by submission | Oct 2, 2010 | Story
Author : Jacqueline Rochow
We assumed that they were aliens. I mean, when something nonhuman approaches you from space and opens communication, it’s a freakin’ alien, right? Stands to reason.
They set up a station on the moon and opened communications. They were friendly. They wanted to trade tech, which was great for us. A little suspicious, I reckon, since what do we have to offer a species with freaking interstellar space travel? But they say you should never look a gift horse in the mouth, at least until after you’re out of sight of the guy who thought he was giving you the horse in a fair trade, so we were happy when they came down (with permission) to check out our planet.
They wanted human ambassadors for their moon station. Fine, we said. It’s not like there was a lack of volunteers. Sure, we were confused when they wanted all sorts of people from various walks of life, but I guess it makes sense to get a snapshot of all cultures when you’re dealing with an entirely different form of life. Whatever. I’m a freaking plumber and I’m in space, what are the chances of that?
So after a while they invited us to other bases, and we drifted further away from the earth. Some kids were born in space; they’ve never seen their planet. And when enough of us had established stable systems away from Earth, they struck.
And the Earth’s surface was made of fire and floods and hurricanes.
Naturally we weren’t happy about this, but those lizard-faced bastards explained, calmly, reasonably, that it was time for the Mother Planet’s rebirth. We asked what the hell that was supposed to mean. That was when they felt it appropriate to dispel the whole ‘they’re aliens’ notion and explain that they were, in fact, dinosaurs.
According to their religion, the Earth, their so-called Mother Planet, was supposed to go through many cycles to produce intelligent life. Because intelligent life was competitive and it was difficult to house more than one really intelligent species on a single planet, a single intelligent species would gain prominence and move on, the unnecessary planetside baggage would be wiped out, and the cycle would begin again. So smiling, under the guise of aliens coming to trade, they tempted us out into space to build new colonies, and then they burned ground zero behind us.
They didn’t seem to understand why we had a problem with this.
Freakin’ aliens. At least… no, you know what, I think they do count as aliens. I think that if you abandon a planet for millions of years you can’t call it your planet any more. Although I have to wonder why they’ve changed so little in that time; I mean, in that time frame we went from rat-things to bipedal supersmart primates, so why do they still look like actors wearing reptilian rubber suits? Or maybe they never used to look like that; in fact, why do they look so similar to us at all? Downright suspicious if you ask me.
And that, kiddo, is why you don’t have grandparents, and why your mummy sometimes stares wistfully off into space and sobs. She’s thinking of her old home, which you will never be able to see. Now scram, I’m trying to install pipes here.
by submission | Oct 1, 2010 | Story
Author : Steven Odhner
“I’m sorry, Dave. The effects are likely permanent.”
Roger looks properly sympathetic as he gives me the news, clutching my chart like a shield and wrinkling his forehead. I’m distracted, not by the bad news but by a green stain on his lab coat that I’m trying to identify. Lunch, medicine, or something else? Dave nods at nothing in particular, glances around the ward awkwardly and takes a step back.
“Well… I’ll leave you to… process all of this. I, uh. I’ll be around if you need me.” Presumably Roger has mistaken my silence for shock or something. If he had been Kathy she would have sat down on the bed next to me and offered a shoulder to cry on. If he had been Jake he would have suggested we sneak out and go to the bar.
I know, because he’s been both of them before.
I shuffle down the hall (flip-flops only, nothing with laces in case someone decides to do something drastic) and lean on the window at the end. I can see the lab building from here; feel the warm rays of the device reaching out to me. It’s like ripples on a pond, expanding outwards from the big splash. The metal meshwork embedded in the safety glass presses against my skin, making a pattern of red indentations. I push off of it and stand upright, careful not to let my feet slide too close to the wall. There’s a door next to me and I take the handle in hand – it’s locked, of course, but I need support for this next part…
Dangling by the know, I lean through the wall – high above the sidewalk I reach back through and unlock the door from the other side. I pull myself back and open it – the alarm sounds as I step through, but four out of five times the orderlies won’t find me before I reach the street so I remain calm. The exit is facing the lab, unfortunately, so as I step through my feet sink into the liquid earth. Some interns walk past halfway between me and the lab, laughing about something, but they don’t notice my stumbling, half-swimming sprint.
Finally I reach the corner and step around onto solid ground. I’ve lost both flip-flops, probably somewhere in the manicured lawn. I suppose I could make metal shoes and gloves at some point, armor myself against the effects of the device like an astronaut going on a space walk and head ever closer to the lab. Not that it would do any good. The device is destroyed, its ripples only felt by me.
