by Duncan Shields | Feb 5, 2010 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
I got pretty good at morse code after a while.
My co-pilot had a beak. The only way we could figure out how to communicate was if he clicked his beak at me in morse code. He was a pretty impatient dude so he did it really fast. He was wired to the eyeballs with Hexamex for the course changes that might be needed. Being that sped up and prepared for a possibility that might not happen isn’t any kind of fun. Makes a person a little high strung.
The only time he was verbose was when he was making up curses. He didn’t get the abstract notions of my human swear words but he understood actions and verbs so it was fun to hear him be creative when he was telling me off.
One memorable time he told me that my mother enjoyed having sex with hyenas because at least when they laughed at her, she didn’t have to take it as an insult. He also insinuated that my hyena father was where I got my annoying laugh, my short legs, and my hunger for dead animal meat. His race was herbivorous.
He was an Aereacoltra, a flying bird man. He would still be a flying bird man except for the fact that his wings were torn off as part of a prison sentence. He lost an eye in that prison as well during a scuffle over living quarters. Now he’s just a dude with a beak and an eyepatch.
He told me that an antigravity harness is nothing compared to banking and wheeling in a silent sky on a huge pair of wings. That’s the longest thing he told me other than the cursing.
His name was a series of chirps and whistles but I ended up just calling him Stan. Sometimes he hummed to himself as he scanned the instruments for possible pursuit. He sounded like he was gargling marbles but it was oddly musical and whispery.
The irony of the fact that he was a pilot who used to be able to fly wasn’t lost on him. In fact, he took off one of my fingers with that beak of his when I pointed it out.
What’s freaking me out now is that he’s locked himself in his quarters and he hasn’t come out for six days. There’s only so much I can do by myself at the controls before I need some down time. The autopilot’s an emergency measure and we really can’t take the risk of having no one at the wheel, not in this asteroid-laden sector.
“Stan! Get out here! Now!” I pounded and yelled at his door.
Softly, I could hear scrabbling behind the door and then the clicking of the lock. The door swooshed open and there was Stan. He looked exhausted.
“What the hell, Stan? What’s going on! It’s been six days!” I screamed at him.
Stan stepped to the side. Behind him were four eggs. Stan looked at me apologetically.
‘Quadruplets’, he clicked at me with his beak. ‘I guess the condom must have broke at that last space port’
Open-mouthed, I looked from Stan to the eggs and back to Stan again. We weren’t due to dock for another eight months. Stan looked ashamed.
“So should I start calling you Stella instead of Stan?” I asked.
It’s hard to tell when someone with a beak is smiling.
by submission | Feb 4, 2010 | Story
Author : Cesium
Each clutching the other’s hand, they waited atop the Green Building.
They weren’t supposed to be here. No one was. But the tallest building in Cambridge, Massachusetts would soon depart the soil on which it had stood for so long, and they couldn’t have missed the chance to be here. To watch the final stage of Daedalus, from the inside.
Some enterprising soul had planted a replica of an Apollo Lunar Module on the roof behind them, likening to the old Saturn Vs the twenty-one-story concrete box on which it perched. A flag hung above it, unmoving in the still air. The motionless silence unnerved her. There should be wind. There should be people walking far below, talking of subjects she would never understand. Yet there was nothing. Beyond the sheath that now enclosed the building, she could see the labyrinthine tracery of streets that filled Cambridge to the north, the cars in their orderly caravans sliding efficiently from place to place, while the sun crept down to the horizon and the fiery clouds above glowed orange and violet.
But within, the Green Building, neatly packaged for transport, rested in preparation for its own journey.
Around them, a huge tract of land adjacent to the Charles lay vacant, fallow dirt under long shadows. It had of course long since gone to the highest bidder, a Dubai company planning to raise an arcology on the site. But that had to wait until Daedalus finished. Until it cleared away this, the last remnant of old MIT.
It was just MIT now, as it had been for decades, since its focus had shifted offworld and “Massachusetts” had become inaccurate (and also, if the rumor was to be believed, so it could sue the pants off MarsTech). For almost as long the original campus, here in Cambridge, had been suffering from declining admissions and increasing irrelevance. Yet its reputation remained untarnished, and history still lived in its bones. So now, as the wealth of the outer system was starting to pour back to the mother planet, the children of MIT, the architects and the chemists and the astroengineers, had returned to lift these old halls into the future. Just because they could.
And that was Daedalus.
Giant engines above had raised the buildings of MIT one by one out of Earth’s gravity well. An unprecedented feat, it had taken years and drawn the awe and fascination of the world. Enclosed in protective organic sheaths, miracles of bioengineering, the buildings floating like soap bubbles among the stars had joined the construction of New Boston, a gigantic space station with artificial gravity. Not all had emerged unscathed, of course, but that most survived had given them courage enough to stand here on this night, looking out over the city spread below them.
