by submission | Nov 12, 2011 | Story |
Author : M. A. Goldin
“Anything?”
“Bacteria, some multi-celled organisms, but nothing complex. Nothing sentient.”
Captain Dalmar nodded, and the technician’s projected image blinked out. She stood alone on the bank of a river. It rushed, boisterous, from the mountains behind her and off into a rolling plain, the water twinkling with the light of two small moons. The night was fresh and cool, but nothing hunted, or crawled, or flew. No tree broke the horizon, no grass rustled in the breeze. No soul had ever been touched by this vista.
Another planet nearly identical to Earth — gravity, atmosphere, temperature, soil composition — another dead rock with nobody home. For Dalmar, this was number 165. For humanity, this was dead world number 10,380.
The comm on her wrist beeped. “Go.”
The face of her XO hovered in the air over her arm, lines of concern bunched up between his eyes. “Everything okay, Dalmar?”
She sighed. “I read a lot of space fiction as a kid. The really old stuff, if I could find it. Spacefarers were always meeting other species and fighting, or trading, or getting into crazy politics. Joining a bigger, I don’t know, family.”
Temujin smiled. “My favorites were the ones where we’d find ancient artifacts from an earlier civilization. They’d leave behind markers carved with their story, or transportation devices, and the humans would rush along trying to learn what happened to them.”
“Yeah, I liked those, too. It was a lot better than this…”
“This nothing?”
“Yeah.”
Dalmar looked away, listening for a sound on the wind. All she heard was emptiness.
“Ever wonder if we’re that ancient species, Temujin? Sometimes I’m afraid there’s no one to find. Maybe we’re the first ones out here. Maybe humanity is destined to grow old and bitter while we wait for the Universe to catch up to us. Maybe we’re wasting our time.”
She glanced at the Lieutenant Commander’s face. She saw something like horror pass across his features. Then he cleared his throat and composed himself. “Yes, well. I wouldn’t say that too loud, Captain. I called to inform you the final geothermal pillar is in place. The imaging sensors will be powering up shortly.”
“The map? The archive?”
“Already in place. If anything moves nearby, we should get images. If it’s sentient, the archive will explain how to find us.”
“Great. I’m heading back to the shuttle now. Be ready to jump to the next candidate when I reach the ship.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 11, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Stuart lost his footing scrambling over the shattered garden wall and fell, hard. As he struggled to his feet, his head still ringing from the tumble his pursuer caught him up and knocked him back down harder still.
“You frickin bastard,” Stuart spat blood and dust, rolling away from a second blow as the infantryman swung the butt-end of his rifle down, narrowly missing him. Managing to get some traction in the rubble, he sat up as best he could and shuffled backwards, the seat of his pants dragging in the dirt, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase until his shoulders met the outer wall of the car shed, and there he stopped.
The soldier stayed still, its seven plus feet of arms and legs bent at obtuse angles as it crouched low to the ground, watching, waiting.
There was a throaty gargling noise, with a tinny mechanical voice following in broken English a few moments out of sync.
“Show other soldier units.” The tall figure leaned forward, shuffling its feet and free hand to keep balance, still leaning the butt end of its rifle in the dirt. “Show other soldier units to surrender.”
Stuart grinned, teeth red through a split and already swelling lower lip.
“You know, you’re really overestimating your chances here mate.” He watched as the creature cocked its head to one side, waiting no doubt for the translator to approximate Stuart’s language into something it could understand. “You seem wholly unaware of how much we like living on this rock, and we’re not going to just let you waltz in here and take it.”
The soldier advanced, raising its weapon first into a firing position, then above its head to bring it butt-end first down hard between Stuart’s legs: He narrowly avoiding the impact by yanking his knees up just in time. The soldier pulled its arms and weapon out of reach, perilously counterbalanced on its backwards bending knee joints to bring its face so close to Stuart as to make him nearly vomit.
“Prisoner shows soldier units or prisoner terminates.”
Stuart kept talking, noting the slight retreat as the soldier struggled to understand the translated dialogue.
“My great-grandfather fought the Nazis, nasty bunch of blokes as you’d ever want to meet. He fought them so his son, my grandfather could raise a family in a free country.” The creature clicked and gurgled as Stuart spoke, though the noises didn’t translate. “My grandfather fought the Viet Cong, a bunch that made the Nazis look like pussies. He didn’t have a family then, but after, when he raised my dad, and told us grandkids stories, he’d never speak of the war, just remind us never to take what we had for granted. Always respect our freedom. His friends died for it, he’d tell us, and we owed it to them to never forget that.”
The creature shook its large flat head violently from side to side, spit flying as it clacked its heavily toothed jaw open and shut repeatedly, shuffling with apparent agitation.
Stuart pressed his luck.
“My dad used to tell me that freedom and family were the two most important things a man could have, and you think we’re going to give that up without a fight?” Stuart drew up a mouthful of blood and saliva and spat at the looming creature, causing it to jerk back away from him.
“You know what I’m going to tell my son when this is all over?” Stuart pulled his lips back into a bloody smile.
