by submission | Nov 6, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
Bismarck, North Dakota
Jimmy Severud prostrated his nine-year-old frame on the blooming stiff flax, undulating in cobalt waves from winds caressing North Dakota’s startling-blue spring sky. Nearby, summer whispered among meadowlark calls and cricket melodies. He imagined billowing alto cumulus clouds as pirate ships adrift from Montana, meandering above grain fields, but puffy ships violently pulled sails to become thin wisps, without warning, as rapid ribbons scooting past. Fields silenced. Jimmy twisted back in awe, gazing to a menacing three-hundred-foot misty giant hovering over the rolling prairies, consuming clouds into a semi-transparent behemoth.
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
“Observations are now worldwide. Thousands are being confirmed by satellite. These monsters appear without warning, craft or sound, devastating clouds. I want answers, gentlemen, and now. The President’s waiting.” The Joint Chiefs’ Chairman took no solace deep in the Rockies. Confronting threats this massive called for nuclear intervention.
“General,” Dr. Elmore Baker, climatologist, responded, “We’ve tried salting clouds with silver iodide and chem trails. No effect. They prefer cumulus, but yesterday one devoured a nimbostratus over Kansas, with tornado funnels forming. High winds and lightning had no impact. If they continue we’ll have worldwide droughts in a month.”
“What about you, Carlson? Any luck deciphering that scalar wave code? Are they communicating?” The Chairman leaned towards Dr. Carlson, Berkeley’s renowned linguist.
“General, we’ve tried every decryption code…every alphabet. There is a correlation with an ancient Iroquois dialect given to them by their tribe’s Sky Mother.”
“Yes…go on…go on,” the General interrupted, flapping his right hand at Carlson to get to the point.
“Not absolutely sure,” Carlson paused, “but we interpreted one phrase as Myrgdala thirsty.
“Thirsty? That’s it? I don’t care what they call themselves. It’s obvious they want water. Peterson, what’s DARPA got ready? Can we nuke these bastards?”
Analyst Gerard Peterson delayed, waiting for tensions to drop. “Options are limited.” He halted again to gather everyone’s attention. “Radiation won’t affect them. They don’t have enough solid substance. We have no idea what heat might do, but based on lightning stories, probably little. In fact, targeting them is not feasible. They come in and out of the atmosphere we believe through some inter-dimensional portal. They’re gone in minutes. We’d waste our arsenal. The Agency, however, does have practical options, but there may be collateral damage.”
“Peterson, the last one of your collateral risks cost us an aircraft carrier off North Korea. You better be sure this time.” Red filled the General’s neckline.
“We are already set to test the use of swarm nanobots. They can combine with tenuous matter like these gas giants. Clouds of intelligent, swarming particles will spread over them, uses the giant’s contents to reproduce, and then encase them in metallic mesh allowing us to drag them into space. We believe these beasts will perish before reaching the upper ionosphere.”
“Ready to launch, you say?”
“General, just say the word. We’re already in the Pacific, far from any land mass.”
“Do it. Do it now!”
The team monitored results on their war room screens. Rockets released swarms on a targeted giant northeast of Hawaii. In seconds, a black cloud circled and engaged the invader. Its arms and legs reflected with new mesh as the bots spread…but suddenly the metal disappeared. The casing of technology became flesh as the giants solidified. Carlson rushed to answer an emergency call from Berkeley.
“General,” Carlson shouted out. “Hundreds of them are mutating simultaneously worldwide into the new form and communicating with the scalar waves. My team has deciphered a new message. Oh, God!”
“What is it man? Speak up!”
“Our world. Hungry.”
by submission | Nov 5, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rosalie Kempthorne
Gerald stood in his green-walled study surveying the view-screen with interest. The screen itself was state-of-the art, thin-holographic, with life-like resolution, and convincing 3D effects. But what it displayed was far more interesting. Gold along much of the top; with threads of green burrowing into the gold and stretching out into the blue-grey that occupied much of its surface. At the bottom it was ice-white, striated with the same deep gold. And all of it covered by a fine white veil of cloud.
His agent was speaking: “J-Ibius 4. It’s located in the Whirlpool Galaxy” – a star-chart flashed up in one corner – “fairly deep in on the near side. The stars will be twice as thick as they are from earth.”
Night as if it were day. Very nice. Keep talking, Arnold…..
“There are two suns, and six other planets. You’ll get about sixteen hours daylight for most of the year. If you look at the mineral table here,” – it popped up on screen – “you’ll see there’s a lot of methane locked up in the polar ice. The surface is about 60% ocean, 20% ice-caps and 20% landmass. It looks as if there’s some vegetation growing over a lot of that landmass. The gold stuff you see all along here,” – he gestured with a little blinking cursor – “that’s a kind of plant-life. It flowers every three…”
He said “I’ll take it.”
“Sir?”
“It’s beautiful. I’ll take it. How much do they want for it?”
“30 billion g’los.”
“Done. Make the deal.”
“Sure thing.”