There was a slight tremor beneath their feet; the near-transparent sheath rippled noticeably. Cables, pillars and struts holding the building in place adjusted automatically. Her hand tightened its grip on his. It was time.
“Boston is lovely at night,” he said, slowly. “But you have to see it from above–”
They leapt toward the sky.
by submission | Feb 3, 2010 | Story
Author : Ian Rennie
When the doctor asked Lacey what he could do for her, she explained everything. She told him about growing up plain, being ignored by boys and teased by girls every day of her school life. She told him about Joey LeMartin’s hypnotic blue eyes that never swung in her direction. Then, she told him what she wanted.
The doctor nodded slowly, thinking about payment under the table, black market cash.
“It will be expensive”
Money, Lacey said, was no object.
Four months later, all the scars healed and the course of medication finished, she was back in her home town, standing outside a bar she knew he visited. Tomorrow night was the ten year reunion. She wouldn’t be attending, her reunion was tonight.
When he came out, he was exactly as Lacey remembered him. The hair was in a short business cut, and he had the beginnings of a spare tire, but he was still the same Joey LeMartin.
“Joey.”
He turned to look at her, and didn’t recognize her. She hadn’t expected him to.
“It’s me. Lacey Monroe, from high school.”
He frowned for a second until the name clicked. She wasn’t surprised. He was associating the name with a dowdy duckling, not the swan before him. Finally, he got it.
“Lacey! Yeah, we were in geography together, weren’t we? Wow, you look great.”
She did look great. She had paid to look great, but it was good to hear him say so.
“I’m in town for the reunion, and I thought I’d look up old friends. You want to go get a drink?”
He did. With how she looked, anyone would.
Hours later, they were in her hotel room. She poured bourbon into plastic glasses. He loosened his tie and made flirtatious small talk. The big moment was coming, they could both feel it.
“I wish I’d got to know you better in school,” he said, looking down her cleavage, “I really missed out.”
“Well, you can always get to know me now.” she said, putting the glass down.
He leaned in for the first kiss. As he did, she looked into his hypnotic blue eyes. The plasma disruptor behind her artificial right eye gave off a charging whine that only she could hear.
They would find him tomorrow in a hotel room under a fake name. The face would be too badly burned for iris or dental recognition, but the fingerprints would eventually identify him.
It would take him several hours to die, his blue eyes burned out, unable to cry.
Or to put it another way, he would remember her for the rest of his life.
by submission | Feb 2, 2010 | Story
Author : Rob Burton
I sip champagne, and snatch a truffle from the waiter’s tray. A flush of excitement rushes through me as a handsome man catches my eye from across the room. A moment to politely disengage himself from his group, and he moves towards me like I am the only person in the room.
‘Miss Harrow?’ he asks rhetorically, ‘I’m Leon Gibbs. I’m a great admirer of your work.’
I offer him my hand, inviting him to kiss it. I know, in that instant, that this will be the man I marry.
An irritating alarm beeps and my world fades to grey. I regain my mundane flesh and lift the immersion visor from my face. Beside me, oblivious to my company, sits the real Miss Harrow, now Mrs Gibbs, the equipment that helps her relive her favourite memories protruding from her scalp. An arrow projected on the wall marks out which of her companions needs my attention.
I pass rows upon row of patients sat behind beatific smiles. My occasional colleague, Byson, tells me that he finds their fixed grins creepy. Unfortunately for him, there are few jobs other than nursing. He’s saving to move out to the reforestation projects, saying he’d rather attend machines, but I like these old people, living in the time machine of their own memories. Their lives had infinite variety, much more so than any I could live in this depleted world.
With all the world pillaged into their bank accounts, and automatic systems ensuring it stays that way, the comparably tiny number of us under a century old attend them while we wait to inherit. We try to stitch the world back together as best we can, and hope that future generations might appreciate our efforts, and we wait to sit here and relive our own happy times.
An I.V. pipe hangs loose from Mrs Patel. I find a vein, insert it and tape it back into place. She mutters ‘Naveed’. Her son. I wonder if, when I am in her place, I will remember times from my own life, or hers.
by Roi R. Czechvala | Feb 1, 2010 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
“Another fuckin’ night at the VFW,” Jerry Pesetski thought gloomily to himself. His arm hummed loudly as he raised the glass to his mouth. Halfway to his lips the movement stopped with a sharp grinding sound. “Damn government piece of shit,” he growled.
In a drunken fit of rage he tried to throw his glass at the wall. His fingers failed to release and he merely spattered the nearest barflies with beer.
He slammed his arm on the bar, shattering the glass in his stainless steel hand. “Look at thish shit,” he slurred, waving his malfunctioning right arm above his head, “iss not even a proper proshthetic. It’s from maintenance `bot.” He motioned for another beer, grabbed it in his left hand, and finished it in one go.
