by Desmond Hussey | Oct 9, 2013 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer
When their explorers first arrived they were few; we’d no reason to fear them. We welcomed our brothers and sisters from another world with open arms. We traded with them, celebrated with them, showed them our ways and invited them into our homes. They were so like us, and yet, so very different. They departed with promises to return with wondrous gifts.
I’ll never forget the night they returned. Beneath a sky dark and clear, I lay studying the ancient constellations twinkling in their familiar geometries, slowly unraveling their secrets throughout the seasons. Starlore held practical knowledge; when to sow, when to reap, aided those at sea, but it also told legends of monsters, heroes and wisdom. The past and the future were written in the night sky.
That night, before my eyes, many new stars appeared and grew larger. Too many to count. The Great Archer, the Winged Serpent, the Virgin and others became obscured by our visitor’s arriving ships. My heart soared. That night I anticipated a great celebration, a union of cultures, a sharing of knowledge and the beginning of an age of peace.
For three days crates of their strange metal rained upon our communities and country sides. When they broke open revealing odd trinkets, exotic cloth, food and drink we took them as the promised gifts from our star family.
Our guests from across the cosmic ocean never came down to receive our thanks. They waited in their ships while we celebrated without them. They watched us from above as we danced in their strange, new clothes, became intoxicated on their potent elixirs and fell into drunken stupors. They watched as we fought amongst ourselves over their useless trinkets. They waited as my people became sick from their alien diseases. They watched and waited as we died in the billions.
Their gift to us was death.
We’d been betrayed, yet their sickness did not take us all. When they finally descended on their iron battle horses, we met them in open war, fighting as our ancestors had taught us, with bravery and honor. But these warriors from the skies were not brave, showed no honor. They murdered without thought, burning women and children, the sick and the old with their lightning sticks. They burned ancient forests to ash and boiled seas to salt deserts.
I killed five of their warriors as they brutally raped and beat two of my sisters. I have never seen such hatred of life. They laughed mockingly as Myrrah and Nevi cried for mercy, but they will laugh no more. I killed them quickly, which was more than they deserved. I wish I could have killed five thousand more.
We lost. We never really stood a chance. It wasn’t their superior technology that overwhelmed us – a single one of our warriors is worth ten of theirs in a fair battle – but their cunning and deception was unmatchable, their strategies lacked mercy and dignity. Before they came we were six billion strong. Now, what few remain are herded like animals into crowded reservations where we must live the rest of our days, clinging to the shreds of our culture, while, beyond the electric fence, our world is consumed by the Usurpers.
Tonight, I long to see the stars once more, but my eyes cannot pierce the thick veil of smoke rising from their mines.
I wonder if somewhere, hidden within the constellation’s legends there might have been some warning, some message I missed; that one day a race called “Human” would plunder my world and destroy all that I loved.
by Duncan Shields | Oct 8, 2013 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Randolph Beaucoup of the Terran Diplomacy Wing had been selected from fifty candidates for this particular First Contact mission. Little was known about the Marenko other than they were anamorphic pseudopods without discernible features. Smooth gelatinous bags that had the ability to form as many multi-fingered tentacles as needed to build or manipulate technology. The Terrans were still trying to figure out how they saw without eyes and thought without detectable brains.
There were large ones and small ones although that seemed to have no bearing on age. There was talk of one the size of an ocean but it may have been a god myth of some kind. All was unclear at this stage other than the fact that they had space-travel capability and were, by and large, peaceful.
The math constructs had been sent and received as proof of intelligence and no weaponry was detected at the landing site.
Randolph stood on the plateau a few steps away from the Terran landing plank beneath his ship, clad in a fishbowl helmet to clearly display his face and wearing a tight spacesuit that showed his musculature to curious species. It was known as the ‘nothing-to-hide’ approach. The stars twinkled above him. The Marenko balanced in front of him like a transparent slug rearing to impersonate a capital S. Unlike slugs, however, the Marenko were unnervingly quick and this one was the size of an elephant seal.
The Marenko extended a glittering flower-tipped pseudopod towards Randoplh and paused. Randolph extended his own hand and grasped the pod tip in what, in his experience, was a universal sign of greeting. A sharp pinprick zeroed in on his palm. His suit easily patched the tiny rupture as Randolph withdrew his stinging hand with an involuntary hiss of shock.
Before he could move, the Marenko extended another tentacled pad that slapped wetly up against Randolph’s helmet and stuck there.
“Hello Randolph. The earth-name I have chosen for myself is Mary.” said a pleasantly-modulated voice. The tentacle was vibrating against Randolph’s helmet to produce the sound. “It is a pleasure to meet you. This has been a delightful first contact and I am honored to be the first to produce our communication.”
Randolph thought that was an odd choice of words.
“The pleasure is mine, Mary.” he replied. “I’m happy to meet you too. I’m curious, what was the purpose of poking me like that?” he asked, tentatively hopeful that the answer would be benign.