Gerald played around with the viewer, letting the planet spin around from different angles. It really was beautiful. The golden vines that covered the land – and much of the ice – would be amazing to see up close. The green-grey fissures he’d noticed around the outside were likely to be valleys, maybe lush and full of flora. The ocean: it might look like silver when the two suns shone on it together. Gerald was willing to gamble that that ocean might have islands. And if not – well, he’d have islands made. He would just have to think up a name for the place….
His agent was back on – a face in the left corner.
“Well?”
“It’s yours.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Arnold smiled, “Ever glad to help.”
Ever glad of that fat commission I pay you. But, well, the guy did earn it.
“I have to say, sir, I admire your courage.”
“Oh?”
“It could be hundreds of years before the technology exists for you to even visit that place, let alone settle there.”
“I’m a patient man.” And look where that’d gotten him. So now he intended to have the best of everything; the best clothes, the best house, the best longevity this modern world could offer one of its wealthiest citizens. Since such extravagances now included the purchase of planets in other galaxies, he fully intended to have his share of the pie. He could only view it now, only saviour the image, and know that it was his. But that was enough for the moment. He played his new planet around a few more times on the screen, zooming in on some of its barely-glimpsed features, allowing himself to imagine what some of these shapes and colours might reveal when that world could be properly explored by drones. He zoomed in for a moment on a cobalt-blue lake, edges surrounded in terracotta-rose.
Yes, this was going to do very nicely.
END
by submission | Nov 4, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
It was a typical day in the year 2841. The Lunar Stock Exchange, said financial analysts, was overvalued and a harbinger of an imminent economic crisis. The newly independent Mars was moving toward a civil war. The Union of Canada and New England announced they would accept no more American refugees. I had downloaded these and a dozen other news stories into my wetwork when she entered my office.
The woman was human, not transhuman, AI, or synthorg, something of a rarity in the Asteroid Belt. That meant she’d have to communicate verbally. I adjusted my subjective time perception down so our conversation, which might stretch on for minutes, wouldn’t feel interminable.
“You’re a detective?” she asked.
Detective, I thought. A rather antiquated term for a discloseur. “I am,” I replied. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for my husband. Five years ago he left me. He said he was going to Proxima Prime to start a new life.”
“He was an Archaic?” I winced. It’s not good business to insult a client with a racial slur. She divined my embarrassment.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I take no offense at the term. And, yes, my husband was a natural, unaugmented human.”
“No unaugmented human has ever left the solar system,” I said. “In fact, few natural humans live or work off Earth. The physical and psychological rigors of extraterrestrial life usually prove to be too much for them.”
“My husband cleaned out our bank account after he left me. I suspect he had himself reengineered.”
“That would be expected before trying to migrate to Proxima. But if he did that five years ago, he would still be en route there. I can see if he booked passage, but you could do that yourself.”
“I have,” she said. “He bought a ticket on an interstellar transport five years ago.”
“Then if you know he went there…”
“He didn’t. Two hundred people purchased tickets for that flight. Only one hundred ninety-nine passengers were on board when it left.”
“You think he remained in the solar system? Buying a ticket to Proxima would be a very expensive way to divert anyone trying to track him.”
“We had quite a bit of money at one time.”
“I see. If he had himself augmented, the facility where it was done would be the logical place to begin.”
“I agree. And I did that. That’s how I was able to finally track you down.”
“Track me down? I don’t under–”
“You got a partial memory revision with your wetware. All recall of your having known me was deleted and a memory patch implanted to cover the gaps.”
“That preposterous! I never–”
I grab the desk. For a moment, I think the asteroid’s rotation has become destabilized. It hasn’t. I have vertigo. My vision starts to blur.
“An enzyme that degrades the myelin sheaths of synthetic neural nets,” she says, “delivered by nanobots I’ve been exhaling the whole time I’ve been in this room.”
I collapse to the floor.
“They’ll be able to get you back to where you can walk and talk and not be incontinent again within a year or so,” she says as she walks out the door. “But if I were you, this time I’d skip the memory wipe.”
by Julian Miles | Nov 3, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles
“Master Osho. The candidates are assembled.”
My brush completes the stroke, leaving a perfect curve upon the paper. I place the brush down on its rest and look up at Matsushige.
“Thank you. I will attend momentarily.”
I examine my completed calligraphy. It is a summation of who we are, to hang in the anteroom of the great hall:
“In feudal Nihon, the place where you were born would define your worth in the eyes of society. We were the Burakumin, the ‘hamlet people’; the untouchables. We were only permitted to hold the most demeaning jobs. If we had the misfortune to also be classified as Eta (literally: ‘abundance of filth’), we could even be murdered with impunity, as we were only deemed to be worth one seventh of a ‘real’ human. That determination was made by a magistrate in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century we were blacklisted by employers. In the twenty-first, the blacklists were scrutinised by the parents of those we wanted to marry. Only the crime syndicates, the Yakuza, welcomed us. Despite protestations of equality, when the Rising Sun ascended to the stars, Burakumin were taken to run the environmental systems and other things that ‘nice’ people could never be expected to soil their hands with.”
I smile. It never pays to forget that kami play a long game.
