by submission | Jan 25, 2024 | Story |
Author: Sam Brown
“From the beginning?” she asked, “What do you mean?”
Harry dropped his face into his hands and groaned. Charlotte looked around. They were sitting in a quiet corner of the restaurant, a candle between them, the light reflecting off their empty plates.
“How long have we been dating?” Harry asked.
“Three years,” she answered. “Three years today.”
“Today’s the day. Today’s always today.”
A waitress began to approach their table. Before she could say anything, Harry turned to her and said, “We don’t need a dessert menu.” The waitress turned back to the kitchen. “Listen,” Harry continued, leaning in to whisper, “one day, I’m going to invent a time machine.”
“Stop messing around,” Charlotte laughed.
“I’m being serious. And I’ll use it to travel to the past, to relive my happiest memory.”
Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. Charlotte gasped.
“The night I proposed.”
“Oh, Harry,” Charlotte cried.
“It worked,” he said “the machine worked. I get to relive my happiest memory – forever. It won’t stop. No matter what I do, this moment keeps repeating on a loop.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s okay,” Harry said, smiling sadly, “let’s start from the beginning.”
by submission | Jan 24, 2024 | Story |
Author: David Barber
My good lady and I love nothing more than the theatre, Oscar Wilde being a particular favourite of mine.
During the interval I queue for drinks, a small white wine for my wife and a single malt for myself. I make it clear to the girl behind the bar that I do not drink that blended muck.
Waiting, I notice the bald fellow from the row in front of ours, the one who rested his hand on the plump back of a woman I took to be his wife.
He is ordering a gin and tonic and a tumbler of water, but as he leans forward I realise my mistake.
Jirt are easy to spot because they can’t do hair. The starving, slime-skinned amphibians that poured out of that giant ship of theirs were so grateful and eager to fit in, they set about altering themselves, each new brood less and less like child-sized newts and more like us.
I don’t understand the details, but they can direct their own inheritance in some obscure way, knowledge apparently envied by our scientists, though much good it did them before they landed. In the documentary I watched that generation ship was an overcrowded slum.
The same TV program explained the Jirt we see are all males, their females confined to breeding pools hidden inside the ship. Which only goes to show.
It seems there are also limits to how much they can change, so they’ll never be as tall or strong as us, as I was explaining to my good lady wife the other day, something which bars them from much of the unskilled job market.
Still, they make excellent servants, willing to clean and cook and change nappies for little more than a roof over their head. It was that attitude to hard work that swayed my vote for them to stay.
This sleek fellow must be one of their latest. There was an article in Forbes recently saying how good they are with young children, easy-tempered, biddable and brimming with admiration for human women.
Now having proved so useful, this one is even accompanying someone’s wife to the theatre, while her husband is working late perhaps.
Of course, my good lady is free to go out with her friends, The Ladies Who Lunch, as I call them. I like to think humour is important in a marriage.
We have a Jirt of our own, and I have overheard my better half confide to her friends how pleased she is with what it does, though I can’t imagine allowing it to chaperone her to a play while I’m away on business or off playing golf.
Here are my drinks at last! The girl has taken her time about it and I tell her so.
Further along the bar, the Jirt is saying something to the other barmaid that makes her laugh.
Turning, the Jirt catches my eye and smiles, almost a smirk, its long, supple tongue flicking in and out.
The house lights dim, the next act beginning.
by submission | Jan 23, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
“Take my advice, if you meet anything that’s going to be human and isn’t yet, or used to be human once and isn’t now, or ought to be human and isn’t, keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.”
That chilling line from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the main reason I consider C. S. Lewis’s classic fantasy book the definitive survival guide for Enchantra. Seriously, you shouldn’t go anywhere on that bewitched planet without a hatchet.
Fans of Enchantra, and they are legion, think me either bigoted or paranoid. They argue that the indigenous, shape-shifting sentients of the planet have every right to mimic human form in any way they please. They variously refer to Enchantrans as sprites and sylphs, imps and nymphs, fay and faeries, pucks and pixies, deeming them playful and harmless.
I call them parasites. Insidious leeches who latch onto your identity and suck your soul dry. Tricky little ticks who burrow into your being, siphon off your authenticity to make a mockery of humanness.
Supporters claim that it’s simply like looking in a mirror, or casting a hologram. That it’s nothing more than interspecies cosplay for Enchantrans. That they can only simulate the form of another creature for a very short time. That they can’t actually inhabit our bodies or minds, or think or speak for us. That they are only able to form a fleeting reflection of our physical selves, much like creating an avatar.
