by submission | Feb 14, 2024 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
I want the best for my wife. Of course I do. And what Doctor Singh suggested wouldn’t have been possible even a few years ago; a generation ago, it would have been utterly unthinkable. It’s expensive, but I’ve always said that I’d do anything for my darling – and curing her blindness would be a dream come true. We’ll find a way to pay the bills, however difficult that might be.
People always ask how we manage, usually meaning that they want to know how I manage, and not just financially. In truth, it’s less trying than they imagine. Lois has always been independent, and determined, two of the qualities that attracted me to her in the first place. Losing her sight as a child must have been terrible; her mother told me that it was a difficult time, but that she became both resilient and more or less reconciled to her condition. Since this opportunity came our way, though, her face has lit up every time we’ve talked about it; seeing that, I can’t let her down, whatever the cost.
Normally a pair of biorobotic eyes wouldn’t have been affordable at all for people like us; we’re not super-rich, more like on the fringes of being moderately well off. But Doctor Singh had worked with some people at Eyesomere Inc. before, and convinced them to cut us a deal – we get a much reduced price, and in return we agree to let them download recordings of whatever the new eyes see, for the next twenty years. There’s even a privacy app to switch the recording function off for 30 minutes, which can be used twice a day. It’s still invasive, but after some thought, we said yes.
Now I’m sitting in a comfortable waiting room as they perform the procedure. They claim it’s perfectly safe, almost routine, but that doesn’t make me any less nervous. There’s always that chance, no matter how small, that something will go wrong. But when Lois and I talked it over, we agreed that it’s a risk we were willing to take, so here we are.
She’s always had a habit of running her hands over my face and calling me handsome, which I am not, but it makes me smile every time. I hope that when she can see me, she will still think it’s true. She is beautiful, although I don’t think she believes me when I tell her that. Why should she, when she can’t look in a mirror? But it’s not just flattery; she could have her pick of the menfolk. Now I worry that when she realises, she’ll go looking for some better looking guy; I’m probably more scared of that than of the operation itself.
So I guess this is a wake up call for me, too – it’s time to do better, and be better, if I want her to stay with me. Wish us luck; for different reasons, we’re both going to need it.
by submission | Feb 13, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
“Director Prime, we’re so pleased you have a few moments to chat with us before the premiere of your latest production. We hear it’s a new type of performance piece.”
“All art is performative. It must be experienced.”
“So what are we to experience?”
“A cataclysmic interstellar drama in three acts.”
“Rather a standard form for Global Theater. Not exactly a signature work.”
“This drama will play out in real time. On a real world.”
“I see. That is a fresh twist. Will you walk us through the plot.”
“In Act I we zoom in on a somewhat primitive planet limping from crisis to crisis. The kind of things we often see in the galaxy’s Third Worlds: famine, war, civil strife, etc. Emissaries are dispatched to offer aid and comfort as well as entry into our Greater Solar Alliance, but as our open-minded delegates bring hope to the ever-bickering indigenous populace, we’ve inserted a radical Nativist stowaway planning to detonate a quantum planet-buster.”
“Pardon, Director Prime, but so far this sounds like very typical Global Theater fare.”
“Except it is actually going to happen. As we speak, the cast are already arriving in-system light years away without the knowledge that they are carrying a very real and determined suicide bomber with an armed planet-buster bomb. In a few moments, when the performance goes live to our Solar Alliance audience, the clock will start its cataclysmic countdown. Our audience will quickly understand what is at stake. But our cast will not. Do you see, do you feel, the brilliant enormity of it?”
“I dread it.”
“Exactly. Of the three fears–dread, terror, horror–dread is the strongest. The unrevealed, the unknown, creates in one’s mind endless and awful possibilities. Dread is gut wrenching. And it leads us to Act II where our players discover the Nativist threat and terror takes hold. Panic on the planet ensues and our players struggle to defeat the Nativist who seeks an end to galactic expansion and inter-species integration. All the while, what little time they have ticks relentlessly away. Annihilation appears inevitable, escape impossible.”
“It sounds monstrous, Director Prime. How can you countenance inflicting this kind of terror on your cast and an unsuspecting planet of fellow sentients?”
“Art. Art is the soul. The soul is art. Act III reveals that very clearly. Our players finally understand that they are not in a drama, that this is real and that their lives are in peril, that the lives of all the primitives on the planet are also in jeopardy. They face a stark choice. They must act, not as actors, but as heroes. Or they flee, abandoning the hapless planet’s populace to certain destruction. We will not know the outcome until the final seconds play out. Never before has there been a production like it.”