He swung around nearly knocking his drinking buddy, Ron Kazner, off the bar where he was perched and addressed his reluctant audience, many of whom had at least one prosthetic appliance themselves.
“Twenty-two fuckin’ years I served. The Israeli Invasion, the…the… Vatican Wars, and the Colonial Lunar Wars. Not a scratch on me. A bona fidy war hero, a chest full of fruit salad, and then some goddamn punk, fresh out of Paris Island , doesn’t know the bore from the breech, blows my fuckin’ arm off at the range.”
He tossed back another beer. “And this is what the VA gave me. A second hand arm that doesn’t even fuckin’ work.” He waved the gleaming metal limb wildly, nearly dislodging his friend a second time. “I hear the arms they give the goddamn officers are fully functional in every way. They even have Syntheskin, with full tac…tac…tactile…ya can feel titties with ‘em.. Hell, the way I heard it those arms are so good, you can switch hands while you’re jackin’ off and gain a stroke.” He barked a bitter laugh.
“Hey Jer, Why don’t you lay off the beer and give it a rest? Nobody wants to hear it,” Ron croaked. His voice held a peculiar metallic quality as it resonated through his artificial larynx.
“What the hell would you know about it? You were only in the Corps for tree years. Only in combat once. Didn‘t do a whole lot of good there anyway.” Jerry threw back another beer. “Pussy,” he added.
“Yeah Jer,” he sighed, “you’re right. What would I know? I’ve never had a limb replaced with a rebuilt arm designed for a robot garbage collector. What the hell do I know?” His voice through the tiny loud speaker took on the sound of rustling leaves. The closest thing he could get to sarcasm from his synthetic voice.
“Yer goddamn right. Don’ ya ferget it. Jes try spending a day in my shoes why don’cha,” he bellowed, slamming his arm on the bar again, splintering the wood beneath.
“Whatever, just give me another beer.”
Carefully, Jerry removed the lid from the small tank that sat on the bar and poured a beer into the nutrient rich soup that bathed Ron’s naked brain
by submission | Jan 31, 2010 | Story
Author : Sharoda
Sitting in front of the large group of children, the scarred Captain continued reading the dog-eared picture book. “Then, Tinky the Tiny Tank moved out into the open”
“No Tinky, stay in the rocks!” cried many of the younger children; the cave echoed with their voices. Some of the older ones smiled, they’d heard this story many times.
“He tried to be sneaky but then he ran into…”
“A Miitok”, he and the children said together. They all knew the enemy was fast in the open but slow on uneven ground.
“Tinky was scared, he wanted to run but he knew the Miitok would catch him. He wanted to hide but he knew it would find him. He wanted to give up but he knew it would…”
“Eat him.” The children said in hushed voices.
“Then Tinky remembered the Rules To Live By”, he was skipping parts but there wasn’t much time.
He held up his index finger and the children all said “Be brave”.
“Don’t show fear to the Miitok” he added.
He held up 2 fingers and they said “Stand your ground”.
“Don’t try to run, it’ll catch you. Stand and fight”.
He held up 3 fingers and they said “Aim for the face.”
And what rule did Tinky break”, he asked holding up 4 fingers.
“Stay together” came the group reply.
He put down the book, “Just like Tinky, you’re all going to have to be brave because today we have to leave the cave and travel on open ground to the Big Blue Mountain.” The children made nervous scared sounds, some started to cry. Miitok drones were digging thru the other end of the tunnels and their parents were holding them off.
“You all have one of these”, he held up what looked like a toy pistol but was actually a microwave disruptor tuned to only activate on Miitok brainwave patterns. The children could play with these “guns” all they wanted but not hurt each other. However it would cause searing pain to the sensing organs of a Miitok. Several together could kill a drone or even a soldier. “And you all know how to use them. When Tinky crossed open ground he was alone and he survived. We have each other. We’ll make it.” He motioned to the teachers and all the children stood and moved down the path to the cave entrance. A hand full of soldiers and older teens carried heavier weapons.
Jensa was 12, Mina and Jak were 8. Mina was yelling because they were going to miss story time and Jak was yelling because he couldn’t find his parent’s picture and wouldn’t leave without it. Jensa was frazzled and, finding the picture, rushed the twins out to the gathering area.
Everyone was already gone so she herded them to the cave entrance and then out in the open while trying to catch up with the group. Her twin siblings complained bitterly until they realized they were outside, Jensa urged them to keep moving.
When they got to the river the rest of the group was already on the other shore. Suddenly, the large dark figure of a Miitok drone blocked their path.
Jensa froze. She almost screamed but caught herself.
“Be brave” said Jak and pulled his pistol.
“Stand your ground” said Mina and pulled hers.
Jensa unfroze, pulled and aimed her pistol. “Aim for the face” she said.
They pooled their fire and the drone started to scream. It fell dead at their feet.
“Now stay together” she barked and led them into the river.
