by Roi R. Czechvala | Dec 6, 2011 | Story |
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
SSG Ray Mansfield raised his rifle and glassed the valley below with powerful optics. His men, stretched out behind him, were virtually invisible, their chameleon skin armour blended seamlessly with the sparse vegetation and oily, rocky soil.
He clicked his teeth and opened the teams freq. The weak signal barely reached 25 metres before it disappeared into the background radiation rendering it undetectable. “I know it will be hard, but we have to take at least one of these fuckers alive. Everybody clear?” Mansfield received five confirmations. None were enthusiastic about the idea of bringing one in still pumping air.
The men called them “Sticks”, an appellation given for their too tall, too thin appearance that was only exaggerated by their complex body armour. They made their presence known with a barrage of nuclear weapons dropped from orbit.
They attacked areas of intense population, They extinguished fighting potential. Asia had ceased to exist within minutes. Europe quickly followed. The central United States, northern Canada, the interior of South America and Australia was all that remained relatively unscathed. Despite Africa’s low population density and negligible military importance, the Dark Continent was wiped clean. Maybe the Sticks just hated elephants.
“On me. Zalar, Brunson, twenty metres left, ten forward. Winder, Fromholt, right, same. Walker, my six, ten metres.” With intense slowness, the six men moved out. Their armour lagged mere microseconds behind the changing background.
The Stick encampment was small. Only twenty observed enemy moved within the protection of a complex perimeter screen. Recent minor victories had allowed the Sticks password technology to fall into the hands of the all but vanquished humans. The men penetrated the deadly screen with impunity.
They moved into their positions with a practised ease. They had surveilled the camp over the past week and knew it’s every inch. Cpl Walker’s mission task was a simple one. Protected by fire from Mansfield, he had only to locate and “paint” an enemy soldier with an x-ray laser visible only through their helmet optics. That one would be spared for study; possibly interrogation.
Though fearsome in appearance at nearly 3 metres, the alien warriors were quite fragile despite their body armour. The armour had been designed to protect them from the blasts of energy weapons, not the crude human Heckler & Koch G3’s spitting 30 calibre death. The copper jacketed lead cores tore through the creatures, literally ripping them to pieces.
Within ninety seconds, all enemy resistance had been neutralized. Corporal Paul Walkers mission to protect a Stick from elimination had been performed beyond the pale. The young soldier received a mortal wound and died saving the intended prisoner from the withering fusillade.
The last remaining Stick, it’s four upper limbs tightly secured behind it, hurled what were undoubtedly scathing invectives in it’s incomprehensible tongue. Staff Sergeant Mansfield approached the towering creature. Gripping the muzzle of his weapon like a baseball bat, he struck the beast across it’s mouth. It did nothing to halt the verbal assault.
A loud report silenced the creature. SSG Mansfield’s face and chest were showered with viscous, ochre blood as the aliens head vaporized before his eyes.
The massive frame of the Stick slowly slumped to the ground. Behind it stood Private Winder, his weapon still raised. A thin trail of smoke issued from the barrel.
“Winder, what the fuck?” Mansfield screamed, wiping the alien goo from his mouth, “What’s the matter with you. We needed this bastard alive.”
Slowly PFC Eric Winder lowered his weapon. He stared past his squad leader. “Sorry Sarge. I couldn’t help it. Paul was my friend.”
by Patricia Stewart | Dec 5, 2011 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“I don’t give a damn,” bellowed Senator Orcus as he slammed his fist onto the conference table. “They knew this day was coming, and they did nothing to prepare for it! Why the hell should we bail them out?”
“They were there for us,” retorted Senator Cura, “when our future hung in the balance.”
“That was over 10,000 years ago, when Mars colony was just beginning. None of the settlements were self-sufficient back then. And don’t kid yourself, Pellonia, they were taking much more than they were giving. They were plundering our resources when we were too weak to defend ourselves.”
“Still, we wouldn’t be here today if they hadn’t suppled us with essential consumables. We owe them.”
“The hell we do! Maybe we owe Earth of the twenty second century, but we don’t owe these selfish bastards anything. We terriformed this planet, not them. Our ancestors endured hundreds of generations of sacrifice; centuries of living in domes, surviving on next to nothing. And what were the Earthers doing? I’ll tell you. They were squandering their limited resources, poisoning their air and water, and killing each other in endless genocidal wars.”
“But what you are proposing is planetcide. That’s worst than genocide.”