“When the Gristplagues struck, those in the overdecks fell victim, their souls and bodies weakened by lives of labourless luxury. The remedies of our healers were useless. That was when Gusamin remembered Tsunetomo’s words in the Hagakure, about how the end of the samurai era had been heralded when the remedies for samurai ceased to work, yet those for women started to be effective on men. Gusamin rightly consigned the sexism to history, but sought out the long-unused ‘samurai-specific’ remedies. Those ancient arts worked for every soul in the underdecks, but only caused pain to those from the overdecks, without providing a cure.”
That had been the turning point.
“Gusamin worked with Grandmaster Osho to define what had occurred. The mission had to continue: taking us all to new worlds. So my predecessor stated that, by empirical proof of Yamamoto Tsunetomo’s own words, Burakumin had become the new Samurai. As we were self-determined, we would not shame that title. We would adopt the Ronin name and bring honour to it by fulfilling the mission. Overdeck and underdeck became the ‘Ship’, and we Ronin continue to lead a united people to the stars.”
In truth, we are all Ronin now.
Turning from the parchment, I stroll from my office and stand upon the balcony, looking down at the two hundred men and women gathered below.
“Today you start our future. To be Ronin is to be one of the manifest kami that keep the Ship on its journey. You will learn. You will train. You will bring pride to your families. There is no failure. You have made it here. All that remains is determining what role you can excel at. Standing among you could well be Osho the Fifteenth. Nothing is impossible.”
The upturned faces are hopeful, happy and strong. The survivors of the overdecks intermarried and the word ‘Eta’ has finally been consigned to its rightful place: an unacceptable insult that is fading from use.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 2, 2015 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
She arranged to meet him at a seven thirty. He was fifteen minutes late, but she sat at the bar and watched him settle into the table and check his watch obsessively until almost eight before she walked over and seated herself.
He didn’t get up. “You’re late, I didn’t think you were coming.” Unapologetic. Strike one. He pulled his sleeve up to check his watch, even though he’d just checked his phone and knew exactly what time it was, just to make a point. Arrogant. Strike two.
“I was actually sitting at the bar, you said from my profile picture that I’d be the ‘most compelling beauty in any room’, I was curious as to whether you’d spot me.”
He laughed, reached across the table and placed his hand on hers. “You are, unmistakably, the most beautiful woman I’ve known.”
She withdrew her hand to reach for her water glass, took a sip and smiled. “But you don’t know me, do you?”
He waved to catch the eye of a nearby waiter before snapping his fingers and pointing to the table. “Yes, well, you don’t me either.” The waiter arrived, masking his distaste with commendable professionalism.
“I’m so sorry for the wait, would you like a cocktail, or perhaps some wine? Your waiter will—”
He was cut off abruptly. “Whisky rocks for me, and the lady will have a white wine—”
“I’ll have a gin martini, straight up, three olives.” She smiled at the waiter and ignored the angry confusion on the man’s face.
The waiter risked a slight smile, “Right away madam”, before slipping away.
“I wasn’t sure if I would have to cancel,” the man started talking, “I’m in the middle of this massive deal–”
“It’s good that you didn’t.” She cut him off again.
He opened and closed his mouth before picking up where he left off. “I can’t talk about it, but we’re in a unique position where–”
“Why are businessmen so self absorbed?” She spoke over him effortlessly, silencing him in mid sentence without raising her voice.
He sat back in his seat, visibly annoyed.
“What are you–?”
“Maxwell Grenderson, thirty seven, born in Saint Paul, Minnesota before moving to New York at twenty two. Fast tracked to partner by way of taking photographs of the owner’s son screwing Julia Wells, the owner’s girlfriend, obtained ironically enough by hiding in her closet after almost getting caught screwing her yourself.”
Maxwell closed his mouth.
“Do you remember what I do for a living?” She steepled her fingers, watching him over well manicured nails.
“You said something about the water works.” No denials. Strike three.
“If you only listened as well as you talked.” She paused as the waiter returned, noiselessly sliding the drinks into vacant spaces on the table, and slipping away just as effortlessly. She picked up her glass and removed an olive from its skewer with her teeth, chewing it slowly as she watched him.
“You see Max, I have gigabytes of data on you, your friends, your family. I know everything you have read, researched, every minute of pornography that you’ve sat through. I know every dollar that’s travelled into or out of your accounts, and what you’ve done with it.”
She paused again, bit off a second olive and held it between her teeth, smiling around it as she held eye contact, then bit it neatly in two.
“The thing about people’s personalities when observed simply as bits, is you really don’t get a feel for them. You can know everything about someone and still not really know them. For that you have to spend time with them.”
She took another sip and placed the glass on the table, then placed her hands in her lap and leaned forward.
“What I said, Max, was that I was in wetwork. And if you had proved to be a better human being than your electronic signature suggested, then perhaps this would have ended differently. But…”
There were six swift whispers, barely audible above the ambient chatter as her weapon discharged under the table. His muscles tensed fully and completely before he could even gasp.
Pushing back from the table she rose to leave, and as she passed him she bent down, face to face. “The most beautiful woman in the room?” For a moment her face flickered and changed, and Julia Wells breathed through a smile. “None of you ever knew me,” and the face was gone, different now from that of his dinner date too. A moment later they both made their exit, each in their own way.
