by submission | Mar 12, 2011 | Story
Author : Ian Rennie
It was the last day of the forty third reign of the Enduring Prophet, and all was right with the world.
The prophet was now bed-bound, and it was widely expected that soon his spirit would leave behind this mortal form, and appear incarnate in his successor: a boy groomed from childhood to take on the mantle and the spirit of the Enduring Prophet.
At least, that was how the monks told it. The worldly city-folk smiled at such stories when they heard them. Their ancestors had believed in continual reincarnation, but these days most people accepted that the actual procedure was that when the monks saw the Prophet was getting on in years, they selected a boy, tutored him to become their figurehead, and continued their own rule by proxy. It was a neat enough system, and the monks tended to rule wisely. Over the years, the concepts of reincarnation and divinity had become a pleasant story, truly believed only by peasants and children.
Shortly before noon, the Enduring Prophet sent for the boy. Today, the child’s name was Kai Lo, a name that would be taken from him if and when he took the mantle. The Prophet needed no name. The boy was solemn, old before his time with the burden of responsibility. He knew what was coming.
Before he entered the Prophet’s chambers, a monk stopped Kai Lo and spoke to him. Wen Chan had looked after the boy for the five years since he had been brought to the monastery, had become almost a father to him, and his tone was gentle and grave.
“Kai Lo,” he said, “Do you know what is asked of you today?”
“I do.”
“And you will do as you have been asked?”
The boy nodded. Wen Chan paused for a moment, and when he continued the words were less ceremonial.
“Should you not wish this, if you are not ready for the burden, it can be taken from you.”
For a moment, his eyes seemed to plead with the boy. Kai Lo shook his head.
“It is my destiny.”
Wen Chan said no more, simply led the boy into the room. The hum of machinery grew louder as the door opened.
An hour later, the monks lowered the flags around the monastery entrance. The crowd gathered before the gates knew what this meant. The funeral and coronation would take place this evening.
In his bedchamber, the boy no longer known as Kai Lo heard the sound of the crowd outside. It had been a long time since his hearing had been this acute. There was a fresh pleasure in these first few days after the transfer, where everything felt new. After a while, it became normal again, but for a few short days he felt capable of anything.
The boy hadn’t struggled, hadn’t resisted when the technicians placed him in the machine. His pious sense of duty had lasted until the transfer had taken place, when something akin to shock had passed across the face of a boy suddenly trapped in a dying old man.
Sometimes, the prophet felt remorse for the life that he ended, the body he stole, but it was just how things were. His people needed a leader, and there were some prices you had to pay.
He stepped towards his balcony, basking for the first time in the roar of the crowd.
It was the first day of the forty fourth reign of the Enduring Prophet, and all was right with the world.
by submission | Mar 11, 2011 | Story
Author : Erik Goranson
Jane and Ellis floated parallel to one another across the vast canvas of space, eyeing the marble-like planets that slowly crept past them. Their skin reflected the starlight with a dull orange sheen. Ellis had called it ‘planet gazing,’ an activity he apparently thought suitable for a date.
“Do you see that one below us?” Ellis said, pointing to a round blue mass.
Jane shrugged.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” he asked. “I’ll bet it’s beautiful on the surface, too. Like the way the dust begins to spiral when a star is forming.”
“Something like that,” Jane said. She didn’t understand his excitement. Planets were nothing interesting. They were just stars without the fire; black holes without the absence of color; asteroids with an atmosphere. They were just specks of light that littered the sky. The only remotely interesting thing she knew about planets was that the gas in their atmosphere were extremely lethal. Big whoop, she thought. Floating, atmospheric rocks of death. Ellis sure knew how to impress a girl.
“I’ve read about how gravity works differently down there,” Ellis said. “You wouldn’t be weightless anymore. You’d have to rely on your muscles to get around. You’d have to pry yourself off the ground and,” he paused, thinking. “walk. That’s what it was called. ‘Walking.'”
Jane was skeptical. “But how would you survive the gases?”
He hesitated. “With hazmat suits?”
“We’d only need suits?”
