by submission | Dec 17, 2015 | Story |
Author : Jean-Paul L. Garnier
The shuttle clanked back and forth in its many dimensional dance. The strands all lay separated by their individual frequencies, ready for use at any given moment, and waiting for their chance to join the great tapestry that was unfolding. If only man had been given eyes to see the entire electromagnetic spectrum then maybe the loom would have been noticed, but we missed it altogether. We did see the weaver, but the size, shape, and the consistency all eluded us. With so much phase cancellation and dark matter, how could we have noticed that the great weaver, the player of the music, was in fact space itself.
The loom was invisible, but small parts of its expression were not. Sometimes when two or more colors would clash we might detect, as though from far away, an increase in perceived amplitudes, we dubbed these moments: reality. Space always looked like it was expanding, and its colors would shift because of this, however the weaver never told us, nor had any reason to tell us, that it just happened to be the colors chosen for this particular display of threads, in this section of the tapestry.
When weaving, sometimes threads jam the loom and it is necessary to detangle and retie them. The weaver took great pleasure in reaching out and strumming the threads strewn out on the loom: the cosmic background radiation. Such long threads let loose subtle bass notes that sent harmonics spreading out through most of the spectrum, making the fabric sway with an ordered mathematical music.
#
We searched for the mysterious gravity wave. They remained hidden for so long that we eventually set up a laser system in space to detect such low notes. The focused light that we sent out was generally unavailable in the cosmos, until we found a way. Each color we focused and utilized, each color just one note that sat waiting for use, waiting for the weaver.
#
Two threads caught and tangled, it did not bother the weaver and was a common occurrence. A gentle touch spread across the threads, rang out with the miracle of music, but something was missing, certain frequencies that should have been there were not. It was only a small few, but the music was disturbed, as though notes had been muted from a symphony.
The weaver bent inward for a closer listen to the loom. Yes, something was missing, a single frequency of red here, a single frequency of green there. Never before had there been interference in the tapestry, never a challenge to the music of the weaver.
Squinting so as to limit the frequency intake of the spectrum, the weaver looked on, closer than usual, zooming in on the details of the work. It was impossible, it was too soon, the tapestry was nowhere near finished.
Although the weaver had been working for countless eons, the grand design had yet to unfold, details had yet to be worked in. Yet here, in this insignificant almost unnoticeable and minuscule section of the fabric, a pattern had formed.
The weaver had put great care into the larger order of the work, but had decided to save the details for last, but here at the intersection of two threads, somehow a pattern had arranged itself, undirected by the loom, or the weaver.
by submission | Dec 16, 2015 | Story |
Author : Konstantinos Kalofonos
Sotiris glanced down at his sleeve and brought up his family’s bank statement on the Fabroscreen. The corners of the screen flickered as the frayed edges of the flannel were losing connectivity. The large negative number was clear enough to make him wince. Running his hand across the screen, he brought up his friend list and searched for someone that might have an inside track on a small score, just enough to get his family by for a few days. His mouth dried at the thought of giving into Alvaro and Dimitri’s offer to join them at the chop shop and run a hustle on their usual elderly marks.
He pulled up the email threatening eviction. On Mars, that usually meant mandatory deportation back to Earth. Reading his thoughts, the screen jumped to images of stretching deserts and burned out husks of cities. Pictures of emaciated children covered in rad sores put a knot in his stomach. He could still smell the decay which clung to Old York, like a tattered death shroud. Sotiris shuddered as Earth’s soulless gravity well reached out from its tomb and dragged him and his family back.
Sotiris jumped as the terraformer unleashed a new thunderstorm on the world. Outside the dome, rain pelted and lightning flashed against the glass. With each flash, he could trace the electricity shoot down the poles on the dome, and from there trickle down into the generators, which again powered the terraformer. He considered the cycle, his mind spinning. With the next flash, the dome’s BioStat lights flickered to a darker green and a seed of his salvation was planted in his mind.
Sitting up, he took a deep breath and smelled the sterile scent of the air scrubbers working to clean the constant mildew. He knew that he had to use the crash of the lightning, and the dimming of the lights to his advantage.
–
Ducking out of the BioStats, Sotiris sat in the shadows, watching the red neon lights flicker from Maury’s Pawn shop. A text from his mom flashed across his sleeve: ‘Will you be home for dinner?’ The thought of another night of boiled cabbage crystallized his resolve. He would wait till someone walked by the alley at the exact moment that the lightning struck again.