“But that is unconscionable. You’re saying that a few light years away this perverse performance is actually beginning? That this atrocity will play out as spectacle over the entire galaxy and there will be no way to stop it? It is monstrous. No one will accept it.”
“An unsurprisingly narrow view for a critic. You see, true ground-breaking artists are never responsible for the audience experiencing a happy ending. Especially those shit-hole Earthlings.”
by Julian Miles | Feb 12, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
* They come by night,
* they come by day,
* they come by road,
* an’ every other way.
*
* They creepin’ through the arches
* an’ sneakin’ through the briars,
* an’ every single one of them
* proves that she’s a liar.
I look down at Screech.
“That’s really good.”
Their reply appears on screen.
* Thank you.
“Anything moving right now?”
* Yes. Four bots under the arches. Their operators are in the APC parked behind the ironworks.
“Got any ideas?”
* I do not, but Sentry Jim thinks we can use the big chimney with the viewing platform around the top.
I reach out and bring up the site map. It looks about right, but I have no lateral view to give me the actual height of the chimney. Incomplete blueprints are always a problem.
“Do they think it’ll land right? A few bricks off the top will rock the APC, might dent it, but won’t stop them.”
* Sentry Jim has calculated thoroughly. It used to be a sapper before being scrapped.
Then it has programs for this sort of thing.
“Thank Sentry Jim. Tell them to do it.”
I reach out and bring up two views of the chimney.
“Can I see the feed that spotted the APC, please?”
* On screen in two, one, it’s here.
A grainy view of the butterfly bushes that fill the cracked roadway between the two old ironworks buildings flickers and resolves into a crystal-clear hi-def feed – one of the family must have parked on the roof of the ruined bus station.
“I don’t see it?”
A wireframe model of a Rheinmetall Boxer APC is superimposed on the bushes about midway down the roadway. With that to help, I can pick out where they’ve driven the APC slowly in, adjusting the dynamic display armour coating to replicate the colours of Buddleja davidii in bloom.
“Got it. Thanks.”
* You’re welcome. Visible Light says hello.
I love how they name themselves.
“Please say hello back. That’s a really fine feed, thank you.”
* Visible Light is happy you think that. It’s been running it’s own evolution program to improve them.
And there it is again. These things aren’t ELIZAs of my own making. They’re viable Lemione Entities in their own right.
“Ask Visible Light to share the program with Wheeler Dealer, please.”
* Done.
Wheeler Dealer with check it and make it compatible with all the entities that lair here, then deploy it. How that software porting unit got scrapped I’ll never know, but it’s been an enabling boon for us.
Us…
Nine years ago this was the scrapyard my father bequeathed to me. Five years ago I noticed two maintenance drones had linked themselves to exchange data. On investigating, I found their onboard agents had been enhanced by the agent from a third unit that had since toppled into one of the flooded potholes that scatter the site.
After that I investigated, then reported, that there were artificial sentiences in the wild here. In response, Kirstie Maggin, the boss of my boss at the MoD, fired me.
Since then, she keeps sending insurgents for reasons I’m not entirely clear about, but am highly suspicious of. Especially as us repelling them has resulted in no overt action against me.
Something makes the floor tremble. I watch the chimney slowly tip the way we want. Then the several hundred kilos of metal and reinforcing on top of it come down on the APC like God’s own sledgehammer.
Not today either, Kirstie.
by submission | Feb 11, 2024 | Story |
Author: Jenny Abbott
I hear there’s a new guy that calls himself “The Automatic Chicken”. Some twenty-something from Jersey, probably, with more wetware than sense and the unfortunate habit of looking for career opportunities on Craigslist. Most of the new contractors are like that anymore—too reckless or inexperienced to take the job seriously. I’d bet my next paycheck he hasn’t even been out of the suburbs for eight years. I’ve got nerve grafts twice as old as that, for crying out loud.
He’ll last about six months. Four if nobody warned him about the side effects of the anti-Parkinson’s drugs that come with the job.
It’s a shame, really, that more of the old guard is starting to talk about retirement. It’s hard to believe that two months ago, they were bragging about shrapnel wounds, and now they’re shopping around for warmer climates. Honestly, I don’t see the appeal of it. I’d rather be protecting and serving the public than sitting around in Cleveland, waiting to see what I burn through faster, my savings or my replacement cartilage.
Two more years, or a few more retirement announcements, and I’ll be the highest-ranking OD contractor on the West Coast. Budget cuts notwithstanding, though, it would be nice to have the salary to match that, given that tenure’s been hard-won. When the helmet comes off on the job, not everyone’s keen on being reminded that their team lead is female, and, at forty-six, still better hardwired than them.