Instead I turn towards home and…
“David? We’ve run every test we can.” It’s Kathy this time. She’s looking at my chart even though she’s probably memorized it. This was the shortest yet, maybe ten minutes. Hardly worth sneaking out at all.
“I’m afraid that the effects are probably permanent. The… the dementia and disorientation will never go away.”
There has to be a pattern to it. Why the little things change, why it lasts longer some times than others. Unless I’m actually crazy, but that’s a dead end anyway. Kathy sits next to me on the bed and drapes an arm around my shoulders. I think she’s wearing different perfume than before.
“It’s okay, David. We’ll figure this out. Somehow.”
Well, time for plan ‘B’. Let’s see her reaction to something impossible. I take her hand and point to the hallway. “Will you take a walk with me? I want to show you a magic trick.”
by Patricia Stewart | Sep 30, 2010 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
It was a significant indiscretion to say the least. To have become emotionally involved in your science project was bad enough, but to have affected its outcome was unforgivable. In fact, it was a breach of conduct worthy of expulsion. Now, Mi’tera was faced with another dilemma, what to do about it.
****
It had been an ambitious senior project, recalled Mi’tera; to study this very unusual corporeal life from. They were so different than Etheropeans, she thought, as she gazed at the tiny spaceship that she lovingly cradled. There were more than 400 “beings” living precariously within the little hollow metal vessel. They were so young, so vulnerable. For the last semester she had traveled through space with them as they “explored” the universe. How cute, she had thought. They think that they are so special, so unique. Boldly going wherever they wanted; only to repeatedly stumble into situations that they were not ready to handle. At first, Mi’tera only interacted in small ways: containing a plasma leak, strengthening a bulkhead, boosting the power output. Mi’tera considered this acceptable behavior back then, because the humans never suspected an outside influence; “luck favors the fortunate” they had boasted. Even later, when her unethical involvement became more emboldened, the naïve humans attributed the “miracles” to their crafty chief engineer. Even the fortuitous outcomes of her most egregious interventions were credited to the ingenuity of their dashing young captain. They never suspected they had a guardian watching over them.
However, Mi’tera knew that what she was doing was very wrong. She knew that she had to let nature take its course. Non-interference was a requirement for school projects involving observational science. But she couldn’t help herself. The humans were like helpless paidia, and her instincts were to protect them. As her charge left orbit after completing another successful mission, she could sense the humans moving within their tiny self-contained micro-environment. And when she concentrated, she could even read their thoughts, know their dreams, and feel their passion. Even now, they were totally unaware that she was deflecting an intense gamma ray burst that would have destroyed their frail molecular structures. Dammit, she vowed to herself, this will be the last time that she’d interfere on their behalf. After this one last time, she swore, they’ll be on your own. As they streaked together through space, she continued to hug the ship, occasionally vaporizing a rogue asteroid if it drifted too close to their flight path.
by submission | Sep 29, 2010 | Story
Author : Thomas Desrochers
A distress beacon blinked softly in the night, the quiet red light weakly calling out “help me, help me.”
Around it pale white snow swirled through the air, gently eddying around the dark shape of the crashed cargo hauler, lazily working to cover it up. Nearby the downed craft the snow had nearly covered up a smaller shape, a body. As the burial neared completion the wind nudged something out of the sprawled lump’s hand.
It was a holographic projector, and the short fall had awoken it.
The ghostly image of a man sprang to life, tinged blue by the old machine. His features were kind, and his build was average. One of his hands was clumped over a bloody wound on his stomach.
“Annie,” he coughed. “I’m sorry I haven’t made it – won’t make it back. I know I told you that I would be safe, and that I would come home to you alright.” He paused as more wet coughing racked his body. “There was a storm coming, and I didn’t want to get caught in orbit for the next cycle, because I had something I wanted to ask you.”
The man paused, swaying, then fell to his knees. His face would have been bone white if not for the ever-present blue tinge. “Annie, I -” he paused to cough several times “-I wanted to know if you would marry me. You make me the happiest man around right now, and to call you my wife would be the best thing since the day I met you.”
He smiled ruefully as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“I guess the old adage is true. Curiosity killed the spacer. Now I’ll never know for sure.” He swayed jerkily for a moment. “I’m getting tired now. I’m sorry, love. I really am. I love you so, so much. You made me so… So happy.”
After a moment more the man fell forward, softly crunching into the snow. He lay there beside himself a few moments more, then flickered and died.
The night was quiet again, and the snow soon swallowed the body.
