by submission | Apr 17, 2024 | Story |
Author: Thomas Desrochers
It is one of the great mysteries of the late 21st century that the land of Alaska remains as nearly untrammeled as it was a hundred years before. Though its harsh climate was well-preserved by the collapse of the Atlantic Gyre, the exodus from Europe caused by that same calamity created a great many refugees who ought to have seen it as a much less crowded version of the lands they fled. Despite this it remains home to hardly more than a million individuals, its grand vistas largely untouched, the aforementioned preferring off-world vistas.
I came to Alaska in 2087 fresh from the Geological Institute of Colorado on orders from AmMex International, my job to monitor the 40 autonomous nuclear boring probes that restlessly hunted the crust for pockets of mineral wealth. The system was automated and I was a glorified wrench-monkey, a wrench being the best tool to beat the data relays with when they iced up.
To anyone who has lived in this land it should come as no surprise that my romantic visions of life in the far North were quickly replaced by the reality: A body in confusion from nights that swung from perpetual to fleeting, a mind numbed by the seclusion and boredom of life on a lode of quartz ideally located to receive rock-relayed data streams, 47 kilometers from the nearest road. It was no wonder none of my predecessors had lasted more than a year!
The crisis came in the spring of 2088, physical health following my mental health into the depths plumbed by the very probes I monitored. I struck out to my nearest neighbor, a man I had been briefed on but never met who lived a mere 3 kilometers away. Joe was a holdover from a life two centuries past, living in a spruce-log cabin he had built himself and earning his keep trapping the native fur-bearers.
He did not seem much surprised to see me that spring afternoon, perhaps only that I had not come to call sooner. He was an amiable man for one who chooses such seclusion, and for a while we simply traded banalities and drank the tea he had made us from the dried fruit of the local roses. The conversation lapsed to silence, and then my rumination simply spilled out. “Joe,” I asked, “How can a man stand to live in a place like this? It feels as if the land itself is draining the life from me, and I fear that if I stay here much longer I will meet my end.”
Joe smiled at me, thought for a moment, and then said, “In all my years here I haven’t met a foreigner who didn’t feel that way. A man comes up and, sure enough, he’ll meet a crisis of health, of faith, of spirit, within the year. Makes no difference if he’s in the sticks or the city. I did too, some forty years ago.”
For a moment I was shocked from my own misery, the statistical improbability glaring out at me. It was then that Joe told me something I could never forget: “Might be there’s an astronomical explanation, weak magnetic fields or circadian disruption. I don’t think so. Near as I can figure the land itself wants them gone, won’t accept its own taming. A man learns to play by its rules and he’s usually fine.”
This seemingly prosaic wisdom burrowed into my psyche and bore fruit not long after, showing its truth and altering the course of my life. For that I will always be grateful.
-Samuel Goode
by submission | Apr 16, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
We’ve all heard about light pollution and how the glow from cities and towns obscures the night sky, making it difficult to view stars and planets. Maybe we’ve even learned how our luminescent nightlife affects nocturnal animals, migrating birds, and all manner of insects, confusing them and contributing to their alarming decline.
But from space, oh from space, what a show! What a shiny bauble Earth is! Celestial bling of the highest order! Often, I wonder if the stunning view of our glittering globe is the real reason I’ve stayed on Titania all these years. It’s certainly not the amenities.
The self-indulgent whim of the world’s first trillionaire, Titania is the only orbital hotel ever completed. First marketed as a stellar cruise ship for the high-end adventurer, it’s devolved over my tenure into a kind of sketchy skid row hostel for failed opportunists and escapists like me.
Not exactly the class of folks you’d want as our planet’s last best chance for survival.
Because that’s what we became when the lights went out on Earth. Our bright, gleaming world went dark. Like moths to the flame, they came. From Titania’s lido deck, it looked like an impossibly large swarm of insects engulfing the planet. Communication earthside went helter skelter. Then ceased.
Amazingly, Titania’s derelict denizens didn’t panic. We woke up, shook off our malaise, our ennui, our entirely French-forward weariness, and got down to the business of what was happening. Was it an alien invasion or bizarre planetary infestation? Was it organic or robotic?
Was it planned or opportunistic? Were we next?
We shuttered Titania, powered down to standby systems and waited. And, though there was literally nothing to see of the shrouded Earth, we watched as our sensors registered a mysterious spectrum of energy waves, ionizing the atmosphere. Though the lights were out planetside, the air was humming with electricity. Low-level radiation coursed the darkened skies below.
