by submission | Apr 24, 2024 | Story |
Author: Bill Cox
Sirens sound behind him and it feels like the walls are closing in. Always running as fast as he can down the street, but his legs are tiring already despite the adrenalin surging through his body. A small lane leads off into darkness and if he can’t run then hiding is the only option. He veers sharp left and disappears into the murky depths of the lane.
Hiding behind an industrial sized wheelie bin, sheltered from view from the main street, his heart hammering faster than he’s ever felt it beat.
Sirens approach like the cries of fate itself, but eventually fade away into the distance. His heart-rate gradually slows, but hands continue to shake. In an effort to give them something to do, he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the talisman. It always calms him. He holds her underwear next to his cheek, feeling the fineness of the lace, smelling the scent of her soap-powder. Hands release their tension. She can always calm him down.
Lucinda moved into the house across from his four months ago. Immediately he was smitten; love at first sight! He used his initiative, following her around discreetly, getting to know her from a distance. He found where she kept her spare keys, let himself into her house. That’s where he got the cherished talisman, something that’s touched her body.
He knows that some people will think him creepy, but when he eventually does approach her, he wants to make sure that she will reciprocate the love he feels for her. It’s like all those romantic movies he watches, where the hero has to overcome the resistance of the heroine. That’s all that’s happening here.
So he decided to check out her workplace too. She’s smart, a scientist, working on some frankly incomprehensible research. What exactly are ‘Repeating Closed Temporal Cascades’ anyway?
He visited the lab, out of hours, using keys he copied after being in her house. He’d been careless though, a little too excited at being in her workplace, touching things he frankly didn’t understand. He played with the settings on a console, set something to fifteen minutes, touched another switch.
There was a jolt, a feeling of disconnection. Then an alarm went off, wailing like a banshee. The Police were quick off the mark, they must have been nearby. He sprinted out of the building, they gave chase and here he is, hiding in a dingy alley.
It’s all quiet now, though, so he decides to leave his little hidey-hole. He stands up and looks around the lane. Funnily enough, a puzzling sense of déjà vu grips him, but he shrugs it off. He walks towards the main street, looking forward to seeing Lucinda again from the safety of his bedroom window.
Then his fifteen minutes are up. Things go fuzzy, time twists around, turning in upon itself. There’s a small fragment of his consciousness aware of his fate, silently screaming against the walls of this prison. Like a fly preserved in amber, he’s trapped in a knot of spacetime, reliving these moments over and over and over, as the world outside continues on, unawares…
Sirens sound behind him and it feels like the walls are closing in. Always running as fast as he can down the street, but his legs are tiring already despite the adrenalin surging through his body. A small lane leads off into darkness and if he can’t run then hiding is the only option. He veers sharp left and disappears into the murky depths of the lane.
by submission | Apr 23, 2024 | Story |
Author: Jeff Kennedy
Things had changed since the last zombie apocalypse.
New classes of drugs made zombies less dead, returning them to self-awareness, allowing them to operate as more or less functioning members of society. Silent, staring, and smelling delicately of rotting flesh, but functioning.
George Romero established the Free International Zombie Zen as a way of “atoning for stereotypes his movies had burned indelibly into the human consciousness”. The FIZZ remains the premier event of the zombie social season.
On November 25th, reformed zombies the world over sit cross-legged and chant their haunting mantra in an attempt to achieve undead enlightenment.
“Braaaaaaains….”
by Julian Miles | Apr 22, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The nightlight downgrades again, becoming a dim glow. Frankie squints at it, then turns his attention back to me, pupils wide above the patched duvet cover that contains more shredded dry rubbish than actual duvet.
“Tell me about the Call to Arms.”
I shake my head. Every week his school feed has some programme or other that favourably portrays the event that redefined humanity. I can always tell which day, because Frankie asks to be told about the Call to Arms at bedtime.
“Okay, kiddo. Settle down.”
He wriggles for a bit, then gives me a thumbs up.
“It was a sunny Bank Holiday Sunday in August 2025. I was sat in the park with your mum and dad. We were watching a dog chase a frisbee when everything went dark.”
I dropped my beer. They were just starting to laugh when we looked up to see a city-wide Gandrax warship. Their laughter died.
