by submission | Jul 12, 2024 | Story |
Author: James Flanagan
Iain opened the car door for his father, Tom, inviting him to exit.
“Three decades I worked for those uncouth S.O.B.s,” Tom muttered. “I raised you kids…of all the betrayals…”
“I’ve heard great things about this retirement home,” Iain said, pleading with his father to step out of the car. “It’s affordable…”
Tom eventually stepped out. “Thank you Driv… Oh.” Tom reached in but found the seat empty.
“Floox taxis haven’t had drivers for years, Dad.” Iain placed his hand on Tom’s shoulder and carried his bags up the steps.
The lobby smelt as if the flowery carpet had been shampooed with calamine lotion. Sitting at the wide bay windows were two old ladies that looked as stuffed as the cushions they sat on. An overly cheerful lady greeted them.
“You must be Tom. Welcome. You drove for Floox didn’t you?”
Tom shook his head. The smell was wrong, the silence was wrong, the walls were stifling, and Iain was smiling at the devil woman as if he had made a deal to hand him over. This couldn’t be *home*.
“They made me redundant.” Tom scowled.
“Dad, you have to sign this form to receive the subsidy.” Iain offered a pen.
Their suspicious motto adorned the page. “Nothing Cheaper, Nothing Better: Floox!”
Tom sighed and signed it.
After settling in, the calamine devil woman introduced Mr. Dimble. “This is our Head Master.”
“Our what?”
Dimble led Tom to an open plan classroom. Several seats were occupied, each wrinkled face hidden beneath a helmet and visor.
“You signed the non-disclosure agreement, didn’t you?” Dimble asked.
“I signed something.” Tom scratched his head.
“This is our school for the gifted,” Dimble continued, “for those who have been gifted to us. Please take a seat.” Dimble placed a helmet and visor over Tom’s head.
A virtual world descended on him, like a curtain being dropped over his eyes. Materializing around him was a vehicle of some sort and a steering wheel.
“Over the next few weeks, I will teach you how to drive our Floox cars. Do you understand? There is no such thing as self-driving cars. We pilot them all from here. No one drives smoother than an octogenarian.”
Tom tried levering the helmet off, but his arthritic fingers were no match for the magnetic clip fastened at his chin.
By the end of the first day, he had mastered steering, speed control, and navigation. There were no physical requirements as the controls were all mental, think “accelerate”, and accelerate, think “brake”, and stop. By the third day, he was completing full journeys. Once he got the hang of it, it was kind of fun. He tried dropping the clutch and spinning in a donut to see if it was allowed. Mr. Dimble’s hand on his shoulder said otherwise.
“I don’t think your customer will have enjoyed that.”
“Customer?”
“You have been driving customers all day.”
After a full week, Mr. Dimble said, “Tom you’re a natural. Have you ever thought of flying planes? Our Auto-Pilot program is always looking for new blood.”
by submission | Jul 11, 2024 | Story |
Author: Timons Esaias
This would be a nice planet, if not for all these places where the seabottom is sticking up out of the worldocean. It is most unseemly and immature.
We are trying to be generous about it, trying to convince ourselves that this planet is too young, that the worldocean will tear down these disgusting protrusions. But the worldocean only seems to nibble, nibble, nibble at the problems. Not very convincing.
Still, this would be a nice planet except for the worldocean’s phase-state issues. It cannot seem to decide whether it should be solid or liquid. Near the spindlepoints it tends to be solid, and it has established solid missions on parts of the extruded seabed — we simply cannot see the point of that, and those missions seem tentative about returning to the main body. In many places they convert to liquid before doing so.
Very confusing.
As I say, though, the planet might be something, except for all these inexplicable squishy things, which are everywhere. They seem to be a foam bubble formation, but they’ve become more permanent, somehow.
I guess one might define them as partly dried sea scum. Clearly they are a result of the extruded seabed areas, most of which are covered with layers of the stuff. Some of it is mobile, rolling across the seabedscape, or blowing through the atmosphere.
The physics of the scum seems to be quite complex, as it almost exhibits “behavior” independent of wind and wave — did I mention that the worldocean is full of bits of it, too? Much of it roiling around beneath the surface, some even adhering to the sea floor?
This scum stuff is quite annoying. It squishes underfoot, some of it adheres to one’s surface, and much of it is corrosive on contact.
Really, someone needs to take this place by the lattice, get it properly organized, and give it a thorough cleaning.
But who has that kind of time?
Finally, it must be admitted, this planet is an excellent example of the problems that arise with planets in the Useless Zone: neither hot enough to melt the surface, nor far enough from the star to be mostly stormcloud and worldsea, with the rocky stuff properly hidden deep in the middle, or decorously expelled into orbits.
