by submission | Dec 12, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
Solar flares were partially blocked from pillaging the threatened planet below the behemoth spacecraft. The Bohemia created a cascading, billowing shadow across the Jagron’s continents. Crimson pillars of feathery forests pulled their leaves to sleep as the false night blanketed the starward side of Jagron’s equator and its northern hemisphere. The floating ice beds of Nivonia fell back to the black seas to rest before their iridescent salts would free them to nestle skyward with purple clouds, after the blue star beyond reanimated their life. No life form on Jagron could ignore the silhouette from the black and white rescue vessel hovering in orbit.
Bohemia’s Captain, Egan Palton, communicated through a holographic projector to the central capital, Razic, where the Council of Five gathered to address the visitors in their skies.
“Chancellor Grimmott, you have received our offer. Are you prepared to agree to terms?” Palton’s cold, mechanical tones left no room for interpretation by the Council’s imperial soul quester.
“Captain, we are many peoples and species, all cursed to perish without your assistance, but your price is simply unacceptable to the Council. Taking half of all our wealth and a third of our children…it is simply outrageous.” The soul quester held the wrist of the Chancellor to maintain his emotional equilibrium.
“Very well, Chancellor, but know that you will perish. Jagron is doomed. Biana, the blue star you worship, will turn you all into space dust with one burst from her angry face. You have known this, but you have no technology to evacuate your world. The Bohemia was constructed for that purpose long ago. There is none other like her in this galaxy. There is no one else in your solar system to save you. Perhaps you are depending on some ethereal force to save you, as the Zeboton believed when we abandoned them after unsuccessful negotiations, just before arriving here. Experience what their reluctance cost.” The holographic display widened across the Council chamber. Detailed scenes appeared of absolute destruction of the Zeboton home world. Vistas portrayed cataclysmic onslaughts from a rogue comet. Screams of slaughtered Zebotons sliced through the chamber as the Council watched the planet’s flammable atmosphere savage cities, continents and then the entire outer mantle until the sphere ripped into six large sections and thousands of smaller shards, leaving a glowing core to drift aimlessly in a new, unstable orbit.
“Enough,” Grimmott cried out, lacing his six slender hands over his filigree horns, high above his red, encrusted forehead. “As you command. We have no choice. We will prepare but know there will be no joy in our coming to your ship…even with the promise of safe passage to a new world. We are at your mercy.”
Palton stopped the transmission. He pointed to the dozens of alien forms working in the command center to ready the evacuation craft. It would take three months to move three billion onto the Bohemia while sorting out the loot and the new crew members. Children were a critical part of refreshing the ship’s crew as radiation sickness, accidents and disease took their toll over the millennia. External repairs were the largest culprits as some evacuations were precipitously close to a planet’s demise. It was the legacy of the Bohemia since its first voyage, evacuating Earth to the Andromeda Galaxy ten thousand years before Zeboton’s destruction.
by Julian Miles | Dec 11, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
It’s not just flowers that open in sunlight. When that furious orb manages to show its face through the polluted haze, the cubes unfold like mad blossoms infested with colonies of two-legged ants. Which is a polite estimation of the average intelligence amongst cube dwellers these days.
I’m doing this final piece before being dragged to join the humants. You see, here in the Forty-Eight States that form the Republic of America, being a moderate is bad for you. I was moderate. Now I’m a ‘God-damned Ruskie’, ‘Islamist scum’ or ‘Satan-loving pagan’. I’ll never know which as I’m shipped to the cube city most in need of new blood. Thankfully, I can’t be tagged as a ‘Canadian spy’ or ‘Alaskan insurgent’ – they’re categories of ‘Godless’.
First President Trump did his homework – never think a man in a ridiculous hairpiece is stupid, people – and his divisive rallying calls attracted far more sympathy than anyone knew: the landslide victory struck his detractors dumb. In fairness, many were only quiet because they were leaving the good ol’ US of A before the American Dream took it’s gloves off.
The ‘retrenchments’ over the following six months were missed, but the ‘Leftist Plot to Destroy Our Glorious Homeland’ certainly wasn’t. The pogroms had replaced the key objectors: anyone that exhibited a moral ground this side of Hitler. When the dust settled, there were heads on the spikes of the Whitehouse perimeter fence and America had gone places that Goebbels only dreamed of.
Then the First President announced a month-long ‘mercy’. If you wanted in, you were welcome (some packed flights were apparently singing hymns all the way). If you wanted out, you could leave. Providing you could make it to an airport without being lynched by fundamentalists, of course. Then you had to survive the hardcore of the believers coming in, who set upon the unbelievers queuing to depart.
In the decades since, America has become a fundamentalist dystopia, complete with slave labour, a Ministry of Faith, full spectrum monitoring and profiling, televised executions of the ‘Godless’, and the two biggest walls since the Great Wall of China: one to defend against Mexican ‘mongrels’, the other to keep out ‘filthy’ Canadians.
This country has two, ID-carded classes: Citizen and Chosen. There are also Penitents – anyone in a cube city, and Elites – anyone who you defer to or suffer a fall from grace that would make Lucifer wince. Most if ‘us’ are Citizens. All military, law and emergency service first responders are Chosen. Elites are obviously Chosen. Penitents are “only that because of their own weaknesses. Pray for them. Now pass the canapés”.
