Shane
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
â€Say what you wantâ€, said Shane to the house A.I., “ever since the war, this part of the world has spectacular sunsets.†He was on a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean.
“Incoming. Three sigs.†stated the house A.I.
The airhounds had caught up to Shane just as he was starting to relax.
The house defenses sent up lift-tickets to confuse the semi-sentient missiles. One of the airhounds cranked left with an angry twist of its rudder and stabbed into his neighbour’s house, crunching centuries-old stucco. Napalm gushed forth in an almost sexual explosion from its black nozzle before blooming flesh-rending fire across the inside of the building. Luckily his neighbours were on vacation.
“I’m going to miss this locationâ€, Shane thought to himself as he dropped his drink and jumped over the railing. There were other safe houses around the world being dummied up but this one had been Shane’s favourite.
Had been. Already he was thinking of it in the past tense. The training goes deep.
Running as fast as his muscled form would allow, he dashed down the courtyard towards the water. His terrycloth robe hung open and flapped behind him like a flag of surrender. He was getting close to the pier when he felt the force of the blast.
Shane was built for strength, not agility. It was a contest between the armoured plating on his back and the shrapnel of his exploding mansion before he leapt off the edge of his pier. The concussion wave picked him up and kicked him forward.
His robe blackened and shriveled in the flame before he thudded into the waves.
He dove deep into the pale green water. Twisting around and looking up, his government-supplied eyes saw nothing but flames. He registered the ambient temperature of the water going up a few degrees.
Shane’s hair had been burnt off and the salt water was doing nothing to make his back wounds feel better. He was bleeding a lot. He could take a lot of bullets but a shark could probably still take his leg off.
He had a few tanks of air stashed around with beacons on them. With a few head nods, he called them up. The closest was fifteen feet away. He started swimming.
Jackie had gone out to get groceries and wasn’t due back for an hour. Shane hoped that she would believe him killed in the blast.
Incoming had said three airhounds. It was possible that a third was still above the fire scanning for him.
Shane had to swim as far as his augmented legs could carry him before surfacing.
Grabbing one tank and heading for another, he devised a route up the coast in his head that would get him closest to a populated beach where he could steal a few tourist identity cards and bail up to Europe.
â€What the hell,†though Shane, “it’s been a while since I’ve seen Denmark.â€
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
The Past
365tomorrows launched August 1st, 2005 with the lofty goal of providing a new story every day for a year. We’ve been on the wire ever since. Our stories are a mix of those lovingly hand crafted by a talented pool of staff writers, and select stories received by submission.
The archives are deep, feel free to dive in.
Flash Fiction
"Flash fiction is fiction with its teeth bared and its claws extended, lithe and muscular with no extra fat. It pounces in the first paragraph, and if those claws aren’t embedded in the reader by the start of the second, the story began a paragraph too soon. There is no margin for error. Every word must be essential, and if it isn’t essential, it must be eliminated."
Kathy Kachelries
Founding Member
Submissions
We're open to submissions of original Science or Speculative Fiction of 600 words or less. We are only accepting work which you previously haven't sold or given away the rights to. That means your work must not have been published elsewhere, either in print or on the web. When your story is accepted, you're giving us first electronic publication rights and non-exclusive subsequent publication rights. You retain ownership over your story. We are not a paying market.
Voices of Tomorrow
Voices of Tomorrow is the official podcast of 365tomorrows, with audio versions of many of the stories published here.
If you're interested in recording stories for Voices of Tomorrow, or for any other inquiries, please contact ssmith@365tomorrows.com