by submission | Oct 5, 2014 | Story |
Author : Leslie Bohem
Kevin, in his early thirties, upwardly mobile, does not look like he belongs in this dank alley. He started coming down about six months ago. At first, maybe once every couple of weeks, then once a week, then every couple of days. Now, he comes every day. He comes for the dreams.
You get so you need it. All the time. So you can’t do without the input.
Kevin stops in front of a door. Dirty titanium. Used to be the entrance to a warehouse, back in the day. Now it’s lofts down here. Lofts and empty space where the server farms used to be back in the day. Kevin waits with strung out impatience. Time drips. And then the sounds of deadbolts being thrown and Clive opens the door. Clive is maybe sixty. His hair is long and greasy. “Anyone follow you down?” he asks.
Clive has let him in now, looking up and down the alley first. Now he shuts the door behind them. Throws both the deadbolts.
There are maybe a dozen mattresses on the floor. Maybe that many people crashed out on the mattresses. Kevin doesn’t really see them. Clive and these others, they were like Kevin once. They had jobs up top. Offices with windows and sunshine. All the perks. Kevin imagines that’s was the next step. Give all that up, come down here on a more permanent basis. No reason he could think of not to. He had enough money set aside. He could “retire.”
Clive takes a seat at an old kitchen table. Kevin takes the chair across from him. He slides an envelope over to Clive. Clive takes it.
“You sure no one saw you come down?”
“I’m careful.”
“Everbody’s careful,” Clive says, taking the envelope. “The DPs are cracking down on this whole sector. I may have to close up. Move.”
“Where would you go?”
“There’s always a place,” Clive says with a shrug. “There are always people in need.” He takes a moment, in his head. “I remember,” he says, “when this shit was legal.”
“Must have been nice.”
“You never thought about it. Just something everyone did. Every once in a while, you’d tell someone about it, you had a particularly wild night. That was it.”
“They say they outlawed it; it was something they found out by accident. Is that true?”
“They were doing some research, crowd control. An anti-terrorism thing. Seems people who didn’t do it were more docile, less likely to rock the boat. Once they knew they could do that to people, it was only a matter of time. They found a way to stop it.” “He looks at Kevin. “You ready.”
Kevin nods. Clive slips him what looks like a tricked out iPod and a set of headphones. Then a sleep mask.
“I can never get over how simple this is.” Kevin says.
“They’ve created an electro/magnetic fence, that’s all. A sort of barbed wire between the id and the super/ego. This just cancels their signal. Allows you to go where you were meant to go.”
“I never asked you. What were you, before you got into this?”
“Psychiatrist,” Clive says.
“You came up with this in your spare time?”
“I thought it was important.” He nods to the mask in Kevin’s hands. “You’d better get started. I can get you off if you like.”
Kevin nods and moves over to one of the mattresses. He lies down, puts the phones on. He looks over at Clive. Clive smiles at him. Kevin pulls the mask over his eyes.
He started coming down about six months ago. Now, he comes every day. You get so you need it. All the time. So you can’t do without the input.
Clive looks down at Kevin, lying there on the mattress. He reaches out and flips a switch on the iPod-like devise. He smiles a little sadly and then he says, “Pleasant dreams.”
by submission | Oct 4, 2014 | Story |
Author : Kevlin Henney
Not sure what to do now. No, that’s not true. I know precisely what to do, but I don’t really feel like doing it. Sense of awareness is, as always, the first thing to come online.
>>> Initializing sense of awareness… Done
It’s at that point you become, well, aware, waking after a perfectly timed, dreamless sleep. Never any nightmares.
>>> Memory online
>>> Memories online
>>> Initializing sense of sight… Done
>>> Initializing sense of hearing… Done
That’s one of the nice features of AutoKnowMe. Waking used to be muddled sounds before opening bleary, blurry eyes. You can customize the boot sequence, so I switched them round.
>>> Initializing somatic senses (pain 30%, temperature 70%, touch 100%)… Done
Another feature is you can adjust the levels. Things hurt less than they used to, but I wouldn’t recommend zeroing the pain. Tried that for a week — didn’t notice how much damage I was causing myself!
>>> Initializing sense of smell… Done
>>> Initializing sense of taste… Done
A typical morning so far.