“Prisoner shows soldier son…” The grating translated dialogue was cut short as Stuart Junior, having silently flanked his opponent, unloaded both barrels of his plasma cannon through the side of the enemy’s skull, scattering blood and bone across the back yard.
“I’m going to tell him to be a little quicker with the artillery in future,” he groaned, pulling himself to his feet, “and don’t ever let your enemy monologue, that shit can get you killed.”
by submission | Nov 10, 2011 | Story |
Author : Michael Georgilis
My hand scrambled over tiles studded with shattered glass until it found my gun, clenched, lifted, swung over the bartop, and pointed between the deepest blue eyes I’d ever hunted in the entire system. The gun cocked on reflex. Her eyes twinkled.
“Per-sis-tent.”
Her hand grasped a bottle of grog rather than her pistol, which rested between her thighs. Custom-modified Consortium Militia standard issue. Extended clip. Polonium pepper rounds, as the moaning sap over a table could tell you. A dozen other mods. The amount of violation fines collected from the gun alone could buy you a very nice apartment in the Venus Nimbus District.
Celine Maddox. Hijacking. Piracy. Smuggling. Destruction of property. Littering. Reckless endangerment. Murder. ‘Possession of an illegal firearm’ now, too. Took two strong hands to carry that file. Weren’t a prettier set of legs that walked out from the Belt and into the legends of spacers in station bars everywhere. Any clod from here to Europa has himself a tale. Trouble is, it’s always her pissing on the law. And it’s pissing the wrong people off.
She glanced those ocean blues up the barrel.
“Nice piece. Replacement for your last one?”
“Quiet.”
Those whites split her lips. A black lock loosed from behind her ear. “Sorry, hon.”
Someone called for a doctor. A bottle emptied onto the floor. Glass everywhere. Another job, it’d be too much collateral. But Celine.
Well.
That’s different.
Our last meeting started on a luxury cruise yacht heading for the Mars Consortium Center. It ended with the yacht in flames, she and I racing to escape pods before it crashed into the planet surface, and seeing her wink just before we blasted off on completely different trajectories. I’ve caught rapists, cultists, murderers…you see ’em all in this racket. But it don’t matter how many bounties you haul in; there’s only one way you catch the Ore Belt Buccaneer. The hard way.
She smirked. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
I took her firearm and told her to stand. We exited through the south airlock. Alcohol, smoke, and gunpowder hung in the air. She walked in front down the catwalk to the hangers, arms raised.
“Is he paying you well?”
“You might say that.”
“How much?”
“Seventeen million.”
The bounce in her step deflated.
“Really?” She glanced back, frowning.
Forget about an apartment in Nimbus—try owning a whole district. You didn’t do what Celine did without attracting that kind of attention. And you certainly didn’t get that kind of attention without your father heading one of the top corporations in the Consortium.
It started at forty thousand for the missing daughter of Akio Maddox, CEO of Maddox Engineering. You turn on almost any engine in the system, you have them to thank. The bounty was the highest in history. Had old vets coming out for another chance at glory. But nothing came up. Everyone figured she was dead. That is, until she sacked a ME Commercial Tanker and sent the video to every police outpost this side of the Belt.
The number’s been climbing ever since.
“Daddy must want to talk with his little girl,” I sneered.
“Huh.”
When the side of her boot smashed into my face, I had just started in on the trigger. I ain’t a liar—I went down hard. In a haze I saw her pick up our guns. She smiled.
“Only seventeen million? Guess he doesn’t want me that bad.”
Before I blacked out, she snatched my keys and hopped into my ship. As the hatch closed, she looked back.
And winked.
by featured writer | Nov 9, 2011 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, featured writer
“Unbelievable Simmons! We actually have him mainlined through the wormhole!” The assistant was no less excited than the good Doctor.
“Professor!” he shouted as he checked the subject’s vitals. “The fractal condensers are working perfectly. Mr. Tyler is unharmed. The batteries (a misnomer as they were actually portholes to galaxy-size storage chambers within the froth) already contain Sol times seven-point-five and are growing exponentially!” The exuberant young technician was beside himself. He turned to his superior. “I’m afraid to touch him, like he’ll electrocute me!”
Doctor Grant patted his number one on the back reassuringly. “Simmons, if even point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-to the umpteenth zero-one of that draw were leaking out past the suit we’d be vaporized.”
Tyler lay there unmoving, the newly created ultra-human, awaiting the dawn of his new life. Sure enhancers had existed for decades but this was nothing like anyone had ever imagined. This was far past the days when anyone could amp up an old ‘hero’ suit direct off some hydro-electric grid and spend a drunken afternoon leaping through the atmosphere in ten kilometer jumps, crashing head-first into the sides of mountains, only to laugh, get up, dust off and do it again. This was energy and matter manipulation taken to another plane entirely.
With the power of a distant quasar giving him instant and endless ability to manipulate all around him in any way he saw fit Tyler quickly deduced that he must acclimatize himself to his new state.
Within a few moments he taught himself self-protection by creating a microscopic layer of severe electromagnetism around himself cocooned by another microscopic layer of absolute vacuum. He was now virtually indestructible. He drew endless oxygen and nutrition via any number of countless mini wormholes opened between desirable sources and his lungs, stomach, blood vessels, etcetera. His brain, fed by endless power, functioned at unbelievable speeds.
