by Roi R. Czechvala | Oct 20, 2010 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
I couldn’t bear to look at the young punks sitting at the bar. A smartass kid about 21, 22 thinks he knows how the world works, and two pretty, but brainless devotchkas hanging on his every word as if it were a golden nugget of wisdom.
They don’t know shit.
“You don’t know SHIT,” I yelled at them. They gave me a disdainful look and dismissed me as a nut job.
I’ve seen it all. Battle cruisers blasting unarmed hospital ships to pieces. The sick, lame and lazy, still in their beds spilling out of the ruptured hull to suffocate in the vacuum of space.
I was on Europa when a grief crazed sergeant sentenced a virtually unarmed colony of Asiatics to a slow death by asphyxiation when he blew their Tesla Field generator.
Nobody cares, nobody gives a damn.
Nobody noticed as Joey Preston, formerly 2nd Lt. Joseph L. Preston, 3/125th, 1st Infantry Division, took a large swig of his beer, lowered his head and fell unconscious to the grimy steel floor.
John Carsten, grimaced as he jabbed the needle into his arm and thrust the plunger home. The rictus of pain was quickly replaced by the winsome smile of euphoria as he loosed the belt on his arm and allowed the blessed fluid to burn away his nightmares.
The nightmares of the impenetrable jungles of Venus. The combat was so close it often came down to hand to hand battle. A gook impaled his thigh with a screwdriver.
He reacted immediately, slashing at the dinks body with his K-Bar. The slope fell atop him, covering him with his slimy entrails and their filthy stinking contents of raw shit. He gagged and vomited. He was on his back choking on his own ejecta, triggering a second wave of nausea.
There was nobody in the cramped, filthy apartment to remove the needle from the arm of retired Gunnery Sergeant John Carsten, nor to call the medics as he drifted into a coma from which he would never wake. Above his body, thumb tacked to the wall, was a crimson banner emblazoned with a golden Eagle, Globe and Anchor.
In a secluded wooded lot, not far from Dog River, Saskatchewan, stood a makeshift lean-to “fort”, composed of logs, branches, bits of sheet metal, and whatever detritus could be lashed together to form a hide-out for young boys.
Almost simultaneously, William Hunter ( age 12), Billy to his friends and family, and Christopher “Chip” Pike, 11, pulled the leads of their Nintendo Gameboys from the sockets behind their right ears.
“Wow,” exclaimed Billy, “I was this loser alchy dick who fought in the Lunar Colony Wars.”
“That’s nothing,” Chip interjected with unbridled enthusiasm. “I played a drug sick dope head Marine after the Venusian invasion. I got extra points every time I hit the vein first try.”
“Damn,” Billy exclaimed admiringly.
Just then there was a knock on the rusted tin door. “That’s not the secret knock,” Billy said testily.
A second knock came. “Close enough,” said Chip and pushed open the door.
Chips little brother and constant pest Charles (Chucky, 9) eagerly barged in. “Guys, guys, look what I just got. I just downloaded it from the library. It’s the latest game… it’s almost like ancient history.
He held out a small box emblazoned with the name Hanoi Hilton III: The Ganja Express.
Their eyes were aglow as they smeared saline paste on their leads, slapped them into their cranial jacks and plugged into the wonderful mind numbing game.
by submission | Oct 19, 2010 | Story
Author : Almn
Richard’s mother was sitting in the corner, looking at me. “You’ve been a lot easier to be around lately.” It was yet another straw on the camel’s back. My mind silently ground to a halt for a second, trying to parse a correct response. Didn’t want to blow it.
“I guess those counseling sessions really helped. Understanding why people do the things they do, it really turned a light on in my head. I don’t know why, but everyone seems so much more reasonable now.”
This wasn’t in my parameters, and even with the frequent coaching of the psychologist and the effort of every electron in my brain, it was a struggle. I was doomed.
“Well, it’s been good to have the real you back.” Richard’s mother beamed. “You’ve been so sad for so long, and we were so worried about you. You know I love you, right?”
“Yes mom. I know” It was getting harder and harder to keep up the masquerade, the conflicting orders jangling around my head. I am a “beta”, a duplicate, and an imperfect an inorganic copy. I would never stand close scrutiny.
“Well make sure to call me when you get back to school. You know we’re worried about you, so far away.”
“Yes mom, I will.” She reached up at me, and I took her in my arms and hugged her tight, the way I knew Richard had hugged, squeezing like crushing the life out of her would bring them closer. In the back of my mind the second order started up it’s klaxons, insisting I obey, but I held back, for it would conflict with the first one.
I headed out into the rain that Richard had professed to love but never spent much time in, and cried. I was a failure, a waste of resources and time, a sham of a masquerade. No one would believe me for another week, and I had to keep this up for as long as his family was alive? Drinking water to replenish my tear ducts and wondering where I could get more salt from, I found a shelter, and there took out Richard’s suicide note, reading it again and again, looking for some way I could obey all of my orders, and prove that I was not a failure, like him.
by submission | Oct 18, 2010 | Story
Author : George R. Shirer
“Y’know,” said Jared, “I’ve seen a lot of crap ideas since the Singularity, but this . . . ” He nodded at the pale waif on the bed. “This just takes the cake.”