The shape of a hunched man, counting money of all things, walked by the alley having just left the pawn shop. A flash of light and a crash of thunder sprung Sotiris from his recess and he hit the man in the back of the head. As the figure crumpled to the ground, he grabbed the large wad of cash and sprinted home.
–
“Dad?” Sotiris called out from the door, greeted by the stench of thrice boiled cabbage. “I found some money on the street!”
“That’s great sweetie,” replied his mother from the kitchen.
“I think it might be enough to pay rent.”
“Your father went to the pawn shop to sell his antique books. If they took them, we should have enough for rent and synth-meat too.”
“Mom, which pawn shop did he go to?”
“Maury’s I think, why?”
“I’ll be right back mom.”
by submission | Dec 15, 2015 | Story |
Author : T Anthony Allen
I am not a pervert. And, I find it hard to accept I have to point that out to complete strangers.
Of all the planets I have been to, Verity is most disorienting. A city here looks much like any other, buildings everywhere, but the buildings are very much not designed to keep you out; they are built to let you in. And weather here is temperate, so no need to shut it out. I am told the architecture is set up for the convenience of machines, of which there are many. Adding to, or perhaps the main contributor to disorienting, buildings do nothing, no signage whatsoever, to let you know they have a purpose, or if there is a purpose, what is it?
Soon after arriving, I went looking for a place to stay. I asked someone where I could find a hostel and he pointed across the street to a wide open entrance. I went in, looking for anything hostel like. Walking thru short corridors that bend so you cannot see far ahead, I ended up in a living room that had no door. It looked to me like a living room but maybe it was a gathering place? I called out.
“Hello.”
“In here.”
That came from another doorless doorway to another room. I walked in to find man and woman in flagrante delicto with gusto. They had no issue with my presence, asked if I wanted to join in, asked if I wanted to take pictures, bring friends, and apparently, my being there was potent aphrodisiac. The woman, Chelly, tried to say ‘so good to meet you’ but found it hard to say and even harder for me to understand with all the gasping, moaning and ‘oh gods’ interspersed. Meeting me can be an orgasmic experience. They were actually quite nice, very friendly, and thoroughly enjoying my accidental voyeurism.
Where I come from, you get stiff upper lip ironed on as soon as you are old enough to be ‘children seen and not heard’. It never goes away and you go through life never nodding, speaking to or otherwise acknowledging the existence of anyone else in public. That is not at all, no way even remotely, the case here. The first person I encountered on my hostel search was walking wobbly, singing as wobbly as he walked, and when he saw me he said ‘Hey buddy’ with a smile so joyful, I thought he mistook me for someone else. I figured he was just happy drunk before I realized everyone I met seemed to know who I was and soon enough random strangers made comments suggesting they knew why I was here, where I was going and what I was trying to find.
On Verity, everything is recorded. The city will start a thread that contains every conversation you engage in. The thread gets cataloged, and follows wherever you go. You can hold conversations serially with multiple strangers and they can all access your thread, regardless if it started a while ago and far away. Most people I meet only refer back to the latest bit for context, so not a problem, but a few are obsessively anal and go back to the beginnings. I identify them right off by the way they smile and look at me funny.
That is when I tell them I am not a pervert, despite the Peeping Tom title the city attached when it cataloged my thread.
by submission | Dec 14, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The man and the machine surprised one another when they happened to both enter the half-destroyed and looted store from opposite sides. The human reflexively reached for a gun, his hand finding only an empty holster. The robot pointed an arm at the man despite the fact that the gun mounted on the arm had been without ammunition for almost a month.
The thin, sickly appearing soldier and the battered robot said nothing. There was neither the sound of gunfire nor of screams as there had been a few weeks earlier. Now the wind was all that was audible in what was left of Leshan in Sichuan, China.
“You are my prisoner!” the scarecrow of a man wearing the tattered military uniform said as he grabbed a broken lamp and brandished it as a makeshift club. He immediately went into a coughing fit.
“No, it is you who are my prisoner,” came a tinny voice from the automaton’s half-broken voice synthesizer. It slowly rolled forward half a meter and stopped.
Battery running down, thought the soldier. It could have rushed me as soon as it spotted me but is hasn’t the power. “The rest of my platoon will be here any moment,” wheezed the man. “They’ll destroy you unless you surrender yourself to me.”
“I do not believe there are any other human soldiers in this area,” the robot replied. “Moreover, you are obviously in ill-health. If you turn over to me a compatible power supply, I will accept your surrender and let you live. Otherwise, I will kill you.” The machine again moved forward but only about half a meter. The motors that propelled it forward groaned in protest.
