by submission | Mar 8, 2013 | Story |
Author : Xauri’EL Zwaan
Evelyn offers me a bouquet of white lilies. I know immediately that she’s hiding something, but I indulge her little game. I take them and breathe deeply; she knows how I love complex smells. These have a spice that matches nothing in my chemical pattern bank. Genemod flowers; that’s unlike her.
“Happy anniversary, Darling.” She’s not happy, but trying desperately to sound it.
“What’s wrong?”
She flashes with anger. “Nothing.” I know she’s lying, but I also know that forcing the issue will just mean another fight. I’m not eager for a week of verbal silence and kinesic screaming, so I drop it.
I’ve put every ounce of the love I still feel for her into dinner. She picks at it in silence.
She asks me about my day. Surprising; she never wants to hear about work anymore. I tell her about charting trajectories for blinkships in Reimann space. She’s becoming angry, hostile; my words trail off.
“Your enhanced genetics must help you a lot with that.”
I sigh. “Can we please not do this today?”
“I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t stand it — being read like a book, feeling stupid and incompetent all of the time. I’m done with you. It’s over.”
I stop thinking about work, about the books I’ve been reading, about sex. I stop browsing blogs and watching the stock ticker. I focus entirely on her.
I’ve been expecting this for months now. That’s not the problem. Everything is out in the open now; but she’s still hiding something. She perches on her chair like a vulture.
My lips and fingertips are starting to feel numb.
“What have you done, Evelyn?”
“These flowers have enhanced genetics, too. They were made just for you, darling. Just for your DNA.”
“But I love you.” She stands over me as I slip to the floor.
“You smart bastard. I finally got one over on you.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Feb 5, 2013 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Baxter could still feel the heat from the vials in his hands as they vapourized into the atmosphere of the room, still smell the fuel, even through his respirator in the moment the weapon discharged full into his back.
The pain was blinding, the impact propelling him forward across the worktop, scattering containers and lab equipment before him, to land face down in a pool of merging chemicals and broken glass.
“Secondary Recovery Unit terminated. Package destroyed. Requesting evac at marker. Over.”
Baxter heard her words, heard her speak them, but couldn’t rationalize the betrayal.
“Sucks to be you Bax,” her voice retreating from the room, “they want this project really gone. No hard feelings?”
The door clicked shut and he was alone.
Data streamed through his heads up display, damage reports moving too fast for him to see. ‘Organ failure imminent’ hung suspended before being chased away by a barrage of lesser destruction. ‘Evac request denied’. Then ‘Network connection terminated’.
He was on his own, and he was going to die.
They’d worked for decades together, partners, a team. Never had it occurred to him that she could sell him out and burn him to the ground.
Death suddenly didn’t seem like such a bad outcome. How long had this been coming? How far back did the lies extend? The Portian excursion? Earlier? The Marigam Run?
“You don’t want to die here Bax, not like this.” The voice in his head was an old one, a version of himself he’d left behind in exchange for a promise so many years ago. “Get your lazy ass up Bax.”
He couldn’t feel his legs, but with effort was able to reach around to paw at the edges of the hole in his back. Nanoflesh had already sealed over the crater, though the depth of the depression told him a lot of meat had been burned away. The spine could be regrown, but not if he lay here feeling sorry for himself. With a great deal of effort he pulled himself arm over arm through the debris, chemical ooze and broken glass lubricating his suit while it impaired his traction. He could feel the glass fighting with the armormesh coverall in an effort to draw more of his blood.
He dragged himself across the room to a window, pushed the snub nose of his hand cannon against the glass and exploded it out into the night air.
Wrapping one hand around the rip cord on his chute, he used his other arm to lever himself out the window and into free-fall. He drifted away from the building before pulling the cord, releasing most of what remained of his chute into a tangled mass of fabric that splayed out behind him. The sudden take-up of slack almost tore his arms off, then sent him spiraling out of control towards the ground. The impact was swift and brutal, for the moment Baxter was thankful he couldn’t feel his legs as he heard the bones shatter beneath him. Too much adrenaline for shock to put him out.
