by submission | Aug 12, 2010 | Story
Author : Alec Ow
“When are you going to get a new body?”
I ping my guildmates, “I’ve got girlfriend aggro, this might take a while,” and sheathe my sword. They only manage a cursory glance and a quick “later mate” before they and the dragons’ den dissolves away into a white room with Cerise standing in the middle.
“It’s been a month since the accident,” she continues, “you need counseling. There’s more to life than working a menial number-crunching job and wasting your day away in VR you know.”
“I don’t need counseling-”
“You THINK you don’t need counseling,” she interrupts me, “first deaths are a big deal, John, you don’t have to hide behind that tough exterior.”
“Times are tough right now Cerise, being an infomorph for a while can save us some money on living expenses. I can’t afford to buy a body right now and you know I don’t want to rent. What if I get a smoker’s body? Having to deal with the nicotine withdrawal-,” I stop myself. I know I can’t win this argument so I try to change the subject, “Where are you right now?”
“At work, on break. I just got off chat with my mom. They want to take us to the Bahamas this summer. Even if you rent a synth it’ll be better than bringing you along in a harddrive. I miss the feel of your touch.”
“But we-”
“VR’s not the same. Please, I know you don’t want to be hurt again, but think of all the things you’ll be missing out on.”
A lull in the conversation. I let out an audible sigh, “My promotion should be coming soon. I’ll go schedule an appointment for counseling and we can shop for hybrids when you get home. I just hope your parents don’t sneer too much for not going full-organic.”
“They won’t judge,” a smile slowly creeps across her face.
“Oh right, your dad in his ‘all-natural olympiad body, the blue-print cost a fortune you know and fabricated from the finest biomass money can buy’,” I attempt my best impression of her dad.
She lets out a giggle and plants a kiss on my lips, “I’ll see you when I get home, babe.”
Cerise and the white room dissolves away and I’m met by my guildmates standing over a dead dragon, arguing over who gets the spear.
“Anyone know any good hybrid models?” I ask and grimace as I’m met by their sneers.
by Roi R. Czechvala | Aug 11, 2010 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
The smell of sulphur permeated his suit. His body absorbed and metabolized it, leaving a permanent foul taste in his mouth. He exuded sulphur through every pore. In short, Martin Petrov stank. This, however, was the least of his worries. His most pressing problem was Io’s corrosive atmosphere and the deleterious affect it was having on the poorly maintained seals of his bounder, a six legged contraption that leapt, rather than rolled, over Io’s undulating, ever-changing landscape.
The thin caustic atmosphere had caused a serious leak in the crew cab. It would not hold air. He had barely fifteen minutes worth of oxygen in his suit and Hera was at least a half hours leaping.
Hera, the largest of the Ionian settlements, housed over four hundred colonists. Her great domed chamber was carved deep within the silicate crust of the moons surface. The only evidence of its presence was a docking hanger for shuttles and bounders, and a large oculus at the domes apex, giving the subterranean dwellers a soul enriching view of Jupiter’s roiling cloud cover. A welcome sight of seemingly boundless expanse to lighten the effects of the self-imposed prison of the crushing hive-like collection of cells that comprised the living and working spaces.
“Well, Marty. What are you gonna do now,” he asked himself. “Think quick, boy. You don’t want to die out here.” He set his bounder for Hera and reviewed his situation.
After rejecting several, at best, very risky options, he settled on a course of action. Pretty risky still, but better than the others. Considerably better than the alternative. He clicked his teeth and made the neural connect to the bounder’s comp system.
“Okay,” he thought, “allowing for the bounder’s mass… Io’s rotation… a 42 degree angle… trajectory of… full power single push… that should do it.” He checked to ensure that his calculations were correct and mentally hammered the “execute” button down.
The bounder adjusted all six legs until it was on a 42 degree inclination to the horizon, aimed at Hera, and with a mighty heave, kicked off the surface, describing a graceful parabolic arc for home.
“This is going to hurt, but I’ll survive. If I break anything, at least my impact will alert somebody and they’ll send a team to check it out,” he thought hopefully.
