by submission | Mar 5, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
“It’s not a case that we can’t see the fuckdam forest for the fuckdam trees,” Lipton spat as she whirled on Parrati, “because anywhere, anyhow we look at it that fuckdamn beast is waiting, ready to bite our fuckdamn heads off.”
Parrati tapped slender fingers on the viewport and clucked. “Fuckdamn. That’s baby talk for you, Janelle. You’re obviously not too fazed about this.”
“About losing two of our crew? What the fuckshit are you talking about, Amai?”
“We’ve got seven more redshirts, Janelle, and the other two are salvageable.”
“Without heads?”
“Redshirts are built to lose their heads. You aren’t.”
Lipton snatched Parrati’s hand from the viewport. “I wish I could throw you and your calm fuckbitch self in the brig for insubordination. Like in the good old days.”
Parrati smiled. “Would it help, Janelle, if I called you Captain.”
“It wouldn’t knucklefucking hurt.”
“Of course, Captain.” She pressed Lipton’s hand gently and did not release it. “Things were never simpler then. That’s why we left the service. That’s why we’re here doing our own thing. Our own way.”
“Fuckfuck! You know I hate being told the obvious, Amai.” But she squeezed her hand back. “And we still have a whatthefuck monster out there chomping our bots to bit.”
“Mandelbrot.”
Lipton stared fuckless.
“Mandelbrot’s monster. That’s what I was getting at when I said that maybe we couldn’t see the forest for the trees,” Parrati explained. “Over a century ago, Mandelbrot rocked the science world by discovering fractal geometry. He single-handedly slew the non-differential Euclidian monsters that’d been terrorizing mathematicians for generations.
“His genius was to recognize the iterative patterns in natural objects difficult to describe and measure with traditional geometry. He developed the groundbreaking tool of fractal science, reimagining once-feared mathematical monsters not as terrors but as a wonders, not as obstacles but as features, not as beasts but as beauties.”
“Fuckstop with the fairy tale fuckfest, Amai. Get to the fuckpoint.”
“Whatever’s out there chewing up our redshirts is a fixed feature of this planet and has a pattern of behavior. We just have to discover the pattern and then co-opt it.”
“Fuckthat. We’re on a fuckslim timeline. If we can’t establish a major claim on this fuckrock in the next few days, then we go bankrupt. Back to squarefuckingone. No more doing it our way.”
Parrati knowingly touched her forehead to Lipton’s. “But that is exactly our way. That is always the way: learning nature’s patterns, understanding our own natures, and falling in love with them and all their fucking iterations.”
Lipton kissed her. “Amai, you knucklefucking kill me.”
“Life is wonderfully deadly, Janelle.” Parrati kissed her back. “And all monsters are self-similar. Part of the grander pattern. Just erratic iterations of ourselves waiting to bite each others heads off–and fucking loving it.
by Julian Miles | Mar 4, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Tallisandre peers at my dagger.
“That’s a wicked stick you have there. I’ve never seen the like.”
I hold it up so the light from the forge catches the square end of the blade, showing the third edge and double point where the single-sided long edges meet.
“It’s called a Wedge. Made by a smith near where I last served.”
“They close? I’d like to discuss methods,” she grins, “and get me one like it, if I’m being honest with you.”
“Sadly, I think Besh fell during the battles on the Vile Plain.”
Shut that query down hard: no-one can get to Earth from Candelstadt anymore.
The smith tilts her head to stare at the blade from either side.
“It’s like it defies my sight, for all that it’s naught but cunning crafting.”
“Not best suited for penetrating armour.”
She idly waves a hand, indicating the small town about us.
“You mentioned the Vile Plain. I’d wager most of the forged armour in this rakenland went to blue blazes when the invaders loosed their balefire, or more likely it escaped the bonds they’d placed so they could draw upon it for their vryld.”
No, lady, they didn’t need it to power their ‘magic’. Someone used a nuke against what you call a ‘Raken’. Human folklore calls them dragons. You consider them the benign rulers of your lands. General Dwayne A. Smith vehemently disagreed, and soon afterwards discovered they’re immune to nuclear weapons – unlike everything else on that battlefield. Which is why the place is now called the Vile Plain.
She continues.
“That’d be my bet. Their mages slipped up in the heat of battle. No other reason stands for letting so many of their own die along with our finest.”
I can’t be sure, having deserted to roam this world a week before that, but I’m guessing the sight of a gigantic dragon scared everyone silly. They just threw everything they had at it, collateral damage and consequences be damned.
She gives me another querying look.
“They say Grugandine stormed through and destroyed their portal, no matter that it could never return.”
Seems a likely enough cause. The chaos it must have caused on Earth… Think on it later. I nod.
Tallisandre frowns.
“You’re taloren.”
Fuck. I hesitated too long – considering things a local couldn’t know.