“I’m talking self preservation. Earthers may be weak, but they are not impotent. We need to strike first, before they do. I have it on good authority that they are making preparations for war as we sit here on our asses. Earth will be at opposition in less than a hundred days. If we don’t attack now, it will be more than a year before the next closest approach. Their situation will be even more desperate then. I say the time for debate is over. We must vote on the war resolution now. It’s either Mars or Earth. And I cast my vote for Mars. How many of you are with me? Mars—Mars—Mars,” and the students erupted into a frenzy, chanting in rhythm with the teenager pumping his fist at the front of the classroom.
“Okay, okay, class,” interrupted the teacher, “we need to stop here for today. You two can finish up tomorrow. Cencio, that was a great portrayal of Senator Orcus, however, I must remind everyone that Orcus was a good Martian, and would never use profanity, no matter how much he was provoked by foolish, misguided individuals. Next week we’ll be switching to the Mars-Earth War. Nicolas will be reenacting Admiral Honos’ successful crusade to rid the universe of those hairless, disease ridden sub-humans. Now, remember to get your house mother to sign the Olympus Mons permission slips and bring them to school no later than next Phobosday. Class dismissed.”
by submission | Dec 4, 2011 | Story |
Author : Donovan Pruitt
“It itches,” the soldier complained, scratching at the data socket on the back of his neck.
Seated across the table, the doctor offered a sympathetic smile. “That’s normal for a new download, Sergeant Jax. Just don’t think about it. Think about something else.”
“Like what? I wasn’t recruited for my thinking.” Jax continued to fidget.
“Why don’t you tell me the last thing you remember?”
Jax pondered briefly. “Inter-continental orbit hop between Houston and Moscow. Cargo transfer for the space program. I don’t remember the ship name.”
“The download is intermittent,” the doctor explained. “If we dropped everything in at once, your mind would, well, explode.” His eyes darted aside as he solemnly reflected on this concept with apparent regret. “The name will come to you.”
Jax’s face turned uneasy as more memories downloaded. “Did I crash?”
“You did.” The reply was hesitant. They didn’t tend to react favorably to the news.
“Well, shit,” Jax replied unexpectedly, chuckling after a few moments. “So how am I alive?”
It was a fair question. “Technically, you’re not, yet,” the doctor admitted, though he looked pleased. “We downloaded your brain and are attempting to parse it correctly so you can be re-appropriated.”
“Re-appropriated, huh?” Jax repeated the clinical term. “That would explain this tan,” he joked, raising his foreign arm into the light. His personality was returning. “So technically, I’m not alive?”
“Not exactly.”
“But I’m not dead?”
“Well, no.”
“So I guess, scientifically speaking, I’m undead.” Jax erupted with laughter.
Pursing his lips with subtle amusement, the doctor offered a nod. “I suppose so.”
Turning pale, Jax straightened his posture. “Sir, I have a question.”
“Go ahead,” the doctor replied, still distracted by the comedic nature of their exchange.
“Did the Zs take the Moon Base, or do we still have control?”
The doctor blinked, focusing on him with narrowed eyes. “The Zs?”
“The zombies, sir,” Jax clarified matter-of-factly.
Turning from the table, the doctor rubbed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes to release the tension. “Undead,” he said aloud, identifying the trigger word. Sighing, he reached into the folds of his lab coat as he turned back, producing a pistol that he easily leveled at the man’s head and fired. Gore splashed against the wall and the body collapsed forward on the table, lifeless. Tilting his head to the ceiling, the doctor stoically spoke his report, “Subject twenty-seven terminated due to faulty data transfer. Download incomplete.”
The main door opened into the room, giving way to an officer dressed in a formal uniform with numerous trinkets shining proudly on his chest. Casting a disapproving look at the fallen soldier, he redirected his disdain to the doctor. “What happened this time?”
“General,” the doctor offered a lackluster greeting. Replacing the pistol, he braced both hands atop the table with a heavy, weary push to his feet. “The system still isn’t able to separate actual events that the subject experienced from dream sequences that he perceived as real. He apparently remembered a dream fighting zombies on the Moon. The word undead must have caused the server context recognition to give him a packet of information that he thought was real.”
“Well, fix it,” the general demanded, turning around to exit. “We’ve got plenty of vegetables left for you to practice on, but let me know if you run out of bullets.”
Frowning after the general, the doctor took a moment to recuperate before looking up to the ceiling again. “Sally, send in someone to make arrangements for the body, please. Then contact the coma ward. We’re going to need another blank disc.”
by submission | Dec 3, 2011 | Story |
Author : Robert Vennell
I stumble down the road through the hazy tungsten half-light. Padded headphones suck out the ambient noise and replace it with the hum of distorted guitars.
An empty street, a dim coating of artificial light and the buzz of electric instruments.