Fans say the Enchantrans’ antics are all in good fun. I say their ability to bedazzle is disturbing. And ultimately demonic.
A type of possession.
How do I know? It happened to me in my first encounter with an Enchantran which, I readily admit, is a most delicate, diaphanous and alluring being. A gossamer glow, a silky aura, surrounds the lemur-like creature and this bio-radiance is thought to be the source of their entrancing mimicry.
To meet and Enchantran is to be put in a kind of trance, an almost out-of-body reverie where you come face-to-face with yourself. The xeno-biologists whose field study I had joined were thrilled by the experience, reporting that interacting with their Enchantran doppelgangers had tickled them pink.
I saw nothing but red. Mocked by the wicked shape-shifting of the heathen Enchantran before me.
You see, I’m not a xeno-biologist. I’m an eco-cleric. A person of peace, of faith, of duty. The duty to bring divine Word to all indigenous sentients in a culturally sensitive way. It is a magnificent responsibility. A sacred charge.
For which I was humiliated. The form the Enchantran reflected back to me was not the portrait of a mild man of peace and harmony, acceptance and tolerance, piousness and sanctity as I saw myself. Rather it was a picture from which Dorian Gray would cower. Such bursting megalomania, such delirious savageness, such flamboyant devilry!
The message was very clear. Our humanity was being stolen and abused. Our eternal souls ridiculed and put at risk. Evil was afoot. The Enchantrans, like any heathen sentients, were not to be trusted.
So, where once I would have reached for the divine Word as an offering of mutual hope and salvation, now I heed the words of C. S. Lewis and feel for my hatchet.
by Julian Miles | Jan 22, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Every morning there’s a scenic mist that rolls away as the sun rises. The bugs stop biting if you ask them to. The locals send fresh food every week.
I hate this place.
There’s nothing to do. All our digital devices are secured on the drop station that’s behind the moon. Apart from my assigned duties and training, I’m on my own. Sergeant Druthers goes out birdwatching, Corporal Ayres helps out at the store down the road, the rest of my team are off digging irrigation ditches for the duchy next door. I’m left sitting on my arse, quite literally watching paint dry, as I finish another chicken coop. Apparently the locals are really impressed with the idea of little houses for their poultry.
I don’t care.
There’s magic here! I signed on to get with the wizards and make my fortune from videos of bearded alien weirdos doing their impossible-to-science best for an appreciative offworld audience.
I got the idea after seeing the bootleg clips from Breskin. They locked that place down so fast, only one source got anything. But the clip of a lady making a rockslide pass her by, and the other one of a horned bloke growing a tree by stroking it have made millions for them.
I want my millions.
So I arrived here, and they first thing they did is knock us out and take our enhancements away! Then they confiscated our technology, stripped us naked, and sent us down here with primitive tools. No beam-cutters and everbonding. Saws and hammers, screws and screwdrivers.
We even have to do laundry! That’s when you wash clothes and hang them up on a line to dry in the wind. Who thought that was a good idea? When it rains we have to rush outside and bring it in, only to go out and put it back up after the rain passes.
I hate laundry.
“Hello, warrior. I’m come with your victuals.”
This is what I mean. I could be making a mint just from a clip showing the bearded wonder who brings our food. On his own. Enough for all of us for a week, and it’s all floating along in the air behind him!
“How do you do that?”
He looks back at the hovering supplies.
“It’s simple enough. As you packs them goods, you puts a lifting on each bundle. Not too high, mind. It’s no good if you can’t reach it to bring it down. Once you have it all done, you put a gather about the lot, top it off with a follow-me, and here I am.”
Cheerfully explaining the impossible like it’s real.
I hate him.
With a little nod, he carries on. I watch the boxes and bags go by.
Might as well make another coop. Got nothing else to do.
I’ve done two by evening. I’m thinking about cutting the wood for a third when a cheerful voice makes me wince.
“Hey, misery guts.”
Corporal Caroline Ayres: proper, polite, pretty, provincial. She’s so small town it’s pathetic. I turn slowly, giving myself time to think up something clever to reply with.
Our hardware supplies are floating behind her!
“Who did you do to get that?”
She frowns, then waves a hand. My feet leave the ground!
“I did that. Turns out not being a self-obsessed arsehole lets this place get to you. When that happens, your magic arrives.”
It what?
She drops me.
“Command tells me I can’t leave, but that’s no problem. Especially as you are. Being somewhere you’re not will be good.”