Humans here call themselves ‘noren’. We’re rudely named taloren: ‘tal’ means ‘little’ or ‘lesser’. They’re also far more observant than us – guess it’s because of the faeries. Apparently their illusions are never perfect… Against taloren, they were usually close enough.
I run a quick visual check of my kit. Should be able to scoop and run without losing too much this time.
She waves me down.
“No fleeing. You don’t have the hunted feel of a survivor. You’re one of those who quit their vile cause before the balefire?”
I nod.
“Our vryldan found Candelstadt by accident. The raiding that followed was presented to the populace of my world as peaceful exploration and trading.”
She snorts in disgust.
“I’ve heard of rulers like that over here.”
“Your wounded told us about Candelstadt. Made me doubt. Atrocities on top of lies decided me. One night, I walked away naked.”
“Except for the stick.”
“It’s more a part of me than anything else.”
She smiles.
“I’m minded to make money selling others of it.” She grins. “Could do with more hands at the forge, though. Such work comes with lodgings.”
A place in this strange land? I’ll take it.
“Works for me, working for you.”
“Then we’re agreed. Welcome, Mikala.”
Close enough.
by submission | Mar 3, 2024 | Story |
Author: Peter Griffiths
Elsie had heard some noise in the night, but hadn’t had the energy to get out of bed to see what it was. Now she could see splatters of paint on the window pane, grey on the grey of the cold morning light.
The result was obvious even before she switched on the TV, where now the lineless face of a politician whose name escaped her was visible, announcing that the vote had passed by double digits. ‘I say that this two year reduction in bio-age enfranchisement did not go far enough. Next year we will push to further our emancipation from the dictatorship of those with no stake in our country’s future.’
Sponsored by Juvenescence, cooed a voice. The face of a blonde woman, her bio-age not more than twenty five: ‘I’m retired, and I still have my whole life ahead of me.’
Men running: ‘I just left the rat race at sixty,’ one of them said, ‘and now I’m winning marathons.’ She went to the bathroom, slathered on her makeup and tied back her hair, noticing the grey that was coming through at the roots.
She left the flat with a quiet click of the door, turned to her building, and saw the grey paint splashed against the plastic facade. Across the road she saw the curtains twitch in the house with the car slowly collapsing into rust on its driveway. She made her way to the shop, hoping that her pension had cleared.
A group of teenagers stood around the doorway, forcing her to excuse her way through. She heard a girl whisper, ‘Fogey. Just die off.’ Elsie bought hair dye and exoprotein sausages from the unspeaking man behind the counter. She approached the crowd again, though now the girl stood directly in front of her.
‘It’ll happen to you,’ said Elsie.
‘No fear, fogey,’ she said, poking Elsie in the chest. She felt someone jostle her from behind.
‘Now hobble on home before you get what’s coming to you,’ came a male voice, not yet broken. ‘We might come from here but we’ll be out before we’re old enough to be on Joovy.’
‘That’s what they all say,’ said Elsie as she walked away.
by submission | Mar 2, 2024 | Story |
Author: Jordan Emilson
“Make sure it has a name” Werner whispered to the darkened figure beside him, looming over the crib. In the blackness the room appeared in two dimensions: his, and the one his wife and child existed in across the floor. Her head turned, or at least it appeared to him as such in the darkness.
“I think I already have one”, she whispered. “Opal, after my grandmother”. The baby cooed softly in seeming reply, a gesture that both Werner and the woman took in with a smile.
“I never wanted a child.” Werner rose from his chair and approached the crib. “Funny how life presents itself with such odd…opportunity.” The last word came out with an exaggerated drawl.
He reached down with a pronged hand and stroked the child’s chin. Peaches, he thought, she reminded him of peaches. The thin, fuzzy skin flushed with shades of red and orange. The plump flesh pushing through from behind a thin veneer. It was one of the delicacies that he most valued of Earth.
“Not yet, honey.” His wife’s hand rested upon his wrist, pausing his longing strokes of Opal’s cheek. “We’ll eat soon.”
by submission | Mar 1, 2024 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
“It would be fitting,” the Sardaanian said, “if you took a new name now. A human name.”
“But my name has always been T!kalma,” the woman replied.
“Yes,” ze replied, “but that is one of our names. Your birth people are reaching out, as we predicted. Soon it will be time to play your part.”
She looked away at that. “What if I don’t want to?”
“Come, have we not given you a lifespan vastly longer than that of your species? Have we not looked after you, nurtured you, taught you, asking only that you ready yourself for this – to be an emissary?”
“Yes. You have.” She looked at hir directly. “And because you have, this is my home. I don’t want to leave it.”
“You will only need to make short trips. We’re not suggesting you live with them, or anything.”
“Well that’s a relief.”
