by submission | Jul 3, 2010 | Story
Author : W. Kevin Christian
Damn it, he thought. The delirium had stopped. Again he felt the pain and heat. Burning, sizzling, scorching heat, like tar on a summer sidewalk.
It was the middle of the third week. Changes had begun innocently enough around day three. A little fatigue, a headache, a bit of a cough. Nothing much. Nothing he couldn’t handle anyway. But now . . . now he felt as if he had eaten the Devil’s heart for breakfast.
$150,000! God I’m a cheap bastard, he thought.
He had done many stupid things for a quick buck, but this was far and away his masterpiece. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, it did with odds like he had anyway. His chance of winning was 78 percent for God’s sake! He didn’t have to do anything either. He just had to avoid doing one thing. Dying. Billions of people did it every day.
He had felt like a dangers-be-damned pioneer making a mad dash for free land. He remembered the quiet, smoldering excitement as the needle had pricked his arm. He had been terrified, ecstatic, anxious, remorseful and everything in between. $150,000! And all he had to do was live? In three to four weeks he would be back to his old self, he had thought, puttering around the house like normal people do. Not the house for long, though. He would buy something new. A down payment on something big and regal, something he could raise a family in one day. But not for one day—for many years. Many long, happy, Hallmark years full of golden turkeys, training wheels, and scraped knees. And all for a month’s work? He would have been stupid not to take the deal.
Plus, he would be famous.
Now the ceiling camera buzzed and blinked as it zoomed in. On 166 million television screens across America human beings watched sweat pour down his forehead. His blue eyes had turned the darkest shade of gray.
166 million American television screens cut to a commercial for fabric softener. The ad had cost its maker dearly. Airtime for such a highly rated show was extremely valuable, after all.
The lights shimmered and melted before his eyes. “150,000 dollars!” he muttered to himself with a gurgle or chuckle.
When 166 million television screens cut back the misery had left his eyes. The delirium had returned.
The corner of every television screen displayed his heart rate. It was starting to look irregular. It would jump up a bit and then come back down. Meanwhile, the sweat continued to pour.
He mumbled various nonsense as a thin, yellowish liquid slithered down his chin. “I like it in blue, but I can still see how you’d like the green,” he said. “What’s wrong with leather? I can pull it off . . . Typhoid? That’s still around? . . . I think I’ll get the lobster! I can afford it now . . . Let’s go skydiving! You only live once, right?”
His eyes rolled into the back of his head. Suddenly his heart rate tore up to 200 beats per minute and he convulsed violently as blood bubbled from his lips.
“150,000 dollars!” he screamed. “But that’s a 300,000 dollar value!”
by submission | Jul 2, 2010 | Story
Author : Phill English
We welcome. They are quickening their destruction of planets at an exponential pace.
We acknowledge. But what can be done? We encouraged their growth, gifted them technology that could build worlds. They were only exerting their free will by opposing our wishes.
We accept. Nevertheless, the destruction must cease. The planets are the three-dimensional extrusions of our energy source. If they are destroyed, thus are we.
We agree. But what can be done to halt their wave of ruin? We are not able to manifest in the physical realm and those who receive our inspiration are burned as heretics.
We are aware. However, we believe there is an expedient solution to their expansion.
We inquire. What knowledge is known that grants insight into this problem?
We reveal. They worship their weapons as religious fanatics. An entire society centred around the power of utter annihilation that our weapons have granted them. They have forgotten the ways of hand-to-hand combat. Another species could invade them with few casualties.
We are thoughtful. The introduction of one species to control another. We concur with your proposed action. Which control species is appropriate for our needs?
We are grateful. There is a species that excels in such matters. They require less than a century’s guidance to place them at the level of the Varlaxx.
We are impressed. There are no other parameters that might halt their subsumption of the troublesome race?
We are proud. None that are known and therefore none that are knowable.
We are satisfied. Encourage these ‘Terrans’ to take up arms against the Varlaxx.
We begin. Observe our preservation.
* * *
We welcome. The Terrans have not solved the problem in the way that was expected.