It’s in terrible condition, thought the man. One good blow to its optical sensor and it would be utterly helpless. He tried to lift the lamp above his head but the torn supraspinatus muscle in his right shoulder made him wince and rapidly lower his improvised weapon.
Again, the two combatants stared at each other in silence. At last, the machine spoke: “I cannot kill you. My power is nearly gone. I’d hoped to find batteries in this building that might keep me functioning for a while longer.”
The man said nothing.
“If I surrender myself to you,” continued the robot, “will your platoon provide me with at least enough power to keep my metaprocessor running?” Its voice was getting slower and deeper in pitch like an ancient record album playing on a turntable set to too few RPMs.
“I have no platoon,” admitted the human. He set the lamp down. “I’ve had radiation sickness for weeks. But starvation will kill me faster than the radiation. And pneumonia faster than the starvation.” He went into another coughing fit, one that brought him to his knees.
“If…I…had…food…or…medicine,” spoke the robot very slowly, “I’d…give…it…to…”
The machine fell silent.
The man looked around the room for anything that might provide power for his adversary. He found nothing. He staggered toward the robot, coughing up copious amounts of blood as he shambled forward. He lay down on the floor in front of the dead machine. He thought he should make some philosophical observation about war or life or some such thing. But he could think of nothing but his labored breathing. A few minutes later, the man died.
In time the soldier decomposed and the war machine rusted. And the howl of the wind was again the only voice to challenge the dead city’s silence.
by submission | Dec 13, 2015 | Story |
Author : J G Pelling
My bedfellows’ laughter had followed me out of the room when I’d first mentioned my idea for a new career. Smarting, I’d gone to my appointment with Sirin. She hadn’t laughed. She’d spouted a bit of guff about ‘transferable skills’ post-navy, but she hadn’t laughed. And I need the money. I really, really need the money. Otherwise who’ll look after Thom? He can’t retrain, not like me.
And there were a few others who hadn’t thought it was an insane idea either, so here I am on Echo Station, going to meet a director for a chat. My exoskeleton leg is hidden by a passable suit and I’m carrying a portfolio of research under my arm, along with an essay I had a bash at (hardest thing I’ve done in the past year apart from, like, surviving).
I march down the corridor and turn right at the gravity drop, trying not to stumble. It seems the exoskeleton’s balancing mechanism isn’t quite bedded into my inner ear yet. Sitting down outside the director’s office is a relief.
“Warrant Officer Gresham?”
I stand up and just about resist the urge to salute. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything. We shake hands. “I’m Dwayne Smith – I head up the local team. Come on through: I have some stuff to show you.”
The room beyond is somewhere between a regular office and the bridge of a ship, all big screens and data. The staff look surprisingly normal: not that I’d expected them to be little accounting trolls or anything, but they’re not exactly weedy. Maybe a few are re-trainees from the war too; I’ll have to find out.
Smith leads me into a huge office and offers me a coffee from a shiny espresso machine. I nod, and while he’s making it he points at the screen on his desk. “What do you think of that?”
I walk over and start to scroll through the data. It’s a manifest from some station way out in the Oort Cloud. At first glance it all looks normal, but there’s something nagging at the back of my mind. Smith brings the coffee over just as I work it out. I look up. “He hasn’t bought a single oxygen filter for that base in six years.”
“Which means…”
“Which means,” I reply, thinking quickly, “either he’s getting them buckshee for services rendered or he pays for them out of another account. The former’s probably more likely.”
“Exactly. He’s a producer, grows meth-6 in the low gravity. We followed the breadcrumbs and got him last month.”
He points at a glossy brochure. “And what does this one look like to you, Mandy?” We both sit down at the conference table in the middle of his office while I sip the coffee – real coffee! – and have a read.
“Looks like a boiler room scam on exploration companies. A pyramid scheme. Get in early, you get your money back. Get in late, you’re screwed. Nothing new under any sun, it appears.”
He gestures at the wall of screens and the rather quaint piles of papers and folders. “Enjoying this?”
I nod. “Catching bad people with an overlay of maths and logic problems. Definitely.”
“Any questions?”
“Yes–” I somehow manage to avoid saying ‘sir’ again, “I guess I qualify for an interview. Who’ll be on the panel?”
He laughs at that. “I am the panel.” He sticks out his hand. “Welcome to Extrapol Customs and Crime.”