>>> Initializing sense of purpose… Failed
>>> Sense of purpose not found
>>> Host unresolved
>>> Restart? (y/n)
I know what to do, but… you know, why bother?
by submission | Oct 3, 2014 | Story |
Author : Rosalie Kempthorne
The creature was hideous. It was lopsided for one thing, and where its left arm should be there was only a stump. To say nothing of the slimy green tentacles that hung off its shoulder where a right arm was meant to go. Its misshapen face had one good – almost beautiful – eye, but the other was a bulging, white mess, and its chin drooped, green, in the way candle wax does when it melts. Even the clerk was staring at it with dismayed, somewhat helpless eyes.
This was definitely not what she had paid for.
The clerk was clearing his throat nervously. He barely mumbled out the words: “All care, of course, all care but no responsibility. I mean the thing is….”
“You are not serious?!”
“Well…”
Daphne rounded on him. He wanted to see a temper did he? Well, she could show him a temper. “I paid for a new husband! A new husband, you shrivelled up little hackla worm! Do you expect me to marry that?”
Was it her imagination or did the thing look almost hurt? No, it didn’t even look as if it could be sentient. Some heads were going to roll for this. She was a valued customer!
The clerk was starting to say, “Well, look-”
“No, you look. I want a proper husband, a replacement, and I want it asap.”
“It doesn’t work like that-”
“I don’t think it works at all!” She couldn’t quite bring herself around to looking directly at certain parts of it she doubted would be functional.
“The contract you’ve signed, you see,” and he clearly, clearly wished he were anywhere else but here in this room, “the customer bears the responsibility in the rare incidence of failure.” He looked as if he was about to transmit her a copy of the document.
“I know what I signed. But do you call this fit for purpose? Do you think any women in the known galaxy is going to take this on as her husband?”
“Well, I don’t know…. I mean he’s got one very nice eye….”
Silver and emerald. Just like she remembered. Sure, gazing into just that…. But then the other one swivelled to look at her. Digusting.
“I’m very sorry Ma’am but a replacement….”
“I should think so-”
“….would require full payment.”
“I’ll be making a complaint.”
Relieved. Of course he looked relieved, this was about to sail right over his head, off his shoulders, and onto somebody else’s desk. He said “There’s a form. And if you want to order another….”
“Huh! Believe me, I’ll be taking my business elsewhere!” She turned on her heel, tossing her head for dramatic effect.
“Ma’am…..” He was gesturing at the thing.
“Do you really expect me to take that with me?!”
“Well, it’s just…”
The thing turned its head to look at her. In her husband’s dead voice: “Daphne.”
“You see…” the clerk was going to try and explain about the memory implants, the bonding process.
“That’s your problem!” she fired back.
And the thing said “Hello darling, how was your day at work?”
by submission | Oct 2, 2014 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
“Your hot coffee, sir,” says the Inteeri waiter as he places the beverage on the table in front of me.
“Thanks. Here’s–” The short alien that looks vaguely like an anthropomorphic armadillo shuffles away before I can offer him a tip. At no time while serving me does he make eye contact. That was out of respect. And fear. I’m nobody important. Just a struggling writer. My waiter probably has more money in the bank than I have. But in his eyes — all six of them — it doesn’t matter. I’m a member of the galaxy’s most terrifying species. I’m human.
My old man was part of the delegation that made first contact with the Inteeri. The aliens weren’t sure if mankind posed a threat to them so their top military officials were tasked with the initial assessment of the human race. On a space station orbiting Inteer Secundum, my dad and the other human ambassadors met with the alien generals and admirals. One of the human delegates had a slight cold. He sneezed once during the meeting. An hour later the entire Inteeri High Command were dead. The earthly rhinovirus proved instantly lethal. With their military command gutted, the Inteeri political leaders unconditionally surrendered to Earth despite the reassurances of a distraught and horrified humanity that the Inteeri deaths were an unintended tragedy.
Someone or something jostles me as it moves past. Some of my coffee spills onto the table. I turn in my chair to come face to face with a rather surly looking Kordann. The creature’s eyestalks quickly withdraw from a beligerent extension to a submissive retraction as its leathery skin turns blue with fear.
“Ten thousand pardons, master,” the Kordann says through its translation device as it glides away on six tentacles, bowing in apology.