We acknowledge. Their expansion was unforeseen. Their uncontrolled breeding has spread a blight over a greater number of planets than even the Varlaxx could extinguish.
We are distraught. Their abuse has diminished us. They arrive on paradise and within a few short millennia have reduced its wonder to a landscape of dust.
We grieve. They know not what they do.
We die. There is nothing left.
by Duncan Shields | Jul 1, 2010 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
I remember entering the room. I was eighteen, cold, naked except for the paper underwear, bred for this and still nervous. I suppose terrified is more apt. Even after the rigorous physical training I was still very skinny. My breathing came in quick gasps as I struggled not to cross my arms or shiver. I came to a stop and stood at attention in the middle of the circular metal trapdoor grill, my shaved skull glinting in the spotlight. I was barefoot. My identification tattoos and punishment wires were out there for all to see. Gooseflesh ran over me and I could see the little puffs of my breath. Primed and ready. The drugs they had given me this morning to ease the transition were working. I felt more alert and attentive than ever. I felt curious about the future, eager to take part and slightly dreamy. Itchy.
A blue light scanned up, over and through me.
I saw some indicators come up on the panels in the darkness just like in the instructional videos.
Green circles skittered across all of the terminals. I’d been confirmed and we were a go.
I wish I could say I felt the moist eyes of my family and friends staring out hopefully from the observation enclosure. This was a proud day for most people. Most families gave one kid up to the SAPCorps. If you gave a child to the SAPCorps, it meant more birthing privileges.
However, SAPCorps was also the country’s orphanage. In some cases, it was also the juvenile detention center. I could still remember the day when I found out that this wasn’t a hospital and that my parents and sister were gone. That was ten years ago. The doctor who had told me also remembered, I think, going by the fact that he had requested to pull the lever for me on this occasion.
He looked down at me. Doctor Fines. My stepfather, for lack of a better word.
He twitched a smile at me. We were being monitored but other than that, it was just the two of us. I stood in the middle of the trapdoor. Our relationship had always been antagonistic but defined and limited. I don’t think anyone on the outside world would have referred to him as paternal but he was the closest I had.
“David.” He said. He nodded at me.
“Sir.” I replied. I stared straight ahead, willing him to get this underway.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Absolutely sir. Let’s do it.” I replied. I trembled a little.
“Here we go. I hope that…well. Here we go.” He said and flexed his hand on the handle.
He yanked back.
The trapdoor opened and I fell.
————————-
I look down at my skin and see the moonlight reflect off its purple brick-like surface. I see the little octagons that my pores have become breathing in the night air. I was a lucky one. My transformation turned out to be beneficial to the military. I’m dwarfstar dense with my human intelligence retained. Most conventional projectile weapons can’t harm me. I don’t have internal organs. It’s been this way for eleven years now.
I’m standing in the rain in the night time graveyard beside the grave of Dr. Fines. He died two days ago. I can’t define what I’m feeling. His death was sudden and I didn’t find out immediately. He was my last tie to my humanity. The last person who could remember who I was ‘before’.
I turn and walk away into the night and return to base.
by submission | Jun 30, 2010 | Story
Author : John Logan
“I don’t want you to die,” said Vincent.
The words didn’t actually transfer as sound to any part of my ear. They were signals which ran from a dermal connection on Vincent’s body, through my hand, and up into my brain where they were interpreted by my cerebral cortex with the help of a nano-sized mechanism called a Xybot.
“So what,” I said. I actually spoke these words but Vincent understood. He just had his own way of communicating because he didn’t have a mouth. He was a gun. A Black Widow Class V made by the Demiyan Corporation. The shiny silver of his body turned a tint of green. A trick he often used to convey his mellow mood. He was only supposed to use it for camouflage, but Vincent loved melodrama.
“Why don’t you sleep on it?” he said. “We can talk again tomorrow.”
I lifted my hand, Vincent included, so that I felt the cold touch of his muzzle next to my temple. “Because I don’t want you to talk me out of it like last time,” I replied.
There was a pause. “You aren’t a bad person,” he said. He often told me this. It was one of the many techniques he used to console me.
