by submission | Sep 12, 2009 | Story
Author : Andrew Hawkins
…
34. Spray yourself with the scent neutraliser.
35. Move west through the woods towards the royal enclosure, being aware of your surroundings.
36. Remove knife from sheath, remember to dust thoroughly with charcoal powder in your belt pouch to prevent gleam.
37. Insert blade knife first into canvas fabric at head height and in one quick fluid motion draw it down to the ground, keeping a firm grip on the handle.
38. Wait 30 seconds and listen for movement or sounds of disturbed breathing.
39. Right foot first, enter the interior keeping your movement minimal and silent.
40. Check for possible disturbances with ABCD: Animals, Babies, Children, Domestic spouse and eliminate if appropriate.
41. Move through into the sleeping partition and evaluate target.
42. Place knife to the throat and in one swift action press it firmly in, leading with the tip and slicing with the edge, over the voice box to ensure silence.
43. Wait 30 seconds for resistance to totally subside and then targeting a vital organ of your choice deliver a piercing thrust to ensure mortality of the wound.
44. Clean blood from the knife using the deceased individuals clothing and replace it in the sheath.
45. Check to ensure death and cover the body, ensure no needless signs of disturbance betray your presence and retrace your steps.
46. Exit via the cut in the tent then move 1000 paces North to the drop point below the large boulder identified on the aerial photograph.
47. Strip naked and using the cloth, soaps and water wash yourself thoroughly and dry yourself with the towel.
48. Taking the clothes from the bag, dress yourself and place all items of clothing, towel and the cloths in a bundle.
49. Apply the petroleum gel to the bundle and pack away all items not in the bundle into the bag.
50. Set the ignition fuse to exactly 10 minutes and begin walking in an Easterly direction.
51. Proceed until you reach a river, wade down stream until you can see a road in the distance.
52. Exit the river and proceed towards Fasha Street.
53. Continue for 0.1 miles and proceed East along Fasha Street.
54. Proceed along Fasha street for 2.1 miles until reaching Sharanish Market.
54. Catch the number 34 Bus at the Sharanish Market transport interchange to Dubai international airport and proceed for 13.0 miles.
55. You have now reached your destination thank you for using googol skills.
by submission | Sep 11, 2009 | Story
Author : Martha Katzeff
They came riding into the City. Some in cars, some in rusted tractors from another era. Some looked up at the greenhouses glinting in the sunlight. Others stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge the life above. Shorter buildings allowed a full view of lush crops, sheltered from the bustle of the City by the lull of circulating water. They craned their necks and saw vertical farms on almost every rooftop.
The farmers drove down the wide boulevards. Trees lined the boulevards, casting dappled shadows in the morning light. Open green plazas offered free public access to the river. Each plaza had a farm stand overloaded with the ripe produce grown in the vertical farms. The bright red peppers, strawberries, and beets were grim reminders of the rich earth that used to sustain their dead farms. The crisp green lettuce, cucumbers, and squash were memories of lost pastureland. The vegetables and fruit were all fresh from the farms, shipped no further than an elevator ride to the street.
The men were silent and grim, saying little to each other. What was there to say in the face of such abundant life. Their weatherbeaten faces reflected a century of drudge, drought, rising fuel prices and a sharp decrease in demand for anything corn or soy.
by submission | Sep 10, 2009 | Story
Author : Q. B. Fox
Subject: No man is an island.
From: ISowending@EarnestPeople.com
Dear Robert,
I know that’s not your name.
They call me Jane. That’s not my name.
Does that remind you of something?
If you’d rather, you can call me Maria; because some things we can’t help, they happen on a completely subconscious level.
And all this week I’ve been sending you a message.
You listen to rock music, don’t you? Do you remember hearing Metallica? Perhaps it was on the TV, or the radio, or the internet.
In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram ran some experiments at Yale University. He showed that a significant minority of us are so socially conditioned so that we will just do as we’re told, no matter how outrageous the consequences. And it’s not necessarily the people you think.
I know you don’t think of yourself as a rebel, or even disaffected, but you don’t really fit in, do you? You weren’t one of the cool-crowd at school, right?
Have you ever seen Donnie Darko? It was on TV this week. Do you remember that haunting music? How does it make you feel? Not quite real, right?
If you think about it, you can see yourself sat at your computer now, reading this e-mail. Go on, imagine it; looking down on yourself, like you’re watching yourself in a film. You’re just a character in a film.
In that film, this e-mail is a virus, exactly like a computer virus. Except this virus is for people; it’s for reprogramming people.
You’re a creative person. You have a good imagination. And you remember things. Not always useful things, but trivia, random facts. You make good use of your subconscious.
Not everyone remembers where they’ve come across Hemingway. Perhaps they read the book at school, or saw the film with Gary Cooper; perhaps they just read the synopsis on Wikipedia, or in those encyclopaedias you had when you were a kid. Perhaps they don’t know how they know, or even remember that they do, but some people will remember it all, subconsciously.
I think you’re one of those people; in fact I’m counting on it. Not everyone will respond to this e-mail, and we’ve sent it to millions of people.
But you will.
Tomorrow, you’ll wake up; you’ll know were to go; where to collect a van. And you’ll drive the van to a bridge, you’ll know which one. Then you’ll detonate a bomb that’s inside.
Today you don’t think you’ll do that.
And I appreciate your scepticism. But you are still reading this, aren’t you? Ask yourself: why am I still reading this?
If you concentrate, inside your head, you can hear the repeated clang of a single church bell.
You can, can’t you, if you concentrate?
Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it’s for you, sweetie, it’s for you.