But yeah, this old-timer isn’t going anywhere. By next spring, when “The Automatic Chicken” is seriously rethinking his career choices, I’ll still be in ordnance disposal and working my way closer to a Captain’s rank. I almost feel sorry for the guy. At least, somebody should fill him in better on the specific occupational hazards that come with the territory. It’s hard to get too attached to your nervous system when it’s overhauled biannually.
by submission | Feb 10, 2024 | Story |
Author: Cleber Pacheco
Somewhere, in the future
It took a long time for me to find the library. It was necessary to cross the destroyed city and part of the forest. There were dangerous animals and traps. Twice I nearly died.
In fact, it was not a legend. The library exists. It is an ancient monastery occupied now by countless books. The architecture is a masterpiece, full of ingenuity and beauty. Seven giant towers guarding the greatest treasure of humanity. Seven guardians watch over each one. Guards everywhere. Inside, librarians and copyists monks.
When I arrived, I thought of becoming a guard. After all, I could survive in this chaos. I’m young, tall, strong, and always liked challenges. But the monks told me that they were in need of copyists. There were few, and some were already sick or blind. At first, I rejected the idea. Eventually, I accepted their proposal, and after twenty years of preparation, I became one of them. Made sacred vows and wore the black cloak.
Contact with the books was a slow revelation. I could never imagine something like that. Paper is considered precious here as much as the inks. The books are huge and heavy and every page is a work of art. And all considered important are carefully kept on the shelves.
It is very difficult to choose which of the works performed by the monks is the best. All are exquisite and fascinating. But one in particular has become my obsession. For being one copy only, was easier to receive approval to copy it.
Exultant, I chose to use letters in Gothic style. I made several attempts. Failed every time. It seemed impossible to repeat such mastery. Only then did I understand why no one had tried it before.
I felt myself a loser. I was hopelessly lost.
Nightmares were torturing my nights.
Fear and anguish have taken me.
I felt anger and hatred for the book. I wanted to destroy it, but love won. I opened it and was enthralled by endless hours. It had an irresistible spell.
Now they are chasing me through the forest. There is a high probability that I will be killed. Before that happens, I stop and behold the book once again.
Shakespeare was right:
“And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.”
by submission | Feb 9, 2024 | Story |
Author: A. C. Airone
I closed the book. I periodically re-read Mr. H. G. Wells’s marvelous twenty-five-year-old fictional account of the war waged by Martian invaders on my beloved London and its environs. This time I particularly relished reading aloud the eloquent phrases describing how the least creatures on Earth had conquered the invaders where the best military technology had failed:
“…slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth….there are no bacteria on Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow….By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.”
It was a lucid fall day outside and I decided to take a walk. I wanted to breathe the crisp air, enjoy the smell of fallen leaves, see the colors of those leaves that still clung to tree-branches. I had all but entirely shed a nasty cold, of whose insults merely an occasional sniffle or sneeze remained.
My perambulation had taken me as far as Bailey Street, the commercial area three streets over when I began to hear the sound of –
– Air raid sirens?
That is what they most assuredly were, producing a growing cacophony, each one out of step with its fellow purveyors of alarm. I saw people clustering together, many with hands clapped over ears. A few pointed skyward, where dozens, perhaps hundreds, of unfamiliar and impossibly agile flying machines were descending all about. Far above them, yet more dozens emerged from an enormous, flattened sphere: they darkened the upper skies like Biblical insects.
Panic ensued. Shrieking, sobbing, cursing, the people fled.
I felt paralyzed.
One of the flying machines landed close by with a roar, ending with the noise a motor vehicle might make if dropped from a rooftop. All around, I began to hear explosions, and the sirens were silenced one by one.
A door to the craft opened – its operator emerged. Tall, taller than most humans, it walked straight toward me. It was bipedal, upright, and its face had two almost human eyes, but beyond those particulars all similarity failed. Its skin was bluish, its head hairless, its mouth a vertical beak.
It carried a device I could not fathom but which it brandished as a weapon.
It shrieked at me – of course I could not understand it.
I could only hope it would see me as no threat. I confess unashamedly that I was not feeling very brave at the moment.
I felt a sneeze coming on.
Instinctively I reached to my pocket to retrieve a handkerchief. The creature marched two steps closer – very close – and increased the volume and intensity of its incomprehensible demands. With one hand it pointed at my pocket. Clearly, I was not to draw anything from it, not even a handkerchief.
“I am only trying to protect the health of you and – and of others,” I explained, and immediately thought, what a foolish thing to say! The creature repeated its raucous commands. It was now only about two feet away from me, leaning over, its face close to mine.
The sneeze was imminent.
And then I thought. “Fine, old chap. Don’t say I didn’t give you fair warning.”
And I sneezed all over it.