“We were so scared, but couldn’t move. Next thing we knew, there’s a voice in our heads. They said: ‘Fear not, peoples of Earth, we come in peace to beg your aid in resisting the forces that would exterminate us. We will provide you with our science and technology if you will agree to provide us with your strength.’”
Another case of telling a big enough lie.
“Governments met them. We all watched the tall, beautiful humanoids with purple skin float down from their ships all across the world. They brought so many gifts.”
Frankie murmurs drowsily.
“Like the one that made mum better?”
“Yes. Like that.”
How could we deny visitors from space who opened negotiations by providing the cure for cancer? From there to the world-governing Human Defence Alliance took a shockingly short time.
“The Gandrax visited so many people, playing games with children, meeting everybody they could between their resting times.”
Frankie snores softly into his pillow. I wait, but he’s drifted off early: sound asleep.
The Gandrax couldn’t handle Earth gravity for long periods, but making sure to meet every major protest group in livestreamed debate was a brilliant strategy. They either won over the protestors, or the protesters ended up appearing like selfish lunatics. Within six months, all disagreement had been marginalised.
After that, society started ‘gearing up’ to assist the Gandrax with a truly frightening single-minded enthusiasm. Humanity had finally been given a ‘big bad’ that wasn’t human. They were united against a common enemy: the evil Hiltula.
Now the global population are either soldiers, or working in factories to support the soldiers. Society revolves around sending those soldiers off to fight among the stars.
Frankie has three years before he goes into an HDA Youth Battalion. His mum is dreading it. I’m terrified – I know what happens next.
I’m part of a Hiltula Observation team that’s been on Earth since 1952. Having no idea how the Gandrax were recruiting their alien armies, this operation spread across several suitable worlds to find out. Watching them manipulate human society into the wretched state it reached in late 2024 was harrowing. I can’t see how we Hiltula and our allies can fight the Gandrax without becoming as bad as them, but greater minds than me are working on it.
2050 is when humanity ‘ships out’. Soon after that the Gandrax will strip Earth down to bedrock. Not one human soldier will ever be coming home: the fate of cannon fodder remains the same, regardless of the technology involved in a war.
We’ve got two decades to stop them. I hope those greater minds are working fast.
by submission | Apr 21, 2024 | Story |
Author: Marion Lougheed
“Where are the colours?” the billionaire shifts in his seat. “I know what outer space looks like. I’ve seen the photos.”
I produce my most winsome spaceflight-attendant smile. “Ah, yes, well, those photos show parts of the light spectrum our eyes don’t see. Infrared, ultraviolet… But it’s all black to us. Would you like another drink, sir?”
He pouts. “False advertising.”
“Well, it isn’t ad–”
“I want my money back then.”
My smile stays in place. “Don’t worry, I’m just joking around. I’ll make sure you see some colours. Now how about that drink?”
In the galley I grimace at my fellow attendant. “Got another one.” I pour a cranberry soda, topping it off with three drops of LSD.
by Alastair Millar | Apr 20, 2024 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
The planet was a blue dewdrop, shining defiantly against the blackness of the Void. It was hard to think of it as home, after twenty years struggling to make Sicyon viable; but all their efforts had been wasted, and they’d had no choice but to return. Ironically, the colony had suffered the same tectonic troubles as its ancient Greek namesake, and its society had similarly been forced to surrender to the inevitable.
Michael stood with several hundred others on the generation ship’s observation deck as it approached Earth. How Angela would be crying now, he thought. She’d loved the moral clarity of building a new homeworld, a place where their intended children could grow up free of pollution, of religious zealotry, of disdain for science. He smiled, remembering that she had been one of the first to move from the ship to the ground camp; she couldn’t wait to get her hands dirty.
When a tremor-induced rockslide had killed her during the planet’s cold season, they’d buried her on the ridge above the settlement, working fast to hack a grave through the ground-ice before they froze themselves. The sky had been so beautifully clear that day, as if trying to make up for his loss.
The spark had gone out of his life, but he persevered. Over time, others had been unable to face the hard choices needed, and had taken their own lives, but for years he had wanted – no, needed – to believe, until ultimately there was no more denying that the quakes were becoming both stronger and more frequent.