Humans made contact with the Kordann ten years after the disastrous Inteeri encounter. Again, the Biomedical Assessment Team determined there was little danger of contagion between the species. Nonetheless, the Earth delegates wore environment suits as a precaution. As the human ambassador walked up with his hand extended to the Kordann prime minister, he tripped. The Earthman’s hand struck the Kordann leader’s trachea, killing the latter. The details of this event bore a more than passing resemblance to a passage in the Kordann Book of Scripture prophesying a visitor from the heavens who would kill a Kordann ruler and establish a monarchy on their world. The religious-minded Kordann quickly submitted.
And so it would go for Mankind’s emmisaries to the stars. The Scottish brogue of Earth’s ambassador to the Relvet would result in “We come in peace and brotherhood” being mistranslated as “Surrender and serve, or die.” In the wake of the fall of both Inteer Secundum and Kordanna, the Relvet surrendered.
On Basura VII, the representative from Earth accidentally knocked over his water glass short-circuiting the computer that managed the Basuran Stock Exchange. A crippling recession and humble request that Basura VII be admitted to the growing Terran Empire followed. The Supreme Monarch of Juppnoi, finding himself trapped on a conference table by the barking Maltese dog of the Earth diplomat, abdicated the throne and turned the Juppnoi Kingdom over to Terran control.
Humanity now dominates much of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. But we’ve turned over all further first contact and diplomatic missions to our extraterrestrial vassal states. A population of 50 billion subjects, none of whom we wanted, is more than enough.
by Julian Miles | Oct 1, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The terrain is ideal for them, and they will take every advantage of the variegated cover: tiered platforms that scatter this little roomscape. Plus they have the advantage of looking like the indigenes. It is a good thing that I was tasked to interdict this zone. No other unit could handle this without resorting to terrain-ruining ordnance.
From the lampshade I spot movement. This gives the assembly nearest the target a bearing. No movement yet. Nothing to betray my presence. I have a potential target. Now for the thing I share with every soldier throughout history – the wait for the battle to commence.
My deployment of an overlook assembly is a strategic advantage that few of our kind have mastered. They cannot yet understand; I cannot understand why they do not. I can see the whole zone. Three distributed layers allow me to go from initial spotting to tactical view without movement. Nothing to warn hyperaware opponents.
The concept of dynamic assemblies is also foreign to my kind. Restructuring myself according to the dictates of terrain, opponent and opportunity. It is simple for me. I presume that is why I am moved so often, being assign to zones where my unique skillset bestows an insurmountable advantage.
The movement resolves itself into a scatter of arachnid hatchlings. I focus down to individual units, devolving the assembly that holds the contact zone into pairs assigned to each hatchling. Not long now.
Far to the left rear flank, an atypical movement: A hatchling flicks its rearmost right leg up and over to scratch behind its rightmost eye. That is not an arachnid move. It is a telltale of a covert drone. In a synaesthesic conflict, operators of drones that have more than two visual inputs experience a phantom ear-itch. So far it is incurable, cannot be trained out, and the movement to ‘scratch’ it is unconscious.
I flag that false arachnid and resume my waiting. There is never only one drone. They are suspicious and fear my kind, so they come in numbers. Within three minutes, I have acquired seven further targets.
A surprise sighting on the coving: eight arachnids moving in a single column along the ridges made by the decorative scrollwork. I am impressed. Apart from the giveaway formation, using the ceiling is something they had been remiss in adopting. It seems that their technology has finally proven artificial gecko traction pads, something I have had since awakening.
Another minute to confirm that every other moving thing in this zone is natural, then I assign kill flights to the portions of assemblies behind each target. With a flex of my will, the hammer falls: inanimate fixtures spread sixty-four pairs of wings and stoop down upon them where they struggle. The nanopolymer sprayed from the miniscule tangle rounds shot by tiny underarm grenade launchers, using the slack space in the forearm exoskeleton. The muzzles are still emitting ephemeral wisps of smoke as they swing up to support the claws in the classic poise.
This lounge is mine. I am Mantid Swarm 35, and I will be the standard for the next generation of my kind. Over a thousand bodies allow me to include specialisations such as grenade-launching and functional wings without degrading my tactical effectiveness. From formicid drones to human troops, I have never met a problem that I could not kill.