“And a place to live, I guess. But we could send some terranauts down there and have them build some pods or something,” he said.
Jane wasn’t impressed. So planets were atmospheric rocks of death that they could live on. So what? She was starting to think Ellis was a fool with his head stuck in a childhood fantasy.
“Would that really be worth it?” she asked. “It seems like you’d be constantly working to keep the nature out. Seems like it would be a pain.”
“You really think so?” Ellis said. “I think life’d be much better down there.”
“In an environment that could kill you?”
He nodded. “It’s beautiful down there. There are mountains of rock that would trace the sky; oceans of hydrogen that would reflect the starlight. Down there, the atmosphere would affect the spectrum of light. There would be color everywhere—sunlight alone would be more magnificent down there than we’ve ever seen. And with that kind of beauty, our petty problems would disappear. We’d stop being so careless and arrogant down there. We wouldn’t fight over money and resources and religion down there. We’d be too distracted by the beauty of it all. We’d finally come together.”
Jane felt her disapproval fading. It was a wonderful vision, a world without conflict. “Maybe you’re right,” she said.
“Maybe?” Ellis asked. “Wouldn’t you be stunned by that kind of beauty?”
“Too bad it’s only a dream,” she said.
Ellis wrapped an arm around her, and to her surprise, she welcomed it.
“Just you wait,” he said. “Someday we’ll walk down there.”
by Duncan Shields | Mar 10, 2011 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Anyone or anything that enters the blue beams are sucked up into the ships and never seen or heard from again.
The ships populated the sky in one rush of deceleration all around the world. The night side of the planet suddenly gained more stars and the day side of the planet a bunch of tiny suns. Nine hundred and thirty-six of them, visible to the naked eye even after their engines had stopped firing. Dots in the sky in a geometric formation hanging a measured distance apart from each other.
The ships did nothing for weeks. The tension drove people mad. The military went to a state of readiness, sweating fingertips hovering over red buttons in sub-basements. Religious zealots called it the Rapture, spiritualists called it the Age of Aquarius, and others just kept an eye to the sky in fear.
The economy took a major hit as most people cashed in their RRSPs and withdrew their savings. Shy people finally asked that person they’d been crushing on for years out for dinner. Employees who’d been silently disgruntled for years quit their jobs. The end of days felt like it was right around the corner.
Just when the Earth had settled into a hesitant acceptance of the dots in the sky, blue beams of light from each ship stabbed down to earth.
The result was instantaneous. Nuclear missiles fired up at the alien ships from the expected countries. The missiles didn’t even explode. They were quietly stopped, disarmed, turned inert, and left to fall back to Earth. That didn’t stop us from firing every single missile we had at them. It was like some sort of death orgasm and we didn’t stop until we were spent.
We would have done ourselves more damage than them if they’d actually exploded.
The blue beams stayed on. Some of them are pointed at the ocean. Some are in remote areas of the planet where hardly anyone lives. Some of them are in metropolitan cities. They are all exactly 204.8 kilometers from each other.
It’s popular to go into the beams and ascend. Some believe it’s a portal to heaven. Some believe that it leads to a gateway to the rest of the universe. Some believe it’s death.
People have tried going up with video cameras and audio equipment but it all stops working the minute they leave the ground. Scientists are still trying to figure out how the beams work.
There are guards and fences around the perimeters of the beams in the major cities but out in the countryside they are left alone, silent blue ladders to alien mysteries. Pillars that glimmer in the daytime and seem to stab up from the earth like a searchlight during the night.
Some lovers have gone in hand in hand. Some notable celebrities have even made the trip. It’s become a tradition in some countries to throw letters to dead ancestors into the streams. Some countries have decided to start using the beams to help with their garbage problem.
They never shut off and the ships remain mute. It’s been seventeen years now. There are teenagers alive now who have never known a world without the beams.
Myself, I come down here to the park and stare at my city’s beam on the weekend. I feed the pigeons and stare at the column of light.
by submission | Mar 9, 2011 | Story
Author : Brian Varcas
It takes two to tango, so the old saying goes. Nathanial Rogers was doing just fine alone, thanks to the wonderful people at LifeChange Inc. who’s strapline was, “Who will you be today?”