Isaac shrugged and injected a few million more scrappers into the kid. “You think she’s got insurance?”
Jared snorted. “Welfare cases don’t go full suckhead. They can’t afford it.”
“It’s not natural.”
“I blame that Stoker guy,” said Jared. “He’s the one who made vampires sexy.”
Isaac glanced at the readout. The scrappers were ripping through the girl’s cells, devouring the suckhead nannites. At this rate, they’d be finished by lunch.
“You ever read the book?”
“Nah, but I had a girlfriend who could freakin’ quote text from it. We broke up.”
“Did she go suckhead?”
“Yeah, but not when she was with me. Thank God.” Jared looked at the girl. “You think she can hear us?”
“No,” said Isaac. “This is the full deal. The nanos induce a three-day coma while they’re making the changes.”
“It takes that long?”
“No. It’s part of the mythology. Takes a vampire three days to rise from the grave.” Isaac shook his head and injected another ampule of scrappers. “Dumb ass kids.”
The girl’s skin was starting to look better, shifting from ice white to warm pink. Isaac’s panel warbled at him.
“We’ve got full purge. Target nannites destroyed. Scrappers are breaking down.”
Jared grabbed the injector and slotted in an oversized green ampule. “Fixers are ready.”
“Hold off,” said Isaac. “We’re not using the normal fixers on this one.” A red ampule popped out of his board.
“Customized?” Jared removed the green ampule from the injector and replaced it with the red one.
“Guess so.” Isaac called up the red nannites’ specs. “Looks like Little Miss Sunshine here is getting fitted with parental blockers.”
“Ouch.” Jared winced in sympathy, pressed the injector against the girl’s arm and fired.
“You don’t think they should fit her up with the blockers?”
“I dunno. S’kind of extreme, not being able to change your hair or eye or skin color without your folks’s approval. That’s going kinda overboard on the whole parental oversight thing, don’t you think?”
Isaac snorted. “Not after your kid tries to turn herself into a freak while she’s living under your roof without your say-so, and probably puts the change on your credit card.”
“You got a point there,” said Jared. He looked down at the girl and shook his head. “Well, sweetheart, I guess it’s just going to suck to be you for a while.”
by submission | Oct 17, 2010 | Story
Author : Adam
The boy had been rummaging through the Pit for hours before he hit the jackpot. A slim silver watch covered in a day’s worth of grit and stench. The boy held it up in his hands, gently brushing off the dirt with barely cleaner hands, and admiring how it shone under the flickering lights. A vague flicker of a smile passed across his oft expressionless face.
He curled a fist around it, hiding it from the peering eyes of other children, then he turned and rushed towards the exit from the Pit. He took the maintenance door out of the garbage Pit and up to the Hangar.
Up stairs, and out into the throng of strange cultures, the boy wove between the thudding and hissing machinery of mercenaries and the alluring beauty of GM whores. There was the background of vocal conversation and the constant subliminal hum of machinery and electronics. Ancient stone arches overlaid with scaffolding and plastic pipes rose far overhead. The sound of engines reached through the throng of noise; air craft full of passengers.
He slithered between a group of humanoids warbling song to one another and found himself on the far side of the human river. He barely stopped to catch his breath before racing off again towards the pawnbroker, still barely believing he had found something as valuable and personal as someone’s watch. He only guessed at the memories, secrets, and bank passwords the thin silver band could hold.
“Give me the watch.” The voice was clearly coming from something less delicate than human vocal cords. A huge chrome leg crashed down in front of the boy, forcing him to stop. He glanced up at the huge Mercenary, gleaming steel body, globular black head, the quality told him this merc was successful. It told him it bought its gear.
With a fast step, the boy was around the trunk of steel and racing across the tiles. Behind him he heard and felt the massive legs crushing tiles beneath its weight. Too fast. A thin whip wrapped around his legs and sent him skidding across the tiles. He finished his slide face down, nose clogging with blood and eyes blurred with tears.
The crushing thud of the Merc’s steps stopped just behind him. A giant’s shadow cast over the feeble boy. “The watch.” He felt rubber fingers as thick as his torso gently rap around his arm, they tightened and then turned him over. The boy flinched at the rifle barrel an inch from his eyes. He sensed the stare of nervous eyes and sensor stalks from a few nearby.
“NOW.” The Merc demanded. The boy tightened his fist in defiance. The watch was his. His find, his hard work. One of the Merc’s fingers started dividing, the rubber flesh splitting into thin strands waving gently in a non-existent breeze. Then, they moved in unison towards the boy’s fist. Strands pushed insistently against his skin, squeezing between fingers and thumb.
