by submission | May 14, 2010 | Story
Author : Jacqueline Rochow
We’re going camping.
Mum finishes packing my bag as Dad prepares a celebratory stew. I packed the bags already, but Mum insisted on pulling everything out again to make sure that I didn’t forget anything. Food, clothes, gun, bandages, antibiotics – how hard is that? She still finds problems, though. Takes out my favourite leather jeans, replaces them with some good poly ones. Takes out the bread and pastries to replace them with something more nutritious.
The stew is delicious. For dessert we have fruit salad; I savour it. I’m not a fan of fruit but I know that I’m going to miss it.
Bobby asks where we’re going, what’s the occasion. We have been talking about little else for the past month but he doesn’t understand. He’s never seen anybody off camping before. Mum explains it to him, in hushed tones.
After dinner, Mum and Dad take me aside and press a small box into my hands. I open it. Vitamin tablets! I ask them where they found the money for such a prize, but they brush the question aside. I bury the box deep in my pack, out of sight of muggers.
We meet Jessa’s family and walk down to the city gates together. Jessa nibbles on the ear of her stuffed bunny. I wonder if she’s really going to take that useless ball of fluff with her.
There are many gifts. Aunts, uncles, and friends who have already been or are too young all give me something. Mostly useful things – a knife, protein bars, a good pair of shoes.
I thank people, trying to contain my excitement and nervousness. Jessa hugs her teddy and stares dumbly at everyone. She won’t be able to handle herself out there. We have been friends since we were little, and it will be up to me to keep her safe.
Almost a hundred twelve-year-olds stand just outside the gate, all gripping bags. “Take no more than you can carry” is the rule, and some have pushed that rule to its limit. Those ones will abandon most of their gear soon or drop, I think. A few black-clad border guards are about, looking imposing on horseback. As usual, they make no attempt to interact with anyone. I am glad of this; I am not sure that I want to hold a conversation with somebody whose primary job is to shoot me if I stumble on the exodus or attempt to get within sight of the city before the trip is over. It would be… creepy.
I go to exit the gate, only to find myself anchored by my mother’s hand. She does not want me to go. But I must, and she cannot leave the city, so I give her, Dad and Bobby one last hug before prying her hand away and stepping over the imaginary line between city and wilds.
The border guards call a final warning. Behind me, the gates begin to close.
For my parents’ benefit, I turn and wave, but I don’t try to seek them out in the crowd. I don’t want to see my mother’s tears, my father’s last mouthed message to his “little princess”. I didn’t even bring any photos; they would just be another object to guard and treasure, a waste of energy that I could little afford. I will recognise them when I get back. I’m sure I will.
We start walking, and Jessa offers me a hold of her stuffed bunny. I decline.
We’re going camping. Save some dinner for us, Mum; we’ll be home in a year.
by submission | May 13, 2010 | Story
Author : Jacqueline Rochow
We decided to take the draught.
My parents didn’t like it. A lot of people didn’t. It was unnatural, people said. It wasn’t the real thing. It was empty. It was selfish.
So we didn’t tell them.
Stupid? Reckless? That’s what my mother would have said. I was only seventeen when we decided to do it, but I waited until my eighteenth before applying for the necessary counselling. Then I could do it secretly. I told my parents that I was taking a programming class and headed off to my sessions once a week, and three months later we had approval.
It made sense. We were the perfect physical and intellectual match. The same interests, morals, life goals. We’d been studying together for two years, we were compatible, and we made a wonderful team. I’d fallen in love with boys before, or at least developed crushes, but they always turned out to be boring, inconsiderate, horrible matches. He wasn’t like that. So when he proposed that we do something reckless and stupid and so logical and right, I had agreed immediately.
We’ve been “dating” for nine months. There’s no spark yet, but it made sense. A trial run, as it were, to test our compatibility. And tonight we get our first dose of Oxytome. Over the next two months, we’ll dose ourselves under controlled conditions and chemically stimulate ourselves into falling in love.
