord around Antonio’s neck, looping it up around his face and forehead before securing it to the chair-back. Satisfied with his work, he placed a textured metal briefcase on the floor between them and pulled a paper shopping bag down over the bound man’s head.
Sitting in the chair opposite, he shook a Dunhill from a half empty pack, lit it and inhaled deeply.
Antonio woke slowly at first, then as the awareness of his situation set it, he jerked violently, the cord around his neck pulling tight.
“You son-of-a-bitch…” he started.
Tenn interrupted him by kicking him hard in the shins.
“This is where you shut up. If there’s a future for Antonio, Antonio needs to be quiet. Clear?”
Antonio started to protest, but Tenn’s heavily booted foot against his shin made him think better of it. He nodded instead.
Tenn opened the case on the floor and uncoiled a length of red surgical tubing truncated in a ten gauge needle. Without warning, he jammed the needle into Antonio’s thigh, ignoring the resulting yelp of surprised pain.
He uncoiled a second length, this one green, and carefully but quickly slipped the needle tip into a bulging vein in his own arm.
In the case was a control box with a single push button and a digital counter. Tenn pushed the button, and as the counter ticked off the digits from ten to zero, he sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and waited.
“I kind of like your hooker friend, and your wife as well.” He spoke slowly, white heat crawling up his arm, across his chest and then radiating out through his body. Antonio shivered, urine soaking through his pants. “You’ll treat them better in future, of course.”
As they sat, Tenn visualized the photographs he’d collected of Antonio. Green eyes, the slicked back, neatly parted hair. Pencil mustache, perfect teeth in a wide, arrogant smile.
Creative visualization would make adjusting to the transition easier; he’d not looked at his own reflection in several months.
Muscle twitched and reconfigured itself as nano-tech coursed between the two men, reading DNA code from one and rearranging in the other. Tenn’s hair changed from blond to dark brown. He’d have to have it cut and styled, but there was time for that. Facial hair grew, beard and mustache together. He’d need to shave.
For hours they sat, Antonio silent, Tenn relaxed, occasionally grunting or breathing heavily as some major change was made.
Sometime before dawn, the briefcase emitted a single chime, and Tenn withdrew the needles and repacked the case.
Everything ached, but he pulled himself to his feet and yanked the paper bag from Antonio’s head.
The man stared, blankly at first, then eyes widening with a new found fear. The face before him was unshaven and tired looking, but still a mirror image of himself.
“I’m going to have so much more fun with your fortune than you ever dreamed of, with your women, with your life.” Seconds later the nanos still circulating in Antonio’s bloodstream began to tear his cells apart. He screamed for only a few agonizing minutes before he was reduced to a pulpy mess on the floor that gradually vapourized into the room.
Antonio Tenn was no longer there to witness, having pulled the rumbling Mercedes back onto the highway, heading at high speed for home.