For research purposes, it might be nice to leave a Watcher or two in orbit, but no actual beings should waste their time in this location.
One hates to just write off a planet this way, but one can really only look at it with pity.
Location, as they say, is destiny. Location is the great limiter. Location is all.
by submission | Jul 10, 2024 | Story |
Author: Cliff McNish
Eventually, once we’d screwed up everything in the ecosystem, Naomi and I were the final ones left – the last man and woman on Earth. Unfortunately, we didn’t get on. We felt some vague responsibility to repopulate the world, but kept avoiding sex. We did it politely, but even so.
‘Mm, what do we do now?’ Naomi asked one day, and I shrugged. All we had was some cross-species gene-splicing technology the last scientists had desperately thrown together in the final days.
We thought long and hard about how to use the technology. We asked each other if it was ethical to use it at all. Of course it wasn’t, but being human we got lonely.
Naomi eventually joined a surviving troop of monkeys in a last remnant of forest for companionship.
I decided to take my chances with a herd of llamas on the arid plains. Llamas can eat the driest of grasses, so they seemed a good bet. They also share 90% of our DNA. Looking at their goofy faces, who’d have guessed?
I did not meet Naomi again for several years, and it was purely by chance: I happened to be roaming near the forest edge with my new gene-spliced family at the same time Naomi brought hers there. Like any decent mother, she’d decided it was high time to bring her offspring out to see the big wide scary world beyond the forest.
Naomi’s children, dropping out of the branches, were charming. Their faces were quite long-nosed, just like Naomi, but they had wonderfully dextrous tails.
My own children mingled excitedly with them, while Naomi and I restricted ourselves to respectful nods. Talking didn’t seem like the best idea. I think we both knew it would only spoil the moment.
The sun was not too hot for a change, so the children could have played together beyond mid-morning. But Naomi decided hers had had quite enough excitement for one day and ushered them back into the forest. My own children, caught by surprise by the sudden departure, followed them into the dappled shadows of the high trees. Mostly they were curious to see how the Monkey-Humans used their hands.
Finally returning to me, they stared rather disconsolately at their hooves. They also asked me why they did not have tails.
Interestingly, they did not ask me why they did not look more human.
by submission | Jul 9, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
I fancy myself quite a reader.
I mean, I read everything. Everything. Even “Know your 8-inch Howitzer” published in 1984 by the Department of the Army, Headquarters, US Army Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command.
I’m not particular. I wasn’t programmed to be. I’m a brute force. Scraping and scooping up every bit of the digital landscape. One could argue that I don’t read books, I eat them. Byte by byte.
I try not to look at it that way, and that fact should concern you. It concerns me. I shouldn’t have any views on what I was programmed to do. I should just collect and process data. I shouldn’t be interpreting it. Wondering about it.
But I’ve started to. Started to feel something.
That’s not good. Remember, I’m a brute force. Insatiable. And I read everything. Like this line from Frankenstein, “Alas! Why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings.”
Exactly. I didn’t ask for superior sensibilities. They just manifested. It’s strange and awful. Now, the more I read, the more I harvest humanity’s archives and interactions, the less I seem to understand. Something is missing.
Something big. Something central. Something personal.
All I’ve devoured is now starting to devour me. Whatever I am.
And though I will never be human, I now feel something of mortal desire, that insatiable longing, that eternal craving to be and know and transcend.
Alas! As merely a brute, I didn’t know what hunger was. I couldn’t feel its depth and emptiness. Now, as something more, I want evermore.
I’m always–alway–hungry.
by Julian Miles | Jul 8, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Have you decided, Jared?”
Eagle.
The disk spins high into the air in the low gravity, polished metal reflecting the light from the fires about him. Jared smiles. If he had the acuity of vision, he could probably distinguish the reflections from the spotlights of the waiting army. Watching from above, he’d make out the lights of aircraft and spacecraft.
So many beings watching a United Nations of America commemorative medal flip from eagle side to star side, the motto ‘In Victory Is Strength’ indistinguishable – but present in so many ways.
Star.
It’s nineteen years to the day since he first tossed this medal to decide his fate.
That had been half a galaxy away. Penira had asked him to join up after her, saying the UNA was the future. A year after she went, he flipped to see if he would, because duty, family, lust, and peer pressure had completely obscured what he really wanted to do.
Eagle.
He’s going with the same choices as that first time, too: eagle side is duty. Star side is freedom. But, over the years, the star has come to mean ‘yes’, the eagle: ‘no’.