We might have to take boosters to make it stick long-term, they told us; we decided to take it slow though. One course, and see how we went. If we fell out of love again, we could discuss extending it then.
The doctor has already given us both the preporatory injections. There’s an oral dose that we have to take in the next 3-5 hours, so we’re going over to his place to watch a romantic movie and have a drink.
Society might condemn the love drug and those who choose to take it. They might tell us that it’s an illusion. They might tell us that these things should happen naturally, that science has no place in the realm of love. They might tell us that even with mandatory counselling, the existence of such a thing opens people up to making horrible matches. And we have structured, logical rebuttals for all of those points, but they can wait, because right now we just don’t care. To hell with the world around us – we’re just two stupid, reckless teenagers falling in love.
by Roi R. Czechvala | May 12, 2010 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
Somewhere south of Toadsuck, Texas, along a washboard gravel road, a middle aged man was walking his dog, enjoying the cool night air and the effects of cheap grain alcohol. Looking up, he witnessed a glowing object streak across the sky.
“Mmurph,” was his only comment.
The object suddenly veered towards him, taking up a position directly over head. He managed a surprised, if somewhat drawn out, “I’ll tell you what,” prior to being skewered by an intense beam of light and drawn into the strange craft.
Aboard the craft, 1st Lentil Glorp mused as much to himself as to his companion Skizziks, Lentil 2nd class, “Why do we do it?”
Skizzicks rotated his eyestalks in an ‘here we go again’ manner and muttered, “For the chicks I s’pose. Sure as hell isn’t for the money.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” Glorp paused to pull his hand out of the confused and somewhat surprised Texan’s ass, “I mean here we are, in a ship that can span galactic distances and we are still conducting anal scans of emergent sentients. Is this all there is to life? I mean what’s the point?”
“For the greater good of the Tranyan Empire?” The traumatized man stared wide eyed as Skizzicks placed a small triangular object on his forearm. The alien waved a purplish glowing wand above the object and it painlessly sank beneath his skin.
“Seriously, do you think the Emperor really gives a shit about these primitives? We write a report, it gets filed, nobody reads it, end of story.” Casually Glorp turned the hapless and mildly terrified Toadsuckian onto his back, grabbed his testicles, squeezed tightly and screamed.
“There has to be something more to life than this,” he said, releasing the testicles in question.
“Well,” Skizzicks began slowly as his brain ponderously engaged, “My gram always said, ‘Good things come to those who wait.’”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. Gram drank a lot.”
“Well let’s finish this up.”
They moved the stunned and quite naked human to a small raised circular pad, sprayed him with a slick greenish blue gel, gave him their equivalent of a thumbs up, which involved several appendages and the release of bodily gasses and returned him in the same manner as they had plucked him away. He arrived at the same time, on the same gravel road, next to the same Blue Tick hound who merely shook his head knowingly.
The now lightly glowing and very naked man watched as the object retreated back into the firmament from whence it came.
“Well, I’ll be dipped in shit”
by Patricia Stewart | May 11, 2010 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
The alarm of the Olympia Undae Penitentiary snapped warden Jacobs from a deep sleep. He hurried down to the den to access his computer terminal, only to be greeted by a dozen escaped convicts. Jacobs recognized them as members of the Tharsis gang, a group of third and fourth generation settlers known for their sadistic brutality. He glanced at his phaser rifle above the mantel.
“Don’t even think about it Warden,” growled one of the prisoners. “As you can see, we have weapons. Your guards in the armory insisted that we help ourselves. Well, that’s what they would have said if they were alive.” The prisoners broke into laughter.
“You can’t escape,” argued Jacobs. “There’s no place on Mars that you can hide. Surrender now, before things escalate out of control.”
“It’s already too late, Warden. Besides, we don’t plan to stay on Mars. That’s why we came here. You’re going to take us to your ship in orbit, and then to the asteroid belt. We have a standing invitation to join the pirates.”
“I have no intention to take you anywhere. I’ll die first.”
