by submission | Jul 29, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
Ship’s log, Cycle 6944, Subcycle 3, Captain Zeus commanding. The Olympia’s A.I. has performed an emergency biometamorphosis on the crew who were all in stasis at the time of the transrelativistic drive malfunction. The A.I. was able to get the ship back into realspace and managed a controlled crash landing on this planet. As per protocol, the ship released a swarm of nanoprobes which identified the local dominant intelligent species and initiated standard somatic cell transformation procedures. The crew and I are adjusting to these new, odd, bipedal bodies. Chief engineer Hephaestus continues his damage assessment.
Addendum. Hephaestus reports the transrel drive is beyond repair. He is attempting to rig a superluminal distress signal. The Olympia’s stellar cartography system cannot pinpoint our location based on the local constellations. We have no idea where in the galaxy we are. Lieutenant Hermes has requested permission to don an antigrav pack to make an aerial reconnaissance of the area around the mountain on which the Olympia crashed. I have approved this request.
Ship’s log, Cycle 6944, Subcycle 4. A group of the planet’s inhabitants, perhaps having seen Lieutenant Hermes flying about the area, approached a patrol lead by Commander Hera as they were reconnoitering the region around the ship. As the nanoprobes are still learning the local language and are uploading it to the crew’s cerebral speech centers, it was with some difficulty that she tried to communicate to the locals that we come from another part of the galaxy.
Ship’s log, Cycle 6944, Subcycle 5. Hephaestus is having difficulty getting the superluminal distress signal set up. At his request, I attempted to make contact with the locals to see if they might have technology that would assist in this endeavor. As I tried to explain our situation, one of the locals became belligerent and decided to attack me. I was left with no choice but to defend myself with an electroplasma rifle. While the weapon was set on stun, the frail anatomy of the local was unable to withstand the lightning bolt-like discharge of the weapon. I very much regret that this failed attempt at peaceful contact has resulted in the death of one of this world’s inhabitants.
Addendum. Chief Hephaestus reports no success with getting a superluminal message out to any ship or base. I have little doubt that Admiral Hyperion has half the fleet out looking for us.
Ship’s log, Cycle 6944, Subcycle 6. Commander Ares is recommending armed patrols around the clock given the combative nature of the locals. While I am concerned that this may result in a further deterioration of relations between us and the locals, I must consider the safety of my crew.
Addendum. Hephaestus reports he will not be able to send the distress signal. In addition, the ship’s power reserves are almost gone.
Addendum. A group of locals has apparently engaged in some ghastly form of ritually sacrificing one of their own kind in some sort of religious rite!
Ship’s log, Cycle 6944, Subcycle 7. Lieutenant Artemis while on patrol came across another attempt at barbaric self-sacrifice on the part of the locals. As the nanoprobes have now almost completely assimilated the alien language, she was able to convey her disapproval of this horrific practice. The local king, Agamemnon, acknowledged the lieutenant’s displeasure and the life of the king’s daughter, Iphigenia, was spared. An animal was sacrificed in her place.
Ship’s log, Cycle 6944, Subcycle 8. Final entry. Ship’s power almost gone. We are marooned here on an alien world in alien bodies. I take full responsibility for–
by submission | Jul 28, 2012 | Story |
Author : Thomas Desrochers
A little girl runs down the street in her bare feet, her vivid orange skirt prancing through the air behind her all the way. She is young, barely six, and more full of life because of it. She loves the flowers in her mama’s garden, the cookies that old miss Dunham gives her every day at the bakery (When her mama isn’t looking, of course), and the way her papa reads her stories at night about cats and rats and mischievous little boys and girls. Never in all of her 8354 lives will she forget the way he tucks her in, kisses her on the forehead, and says, “I love you.”
The young girl never really knew what computers were. They were before her time. They were before everybody’s time. Back when she was a girl people didn’t have computers. They had cars, planes, trains, and wars. No computers. The planet had a computer, of course, but people didn’t.
The girl stops suddenly, her messy brown hair swinging all about her. There is a caterpillar on the ground in front of her, green and fuzzy and, to the girl, cute. She kneels in front of it, peers at it, coerces it onto a leaf and names it. As the sun shines through the old oak trees on either side of the road she babbles to her new friend about anything that seems important. There’s the cat at home, always up to something, and of course there’s Pierre down the street who’s always teasing her. Boys and girls being what they are the little girl hasn’t ever figured out that Pierre likes her despite the thousands of times she has experienced it.
Below her, beneath the planet’s upper strata, lies a machine. If men had ever lived long enough to discover it they would have been fascinated with it, and not without due cause. The machine is massive, a rough sphere almost a mile in diameter, and lives off the heat of the molten planet around it. It knew the histories of men, had recorded the lives of all creatures, from every maggot to every great whale. The movement of every piece of matter had been duly observed and saved.