I have to remind myself I’m really here. It feels like I’ve withdrawn into some back-room in my head, and am now watching my life play out through my eyes, as if it were happening to someone else.
From this vantage point i begin to speculate on what a bizarre and unnatural circumstance this is. That on a small planet orbiting a relatively small sun in an ordinary solar system on the outskirts of a galaxy like any other; a bipedal primate such as myself is walking down paved roads illuminated by synthetic lights listening to recordings of manufactured music.
In the light of these thoughts I can’t help but feel greatly pessimistic about humanity’s chances. Surely a species that no longer concerns itself with its own survival cannot exist indefinitely.
I turn the corner and press on, no particular destination in mind. A white cat stalks across the road, catches sight of me and then bolts off in the opposite direction. It occurs to me that there the other species that inhabit our planet are constantly engaged in a struggle for survival, and yet to we privileged homo sapiens born into developed nations surviving is easy. To meet the challenges of life the human brain underwent rapid expansion in brain capacity to the point where we have developed societies and structures that render the struggle for survival almost irrelevant. Now the hard part is trying to keep those advanced brains of ours constantly entertained and stimulated.
From the moment we wake up in the morning to when we go to sleep at night our minds are occupied not with things to aid our survival but things to keep us from boredom. Tasks and jobs we can do so that our lives can have purpose and meaning. Television, movies, music, literature; things we can consume to keep our brains active and ticking over.
I wonder if such an unnatural system can sustain itself.
A street light catches my eye. It is flickering and buzzing, and eventually it burns itself out and the street is cloaked in darkness.
Suddenly my brain feels stuffy, the constant pounding of music in my ears aggravating and i take my headphones off and revel in the cool breeze rushing against my ears. Reconnecting with the sounds of the world around me, i feel like I’ve slipped back into my body for a time.
My dreamy speculations about the fate of the world seem dramatic and unimportant now. I amble off towards a distant street light, reassuring myself i will go to bed earlier in future.
by Duncan Shields | Dec 2, 2011 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
I am too old to enjoy the future. I am physically unable to.
People, like older trees and metal from the ground, could not be retro-engineered. Transporters were finally here but everyone who had dreamed of their existence could not use them. Anyone already born at the moment of their invention were forever denied the use of them.
It was a magic man-made molecule. A destabilizer, a cataloguer, and a quantum anchor pairing that, when activated, allowed for a temporal reversal field to happen to all particles attached to its field. Basically, one pressed ‘play’ and the object with these designer molecules took itself apart down to the base level. When the completion trigger was transmitted to a sister pad, it activated a ‘rewind’ function on the other half of the quantum anchor pairing, making the object build itself again by performing the actions backwards in time. The time debt repaid itself to the trillisecond and the universe remained in balance.
In effect, it made transporters a reality.
The only hitch was that transportable objects needed to be manufactured from the base up with the molecules embedded into their chains. This presented no problem to ferroplastics, ceramics and chemical compound agents which were the basis for most building materials and household utensils destined for the moons or the outer rim.
It was a simple operation to have the molecules chemically bonded into the DNA chains of an embryo but only in the first trimester. A new generation of people were being created with the ability to flit between transporters both on Earth and her fifteen colonies in the solar system. It worked for other biologicals as well. NuMeat and ReFish were plentiful among the planets.
The rest of us were planet-locked.
Cargo slingships pushed Gs that would crush a regular human, let alone an old one like me. Passenger ships were fewer and fewer in number with the new generation’s ability to transport instantly. It drove ticket prices into a cost bracket only the superrich could afford. And I was not rich. I could never leave Earth and even when traveling around my own world, I was restricted to fuel-burning planes and buses with the other old people.
I’ve read about getting old. How events around you seem to speed up. How life gets harder and faster while your ability to deal with it weakens. I feel that it must be more apparent now than ever before in the history of mankind.
I am not merely slow. I am going extinct. The other seniors and I are the last few remaining members of a pruned branch of the human race. Airports and bus stations are only for the aging and the already ancient.
We have an official classification now. While the rest of humanity is still referred to as homo sapien, we have been re-designated as homo tardus. Slow humans. The young ones simply call us ‘tards.
It is humiliating to have to move so slowly. I dearly wished to be a part of a future with transporters and now that it’s happened, I have my nose pressed against the glass with no ability to take part. Myself and the other science fiction fans who have lived to this moment are cursing our longevity, growing bitter.
We take trips together and huddle in our apartments, watching vintage science fiction shows using antique ‘DVD players’ and 2D ‘televisions’ with tears in our eyes as our numbers dwindle.