Just then, three convicts marched down the steps dragging the warden’s wife and two children. “I never understood,” stated the lead convict, “why there is a policy to house the warden’s family on prison property, but I’m not complaining. Now, take us to your shuttle.”
Reluctantly, Jacobs lead them to the attached hanger. The shuttle was only designed to hold twelve, but they all crammed in. Jacobs was glad to see that his wife and children were placed in seats. Jacobs sat at the pilot station. He did not delude himself. He knew that it was unlikely that he or his family would survive. If they weren’t shot down by security, they would certainly be killed when they reached the asteroid belt. As he programmed the shuttle for lift off, he committed to a desperate plan.
The lead convict grabbed the radio. “This is the Warden’s shuttle; we have four hostages on board. Stand down, or we’ll start executing the children.” The hanger doors opened and the shuttle lifted off. It was not confronted. The shuttle climbed through the thin Martian atmosphere, and headed toward the harbor in orbit. At an elevation of 100,000 meters, the computer shut down the main engine. The shuttle leveled out and began to fall toward the red Martian surface.
“He’s trying to kill us all,” yelled one of the convicts.
“No, I swear,” pleaded the warden. “Not with my family on board. I don’t know what happened. I can restart the engine as soon as it cools down to 2000K.” When the shuttle dropped to 20,000 meters, Jacobs restarted the engine and pulled back hard on the controls. As he watched the accelerometer climb to 7g’s he strained to keep from passing out. When he leveled the shuttle at 50,000 meters, the convicts were motionless on the deck. His wife and children were unconscious, but still breathing. He activated the radio, “Warden to AUP, the situation is under control. I’m returning to base. Have medical teams standing by.”
The warden helped his family off the shuttle; the children were crying. Armed security guards rushed toward the shuttle. “That won’t be necessary Sergeant. They’re all dead.”
“But how?”
“Simple physiology. My family and I were born on Earth. We’ve only been on Mars for a few months. Those guys are third generation Marsers. They’ve lived at 0.4g all their lives. When I pulled 7g’s on the shuttle, it felt like 17g’s to them. Their weakened bodies couldn’t take it.”
by Duncan Shields | May 10, 2010 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
On my 67th birthday, my research finally reached fruition and I invented a portable matter transporter. By wearing it, I could transport anywhere in the world at will.
If I grabbed someone, that person came with me.
I didn’t need to know where I was going, I didn’t need to have been there before, and I never ended up in walls. It was magical.
Most people would have robbed banks or spied on girls. I was past getting my thrills that way and I had invested wisely. I had all the money I needed. I’m not a greedy person.
What really got to me, though, was intolerance. I think intolerance exists mostly because people don’t speak each other’s language and don’t experience other cultures enough. To me, intolerance is the cause of wars. It lets one group think that they are better than another group.
What can one man do? I’ll tell you.
I call it the shuffle.
I appear, grab the wrists of the people nearest to me, and teleport to a different country.
I’m famous and feared. I’m a celebrity and a boogeyman all in one. When I appear in public squares, some people flock to me and some people run screaming. Most people look around to see what all the noise is about. Those are the ones I usually end up grabbing.
I try not to grab children or old people but I can’t always be choosy. Some countries have orders to shoot me on sight.
From Nepal to Belize. From Cancun to Switzerland. From Nigeria to Japan. From Canada to Ecuador. From Iran to Korea. From China to Greenland.
I never sleep in the same place twice. I never eat in the same place twice. I appear in a kitchen, grab some food, and bail to a safe place to eat. When I get tired, I go to a safe place for sleep. A forgotten warehouse, perhaps, or the middle of a warm forest with no predators. Then it’s back to work.
I am a super transient. I am the earth’s blender.
2 people per jump, 2 jumps per minute, 240 people transported per hour, average 3360 people give or take a few in an average fourteen-hour day, works out to over a million people ‘shuffled’ per year. Exactly 1,226, 400 going by that math but sometimes it’s more and sometimes it’s less. To be honest, I’ve long since stopped counting.