Lifesharing™ technology, the company said, was a natural, if radical, extension of filesharing. Their advertising made great play of the fact that “life” is an anagram of “file”. They claimed all memories could be stored as files ready to be uploaded, using some very expensive equipment, to their data storage facility. For a hefty subscription, members could download those memories and “live” them in the comfort of their own home. The company’s LifePod™ was small and stylish enough to fit in the home of anyone wealthy enough to buy one.
Nathaniel was very wealthy indeed, having been born into one of the richest families in New Europe. He didn’t have to work to maintain his lifestyle, which was just as well as he could think of nothing useful he could actually do.
In the LifePod™, however, he could do anything he wanted, and do it well. Of course, he’d spent many hours in the “adults only” section of the data banks but, in all honesty, he never spent longer than about 10 minutes reliving any of those particular memories.
This tango thing was great. It was incredibly sensual and he found himself totally lost in the rhythm and passion of it all. All good things come to an end though and the pre-set one-hour shutdown sequence brought his evening’s entertainment to a close. He bowed theatrically to his beautiful dance partner as the scene faded and he returned to reality.
Reality was a bummer. Nathanial’s only enjoyment was the time he spent in the LifePod™ and that was now taking up most of his “real” life. The problem was that one of the conditions of membership was that you had to upload at least one memory per week, which could not be a memory of a LifeShare™ encounter. Nathanial’s life was so empty of interesting events that he was now receiving daily warning messages that his account would be suspended.
Fortunately, Nathanial had a plan. He got together the various bits of equipment he would need and sat down in the LifePod™. He entered the Memory menu and selected “upload new experience” from the options. The system required him to indicate a maximum time period for the experience and he chose 30 minutes.
One of the benefits of being obscenely wealthy was the ability to obtain anything you wanted, more or less. So it was easy for Nathanial to get hold of the material he would need for this memory.
He set everything up and then sat back and waited. The anticipation of what was about to happen made him sweat. To stop himself backing out at the last moment he’d injected himself with a paralysis inducing nerve agent just before he engaged the run command on the equipment he’d set up.
Thirty minutes, he’d set as the memory time. The upload happened in real time so other members would be able to relive this experience immediately. What a rush!
After 29 minutes Nathanial closed his eyes and waited. 50 seconds later he heard a click. Then his world literally exploded as the device he’d strapped to his body was detonated. He died instantly so didn’t here the distorted voice from the now mutilated LifePod™.
“Thank you for uploading your precious memory. Thanks to your generosity, other members all over the world can now share your experience. Your memory will become theirs to cherish, always.”
by Roi R. Czechvala | Mar 8, 2011 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
“Hell? Hell is what you carry in your heart. All your regrets. Things you should have done but didn’t. Things you did but shouldn’t have. That’s Hell. You carry Hell with you.” Without another word he stood and walked out beyond the reach of the light from the small campfire. The report from his pistol as he blew his brains out sounded faintly hollow in the crisp desert air. The four remaining men continued to stare into the dying flames.
“Seen it before, Mars’ll do that to ya.” Tom Marten was an old trail hand and a third generation Martian.
“Why’d he do it?” Henry Curry briefly turned his eyes in the direction of the departed man, but just as quickly turned away. He was young, just eight years Mars Standard.
“It’s the planet. She knows we’re strangers. She doesn’t want us here. A man stays out here too long he hears things. She talks to ya. Get‘s under your skin like.”
“Who talks to ya, Mr. Marten,” Henry asked as a cold shiver thrilled his body.
“Mars,” he said, “she knows we’re here. She doesn’t like it.”
“You’re full of shit,” remarked Bill Fryer, getting to his feet and dusting himself off. “I’m going to bed.” He crawled into his single sleep bubble.
“Think I’ll turn in too. Don’t scare the boy too much now, Tom. This is his first drive. Can’t have him shittin’ himself at every shadow. G‘night.”
“Night,” they replied in unison.
“What were they like Mr. Marten?”
“Who?”
“The Martians… the real ones I mean… no offence.”