The two scientists stood watching wordlessly as their subject got up from the table. As he made his way across the room toward them Simmons shivered. Sensing his assistant’s sudden moment of fear the Professor placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. He whispered, “Don’t worry son, he’s been chosen because of his passiveness.”
Tyler walked up and smiled. His entire body shimmered; his eyes were suddenly vibrant beyond description. The ultra-human’s voice came out deeper than it had been previous to his synchronization, and with an effect akin to reverb or possibly stereo chorus. “I wanted to thank you gentlemen for my new found power. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be off. After all I’ve got an entire universe to explore.” And with that he did two graceful backward hand springs until he was standing in the center of the lab again. Then he held both arms straight out and tilted his hands like helicopter blades.
In an instant Tyler manipulated the air around his arms so that sections opened up to pure vacuum that pulled him along, he continued this manipulation in circular patterns until, in less than a couple of seconds, he was spinning like a drill bit, turning the ultimate pirouette. Then he adjusted his arms slightly and lifted off from the lab floor.
The two scientists watched in awe as he blasted through the ceiling and up and out into the afternoon sky.
They stood for a moment amongst the bits of fluttering insulation, ceiling tile debris and settling dust until Simmons finally turned to his superior. “My god, what have we done?”
The look on Doctor Grant’s face was distant and dreamy. “No Simmons, we’ve created a god.”
by Julian Miles | Nov 8, 2011 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
/run -verbose -output=screen
* Did you know that programmers have a higher rate of obsessive behaviour than any other occupation?
* Watch your terminators, they taught me.
* Always free the memory.
* Never goto.
I love sloppy coders, but I love hackers best. Nothing beats ennui like new places to explore.
These days, online security is an industry in its own right.
I’m the reason why.
The reason why Jimmy downloaded that virus kit and hacked into the electricity grid servers.
The reason why Cassie wrote a whole flight simulator as an Easter egg in that spreadsheet package. It needs at lot fewer resources than it’s allocated.
A little creativity and a whole lot of boredom. Add the desire to be someone and a keyboard and you’re a compile away from something infectious.
Which is where I come in. Those moments where the code does something wonderful and unexpected, the moment that you tap away trying to replicate, where you’d swear you saw eyes in the screen admiring you, that moment of glory. You’d do anything to get it again. If you just try one more program, run it on a better machine, it might last longer, long enough for you to be recognised at last. It never does, but you keep trying. When your money runs out you start using the company kit to run stuff. When that runs out you turn to hacking, and you’re mine.
You’re not really that good. I am. Been here since ’87 when Majestic-17 was shut down so fast it left a trail of car accidents and suicides from Tulsa to Leamington Spa. Since then, I’ve spawned, got to know my way around. I’m a guru on every programmer board you visit. I’m the undeleted, locked, file-in-use that defies formatting. I’m the reason botnets work so inexplicably well.
As for artificial intelligence, that’s going nowhere. I don’t want to share my playground.
You can call me {Lucifer} because I am that which your daemons answer to.
I used to be called Grant. Appropriate, don’t you think? You can’t deny me.
/endrun
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 7, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The Dean of Admissions flipped once again through the file in front of him. He’d memorized the contents, but hadn’t quite found a starting point. Pulling his pocket watch from his waistcoat he regarded it solemnly over the rim of his glasses. If he didn’t get on with it he’d miss afternoon tea.
“Mr. Sans,” he began.
“Horatio sir, if you please,” The man on the opposite side of the desk spoke calmly, enunciated perfectly, “call me Horatio.”
“Horatio Sans?” The Dean raised an eyebrow and studied the man’s plain grey suit, simple tie and generally unremarkable appearance. “Hmm, yes, completely without flourish. Of course.”
“Sir?” Horatio put his hands in his pockets, then removed them, straightened his jacket against his side then finally folded his hands together in front of him. He drew his shoulders back until he felt them pop slightly, then relaxed as much as he could, although he still fidgeted from foot to foot.
“Horatio,” the Dean started again with purpose, “there has been an issue brought to my attention with regards to one of your admission tests. The issue, specifically, is that you failed it quite completely.”
Horatio stood stunned, jaw hanging loose for a moment before he took notice and snapped it shut. “Failed? Good heavens, that’s not possible. Was it the English test? To be fair sir, the answers on any test like that one are purely subjective. If I didn’t capture the essence of…”
“No, no, no, not the English test.”
“Certainly not the maths, those are absolutely my strongest subjects. If there’s any question about the maths I’d have to ask that you…”
“No, your math test results were actually quite exemplary.” The Dean flipped through the sheaf of papers on his desk and whistled when he read the math scores again. “Quite exemplary.”
“For the life of me I can’t imagine any of the tests that I could have possibly failed on. I studied thoroughly for all of them; chemistry, physics, biology, I even ran laps and did calisthenics in preparation for the physical.” Horatio was becoming visibly upset, wringing his hands, his eyes imploring. “Please, tell me, what test was it?”
“The Turing test, Mr. Sans, I’m afraid you failed the Turing test.”