I’ve been doing it for five years now. There have been close calls but I haven’t been stopped yet. Doing it day in, day out for as long as I have, I’ve probably mixed up less than a per cent of the Earth but my movement is growing. Those that I have displaced voice their displeasure or glee loudly to the world.
People are talking. I have dropped off letters to every single major media corporation there is. They know what I’m trying to do. I believe in complete transparency.
I’m hoping that there are others like me and that they will join the cause. I want to shake this planet up. Erase it by mixing it. I want all the colours on Earth’s racial palette to be smeared together into one unintelligible human colour.
I realize that my eventual goal will never be realized but I want to see my actions have an effect, even if it’s uniting the human race against me.
Jump. Grab. Jump. Grab. Jump.
by submission | May 9, 2010 | Story
Author : John Williams
Gas and Sag had clear orders to destroy all life on the planet. Their leader, The Gnik, was concerned that the violence portrayed on its radio and television was setting a very bad example to the rest of the Universe. The exact manner of destruction was left to them. Their Gnik failed to see the irony of destroying a planet because of its output of violent transmissions.
“During the five-year trip from the planet htrae in Proxima Centauri, you’ll have ample time to agree on the optimum method,” instructed The Gink. On htrae, it was policy to make decisions at the lowest practical level.
Of course, they didn‘t agree: If Gas said fire then Sag said water.
The arguments went back and forth. Their leader, The Gnik, was beginning to think it had been a mistake to send a couple on this mission. Perhaps, Professor Stranglelove was correct when he or she advocated the elimination of one gender as a means to promote galactic harmony and to make the monarch’s life easier.
It was rumoured that the good professor had taken the precaution to adapt his own or her own body to qualify for either gender – a sacrifice willingly made in the name of science.
“Can’t I use my atomic blaster?” implored Sag as she reached for the holster on her hip.
“What about my headaches? It’s bound to make a terrible noise.”
“If you really loved me, then you’ll do it my way,” countered Sag. Gas checked to see what brain his partner was using.
Sag drew herself up to her full 2ft 6inches and turned her purple faces to her silent partner.
“I’m older so I should decide.” Her mouths forming distinct sulks.
“But you decided last time. It must be my turn.”
Their attention was caught by a message from mission control asking their position.
“Are we there yet?” asked Sag.
“E.T.A. in five minutes,” sighed Gas and vowed to save the most beautiful planet in the cosmos. He looked aghast at the temperature sensing device, the planet must be the coldest inhabited one in the known universe. A plan was beginning to form in his thinking head.
“So what are we going to do?”
All the time, Gas was pondering on the irony of destroying a planet because it was too violent. Of course, he knew that countless envoys had been sent to warn the leaders of the Earthmen. He had seen the record of how they had been cruelly treated, their bodies bombarded with radiation, and then dissected. Gas switched off his feeling head and engaged his other brain. A light illuminated the dark interior of the flying saucer as he came to the realization of how to save the blue planet.
“We’ll toss a coin. Heads or tails?” he said casually.
Sag agreed and called tails.
The coin landed heads side up.
“Shit!” yelled Sag, “ I can never win an argument with you. “ She glared down at the Sirian Dollar.
Gas smiled up at her, “I thought we may introduce a little carbon dioxide into their atmosphere just to warm it up a bit. Then, it would make an ideal holiday destination.”
Sag allowed smiles to soften her mouths.
Gas quickly picked up the double-headed coin and began releasing the stored carbon dioxide they had exhaled during their voyage, venting it into the atmosphere of the blue planet. Their ship lurched upward and Gas struggled to right the craft but Sag wrenched the controls from his grasp.
Observers saw the craft stall and crash into a field on the outskirts of Copenhagen. The ship’s video log, after examination, was hurried to climate change conference. Gas and Sag, still engaged in a furious argument, were taken away for counselling and an afternoon in a hot tub.