“Of course I am. I shot that woman,” I said. “She just wanted her freedom, that’s all.” The memory of it stung me like it had happened just today and not two years ago on a colony world that orbited a star six light years away.
“I shot her,” said Vincent. “Not you. I’m to blame.”
My hand shook and I could feel my resolve weakening. He would have made a good psyche doctor. In fact I often wondered if one of the technicians at Demiyan hadn’t slipped a little something extra into his AI.
“She had a kid with her,” I said softly. “Do you think he survived the purge?”
Vincent felt suddenly heavy in my hand and so I lowered him.
“Nothing survived the purge, you know that,” he said. “Government policy dictates the extermination of all rebels.”
I sighed and stood. The idea of all those people dying under a hail of Kryon rays didn’t sit well with me. Moving to the window, I stared out into the night. A freight ship, the size of a small island, was just taking off. Many of the men on board looking forward to a little rest back home on Mars. I must have stood there just staring for a long time because when Vincent next spoke it startled me out of my dark thoughts.
“I want you to be happy,” he said.
“Well I’m not,” I said. “So why don’t you just let me kill myself.”
“It would be inconvenient,” he said. “I would have to wait for a replacement.”
He was of course talking about the next soldier unlucky enough to be paired with him. Vincent was much older than me—the intelligence that was Vincent, not the gun. I’d never thought to ask him about my predecessors.
“How many have there been before me?” I asked my melancholy forgotten momentarily as the question piqued my curiosity.
“Many,” he said and I felt a creeping feeling of jealousy now that he had confirmed I was not the first. The emotion was unexpected.
“Anyway, I don’t need you,” I said annoyed. “I’ll just hang myself.”
“No you won’t,” he said. “You tried that last time without success.”
Vincent always brought out the worst in me. “I hate you,” I said.
“I know,” he replied.
by Roi R. Czechvala | Jun 29, 2010 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
He had been a brilliant physicist, she a promising graduate student.
“I love you,” he said.
“And I you,” was her reply.
Autumn threw off her many coloured coat and bowed to the dominance of Winter.
“Marry me,” he said.
She did.
Implantation was new. It was expensive. They could not afford it. They were chosen.
His, a brilliant mind, two points shy of genius. Hers, lightning fast, intuitive, bordering on precognitive.
They were happy.
They recovered separately in identical white, sterile rooms.
“The implantation and assimilation was successful. You may feel some disorientation at first; that will pass. Welcome to The Community,” the doctor said.
She beamed.
“I’m sorry. It is rejected in some, assimilation does not always occur. You may experience severe headaches, they will diminish over time.”
“I’m happy for you.” He smiled.
“I’m sorry for you.” She wept
They fell apart. Satisfied. Glowing. Happy.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
“But how? We Just…,”
“I know.” She tapped her temple. “It’s a girl,” She added.
They embraced. They were happy.
She spent increasing amounts of time linked to The Community. He couldn’t share. The baby cried, she didn’t hear.
He awoke one morn to find her in the throes of auto erotic stimulation. Moaning the name of another.
“What is it,” he asked, disturbed.
“It’s no one, it’s nothing.”
“It’s someone.”
“Look around,” she gestured “No one is here.”
“It’s someone,” he repeated darkly.
“It’s like a holo stim,” she said. She left to shower. The baby wept. The plaintive cries were drowned by the running water. She was with The Community. He was Other.
He found her again in the throes of singular passion.
“It’s him again.”
“It’s nothing, I told you. Look around. There is no one here.
“There is someone here.” He tapped his temple.
“It’s not like that. He…”
“Do you love him?” She did not answer, did not look at him.
“Do you love him in your precious Community? A gated Community, where I am not allowed. Do you love him? Do you?”
“Please” she said, turning to him tear filled eyes. “Please don’t do this.”
He picked up the lamp from the bedside table.
“I have to.”
“I know.”
“Have you always known?”
“It was inevitable.”
The baby cried.
He walked to the nursery, wiped the blood from his hands and took his daughter into his cradling arms.