“I needed a small tissue sample to produce our communication. You are in me now, growing. Soon you will be large enough to leave yourself here and then we can talk after you leave.”
Randolph couldn’t understand the words. The sentence must been parsed wrong in the alien’s nascent attempt at translation. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mary.” he said.
“Look closely at my center, Randolph.” said Mary.
Randolph looked closer at the core of the huge alien’s wavering, smooth body. There, in the center, curled up and twitching, was what looked like a tiny human baby.
A tiny baby with transparent skin and gelatinous bones. A tiny baby with dark hair and dark eyes, just like Randolph. It grew as he looked at it. A Meranko-Human hybrid of some kind.
“This version of you will stay here. We will converse. It will have your memories but it will be of my race as well. After a short amount of time, you may come to collect him and talk to him as well to gather your own information.”
“Uh…..what?”responded Randolph eloquently.
“I am, as you say, pregnant.” said Mary.
by submission | Oct 7, 2013 | Story |
Author : Andrew Bale
I see the truck drift across the median. In my mind, seconds become hours, but to my body, they flash by like lightning – I am paralyzed, watching my own doom in slow motion, unable to stop it. The impact is a blessing, a return to real time where the agony of my death passes like the beat of a hummingbird’s wing.
Somehow, I dream. I dream of something like a man, but not quite – he is too tall, too thin, and far, far too old. I see his life laid out before me, see his wives, his children, his vocation. It passes too fast for details, but I see joy turn into sorrow, see abject grief turn into steely resolve. Suddenly, his face is replaced by another, a real man, who ages from baby to senility in an instant. The unman appears again for the briefest moment, like a single frame inserted in a movie reel, before another baby takes his place. The cycle continues, a parade of lives interspersed with that one, sad, unchanging countenance.
And then I wake. Gasping, panicked, it takes my mind a little while to adjust, to relearn this body, to reconcile the old with the older. I am in something more than a bed, and sitting near my feet is another unman. He smiles at me, and I feel my heart slow, my mind calm.
“Welcome back. How do you feel?”
It isn’t English, it is a language I learned long before the idea of English existed. I cannot respond at first – awareness brings new sorrow, new joy. When I can, I tell him. Honesty is of the utmost importance.
“Sad, that they grieve. Happy, that someday they will wake.”
I glance around the room, picturing the profusion of waking rooms surrounding me, and behind, the great mass where the bodies of the dreamers lie dormant.
“Let me see it.”
He smiles again. Everyone asks. He waves a hand, and the wall before me clears.
I cannot help but cry at the beauty of Earth laid out before me, just six inches of transparent wall and half a million miles of empty space away. So small, so perfect. I glance up, wondering where Jack’s body lays sleeping, waiting for his return. I will probably never see him again – he was healthy, he will not wake until I am again gone.
“Are we close?” I ask the unman.
“Yes, and no.” He gestures toward the window. “The model is near the point where we broke. Nothing past that has meaning, so we will end in a few generations regardless. But the answer still eludes us.”
He leans close, full of quiet, desperate hope. “Do you have the answer?”
I think back on my life, on everything I learned, everyone I knew. It seemed then so full of worry, now it seems so full of hope. I shake my head.
“No. I will return and try again.”
He nods sadly as I rise, walk to the window on the world. I look at my reflection. So tall, so thin, so old, I barely recognize it.
“We will start the formal debrief soon. I will find you a new host. Any requests?”
I glance at my reflection again.
“Yes. I would like to be a woman again. I need that perspective some more, I think.”
“Just that? There are two and a half million returns a week now, requesting female is trivial.”
“It is enough. “
I glance at the window, at the Great Experiment. We lost something. We must get it back.
by submission | Oct 6, 2013 | Story |
Author : Alexis Voltaire
My fist thumps heavily on the metal door, echoing down the corridor. I’m soaking wet, some of it water, some of it blood. some of it mine. “Sandogan!” I yell. “I know you’re in there, dammit, you’ve got business!”
I thump a few more times, but I can’t make too much racket. If anyone else sees me here they’ll turn me in. I wait. At last I hear the soft thumps of feet coming nearer. “Go away.” A gruff voice says from behind the door.
“I’ve got the chip, you miserable old fool!” I snarl. “Eighty thousand is triple your normal rate, now open up!”
I hear a loud deep whuffing sound. And a growl, a real animal one. “Back, boy, back down! Now sit!” Sandogan’s voice. A metallic chattering of a chain-lock, and then a rasp of bolts sliding back from all around the door. The door opens, and Sandogan peers through the gap.
There’s a scuffle and a blur of movement, more growls. Sandogan tries to close the door but it’s too late, a lean furry beast slips through the door with three mouths wide, glowing green fangs reaching for my arm, my throat.