He lay on the ground, staring up at the sky as a familiar sound broke the silence. Above him, sliding out of the night was the low frequency whip, whip of an evac copter. She was about to catch her ride.
He lay motionless, hearing rather than feeling the nanotech scab over the bleeding wounds where his bones had fractured through the skin. He could only wait.
There was a sudden streak of blinding white light across the night sky, and a flaming ball arced away from the rooftop just as his radio crackled to life.
“Primary Recovery Unit terminated. Cleanup complete. Over.”
by Julian Miles | Feb 4, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The drill slides sideways like it’s got a mind of its own, so I straighten up to lift it clear of the crystal. My vision blurs and I pause to gauge which of the two reasons applies. With a bark of laughter I realise it’s the good option: too much rum.
“Hey Andy, you slackin’ again?”
Milt’s unbelievable, able to track the world around him like a sober person.
“Not enough blood in my alcohol system, ya fruit. I’m declarin’ snacktime. You in?”
“Goddam, boy. You goin’ nine-oh-one on me?”
That’s the medical code for saturation, when your body cannot metabolise enough alcohol to keep the Fenden at bay and let you work.
“Not a chance. I did half a bottle too soon is all.”
“That’s the problem with Jamaican. You should switch to Russian.”
“It’s got no flavour, Milt. If I’m going to pickle my ass, I’ve gotta have somethin’ I can savour.”
“You always did read too much and drink too fancy for a jeweller.”
“Bugger off. I’ve got cold hog and fresh kiwis; last chance.”
“I never said anythin’ bad about your goo-er-may eatin’ habits, boy. I’ll be there afore you have canvas up.”
I grin as I turn and use the drill to punch a post-hole in black rock. Sure enough, I’m just swinging the awning up onto the pole when Milt appears and grabs the far side. In a few moments we’re cross-legged in the shade savouring meat and fruit. From where we are, you can see the company enclave on the horizon. Between us and them lays the glittering expanse of the lowlands, shining like the treasure it conceals. Randell is a pretty planet, the vast crystalline plains reflecting whatever light is about, day or night. Under the plains in striated crystalline clumps is the wealth of the universe, the purest of which make any optical device better and the least of which make women feel appreciated.
When the company opened up the digs, they franchised the ‘jewellers’ and supplied the drugs that make our bodies inedible to the Fenden, the translucent gas things who just love having a human for dinner. Bloodmist outbreaks were a problem initially; when Fenden gorge and get amped up on warm human fluids, they group together and go into a slaughter frenzy. Made mining almost impossible until some doctor discovered that certain chemical additives make humans taste bad. The company had us jewellers over a barrel until Marty Grufe discovered that being pissed up was just as effective. You could buy two months supply of spirits for the price of a one-week shot of the company’s patent protector. Pretty soon, the only sober people on Randell lived in the company enclave. If you’re outside these days, you’re either drunk or dead.
Milt slaps my shoulder and points. In the middle distance, a ruby cloud whirls by. I wonder who we lost today. It’s easy to get so engrossed in a rich lode of gems that you let your regular swigging go. Do that for a couple of hours and you get to be edible, which is always fatal. Every jeweller has a few Fenden nearby, just waiting for him to get careless. That’s why smart jewellers pair up: to live long enough to enjoy their earnings.
I lift a bottle of rum and raise it to Milt. He lifts his vodka bottle and clinks it against mine.
“Here’s to the gems an’ the booze never runnin’ out.”
“Damn straight. Sláinte!”
by Duncan Shields | Dec 5, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
My mount is about an acre across from wingtip to wingtip.
I’m sitting between her eyes, up near the front. I have a windshield set up, sheltering my sleeping quarters, replicator, garden, fridge, toilet bag and pilot’s chair.
She’s the colour of sand stretching away on either side of me, the same colour as the sky.
This is an ocean planet. There are beings that spend their entire lives in the oceans and there are beings that spend their entire lives in the air.
I am riding the latter.
She coasts for weeks at a time around the air currents, eating the occasional minnowbird or troutflyer that crosses her path.
When she needs to really feed, she’ll angle down into a steep dive to the ocean surface. We’re so high up that it takes her half an hour to get down there. Her mouth opens wide enough to eat a small town on old Earth as she rips apart the waves on impact and dives deep to feed on anything moving.