Martin’s elation soon turned to dread as he looked down upon the ground rushing up to meet him. He was about to land dead centre on the oculus. It was designed to keep air pressure in, not to keep things out. It was built so that its strength was pointed inward, not to withstand the three tonne mass that was quickly bearing down on it.
Martin and his bounder plummeted through the crystal aperture, and crashed into the central common area of the colony, which had been a pleasant park with Terran plants, birds and a central waterfall that not only made a pleasant soothing roar, but imbued the otherwise dry air of the underground chamber with moisture.
With great difficulty Martin pulled himself free of the wreckage of his broken bounder and surveyed the carnage. Dozens of Herans, who previously had been enjoying themselves outside the dull claustrophobic confines of their quarters, laboratories and offices, were dying, gasping for breath as the sulphurous compounds of the outer atmosphere mixed with the moisture in the air of the dome and the colonists’ lungs. They were drowning in the acidic mush that their lung tissue had become.
Martin released a mournful sigh.
“Somehow, this is going to end up being my fault.”
by Duncan Shields | Aug 10, 2010 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
They were a race that liked to live amongst the other races to better understand them. They were diplomatic yet fearsome, possessing great weaponry but very gentle in one-on-one conversations. They looked like starving centaurs crossed with giant centipedes. Very thin and stable on the ground, surprisingly quick in the water and capable of short bursts of flight. They were stronger than us physically.
When their ships first surrounded Earth, they transmitted a resume of the battles they had won and proved it by setting up a brief example in the space around our planet for the scientists and military to monitor.
It was a terrifyingly graceful display of military supremacy, both in tactics and in weaponry. After it was over, however, they started peaceful and fair negotiations for cultural exchanges. We never felt defeated. It was interesting. One columnist from the New York Times wondered if they did this with everyone or merely recognized that it would work with us specifically. The aliens never answered his question.
The alien diplomats assigned to aspects of our society joined in, spoke our language, and tried to mimic us. It was like as a race, we were given bizarre little brothers. Alarming at first but their earnest need to learn was disarming. Their gentle voices assuaged our fear regardless of their appearance.
It’s been strange to think we’ve been conquered. There’s been no rebellion. They brought their own food and they don’t want our resources or money. They aren’t here to eat us. They just want to learn and explore.
There are two aliens in my office. They’ve been here for a year. They wear clothes just like us except cut to fit their long bodies. I remember footage of one of them that had gotten into the fashion industry. Seeing that six-legged body standing upright on its hind legs and sashaying down the runway in clothes made to fit its unusual body was a strange sight.
The ones in my office are named Doug and Tina. Doug wears suits with extra arms and Tina wears dresses with extra arm-holes. They talk around the water cooler with us about what was on television last night and Doug remarks on sports scores. Their lean, horse-like faces over-enunciating our language no longer seems creepy to me. It’s more like they have an accent from a country I can’t identify. Tina is getting better at wearing makeup.
I find it strange that as a race, we’ve adjusted to it so quickly. I find it fascinating. They’re so dull and friendly.
What’s even more alarming is that I’m thinking of asking Tina out to a movie next week.
by submission | Aug 9, 2010 | Story
Author : CJ Bergin
Tom rolled over in his sleep and felt his arm fall onto cool skin.
“Careful honey” a whisper in his ear said. “Unless of course, you’re trying to start something.” A smile crawled up Tom’s face as he moaned playfully.
“No” the word resounded through the room clear as crystal, and was followed by a much more muffled “at least not right now”. Warm breath passed by Tom’s ear, as the response came.
“Of course, honey”. Sarah gave her husband a quick kiss, then closed her eyes, and fell still. Satisfied, Tom’s smile melted away, his eyelids sank, and he let reality fall away, at least for a little while.
When he opened his eyes again, Sarah was out of bed. The smell of bacon and eggs wafted through the bedroom door teasing Tom’s taste buds. His smile quickly returned.