Was life on Earth being zapped out of existence? Was the planet being sterilized for new tenants? Were we just low-hanging fruit for some kind of interstellar harvest by sentient locust?
No one had an answer, though I had an idea: hormesis.
It’s the adaptive response of cells and organisms to low doses of what otherwise might be harmful to them, such as allergens, toxins, and even radiation. I’d had experience with that kind of therapy. It’s why I fled to Titania. Suffice it to say that even a snake oil salesman like me had to quickly part ways with a rogue foreign space agency because I didn’t like the kind irradiation dosing I was directed to give their astronauts to bolster their exposure immunity for a secretive Mars mission.
Still, the concept of hormesis was sound, and the more I saw of the atmospheric telemetry readings, the very systemic increase in ionization, the more convinced I became that our mysterious interlopers were not trying to terraform our planet, but terraform us.
After seven months, just as quickly as the interlopers had come, they (whatever they were) left. The shroud lifted and Earth once again gleamed majestically below us. We cheered on Titania. But Earth remained eerily quiet.
Once we re-established contact, my suspicions were confirmed. Life on earth had been changed. We were not what we once were. We were better. Healthier. Less hostile. More unified. We’d been imbued with a sense of common purpose. As well as an enhanced biological resistance to solar radiation.
From Titania’s vantage, I came to see that our interstellar interlopers hadn’t been attracted by Earth’s gaudy city lights. Instead, they’d been drawn to something more luminous, something more strangely dazzling in humanity.
They hadn’t come to invade or infest. They’d come to invite.
To coax us from our darker shadows, redirect our light, help us ride it to the stars, and fan the flames of self and selfless discovery ever brighter.
by Julian Miles | Apr 15, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The room is greener than my natural dermal shade in springtime, and the air conditioning is more noisy than effective. Both of which are features of another day on Earth, the quirkiest destination in Cluster 644984, catchily known as ‘The Milky Way’ among the locals.
“I hate humans.”
I turn smoothly to see Mlurbon glaring angrily at the combination of shining bones sticking out the side of their arm.
“No, you hate having to restrict your ability to move. It’s a perfectly natural reaction. We Slurra are invertebrates. Not being able to lunge everything in any direction at whim scares us.”
Mlurbon growls at me. Sensory clusters reshaped as eyeballs glare realistically from left orbit and nasal cavity of the skull floating a handspan clear of the top of its spine. I point towards their pelvis.
“While you’re trying to find a way to tell me you’re not scared of anything, think about manifesting some genitalia.”
The in-joke is wasted. They look down, eyeballs shooting from the skull on a pair of pseudopods.
“Why do we have to wear skeletons?”
“Technically, they wear us, as clothes are worn on the outside.”
Another growl.
“You know what I mean.”
“It forces us to move like them, reducing the chance of accidental disclosure.”
Which presupposes the operator’s ability to stabilise their form… I flush my skin and internal tone back to transparent.
“Mlurbon. Look at me, then arrange your skeleton like mine is. Don’t worry about shading yet. Get the skeleton. Yes. Like that. Now, add the limiters. You know, like when we practiced internal bands at nursery?”
“That basic?”
“Yes. We have to be sure these bodies will move like humans if we have to act instinctively.”
Starting at my feet, I slowly flush my limiters deep red so they can see where they start and end.
They nod.
“Okay. Give me a moment. It’s been a long time.”
As a member of the Slurran Intervention Agency, you should have been practicing physical formations and controls daily. What have you been wasting your downtime on?
“Like this?”
I walk round them. It may be shabby, but it works. A natural assumption of almost human slovenliness. Impressive.
“Now bring your skin tone in to match mine. Dermal colouration is still a divisive factor here.”
Not bad.
“Okay. Details. Body hair. Look at my left arm. Imitate that on the lower sections of all four limbs, but leave the undersides of the manipulators on the end of each free. Good, good.”
No, that really is good. It took me ages to get it right.
“Now shift your air sack inside the upper cage of bones. That’s it. Talk to me while you do it. Makes sure you don’t constrict the tubes.”
“I really don’t see the need to cleeeeeek-”
“That’s the need. No, just rotate it left.”
“Thank you.”
Walking around again, it’s a workable imitation of a middle-aged adult human male.
Mlurbon grins.
“Like what you see?”