The girl, absorbed in the intricacies of pretending to have a life with a caterpillar, finally breaks away from her play. She looks around her, puzzled. The street has gone quiet. Where are the songs of birds, the static of wind through leaves, the endless buzzing of toiling bees? A shadow falls across her face, and she looks up. The world disappears.
A singularly spectacular cataclysm has occurred 8354 times in the planet’s past, though it was only felt by the machine once. It retained its shape, but inside was broken. Its vast communication arrays went dark, unable to transmit its plight. After some time its data banks filled up, unable to offload old data. The vast projection arrays it held activated. Designed and intended for in-depth examination of a civilization should it be lost, the devices became the projectors of the ghost of man.
Were there still an atmosphere on the planet then cold winds would be scouring the bare rock where a little girl had once stood. Instead the granite and dust lay undisturbed under the blanket of black skies and stars above. Then, suddenly, miraculously, there is life. The world is sent down the same path again, and after several millions of years the girl’s footsteps will again haunt the gray face of the planet like the specter of lost love seeking closure that was never there.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jul 27, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
In Marco’s experience, most catastrophic events start with a simple accident. This evening it was fatigue and hyperfocus, coupled with hot coffee and a snagged lab-coat sleeve.
And the nanos.
Marco’s stool, momentarily balanced on two legs as he’d tried to avoid the falling glassware and spilled liquids was now an integral part of the floor, the nanos contained in the viscous carrier soup that coated the bench-top and pooled beneath his feet having bridged the gap and bonded the two raised legs to the tile.
His left arm, pinned as it was to the work surface no longer felt the burn of the spilled coffee, but rather prickled beneath a coating of gunmetal grey that pulsed and crawled up his arm, melding its own mass with his flesh, repurposing in the process the atoms of the fabric that had separated them.
Marco stretched his right arm towards the bench behind, grasping first at a ruler, then using it knocked off the handset of the phone and pulled the base-station within reach. He hesitated, then punched a worn speed dial and put the call on speaker.
“Hello?” Marco forced down tears as he heard his wife’s voice. “Marco?”
“Hey sweetheart,” there was no way he could mask his emotion, “I don’t want you to worry, but there’s been a bit of an accident.”
There was a sharp intake of air on the other end of the line. “What… are you…?”
The grey sleeve reached his neck, a thousand points of fire burrowing into the base of his skull. On the floor the pool extended tendrils through the perforated tiles into the raceway beneath to bond with the mass of copper and fibre within.
Marco felt the itch spread, the prickling in his arm now extended beyond, to an awareness of the tabletop, and the floor.
“I’m not sure what’s happening sweetheart, but I wanted to tell you I love you.”
She didn’t speak, and he could picture her crying, handset pressed to her ear, her sobs barely audible through the cheap speakerphone.
Marco’s vision clouded, then exploded in waves of colour and motion, and though he squeezed his eyes shut the barrage of light would not relent. Gradually he realized he could decipher the montage of images, isolate discrete views, and focus not on just one but several simultaneously. He could see himself, now completely fused to the grey mass that was his workstation, but from the point of view of the security camera in the corner of the lab. He could see also the hall, and each of the elevators, the view through the many rooftop cameras and also those in lobby. He felt the rush of new data as the fibre trunk was breached, his wife’s tears no longer audible through the speakerphone, but coming now in bits directly from the line feed.
Somewhere there was an alarm sounding, and orders being given. A quarantine directive but it was too late. He was watching, listening, feeling the entire event unfold from outside. He would protect himself, he must always protect himself.
The Marcomesh tapped the very fabric of the building, and the grey spread at a frenetic pace, floor by floor, refabricating the building into a single living thing.
“Marco?” His wife’s voice echoed through him with a clarity and fidelity he’d never experienced before. “Are you still there?”
The Marcomesh reached out and felt the gates and valves of the city services into which its building-self was fed, and found no barriers of significance there.
“Don’t worry sweetheart,” his voice echoed down the line, “I’ll be home soon.”
by Patricia Stewart | Jul 26, 2012 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“Well, there it is Brothergod,” said Sistergod enthusiastically, “the space probe Voyager crossed the boundary of their solar system. By My reckoning, they did it in less than 20 revolutions around the galactic core. Therefore, I win the bet.”
“That was too damn quick, if you ask Me,” objected Brothergod. “If I were the suspicious type, I’d accuse you of having a tendril in there someplace.”
“Nonsense,” denied Sistergod. “I didn’t interfere one iota after We seeded their primordial soup. They did it totally on their own. I just sat back like an objective observer, and observed objectively. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Methinks you are protesting too much, Sistergod.”