If you have read of a dystopian horror in a novel, you can be damn sure that the RoA has improved on it and broadened the target list. I am sure there is a resistance, and I wish them the best of luck, because the penalties are horrendous. The fields of the heartland are fertilised with the remains of dissidents, their entire families – even their pets and close friends, if the member had the misfortune to be indicted in The Gospel Territories – the lands that used to be called The Bible Belt.
They are pounding on the door, so I’ll sign off and send this non-American (thus illegal) smartphone down eighty stories to its doom. Thank you for reading my blog, people of the free world. May what has befallen the USA at least serve as an instructional on what to avoid.
Sic Semper Fanaticus.
Yours,
Abraham Hicks.
by submission | Dec 10, 2015 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
Wilma’s Pass, a single stitch in the gaping wound that was the M1 Motorway, was popular with dairy farmers because of its cow content.
Conceived on environmental guilt and funded by the local council’s surplus budget, it was a bridge designed to be organic in shape and bejewelled with rich landscapes. The idea being that the peaceful gardens above would greatly contrast the frenetic arterial route below with its speeding commuters and smoky emissions.
Construction work on the bridge commenced after the winning contractor’s matchbox flyer sprinkled a pinch of tiny founder robots. Overnight, the founders made kennel sized botforges erupt from the dirt like steampunk mushrooms. By morning tea, the botforges were creating and releasing clouds of nanoscopic robots called scavs.
Scavs were so named because of the way they were coded to scavenge detritus found within the vicinity of the construction site and convert them into construction materials at a nano-scale. Scavs had proven themselves to be a trustworthy tool and were the modern contractor’s preferred method of construction. They worked 24 hours a day, they were quiet, they never took any sick days and most importantly built something from nothing.
Intelligently, the scavs onsite progressed the construction by spreading outward from the motorway to seek old leaves and twigs, buried toxic waste, rubbish, smog and even cow dung from the adjacent fields. The local council was encouraged by the contractor to dump community waste nearby so that it too could be converted.
Things progressed well, meeting the short programme timeline without any hitches. As the bridge progressed, the scav’s search radius slowly increased, cleaning up the surrounding countryside as they ventured further and further afield in search of humanity’s waste. They soon reached the property of dairy farmer Joseph Hays.
As the scav’s spread out, scouring Farmer Hays’ lower field clean, they were in the process of cleaning muck from the hooves of Wilma, Joseph’s prized milking cow, when she became startled and bolted. Crossing a swarm of airborne scavs, Wilma temporarily lost her sight, ran through an old boundary fence and fell fatally into a concrete drainage culvert. Her carcass instantly became a viable source for the scavs and over 4 hours, she was steadily devoured until nothing remained.
Work proceeded onsite, as did an investigation into the whereabouts of Wilma the cow.
Eight weeks passed and local drone feeds revealed an elegantly styled bridge with flowing muscular-like supports that merged naturally into the flowing topography. Undulating grassed banks enriched with perfectly balanced topsoil revealed seductive landscaped gardens, arbored picnic areas and timber gazebos – ornate with beautiful fenestration.
Data recovered from the scav recorders revealed the demise of Wilma, triggering Joseph to take the local council to court. The data also revealed the location of Wilma’s mortal remains. She was everywhere throughout the bridge. Converted into the sinewy carbocrete matrix, entrapped within the steelhex reinforcement and entwined into the fibretites of the faux-timber ornamentation. The scavs had successfully turned a cow into a bridge.
Judge Sale McKintyre ruled in favour of Joseph’s prosecution team, in that as Wilma was equally anywhere within the bridge at any time, there was no way of distinguishing Wilma from the bridge. Wilma by definition was also the bridge. And as Wilma was owned by Joseph, so too was the bridge.
As new owner, Joseph saw no way of unmaking Wilma from the bridge, so after a dedication ceremony, he named the bridge Wilma’s Pass and allowed its ground to be of use to all dairy farmers across the land.
by submission | Dec 9, 2015 | Story |
Author : N. R. Crowningshield
Vanessa let the shower water flow over her hand. The old pipes moaned and shrieked as the shower head spewed into the white pedestal tub. The temperature of the of liquid changed from cool to warm to hot. Steam pillowed out of the tub.
Gingerly, she stepped into the hot shower and pulled the curtain closed. The warm water blanketed her body in a warm sheen. Her auburn hair clung to her neck and shoulders. Inhaling steam she let out a sigh of relief.
“Sunshine Scent,” Vanessa read out loud to herself. She flipped the cap open and picked up a citrus essence with a light touch of honey. Squeezing out the bright pink shampoo into her palm, she brought her hair to a thick lather. Vanessa closed her eyes and submerged her head in the water. Creamy pink bubbles ran down her body and swirled at her feet. Wringing her hair clean of the soap, she brought her head out of the water and wiped her eyes clear. Steven was standing in the tub.
“Steven!” Vanessa shrieked. “We talked about this. We had an agreement!” She covered breasts and womanhood as best she could.