I stumble back. Sandogan tries to grab the leash but it slips through his hands. My hands go automatically to my phase pistol, before I really realize it I’ve aimed and fired. A bolt of purple light sears through the beast and splashes off the metal wall. When my vision clears I’m left staring at a pile of ash and charred bones.
“Give me the chip and get in here.” Sandogan growls, holding the door open. I hand him the box and slip through the door while he counts the contents.
The room inside is a dump, a sagging couch, repli-pizza boxes scattered over the floor, a string of industrail LEDs instead of proper fixtures. But that’s the best you can get when you’ve got a blacklisted identity and a stolen bio-programmer module sitting in the corner, shining like the light at the end of my tunnel.
“I need a new face, one the corporation can’t find.” I say. Looking out the window, I can already see the red and blue lights gathering below. “Fast… And I’m sorry about your pet, really.”
“Only a new development for a customer.” Sandogan waves his hand dismissively, but there’s an edge in his words. “Only a two hundred thousand chip project.”
I swallowed nervously. It’s bad to piss off someone about to tinker with your genome. But unless I step into that booth… If I fight I’m dead, no two ways about it. If I surrender the corporation will turn me inside out to find out how much data I just stole. Heck, they’d probably do it anyway if I told them up front. Sandogan’s apartment is shielded, they can’t come in but they know I’m in the building. Living the rest of my life in a twelve-by-twelve metal box with a back-alley bio-engineer made the first two sound charming in comparison.
The booth door slides back with a clunk. “Get in.” Sandogan says from behind his computer.
I toss my phase pistol and keys on the couch, take a deep breath, and step inside the cold metal cylinder. White chemical fog and light flood my vision, my skin prickles as the alteration field strips away and dissolves my clothing. Automatic clamps and straps take hold of my limbs and torso, holding them in place. A needle pricks my skin, everything gets distant and fuzzy.
I really hope I don’t wake up with fur and fangs.
by submission | Oct 5, 2013 | Story |
Author : Cosmo Smith
Within its cryogenic cocoon, the body lies inert, crystallized. Only with the most acute perception can I observe slight movement: the hourly rise and fall of its chest; its 6-minute heart beat.
My hands mechanically perform their routine. Nasotracheal tube seal – check; nutrient levels – check; sensory anesthetics – check, heart rate – check…
“Stephen Carmack,” words on the monitor read, as though names still matter.
I examine the frozen face, half-hidden beneath its feeding mask. Eyes that have never seen reality are lidded in the torpor of a never-ending sleep. On its bald scalp, a dozen electrodes register small flurries of activity as the body’s brain surfs the net.
My finger presses the green button and the plastic cocoon retracts into the wall with a pneumatic hiss.
I have been here forever. It is home, this warehouse of bodies – aisles extending infinitely. My task: cocoon out, check, check, check, cocoon in.
I vaguely remember wanting this job. Curator of Humanity, they called it. Somewhere outside, a family of mine receives a royal paycheck. Or are they here, among the 99% that live, breathe, and die in the net?
Cocoon out, check, check…
I pause.
As I begin to doubt myself, it happens again: a prolonged twitch of this body’s index finger. It lasts nearly a minute, but it is the most exciting minute I can remember.
The cause is easy to discern.
“Arthur,” I surprise myself by speaking. Then I laugh. “Arthur Warthur, you fogey. You are improperly anesthetized.”
The finger again. I mimic its motion with my own.
After a third time I reach to adjust the anesthetics. And stop.
In the sterile silence, I become aware of my racing heart. For several minutes I watch the body’s face, its skin gray from the pale light of the cocoon.
One click on the monitor is all it takes to further decrease the anesthetics.
Minutes later, a second finger moves. A slow shuddering of weak muscle ripples up the body’s arm.
I decrease the setting further, and further still, watching the slow convulsions as the body experiences an odd form of synesthesia between the net and real life.
After that, a password enables adjustment of the cocoon’s internal temperature.
I have reached the point where hitting the side of the cocoon elicits a reaction from within when the body’s chest spasms abruptly and the heart rate flatlines. For several tense minutes, I wait. For what? Alarm bells?
There is nothing. And a press of the green button pulls the cocoon out of sight.
Unsealing the nasotracheal tube, I soon find out, creates the most interesting reactions. The body doesn’t realize for a long time that it can no longer breathe, but when it does, it goes wild, especially after a bit of defrosting.
Prolonging the time until death becomes a game. Decreasing nutrient levels has no effect, whereas increasing them can sometimes lead to very spastic movements.
I become so absorbed in this newly discovered world, that my own pull back into reality comes as a nasty shock. It takes a long time to adjust to the small room, even after the VR goggles have been pulled from my head.
A businessman in a black suit faces me across a desk. To the side, a woman and two children, whom I now recognize as my wife and kids, watch.
The businessman politely waits for me to reorient myself before speaking.
“I’m sorry Mr. Underwood,” he says, “but after that simulation run, I think we are going to have to go with another candidate for the curator position.”