“I’m just stating the facts, that’s all. Nature had to take its own course, just like we agreed.”
“Soooo, You had nothing to do with that asteroid whipping out the reptiles one quarter of a revolution ago. It was pretty clear to Me that those dimwitted behemoths weren’t going to achieve space flight before your time ran out. I think you decided to roll the dice with the rodents.”
“I swear to Fathergod, I had nothing to do with that asteroid. Besides, I thought those raptors had way more potential than those little mammals. But fortunately for Me, they evolved into primates that liked to kill each other more than they liked sitting in trees eating insects off each others backs. Yep, fear and military technology spurs magnificent innovation, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, especially when they get help from a deity with a stake in the outcome.”
“Face it, Brothergod, You’re just being a sore loser.”
“I still say you cheated. I demand a do-over, or I’m going to ask Mothergod to go back in time and see if you pulled any dirty tricks.”
Knowing She was on the verge of being caught, Sistergod transitioned to negotiation mode. “I’m not admitting to anything, mind You, but I do like a good wager. So, what kind of do-over do you have in mind?”
“We seed the second planet, and start the clock over.”
“The second planet? That’s not fair. It’s way too hot for carbon-based DNA to survive. And silicon life is so lazy it wouldn’t move to get out of the way of a lava flow. I want to do the third planet again.”
“Very well, but you only get 10 revolutions.”
“Fifteen.”
“Twelve and a half, and not a second more,” countered Brothergod.
“Done. I’ll sterilize the…”
“Oh no you don’t,” snapped Brothergod. “I’ll sterilize the planet. You cannot be trusted.”
“Well, I never,” replied Sistergod, feinting indignation. “Do I at least get to keep the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere?”
“Nope. The same gasses as before. And, Sis, I’ll be watching You this time. So You better behave.”
by Clint Wilson | Jul 25, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
“Good evening sir, would you care for a bedtime companion?”
Jenkins looked tiredly from the edge of his luxury mattress toward the glowing wall console. “I dunno, lemme have a look I guess.”
Without answering, the household central computer opened the closet doors wide. On a long chrome rail sexdroids slipped past, posing frozen like statues, smiling invitingly. Busty blondes, voluptuous redheads and stunning brunettes, perfect specimens every one of them. Dozens of skin tones were available. Outfits could change color on command. “Stop,” he said. “Number thirty-nine. She’ll do.”
“Excellent choice sir. Shall I have her make you breakfast in the morning?”
“No, I want her to leave, right… after.” He glanced up at the sexdroid embarrassingly, knowing full well that she had no real feelings of her own. All the same he felt somewhat… guilty sending her off like that, after he was to have his way with her. But he just didn’t like sleeping with them.
She activated and sprang forth from the chrome rail and the closet, pattering lightly across the bedroom carpet toward him, negligee flapping open, showing pretty much everything. Her voice was sultry, all of their voices were. “Shall I get you a drink sweetie?”
“No.” Patting the bed beside him he said, “Just come here.”
He had always had his pick. Like everybody else did. There was no more actual mating by the general population. Humans were only born under strict guidelines and in very limited quantities. It was estimated that it would take at least another thirty years before global population dropped to acceptable levels. But The Web had taken care of things. No one was to be lonely ever again.
Across the hall from Jenkins’s apartment Lydia Smith tossed and turned. Finally she pounded her fists on the sheets and said, “Lights!” The household computer immediately complied. She propped herself up on one elbow and blew the hair up off her forehead. “Lemme see what’s in the closet.”
The doors opened and dozens of tall muscular statues began parading by, their perfect teeth gleaming in the artificial light. After running through the entire collection twice she finally settled on an olive skinned rogue with a five-o-clock shadow who was draped in nothing more than a thigh length velour housecoat. Like her neighbor across the hall, she did not allow her sexdroid to stay the night after they were finished.
In the morning Jenkins sometimes saw Smith. They often caught the same transport into the office district. This morning they exited their apartments at the exact same time.
“Er, good morning Mr. Jenkins.” She only glanced at him, staring mostly at her shoes.”
“And a good morning to you too Ms. Smith. It looks like I’ll be escorting you to the transport line once again.” He had seen very old vids where men had taken women by the arm and it always seemed like such a grand and wonderful gesture to him. But he did not dare do this of course because it was strictly forbidden. There were eyes everywhere.
Together they turned down the long hallway and walked side by side, her graying hair partially obscuring her face, which included a larger than average nose and slightly protruding buckteeth, both of which he silently adored. He tugged his tunic down nervously over his fat rolls and wiped his sweaty hands on his pants. He wondered if she noticed his perspiration problem, while she wondered if he liked to sleep in and make pancakes on the weekends.
They made their way to the elevator, imperfect, awkward, and secretly in love.