I hate her.
by submission | Jan 21, 2024 | Story |
Author: Bill Cox
His finger hovers over the button. His hand is shaking. It’s not through indecision though, but rather appreciation of the enormity of what he’s about to do. This action marks a point from which there’s no going back. The waters of the Rubicon lap at his feet.
He knows, though, that he has elected to follow a greater good, a higher morality and so presses the button. Far above, explosions seal off the kilometre-long lift shaft, a sad end to an incredible feat of engineering. Shockwaves hammer downwards, arriving as a low rumble in the deepest level of the base that he now occupies.
Afterwards, he takes a walk down to the viewing area, its panoramic window looking out into the murky depths of the world-spanning subterranean ocean. He dims the lights and at first there’s little to see in the inky gloom. His eyes are gradually adapting to the dark when a shoal of Glowfish appear, their natural bioluminescence lighting up their surroundings. Soon, Pakards are visible, tentacles pulsing as they push themselves through the chill waters. Even a Plumhorse puts in an appearance, its fibrous limbs propelling an elongated mauve body slowly along the rocky shelf.
Such variety of life, all invisible from the exterior of this world. On the surface, Uranus hangs large in the sky, a pale blue giant of a world, a magnificent sight to be sure. It’s here though, below the ice of its frozen moon Miranda, that the real treasure is to be found – life itself!
His pad beeps an alert and he checks his links to the cameras that still function on the surface part of the base. The relief crew are arriving, but they will find the upper portion of the base unliveable, after his comprehensive sabotage of the life support infrastructure. Without the resources of the base to call upon, they will have little choice but to leave this world and return to Earth.
He knows that they will condemn his actions. However, sealed in, a kilometre below ground, he is unlikely to have to answer for them. He has enough rations to last decades, if he’s careful. It’s just him now, alone on a base with the resources for the original crew of fifteen.
For him, the passing of the Humanity Primacy Act by the United Nations was the final straw. Initially, the discovery of complex biospheres on the worlds of the solar system – on the surface of Titan and in the subterranean oceans of Europa, Enceladus and his own Miranda – brought great joy and excitement, with pledges to protect these novel environments. Now, though, with Earth struggling to support fifteen billion food and energy hungry souls, a defeated pragmatism has overtaken humanity. Its quest for resources must take precedence over the needs of alien biospheres.
Strip mining began on Titan six months ago. The relief crew, landing above, had instructions to explore Miranda for deposits of uranium, rare earth metals and even fossil fuels. They would inevitably, he had decided, end up committing omnicide; the complete destruction of a living biosphere.
He, however, decided to put the needs of this unique biosphere first. It is a greater morality he follows, far above the grubbiness of mere survival. He sits at the glass window, at ease with his decision, watching the indigenous life weave its way to and fro. Even the decomposing bodies of the fourteen other base staff, bobbing gently under a nearby ice shelf, fail to disturb the sense of self-righteousness that keeps him warm, one kilometre beneath the ice of Miranda.
by submission | Jan 20, 2024 | Story |
Author: Gabriel Walker Land
Upcountry in Indochina I had a good thing going, nice and palatial.
My wives didn’t fight with one another, neither did the happa kids — we all got along and ate well, Mekong fish and real tropical fruit.
Still, up there out of range of 7G wireless I was little people.
We all bow down like dogs to someone, to something, sometime eventually.
A call came in on an ice shoot down to Krung Thep AKA Bangkok, where a runner had nabbed a bag of non-reps and I was to hem them up.
“The hard target’s in Patpong somewhere,” said the handle over slow as shit 6G cast through my bud.
“Patpong?” I said. “Shit I haven’t worked there in a decade. You do know I’ve had trouble with pots right?”
“Of course, you old hound,” said the handle. “We got you covered.”
A microne flew in later that day to drop a parcel off from the Golden Triangle.
It was a powder that iced the rutting drive without upping flavones, so a man could focus on his work.
I knew I would need it, what guy wouldn’t?
Next day I got flown in on a looper to BKK and voila, found myself presto right in the vector of nectarville, world’s oldest and largest red light district by a metric mile.
I hadn’t been looking forward to this.
As I walked through the lanes of kickdolls and upgrades I immediately knew I wouldn’t need that designer dust that was droned in to me upcountry.
The dolls all had heads as big as anime and manga characters, eyes as large as grey aliens, lips looked like they could swallow mine.
Tossing the dust, I still put a blinder in my snout, though, as I cased and canvassed.
Just because the eyes ached at the sight of the biotik upgrades it didn’t mean the perfume knocked off hitches of phermonals.