The boy panicked, trying to grip harder, “no, no, no!” He felt the watch slip, and then suddenly his fist was closing on vacant space. The rubber strands retreated and the Merc held up its prize. Something entered a port on its side and for a moment the Merc stood stock still. Then the something retreated and the watch disappeared into the folds of rubber. The Merc released its hold on the boy, turned and walked casually away.
Something light dropped on his chest. The boy grabbed it and held it before his blurred vision. The silver watch shone under the Hangar’s lights.
by submission | Oct 16, 2010 | Story
Author : Waldo van der Waal
The Boeing 747-400 sat glittering on the tarmac, resplendent in the blue-and-white colours of the Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij. The bold letters of KLM seemed almost too crisp against the rest of the pure white fuselage. From high above, the twin suns, Ttarp and Slorr, beat down on the gleaming skin of the majestic aircraft.
Commander Thgirw of the Second Historical Unit wandered around the ‘plane. His tentacles left a trail of slime as far as he ambled, together with a smell that would have had the humans that originally built the magnificent aeroplane retching in the gutters. “Orttkls, tktktk spee,” he bubbled towards his companion, who was clearly lower down the pecking order than the Commander. “Rroossi riwwasser,” came the reply. Thgirw bounced his rear-most tentacle up and down briefly, accepting his subordinate’s explanation.
Of course, there were no humans present at this auspicious presentation of the 747 aircraft, so continuing to report on the bubbles of the Atrrk Commander and his wingman is pointless. Had they been speaking English, however, the rest of their exchange would have gone something like this:
“Remind me again, Yentihw, where did we find this thing?” from the Commander.
“It was dug up, esteemed great tentacle, on the third orbiter from the star out in the boondocks,” came the reply.
“And how big was the artefact?”
“Approximately one four hundredth the size of the beast in front of you, Great Tentacle.”
“And you believe it to be a flying machine of some description?”
Yentihw looked uncertain, or rather, if you knew exactly what to look for, you would’ve realised that he was uncertain. But his answer was sure and clear:
“Our historians scoured the planet. We found many pieces that point to these machines being used as transport for the inhabitants of the long-dead planet. And as you yourself have said, it is our mission to understand the races that have perished.”
“Very well,” said the commander. “It doesn’t look anything like a flying machine to me, but if the people from that planet used it as such, and you were able to recreate the entire thing just from the small artefact, I am intrigued.”
Yentihw was clearly eager to please his boss: “Great Tentacle, this is a great moment for us. Bringing this machine back to life is proof that our studies, no, your studies, are worth it. It shows that we have a great deal to learn from those that came before us.”
The commander was clearly soothed by the words of his subordinate. He squished off to a safe distance, and reclined onto one of his tentacles. “And you are sure it will fly?” he asked finally.
Instead of answering, Yentihw waved a slimy tentacle towards the 747. Moments later the entire craft started shaking gently, as a low hum rolled over the Commander and his subordinate. The hum built into a high-pitched whine and seconds later the massive aircraft lurched vertically into the sky, and shot off over the horizon at nearly fourteen times the speed of sound. The commander cheered.
Even Yentihw allowed himself a small bubble of joy: “See, I told you it would fly.”
by Duncan Shields | Oct 15, 2010 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
They all died. All the animals. All the humans. Farewell to the flesh. Genetically engineered disease took the meat, leaving only the insects and the plants. Leaving us.
We’re humanoid in appearance. We are born in giant stalks that peel away, towering corn husk wombs opening to reveal us, green-skinned and smooth, with the smell of mown grass bleeding onto the wind. Our entire bodies breathe. We swim and bask in the sun for nutrients. When we are close to death, we turn into seeds like the mighty dandelion and we blow away.
Humans found it easier to create sentient plant life than to mimic the complexity of their own genes. It was heralded as a species-saving decision at the time but it was too late to rescue the meat from the plague. They thought they’d be able to transfer their minds over to our bodies. It didn’t work.
After the humans died, we left the labs and went wild. For centuries, we roamed the earth, increasing in numbers peacefully. Then came the first struggle for resources. That was a decade ago.
There has been a war among us. The tragedy of the humans is now being visited on us. There has been murder.
We had many strains among us. Hybrids and splices that gave rise to many different kinds of plants. We had purple eggplant people, the wide-eyed orchidfolk, the trusting daisykin, the oak soldiers, the leeching weeds, the devious ivymen, and the all-knowing bloodwoods.
Or at least we used to.
We call ourselves the Roses. Our bodies are thick and thorny and our petalled faces have inspired poetry. I am ashamed to say that I am part of the victorious race.
We laid waste to entire crops. Old recipes were found for chemicals that killed different plants. We extrapolated.
Now we are the only race of plants left. This lack of variety had bred weakness into us.
It was the aphids. They’ve come in force with no natural predators. The ladybugs have left us, killed by the pesticides of the Sunflower Giants. We are dying and there are no other sentient plants that will live after us. Only the spores, mold and fungus. Only the stalks and bulbs of our mute, stupid ancestors. The earth will be devoid of thought once we are gone. It will have gone back completely to the green.
Maybe it’s for the best.