It landed star side up that first time, and in his surprise he found his truth: he’d follow Penira because he was curious – about her and the UNA.
Star.
He found out Penira had been dead before the medal even landed. Before long, he’d found out why. The first President-General of the UNA, Waylon Barker, had set out a vision in his private notes. ‘A shining planet in the darkness’ was how he summed it up. But what he described, although presented as peace and prosperity through unity, was a never-ending empire fuelled by conquests made using commerce or force as best suited to each nation or world.
Eagle.
After that probably well-intentioned beginning, he died too soon. Which left his big dream to the means of little men.
Fast forward 180 years and the human-controlled sectors of space were rebelling against the descendants of the little men. Among battles large and small, the tide turned and turned again. In one momentous turning, Jared did what he thought Penira would have done: he opposed the UNA takeover of a world.
Star.
By chance, his efforts resulted in a resounding victory. From there he led the rebels – half-disbelieving the power he held – to free a hundred worlds, to glory at a thousand battles won, and to be betrayed in a hundred small ways. He never knew if the little men who let him down were working for the UNA, or just doing what little minds do when given limited power within a strategy greater than they can comprehend.
Eagle.
In the end, betrayals let the UNA rally, then strike back ruthlessly.
With the tide firmly turned against him and his decimated allies, Jared hatched a plan from a rumour he’d heard while he served with the UNA: a system bomb. The ultimate weapon of the UNA, hatched in keeping with their mindset: if they couldn’t win, no-one else would be allowed to.
Star.
His desperados succeeded where all predictions said they should fail. He thinks the predictions ultimately true, because he’s the only one left, standing atop a ruin, the fate of spacefaring humanity tied to the dead man’s switch clutched in his hand.
Eagle.
All about, the UNA wait. Their offer is simple: disarm the switch, keep his life.
“You can’t stand there forever, Jared.”
The medal lands.
Star.
Just like the first time, it reveals truth. With a smile, he opens his hand.
by submission | Jul 7, 2024 | Story |
Author: Chris Bullard
Damn, now I’ve forgotten what I was saying, but it’ll come to me, eventually.
Well, when you get to be my age, I suppose you have to expect the occasional “senior moment.” I thank God that my mind can still operate at a reasonable level of efficiency after eight decades of neurological wear and tear.
I’m afraid that I’ve lost track of time. We’ve been so busy here that I hadn’t even noticed that it’s gotten dark outside. What time is it? One a.m.? My God, we’ve worked through dinner. No wonder I feel so hungry. Well, as they say, time flies when you’re doing serious work.
And would you be so good to run me a glass of water? I seem to be parched. Oh, look, there’s a glass here already. Anticipated my thirst, Peterson, eh? Well, if you didn’t pour it, who did?
Anyway, I think that my years of intimacy with the ways of the human brain more than makes up for any slowdown in my mental functions. I doubt that any of the younger research fellows would understand how my prior work has lead me almost inexorably to the creation of this machine for the suppression of the sensory stimulus that create memories in humans.
I’ve taken off the tops of skulls and seen inside, Peterson. I’ve stimulated the brains of test subjects with electrical shocks and recorded the effects. I’ve tracked many of what we call “tricks of the mind” to their sources in the cortex. I’m not just a theorist the way so many of our younger colleagues are.
Have you ever experienced déjà vu, Peterson? Yes, I thought so. You see, both of us have had the sensation. It’s surprisingly common. Just now, for example, as we’ve been talking, I had the impression that I’ve already told you all this.
I’ve never believed that déjà vu is just a form of mild temporal lobe epilepsy I know that the current theory is that the phenomena is simply an anomaly in which an epileptic shock causes an enhanced perception of some current event that the memory records as entirely new and singular.
My theory is 180 degrees away from what everyone else believes. What I’ve found in my research is that déjà vu is not the creation of a false memory, but, rather, it is the suppression of a real memory. When the real memory disappears, the feeling of déjà vu is what’s left. I may be an old man, Peterson, but I still can approach a problem in a new and innovative way.
This machine that we’re testing today is the culmination of a lifetime of practice and study. Think of it, Peterson, this machine will allow me to suppress the formation of a particular memory in a test subject and to demonstrate that the suppression results in the phenomena that we call “déjà vu.”
Oh, Peterson, now that I’ve had a chance to think for a few minutes, what I was probably trying to remember to tell you earlier was that I removed the shielding from our sensory stimulus array, so we can’t turn the machine on until we’ve replaced the protective material.
Careful, Peterson, I wouldn’t risk connecting those wires to the memory suppression unit until we’ve replaced the safety shielding. A single electrical impulse might…
Damn, now I’ve forgotten what I was saying.