Isabel Sowending.
by submission | Sep 9, 2009 | Story
Author : Jennifer C. Brown aka Laieanna
One, two, three fireflies into the jar. Just like that, all at once. Probably some kind of pact. I check the remains. Two girls, one boy, none over eighteen. Nobody brings anything to the jar except the young. They don’t plan, they just go. Money is all I really look for, paper better than chips. Spends immediately without paying for identity wipe. These kids have little between them but I take what I can. Even a shirt from the boy, he’s my size and it’s a color I’ve never seen before. The shovels won’t care what’s left with the remains. Their mechanical eyes see a job, not a loss. They’ll take what I didn’t steal all in one scoop.
I see more coming over the hill. Old man with five fake crying women making a half circle around him as his hovering chair reads and mimics the bumps over a grass path to the jar. No one ever built a real path. The jar is for everyone but no one is invited here. “Never forgotten. Never celebrated.” someone once scratched onto the plaque near the jar. True words.
I’ll get nothing from this geezer and the snakes who are already tonguing the rich out of his pockets. I don’t need to see him put into the jar. The smiles on greedy make me sick especially when they’re tossing into the jar. I take for need, not for greed. I’ll come back at the dark.
I see stars. I count stars till I forget the numbers. Only see stars when high on the hill now. Each time the jar gets brighter and brighter at night. I always hope to take good sunglasses from a remain, but they haven’t left them yet. Might have to buy a less good pair. Eyes half closed, I walk to the jar. No one comes at night. It scares them or makes them cry. Couple times they tried but years have gone by and no one, no more.
The fireflies are dancing, their long sleek bodies without arms, without legs, illuminating white floating in the jar, swirling around each other. Can’t touch the jar or be a firefly. The jar isn’t glass like some food containers, just a barrier between us and them. I can touch the metal ring the jar sits on and feel a vibration in my hand.
“Momma,” I whisper. Four fireflies come a little closer. There are no faces, I don’t know if any of them are her. “Why did you leave me?” I hate tears. Some nights they just come. None of the fireflies will tell me. I don’t know if they even can. Heard different men explain the jar for years. An alternative to the unknown. People can avoid death, live in their minds in the jar. That’s it’s purpose, man-made crossover. Some hate it, some think it’s wrong, screaming about it’s devil workings. Lots take advantage of it, especially the real sick. Most just don’t know, debating it’s use for hours before they cross or walk away.
“Momma” I say again. My heart hurts, my mind takes me back to the day she crossed. Don’t know if she was sick. Think she was just scared. When she stepped in the jar and her remains fell to the ground, I held a cold hand till the shovels scared me away. I was only seven. Been here since and still don’t know if she’s really in there or if it’s all just a lie. Don’t really care. Just can’t leave her like she did me.
by Patricia Stewart | Sep 8, 2009 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Alpha Doore is a Mars size planet orbiting an orange-red main sequence dwarf star called BD+56 2966 in the Constellation Cassiopeia. The oxygen and water rich world had several large continents and a flourishing ecosystem. The exploration team was near the end of its six month long mission of categorizing the various indigenous life forms when Commander Komney authorized a two-man sojourn into the subterranean caverns, which had been classified “promising, but tertiary” by the Mission Assessment Team.
The following day, the two would-be spelunkers were a quarter of a mile into an immense corrasional cave when they encountered a herd of giant centipedes “grazing” on the chemoautotrophic moss growing on the damp cavern walls. The creatures were enormous by any standard. Their fifteen foot long segmented bodies were about eighteen inches in diameter; with a dozen horizontal leg-bearing segments trailing two vertical arm-bearing segments capped by a head section. The main body stood three feet above the ground on long but obviously sturdy limbs. The posterior leg pairs were slightly longer than those preceding it, giving the creature a pronounced trough between its “back” and the vertically oriented front end. The head contained two flexible eyestalks that were so high above the ground that the human explorers had to look up to make eye contact.
“Wow, look at the size of those guys,” exclaimed Doctor Zabell, the landing party’s Medicinal Chemist slash Structural Exobiologist (cross-disciplinarian specialization was commonplace on the mission, since crew members were selected using the standard “double-up model,” where each contributor was expected to wear multiple hats). In addition, Zabell fancied himself a zoologist, a botanist, an anatomist, and anything else that allowed him to pontificate ad nauseam. “Adam,” he whispered, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Oh, I doubt it,” replied Adam Ryder, the team’s Maintenance Engineer slash Galley Chef, who volunteered for this particular excursion because he needed a break from cleaning the anti-matter injectors, but mostly because be was bound and determined to find a viable supply of Agaricus bisporus for his famous Mushroom Bisque.
“Well,” continued the doctor slash lecturer, “I was thinking that they must be intelligent. Their heads are enormous, and if that’s where the brains are, then they must be twice the size of ours. And look at their four hands. They have opposable thumbs. These creatures are probably capable of delicate manipulation. I wouldn’t be surprised if they can make, and use, sophisticated tools. You weren’t thinking that?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, I was also wondering what was driving their evolutionary process. For instance, are they this large because the gravity on Alpha Doore is only four tenths that of Earth? And listen to the rapid clicking noise. I think that they might be trying to communicate with us. And why are they traveling in herds? Earth arthropods don’t do that. I have a million questions. Aren’t you curious about any of that?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, Adam. So tell me, what is it that you’re thinking?”
“I’d rather not say, Doctor. I don’t think you’d consider it very professional.”
Dr. Zabell studied his companion for a moment. The young Maintenance Engineer was eying the nearest centipede with steely determination, his jaw tightening, his fingers flexing. “Dammit Adam, you want to try to ride one, don’t you?”
Slowly, the corners of Adam Ryder’s lips curled upward into a devilish grin.