I’m not there for this part of her life. I’d die in the chemical waters.
The beings that we ride need to sleep and mate before they feed.
I’m looking through the windshield and sitting in my chair. I can see on the overlay that a linkup is happening six miles from here.
She angles west through soft summer winds and clouds. She’s heading to that pack.
These beings meet up and extend small talons from the tips of their enormous wings. The interlock these talons and form giant islands in the skies. Fifty or sixty of them at a time.
She’ll hang onto her mates and close her eyes. During this time, mating fluids will pass between the couplings. It’s a giant orgy, to be precise, albeit one with no motion and almost entirely done while sleeping.
During this time, we riders have the chance to stand and stretch our legs. We walk across the wingspans to each other’s cockpits to chat and share stories. For some of us, it’s a chance to reunite with old lovers, catch up with stories.
We’ll set up camps on the strongest flyers and have small parties.
There are six hundred thousand of us riders. We’re linked by the windshields when we’re apart but it’s these gatherings that really define our lives.
One can never tell what people will be at a gathering, dictated as they are by the winds our flyers glide on. We count ourselves lucky if there are old friends.
One by one, the gliders will disengage and dive low to the ocean to feed. They’ll return when full, impatient to get back to flying the skies.
We get a signal when our mount’s biogram tells us that it’s time to disengage. We return to our mounts and strap in. Our mounts unhook their mating talons and we angle away, ready for another solitary chapter of gliding in the endless sky above the endless ocean.
This meetup is the first one I’ve been to in over a month and a half. My mount must be starving. From the pings I’ve receiving on my windshield, Jenna and Steve will be there. Sarah, too. She’s recent. I haven’t seen Jared in six meetups now and that makes me sad. I hope he’s there.
I can see it in the distance now, a horizon-smudge flatland in the sky where I’ll get to say hello to old friends and maybe meet some new ones.
by Clint Wilson | Sep 19, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
Two-hundred and twenty years had finally passed. We had reached our destination. From our sleep tubes we could see the first images of the beautiful green planet on our displays. But I did not care about any of it.
Then as our ship descended through the light wispy clouds we were shown the first views of the surface close up; wonderful lush forests and meandering green rivers flowing from one marshland to the next. Rolling hills the colour of emeralds glowed in the distance. Yet still I did not care.
We were all still mostly paralyzed by the stasis drugs and unable to communicate with one another. But I wanted to converse with no one, and if my guess was right, no one would want to talk to me either. The mere thought of it was almost unbearable. Even though I could finally open my eyes the only other thing that worked right now was the thing that had always worked.
Finally we touched down in a lush green meadow and I began to feel a tingling in my extremities as my physical mobility was at long last returned to me. It would be some hours before I would be able to exit the tube, but soon I was at least able to key the console.
Just as I had feared, the malfunction had not been isolated to my chamber alone. I quickly deduced that sixty-five of the ninety-eight of us were dead. Not surprising all things considered. But how had they been so lucky when, pray as I might, I had not been able to wish death upon myself all this time.
After several hours I slowly dragged my still-numb body from the stasis tube. I noticed a couple others doing the same in another part of the chamber. I did not look at them or greet them, and they paid the same respect toward me. I was pretty sure that they had the same destination and ultimate goal in mind.
I didn’t care that we were mankind’s first explorers to another star system, or that the new world outside was more beautiful than any description of Eden. All I wanted to do was to get to sick bay and the cabinet with the suicide pills.
We were finally here, in an extra solar paradise, but the malfunction that had occurred in the chemical mixer over two centuries ago, paralyzing our bodies and our bodies alone, was to blame for our current state.
Our minds, our poor tortured minds had stayed alert all this time, trapped behind cemented eyelids. And all we had been able to do for the entire horrible journey was to think, and then think, think and think some more. More thinking than anyone could ever want in a dozen lifetimes.
I reached sick bay first but there were other tortured souls shuffling in behind me. We were finally free to take our own lives. We were finally free from the forever trap.
Yes we had arrived in paradise at last, and we were completely insane.