“I do. Next is clothing. But first-”
I fire the pistol I placed on the table behind them. Mlurbon emits a warbling shriek and collapses into a quivering wave of Slurra headed away from the noise, leaving an untidy pile of bones in front of me.
That would be a fail, then.
“Not good enough. Get back to internal duties.”
“By your order, chief.”
After they slide out under the door, I press the intercom.
“Find me another volunteer for tomorrow. I’ll patrol on my own today.”
Again.
“By your order. Safe patrolling, chief.”
by submission | Apr 14, 2024 | Story |
Author: Guy Lingham
My job as a chaos machinist is simple: I inject failure. I’m unleashed upon a system to disrupt its dependencies and tease out its vulnerabilities. It’s all about building resiliency. Chaos exists everywhere, in everything, so better to break and fix things now, before they’re broken for you.
The practice used to involve killing a few clusters or upping the latency to test how well you’ve built your servers. These days, since the advent of global hyper-simulations, my job has become far more interesting. We’re no longer restricted to scaling tests and database failovers for creating chaos; now, the world is our sandbox.
The company paid me well to do my job, as they should have—I’m very good at it. Simulations emulate reality near-perfectly; this is by design, as there’s little point in testing anything that doesn’t. Though this makes a job like mine all the more challenging, it’s allowed me to develop a unique set of skills. If, for example, I was tasked with testing the security of a restricted zone—a contract I received all too often—I couldn’t just drop in, kitted to the teeth with fancy gadgets, and call it a day. That’s only testing the final layer, which, frankly, would be useless. What we need to test is the full journey.
Once plugged in, I would wake up in a random location with nothing but the clothes on my back and a pocketful of cash. The first step of any experiment—that’s what we call testing in the biz—is to gather resources. I’ve been doing this long enough that I know where to buy gear and weaponry that’s cheap and untraceable. Give me a week and I can get you anything. Tranq darts? Easy. EMPs? Done. Antimatter bombs? I happen to have a stockpile already, but I’m saving those for something special.
Next, I’d need to reach my destination unseen. I rarely have to think about this part anymore, it’s practically second nature. Nasty in-and-out facial surgery is scarily easy to come by these days. A quick trip to some backstreet clinic and a visit to the forgers next door would yield me an identity that would last long enough. Finally, it’s simply a matter of sneaking in, placing the charges (if applicable), and getting out. Then, I unplug, wait a month for them to implement fixes, and try again.
The company sent me on countless experiments, even choosing me as the machinist to test their own premises, entrusting me to breach their defences and topple their towers. Like I said, I’m good at my job. I could have done such great things for the company, if only they weren’t so shortsighted. See, they weren’t ambitious enough. As good as the simulations are, a test is never truly worthwhile until it’s executed in prod—the live environment.
They didn’t trust me. They called me mad, mad for wanting to build their resilience, mad for wanting to do my job. Do they not realise that chaos is in everything? In everyone? They’re lucky I’m so forgiving. Even if they won’t take their security seriously, I will.
Soon, they’ll be sorry they got rid of me. Soon, they’ll realise just how good at my job I really am.
by submission | Apr 13, 2024 | Story |
Author: James Flanagan
From Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II this storm has raged unabated. Wars and plagues have scoured the Earth while eras of enlightenment and eras of disgrace have risen and slipped away, and always the mother of all storms has boiled and churned — the Big Red Eye of Jupiter.
Annie Edson Taylor plunged over Niagara Falls, and Felix Baumgartner fell from space. Today is the day that you’ll remember my name: Kienan O’Malley, the first man to storm ride on Jupiter.
From Earth, the spot is an anomaly, a blotch on its perfect face. On final approach before geosynchronous orbit, we gaze into the maw of hell, a rusty rotation, an orbit in orange and red. Today it breathes in the darkest ruby, like the dirt from the land of my birth. I love a sunburnt country, but I adore the rouge of Jove.
For twenty years this has been my dream: Planning, fund-raising, designing, training, simulating every contingency. Then six years in transit. I would be remiss not to mention my sponsors Bluecow Racing who have been with me from the start. Twenty years of training for a single circuit around the eye of the storm, a six day ride. I stand on the precipice of history. There is no sitting on the fence for me.
Mission control, all checks done. The door is open. Let my guardian angels follow me down. Go!