The distress beacon blinked softly in the alien night. “Goodbye,” it said. “Goodbye, goodbye.”
by submission | Sep 28, 2010 | Story
Author : Glenn Blakeslee
After The Fall Carlos was at loose ends and alone, so he hot-wired Daniel’s old Chevy, siphoned gas from abandoned cars and drove north. He hadn’t seen Daniel for a while and was sure he was dead. He saw people from the freeway but didn’t stop.
He drove the pass and the long incline to the high desert. There were cars along the way, some with dead people still in their seats and some not, and he took gas where he found it. The country was sere and without life but he found the way without trouble, remembering fishing trips with Papa long ago.
The country gradually changed and the air became cooler as the road ran alongside the mountains still with snow, the manzanita giving way to fir and bristlecone pine. He stopped at isolated gas stations and finding them abandoned helped himself to food still on the shelves. Once he found a store full of jerky and he took it without guilt. Further north there were no people, none at all.
Daniel’s Chevy stopped running as late shadows from granite peaks fell across the valley. Carlos looked under the hood, found dark oil running along the motor, dripping to the ground. He didn’t know about fixing cars so he took his pack from the seat and Daniel’s gun from under the seat and began walking north.
At dusk Carlos followed a road lined with trees up the slope to the mountains, thinking he’d find water. The road ended where it couldn’t climb higher, blocked by ridges and gullies, and there he found a building, big like a church, built of stone with a high white tower, fronted by a pond choked with weeds. He called but no one answered.
He forced the door like Daniel had shown him. Inside were displays and photographs, stuffed fish covered with dust, old stuff from long ago. In other rooms there were beds, and televisions which no longer worked. Outside he climbed stone steps to a low concrete wall.
Over the wall he found water, and in the water were thousands of fish. The concrete formed a long narrow pool and as he walked the fish followed him, boiling across the surface like a single thing, swimming over one another and submerging. The fish were dark, slick in the dying light, and they followed him.
He found bags of green crumbly pellets in a shed and he carried a handful to the pool, threw it in. The fish jumped for the pellets, flowed and gathered and followed him, and he brought more to the pool until it fell dark. He found a place in the building and slept.
Every day he fed the fish. He moved a bed into the tower and slept there. He’d never liked the taste of fish and forgot how Papa cleaned them so he ate jerky and food from the building. He watched the sun rise over the mountains and fed the fish.
One morning he heard a car. He pulled Daniel’s gun from the pack and climbed down from the tower. A man and a boy stood next to the pool, watching the fish. The man said hello. He was big with blonde hair falling to his shoulders, the boy a smaller version. They were smiling, happy to see Carlos.
“Here’s food!” the man said pointing to the fish, but Carlos knew the fish were his and he shook his head his hand on the gun at his back. The man reached into the pool the fish swarming to his hand and he pulled out a fish and swung it at the concrete, breaking its head, and so Carlos pulled out the gun and shot him and then the boy. He pulled their bodies to the bushes off the concrete.
Carlos sat on the wall of the pool in the morning sun, away from the slick of blood on the concrete, and he fed his fish.
by Duncan Shields | Sep 27, 2010 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
She set up a receiving station in her office. That receiving station was anchored at 3:45 PM, August 22nd, 2018.
As soon as she turned it on, the messages from her future self came pouring in.
Advice on theories, scores from sports games, inside knowledge on upcoming relationships and a thousand other subjects. Apparently, the future her had no respect for causality.
Reality shattered.
She set up more message depots ten weeks apart and gave them addresses.
She answered questions. She’d forward questions back to the proper message depots and an earlier self would try to find out answers and forward them back to the future.
She employed people. Her earlier selves employed people.
Every message station became a corporation. Every ten days, she set another message depot up. Her corporation would get to a deserted part of the world, set up a beacon, and turn it on. As soon as they turned it on, a building would materialize around it with an employee base that had always been there.
After August 22nd, 2018 at 3:45 PM, there were no more mysteries. Reality became as malleable as smoke in the air.
The thing that’s hard to imagine is that whenever reality changes, no one notices. It simply becomes the way it’s always been. The theory is that that we are shuffling through realities like an infinite deck of cards. We can’t tell. She either ended the universe or created the multiverse.
The only way to live here is to live here, they say. I tried making some bets on upcoming games but they never pan out. Something changes, I guess, and the score changes, so that’s that. I don’t make a fortune and then lose a fortune; I just never had a fortune. If you see what I mean.
I have to accept that what is real right now is all I’ve ever known.
I wonder if one day, someone will send a message back and successfully set the wheels in motion to assassinate her and put this world back into a place where her discovery never existed. I wonder if that’s even possible.
Not that I’d notice if it happened. This world would cease and I’d be in a world where her invention never existed. I’d never know the difference.