“I thought it might be.” A forelobe frond waved in what she knew was good-natured agreement.
She sighed.
“But I think, for all your research, you still don’t really understand them.”
“How so?”
“They won’t forgive you. I know why I and the others were brought here as children, but they won’t understand. They’ll say you kidnapped us, call it a repeated act of aggression. And their first instinct will be to respond with violence.”
“But that is just what we seek to avoid!” Ze clacked hir beak worriedly.
“Exactly.”
“Surely they will see the benefits of peaceful coexistence? We have so much to offer them – energy without waste, climatic fluctuation control, matter transference, even chronosynchronisation! And in return we will learn their arts, their music, their belief systems, and by doing so enrich our own culture.”
“They will suspect that your generosity hides a desire to take control of their society and worlds. Worse, they will see what you offer as prizes for the taking.”
“They would be crushed in moments if they tried to take anything by force!”
“And that is what I wish to avoid. The destruction of a species, even one ill-suited to membership in the universal community, is a terrible thing. And it is my species, after all.”
“I know them well enough to be sure that there is no-one they will trust more than one of their own. That is why we brought you all here in advance of their expansion. To act as ambassadors for the greater community and ease them into the Galactic Polity.”
“I am aware,” she said drily. “But this is a huge responsibility, and I do not know if I am ready for it. Or capable of managing it.”
“You are. Of a certainty, there is, in all the galaxy, no group better placed for this than your cohort. You need to trust yourself; and if not, then trust us, as you always have before.”
“I want to believe you. I want it to work. I truly do.”
“And it will. If you make it happen,” ze said, hir carapace glowing blue with reassurance. “They will reach out, and find to their amazement that they are already among us. And that wonders await them.”
“And yet we only have one chance to make a good impression.”
“That is true.”
She took a deep breath of the scented air.
“Then call me Hope.”
by submission | Feb 29, 2024 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
The newbie made his way through central supply.
“Why can’t I have a Prussian Blue exosuit?”
I rolled my eyes. “Because you can’t.”
The kid slapped the counter, my counter. “Unacceptable. You dissin’ me because I’m a noob?”
I smiled. “No. I am ‘dissin you’ because you’re an arrogant prick.” I could see the security agent, Mike Breslow, making his way over to my counter.”
“Any problem here Art?”
This is the part I loved, when the noob realized he had zero clout because he hadn’t earned it yet.
“Why no problem at all Officer Breslow. I was just getting ready to tell this shiny new recruit to the colonies why we do not issue the Prussian Blue.”
With all the practiced incredulity of a British Panto, Mike chimed in right on cue “Why do tell Citizen, I love to hear a good story!”
So I told it.
“Back in the day when all of us were noobs like you, Benny Lambert made his way to Mars. Benny and his Prussian Blue exosuit. There wasn’t anything Benny wouldn’t do for you, salt of the earth. Give up his seat at mess if it was too crowded, sing extra loud at church to cover your snoring cuz’ you pulled a double. Giving up some of his water because you were too stupid to bring enough. Benny was like that. Then, after we started excavating the lava tubes the worst of all possible happened. A reactor in the power room started to get all hinky. We evacuated but it needed to be shut down. Before anyone could do anything else, Benny was pushing in rods like it was pin ball. The last rod was somehow bent. When Benny pulled it out to re-insert it, it came all the way out. Couldn’t be put back in. Too radioactive to leave it where it was, so Benny ran into the tunnels. We watched him right up until he dropped the rod into the big hole, the one at least 12 miles deep, where we were throwing all our rubble. Genius move the physics and geology brainiacs said. But for Benny, it was too late. All that radiation. But just as Benny wasn’t one to be fussed over or complain, he saluted the cams, and ran down the tube, and that’s the last we saw him.
Then he started showing up.
A couple of homesteaders get their Doodlebug stuck and a guy in a Prussian Blue exosuit gets them un-stuck. When we domed over the canyon more than once the Prussian Blue was seen pulling someone out of a falling crane or a collapsing ledge. Then, one day we find Benny, or what’s left of him. The Prussian Blue exosuit. We crack it open and it’s empty.
But that doesn’t stop the sightings. Prussian Blue hits the evac alarm twenty minutes before a blow out in a dome- everybody gets out alive…even the pets. A survey team blown waaaaay off course in sandstorm, instruments busted, zero visibility. They see the Prussian Blue waving them to follow and before their air and water zero, they’re back in the habitat.”
The kid swallowed. “Ummm…I wanted one ‘cause it looked cool. A Prussian Blue guy stopped me from walking into an open shaft. I, ummm, whoa.”
The kid sat down.
I smiled and gave the kid his new suit. It was a sharp maroon with just enough scratches and dings so he wouldn’t get pegged as a noob right away. After all, if Benny wanted to cut him slack, who am I to argue?