“I’m sorry. I just… I dunno.” Steven looked down at his feet. He wore red sneakers and blue jeans as he always did.
“I need you to respect my privacy if you want this to work.”
“What about when I needed you?” Steven snapped.
Vanessa expression darkened. She stepped out of the tub, and attempting to keep herself covered, she wrapped a seafoam green towel around her torso.
“What’s bothering you?” Vanessa questioned as she reached in the tub and silenced the shower. She grabbed a matching towel and wrapped her hair in a makeshift hat.
“Why were those kids so mean to me?”
“It’s because you’re different.” Vanessa made her way into the adjacent bedroom. She took a seat on her bed and patted the mattress. “Come take a seat.”
“Is it because I’m albino?” Steven appeared, sitting on the bed beside her. He watched his feet as he bounced his heels off the side of the bed frame.
“Unfortunately, yes. Kids have a hard time looking at what matters on the inside. They can’t get past the surface.”
Steven stopped his feet and looked Vanessa in the eyes. “Why didn’t you stop them?”
“Believe me buddy, if I could go back and do it again, I would have.” Vanessa’s eyes filled with tears. A single drop streamed down her cheek. Steven reached a hand up and failed to dry her face. His hand went through her cheek. She felt nothing and wiped the tear for him.
—
“Alright, I’m heading off to work. Behave yourself. We’ll finish up your physics lesson tonight.” Vanessa sat on the bench in living room. She slid on a pair of black heels over her nylon covered feet.
“Okay. Can we play a game or two of chess after you eat?” Steven blurted in excitement.
“Absolutely.” Vanessa smiled as she watched Steven’s quiet celebration.
The apparition of Steven walked through the living room wall into Vanessa’s bedroom. She knew he would watch her pull out of the driveway as he always did.
She reached for the front door. Before turning the brass door knob, she paused as she always did. There on the white door written in marker read, “Live with it.” Underneath her hand writing a news article was taped in place. In bold print, “TEACHER TO BLAME FOR STEVEN ST. CLAIR SCHOOL SHOOTINGS.”
Vanessa took in a deep breath and stepped through the door.
by submission | Dec 8, 2015 | Story |
Author : Steve Buttner
Few dishes satisfy like a classic croute du monde. A melange of shatteringly crisp technological flakes, floating in a richly flavored, savory slurry of organics, all a foil to the spirited kick and bright acidic finish of the hydrocarbon-rich rocky solids, croute du monde deservedly rests among the ranks of culinary legend.
Unfortunately, for most of us croute remains just that – a legend. Preparing a croute is a fussy process. A bit of a crapshoot. Most attempts result in either a bland, lackluster mush, or a desiccated metallic husk, radioactive and utterly devoid of those delicate organic aromatics that signify a croute’s pungent depth.
I set out to create a foolproof method to take the guesswork out of preparing croute, rethinking the standard approach. I began by carefully choosing a medium-size rocky world orbiting its star at a distance conducive to water in the liquid state. I showered the world with comets until the surface was thoroughly wet. Then I sprinkled the globe with ground organics, from an altitude sufficient to ensure light and even distribution over the entire watery surface. I set the world’s radiation flux on medium to encourage good flavor evolution, and awaited the outcome.
Results were disheartening. Tasters complained of bland flavor marred by a dull texture completely lacking croute’s signature technological snap. Not inedible, but not worthy of the moniker of “croute”.
For my second test, I prepped another medium-sized world, but this time I set the globe’s radiation flux to high for the first several million orbits, hoping thereby to jumpstart the broiling process, encouraging the organics to cook out and evolve more rapidly into a broad spectrum of flavors and textures, including, I hoped, those all-important technological flakes. Then I reset the flux to medium, and set back to wait for the results.
The outcome was even worse this time. At some point in the cooking process, quickly and unpredictably, the technological crust had overevolved and burned the croute. The one taster I could convince to try it found the croute to be charred, harsh and inedible, with no detectable organic bouquet.
My hybrid cooking method was obviously effective at encouraging the development of technological texture. But it was equally obvious that precise timing would be vital to the success of my croute. I needed an indicator. A fellow test cook helped me to come up with a cool trick.
As the organics of a world cook and evolve technology, flakes begin to spatter off. So, after choosing a third medium-sized world, I placed a smaller globe in orbit around it. This satellite would catch some of the spatters, affording me warning that the croute was nearly done.
My colleague advised me to place another medium-size rocky world in an orbit adjacent to the world I was cooking. The arrival of technological flakes on this second world would tell me the croute was fully cooked, and needed to be served immediately to avoid burning.
Finally, a croute worth waiting for! Peeling the croute from the world, a rich, earthy aroma, with its distinctive yet subtle notes engulfed me. My tasters raved about the lush, complex texture, crispy bits of technology floating in a thick sauce of organics coating the rocky solids, the bold flavor of the sauce complementing without overpowering the zesty undertone of the crust.
By following this method, you too can prepare croute du monde worthy of the name.
For added pizzaz, slather your croute on a thick slice of pan metano – see page 27,356 of the Breads book for the recipe.