Four centuries of cryosleep, with two decades of hard work in the middle, and now the three thousand who survived were coming back to Earth – failures, all their attempts to fight geological instability stymied by an almost complete absence of manufacturing and refining capability.
Perhaps their descendants wouldn’t see them that way; perhaps they’d be seen as heroes, who’d survived against long odds. Maybe new technology, and a new group of idealists, would be sent to tame Sicyon instead. Possibly the problems that drove the settlers to leave Earth had been solved – they could hope, couldn’t they? Would it feel strange to be here, or would they come to feel like they belonged again? Or had this old world been permanently reshaped by climate change, it’s possibilities and population reduced, giving way to endless warfare over scarcer resources?
He knew that the uncertainty was eating the others; as people awoke and met old friends again, their worries were the main topic of conversation. It was a discussion he should be part of; but all he could think about was saying goodbye to her on a crisp Winter’s day, the blue sky fading down to white on the horizon, and air so frigid it sent spikes into his lungs.
by submission | Apr 19, 2024 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
The coronal mass eruption went unnoticed by a good many sentient creatures on the fourth planet from the sun. Engineers, though, noted communications equipment and most industrial machines continued to run without benefit of terrestrial power sources. Moreover, they witnessed those same devices spark—with some even catching fire. The engineers suspected the sun. The clergy blamed the cohort of trickster gods who bedeviled their society from time to time.
A great public debate raged between the two factions, until old Maz slammed his staff down on the polished floor of the Senate.
“It wasn’t the work of trickster lords, nor a random burst from our life-giving star,” Maz declared. “It’s the depletion of our population’s auras! Our halos aren’t as strong they once were—too much easy living, too much decadence. Not enough courage, self-reliance, and patriotic pride.”
A great murmuring rose in the audience. Had they brought this upon themselves? Did this signal the end of their empire?
“Both sides—science and religion—are important to society.” Maz continued, “We need a healthy balance; we can’t function properly without it.”
The audience buzzed. Sure, sometimes one faction held sway over the other, but the pendulum inevitably swung back. Though currently, one faction cast an opaque superstitious shadow over their lives—
Again Maz’s staff slammed down on the floor.
“My nephew Ewton,” Maz crowed, “is brilliant. An engineer! He’s built a device to scan the aura of every citizen. A device to gauge not just the strength and length of individual auras, but also the color.”
Now the audience roared—aura colors were private! They contained personal information only shared with intimates. One’s aura colors were none of the Senate’s business! But some argued, if corrupted auras did cause this strange event—then Senators had to be informed, so they could craft laws to save the empire!
Though fights broke out and blood was shed, the Senate voted to use Ewton’s machine. A law passed compelling every citizen to submit to testing. Trust in the Senate fell into two camps: total suspicion, versus total blind faith. Some citizens packed up their families and in the dark of night fled to the mountains, never to be seen again. Others, thinking obedience was the highest form of patriotism, waited in line for days to be scanned. Society splintered; some cracks would never be repaired.
* * *
Ewton oversaw the test results himself. The Senate gave him an official uniform.
Standing at his console, Ewton twisted knobs, pressed buttons, flipped switches. One by one, citizens passed through the polished arch of the Aura Scanner 3000. The arch beeped and flashed.
“Your aura,” he said pleasantly to one bright-eyed young citizen named Cara, “is pale blue with overlapping shades of pink. So healthy, it’s positively iridescent!” Before the end of the test, Ewton asked Cara out for dinner.
To numerous other citizens he was more somber. “Yours is a sickly dark green. You’ll have to be recycled and repurposed into someone more useful to society.”
Ewton’s work lasted a year, until every known citizen was scanned. He amassed a personal fortune.
Maz was scanned last. When he passed through the arch, there was no beep, no flash.
“Hmmm,” Ewton began, worried Maz would be repurposed. According to the machine, Maz possessed no aura. Impossible! Ewton fretted: Was Maz so old his aura had dissipated? How—
A coronal mass ejection, this one magnitudes larger than the last, slammed into their planet knocking their empire back into the dark ages; a strong-armed blow from which they would never recover.