I’m free falling……….Can’t breathe………Rotating…………….Rotation stabilised…..pointing head down now……. Picking up speed…..Seven hundred miles an hour…..12,000 miles above tropopause……………………..8,000……….4,000………passing tropopause….. Officially inside the eye……. Wings getting hot…..Banking….. So heavy…….Can’t breathe……Pressure holding…………..Neutral buoyancy reached……..Nominal. I’m in the jet stream now, winds speed 435 miles per hour.
It’s been eight hours now, navigating towards the inner eye, wind speeds down to eighty miles per hour, and I’m floating along like flotsam on the tide. Relative to the wind speed it is quite calm. I see white clouds surrounding me, occasional specs of ammonium are hitting my visor, but apart from that it is white gas. I see nothing else.
Three days now floating on this tide, like swimming through gaseous milk. Every ten hours the planet rotates and I see the whiteness brighten as we face into the sun, then it darkens quickly as night falls. Yesterday, I think I saw an apple-sized chunk of ammonium crystal, the largest thing I have seen so far. I’m counting discernable crystals. I have nothing else to do.
Five days now, a sensory deprivation chamber churning my mind. The instruments tell me I’m approaching the exit point for rendezvous, but I have no landmarks to confirm. On this blank canvas my eyes have wandered. I’ve imagined colours I might have seen from space, the reflections of expectations. I see shapes, faces, bulbous noses, monstrous eyes, mouths widening to swallow me.
“My God! What’s that….”
by submission | Apr 12, 2024 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
If you’re a trillionaire, you can get powerful people to turn up when you call an informal meeting. It’s one of the perks.
As the Industrialist’s guests finished their excellent meal, the Diplomat put down his glass and said, “This is all very pleasant, but why are we here?”
“I’ve decided to help,” she replied. “Rising sea levels have put whole populations on the move in Europe; in Africa and Asia coastal communities have been devastated, and people are migrating, even though wealthier countries can’t or won’t take them in.”
Heads of assorted colours and genders nodded around the table. Whether with lies, bribery, asserting influence or applying outright violence, they were all dealing with it, one way or another.
“I and some partners want to help take some pressure off. We have commissioned plans for what we call MegaRafts – self-sufficient floating communities of ten to twenty thousand. Their energy will come from wind and solar power; yeast and algae farms will provide food, supplemented of course by whatever the residents can catch at sea. Satellite communications will mean remote working can generate income for whatever they find they need in the way of luxury goods, repairs and suchlike.”
“And who’ll pay for all this?” asked the Merchant Banker.
“We’ll make the blueprints available to all, for nothing. My friends and I will finance the first couple of dozen, and donate them where we think they’ll help most. A practical proof of concept. After that… governments? charities? public fundraisers? other philanthropists? Anyone really.”
“Ridiculous. You can’t make ships that size,” stated the Politician.
“Of course you can. The capacity isn’t much more than a modern cruise vessel,” said the Shipping Magnate, looking thoughtful.
“Pirates,” said the Admiral laconically.
“The MegaRafts will be equipped to defend themselves, obviously. But not so much that they pose a threat to littoral settlements. They’ll be neither prey nor predator.” The Industrialist smiled.
“Colonialism dressed up,” muttered the Warlord.
“Not at all. These will be independent entities, free to travel the high seas wherever they will. And not so profitable or strategically important that they’ll make it worthwhile occupying them.”
The discussion went on for a long time after that.
—
“Will it work?” asked her reclusive Husband, as they got ready for bed later that evening.
“Oh yes. They all see a way of getting rid of their problems on the cheap, putting them out of mind and literally out of sight – it’ll play well to the conservative voters, or buttress their own positions.”
“Are you sure?” He removed his shirt, displaying his a slightly misshapen torso in the dimmed light. Her gaze lingered on him.
“Yes. I’ve spent a lifetime getting us to this point, I’m not going to let the project fail now. Part of humanity is going back to the oceans. The landmasses are becoming unviable, they’d have to do it eventually. We’re just accelerating the process a little.”
“The bioengineering teams are ready?”
“Yes, they’ll embed with the refugees; de-evolution will need a helping hand. Our beneficiaries will get every physical advantage we can give them.”
“No regrets?”
“None. You’re proof that the idea works. We’ll take people with nothing to lose, and give them two-thirds of the planet’s surface.”
“And then what? Parallel species? Competition? A fight to the extinction of one or the other?”
“Who knows? That’s a problem for those who are left behind. We’ll just trust that the Old Gods will take care of their new people.”
Her Husband smiled, and clicked his gills.