“None taken, son. Well, they were tall. Taller than us. Very slim. Bird bones. The lower gravity you know. They built the crystal…”
“No, what were they like? I mean really like?”
“Nobody really knows. They were gone thousands of years before we got here. They were ancient before man walked on two legs. They don’t want us here, I can tell you that much.”
“How do you know?”
“They talk to me. Their ghosts anyway. I hear them all around me.”
Henry shivered again. The cold night air of the desert he rationalized to himself. He looked to the sky. The stars barely twinkled in air still too thin for much refraction despite nearly a century of terraforming. Phobos was a disk smaller than Earth’s moon. Tiny Deimos was barely distinguishable from the surrounding star field. It was an indescribably beautiful starry night.
Something brought Henry’s attention back to the moment. Glancing across the fire, he thought for the briefest moment that the pupils of Tom Marten’s eyes had gone from round to vertical slits. For a fleeting instant it looked as if his face had become elongated and his skin had taken on an ashen pallor.
He shook his head and blinked several times to clear his mind. When he looked again, kindly old Tom Marten was staring back at him. He removed his revolver from his holster, checked the loads, spun the cylinder and replaced it. Nearby, a horse, grown from tissue brought from Earth, whinnied nervously.
“Think I’ll go for a walk.”
“Good idea. You do that.”
Henry walked into the darkness. In the thin air, the blast from his weapon failed to echo off the nearby cliff face.
Tom Marten smiled. A smile that failed to reach his oddly slitted eyes.
by submission | Mar 7, 2011 | Story
Author : Andrew DiMatteo
“Hey there Col! I haven’t seen you in a while. How have you been?”
“Honestly? Things have been pretty crazy.”
“Come to think about it, I seem to remember Bill saying something happened between you and Deb… is everything ok?”
“Not really man. Deb and I split up.”
“Jesus Col, I’m truly sorry – I had no idea. What about your kids?”
“She got the whole enchilada Ed. Full custody.”
“That’s terrible. Is there anything I can do to help? I have a cousin who’s a counselor, maybe he can offer some advice…”
“Naw, it’s cool. This new thing I’m doing is really helping.”
“What is it? Therapy or something?”
“You could say that… Ed, you ever hear of the ‘many worlds’ theory?”
“Sorry, but I can’t say that I have.”
“No worries man, few have. Basically, some scientists came up with this theory that says every single thing that possibly could happen, has happened, and all the outcomes exist in, like, parallel universes.”
“I don’t really see how that’s a thing you can do per se.”
“I know, I know, gimme a chance to explain. It all started when I saw this ad online. This guy claimed that he could teach you to ‘jump’ your consciousness into your selves that exist in these parallel universes; that you could come back with all these totally awesome skills and knowledge that your other, better selves had acquired in those other worlds. Now I know what you’re gonna say: Waste of money. A scam. Something for new age wackos. But see, I was pretty rock bottom at this point. I figured any world had to be better than this one, and maybe I could find one where I got the kids, so I shelled out fifty bucks and bought the DVDs.”
“And?”
“And it worked.”
“What?”
“Yeah, it totally worked. The real kick in pants was that as it turns out, this is the best universe there is for me. I don’t know how many I tried, but it was pretty bad. There was one where Deb ran away with some multimillionaire to Guatemala. Then there was a whole slew where I got hit by a car on the way to the custody hearing and ended up paralyzed from the neck down. I never got the kids.”
“Now you have me really worried. No more joking around, Col. Let me get you some help. Let me call my cousin.”
“No way, don’t you see? I’m fine! I know this is the best I can do. Whenever I get sad I just pop over into another universe and see how bad it could be – at least here I’ve got visitation rights and…”
“And?”
…
“Col?”
…
“Col, are you OK? Snap out of it!”
“Did… did I just say I’ve got visitation rights?”
“Yes but… Jesus you scared me there! I was sure you had a stroke!”
“No man, I’m fine. Great even! But listen Ed, I gotta jet. Gonna go see the kids.”
“OK, but are you sure you’re alright? At least let me give you a ride.”
“No thanks! Been a while since I walked.”