What a wonderful wife, he thought to himself, I can’t believe I’m so lucky
Tom crawled out of bed, put on his slippers, walked out of his bedroom, through the hallway, and into the kitchen, which was neatly hidden away in the corner of the house. Sarah’s back faced Tom as she tended to the bacon on the stove. She was already dressed for the morning in a flowing white sundress. On the kitchen counter a small TV displayed the news.
“How is it you know exactly how to make me happier than anyone else?” Tom came behind Sarah and slid his arms around her waist.
“Easy” She chuckled “You told me how, bacon and sex.” She turned to face him, “Except, this morning, somebody wasn’t in the mood” Tom’s smile didn’t falter an inch
“You’re forgetting its bacon, sex, and sleep. Sleep is just as important.”
“Well you didn’t seem to think so last night” He smiled at his bride, and with no other diplomatic option available, he kissed her, and she kissed him back. Tom completely lost himself in the moment. He blocked out all other thoughts, even the entrancing smell of bacon on the griddle. None of it could compare to this. After what seemed like a wonderful eternity Tom slowly returned to reality, to the sound of the TV blaring.
“Protesters have stormed D.C. demanding the repeal of the population control bill, or what has become known as the “control clause”. Protesters insist that the right to reproduce should be shared by all, not simply by government appointed breeders…”
Tom’s smile didn’t falter an inch. In fact, it grew. It grew until he couldn’t contain it anymore, and he began laughing. He laughed until tears started streaming down his face.
“Can you believe those people? Who the hell would want to have children? Do you realize it takes $100,000 to raise the things till their 18? Yea right” Sarah looked at her husband, turned around, and continued tending to the bacon. “Aw, honey whats wrong?”
“Nothing” the reply came
“Aw c’mon, Sarah you don’t want to have one of those things…do you?”
“You know that I can’t”
“But do you want to?” Tom’s question was answered with silence. “Oh Jesus, not again” he muttered. He grabbed Sarah violently by the waist, and began reaching up her dress. Sarah panicked, she began screaming and flailing her arms.
”Stop!” Tom shouted, and so Sarah did. He reached Sarah’s abdominal control panel and hit reset. Sarah’s eyes closed for a second, and then opened again.
“Hello, I am Sarah, serial number 942621137 what is your name?”
“Tom”
“Oh, Tom I’m so happy to be your wife! How can I make you happy?” Tom’s smile returned.
“Lets go upstairs”
by submission | Aug 8, 2010 | Story
Author : Dale Anson
Seventh Contact
The ship was nothing but a bit of gossamer, wrapped in a smallish chunk of spacetime and plasma, elongated to impossible dimensions. Krista’s thougths, stretched by relativistic time, traveled from synapse to synapse in mere seconds. Ahead, the red star grew from a suggestion to a dot to a period to a disk to an orb to a sphere to an overwhelmingly large object that dominated all thought to absolute brightness bending her course slightly to the right to merely large to not so large to diminishing to what was that, anyway?
Krista looked outward, considering the trigonometry of the center versus the reddish star disappearing rapidly behind her versus the nebula at 9 o’clock versus the smallish galaxy below versus the leftish edge of the spiraling arm directly ahead. It would be at least a quarter turn, she decided.
She napped.
She blinked. She heard it now, low level, but distinct. She heard the sound of organization, of civilization, of thought above the slime level. Hours later, fully aware, she triangulated. She had entered the second arm, her journey across the void had been successful. Krista backtracked the signals: correlation, confirmation, origin. She ran pattern matching routines, deep archival retrieval processes, and bounced everything against her last known intelligence registries. She ran her data through the subspace routines, then through the species identifier, then through the spacetime geometry stacks, then through the hyperspace stacks.
It fit.
The bluish star pass to port, then she aimed toward a yellowish star down and to starboard.
Krista passed a small planet, then an orange gas giant with a ring, then a small white planet, then she contracted, swelled, and slowed to visibility. As she rounded the yellow star, she saw the blue marble from ancient days. She angled toward the equilibrium point trailing the orbit of the blueness, and set up her defenses to repel the incoming nuclear warheads.
Contact was never easy, even when it came from home.
