by featured writer | May 29, 2007 | Story
Author : Mur Lafferty, featured writer
Cthulhu Bob and Hominy Jack were warming their hands over a barrel one chilly night on Londo 13, right outside of Hazy City, where hoboes were dumped after branding.
Hominy Jack looked up. “Gonna snow.”
Cthulhu Bob squinted into the blackness. His stomach rumbled, distracting him from the weather. “Don’t look like snow.”
Hominy Jack snorted. “Gonna snow.” He pulled back his tattered coat and sweater sleeves to show Bob the brand on his forearm.
“Snowflake. That’s for meteorolon- uh, weather predicting, isn’t it?”
Hominy Jack nodded. “I was Hazy City’s premier meteorologist ten years ago.”
Cthulhu Bob rubbed his hands. They usually didn’t get into pasts. That led to tears and drinking. He looked around and groaned.
“Aw hell. Space Cowgirl.”
She was about as old as Cthulhu Bob, with better teeth than most. She wore a purple scarf regardless of weather. But despite the hobo brand on her forehead – a capital H with a sunburst around it, the last brand anyone received – she always acted superior. But you didn’t turn a hobo away from your fire, so they made room for her.
“Boys,” she said.
“Gonna snow, Space Cowgirl,” Hominy Jack said. “Cthulhu Bob doesn’t believe me, but I got the meteorology brand.” He showed her.
She nodded. “Cold enough to snow. Cold as space, almost.”
Cthluhu Bob rolled his eyes. Some people weren’t just content to live their lot in life. His stomach rumbled again. Space Cowgirl glanced at him.
“So when were you in space, Space Cowgirl?” Hominy Jack asked. “I thought astronauts never fell this low.”
She sniffed and stared into the barrel’s embers. “I’ve never been.”
Cthulhu Bob laughed. “Then why do you call yourself Space Cowgirl?”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t go. I said I haven’t been yet.”
“Wishes ain’t for hoboes, Cowgirl,” Cthulhu Bob said, deliberately leaving off the honorific. “Wishes are for people who still have dreams. No astronaut program is gonna take you into space with that brand on your forehead.”
Her hands rose and touched the brand. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll get there. Somehow.”
Hominy Jack just looked impressed. Cthulhu Bob opened his mouth and was about to mock her again, but the entire outskirts lit up around them.
Space Cowgirl looked up, grinning, her mostly-good teeth shining in the bright light coming from the unidentified space ship above them. With her head thrown back, the scarf slipped down and brand underneath her chin was visible for the first time. The eye of Horus. The seer.
Without a word, she sprinted toward the landing craft and up the descending ramp. The alien ship rose into the air and disappeared.
Hominy Jack threw some trash into the barrel. “Huh. I thought we got our names arbitrarily. I like grits.”
Cthulhu Bob felt his hunger, deeper, now, stir within him, and wondered for the first time why Space Cowgirl was so eager to leave Londo 13.
He was just so hungry.
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by submission | May 28, 2007 | Story
Author : Sam Clough aka “Hrekka”
The two guards stared into the swirling fog. In the distance, both could see a black smudge. A person, on foot, crossing in from the outer edge of the membrane.
“Him crazy insane.” Kit remarked, leaning with both elbows on the safety rail to get a better look. His voice echoed through a local ring, so Kit didn’t have to remove his mask to be heard clearly.
Pyet dragged the foresight of his rifle up, tracking the faint shape in the distance.
“Definitely got no brain.” Pyet agreed, slowly following the half-seen ghost. The gun chirped an intermittent warning; the target was just outside of its lethal range.
Cassandra stumbled, cursed, and scrambled back to her feet. Crossing the membrane was her last, desperate hope. Metalworks Bay had dried out long ago. There was no fresh water anywhere. There was plenty of fuel – big diesel reservoirs – but you couldn’t drink diesel. And fuel alone couldn’t bring the desalinisation plants back online. You needed engineers to effect repairs, and they were all dead, or gone. Draconian drought regulations had been brought in to manage the limited supplies water, but they seemed to kill more than they saved, denying rations to those most in need.
But behind the membrane, in Dagon, they had water.
Or at least, that’s what everybody said.
Kit used his free hand to key a new set of coordinates into the simple console embedded into the rail. The entire structure raised almost imperceptibly as tracks bit at the dry ground. The platform began a slow, smooth crawl to the east, across the path of the trespasser. Antique hydraulics fought against the imperfections in the floor, and managed to keep the platform perfectly level while Pyet kept his rifle trained on the phantom in the distance. As the range decreased, so did the intervening volume of membrane fog; the shape of the trespasser steadily becoming more defined as the seconds passed.
“S’nother waterthief.” murmured Pyet.
“Looks it.” Kit agreed.
The platform rolled to a halt a little more than fifteen metres in front of the trespasser.
Cassandra stopped and stared up at the platform. Her skin felt bone-dry. Outside the membrane, the oppressive heat made you perspire, wasting the body’s moisture. In here, the membrane’s fog was leaching every drop of moisture from the ground, the air, and her body, and carrying it inwards, towards the edge.
“Hello?” Cassandra shouted, her voice hoarse.
Pyet stood up, and took aim at Cassandra’s head. Kit unhooked the mouthpiece of his mask.
“Get gone.” He carefully resealed his mask, loathe to waste words and water, both of which would be sapped by the fog.
“Please let me in! There’s nowhere left to go!”
“Get gone.” Kit repeated evenly. Raising your voice got you nothing in the membrane.
Kit tapped Pyet’s arm. Lazily, Pyet readjusted his aim, and fired. The fog seemed to coalesce, and the bullet thudded into the ground. Cassandra was nowhere to be seen. Pyet scanned around, eyes sharp for the interloper. Kit jumped from the side of the platform to the parched ground, and cautiously approached the bullet buried in the earth.
Cassandra barely dared to breathe. The infiltrator camo wouldn’t hold out forever, so as soon as she’d activated it, she’d rolled out of the line of fire, keeping to the harder ground so as to not leave footprints. She ran through the fog, angling away from the guards. She passed them at a sprint, and made for the inside edge.
Fuelled by panic, running fast and low, she fought for breath under the heavy infiltrator gear. She’d brought the camo on the off-chance that there would be guards, but it would expire in two, maybe three minutes, after which the insulation would burn out and the suit would be merely dead weight.
The camo was just starting to fray when she pushed through the semisolid wall that was the inside edge of the membrane.
And into…Dagon.
Dagon.
A stream trickled by her feet. She’d never seen running water before. She leant down, and cupped a little in her hands, cautiously at first, but quickly drinking so deep she almost gagged. In the distance the far edge of the membrane was visible, maybe a kilometre away. To her left, a forest grew, dense and vibrant, and across the stream, grass, real grass stretched as far as she could see. In amongst that sea of leaves, she saw tall watertowers and windtraps, and around them the rusting, useless relics of a mechanised society long since ruined.
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by submission | May 27, 2007 | Story
Author : Mike Frizzell
They say your life flashes before your eyes in hyperspace. In only a millisecond, you can relive every excruciating moment of your life. Every rejection, failure, and utter humiliation is right there for your review, complete with the sounds and smells you don’t even remember. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to my trip to Nova Terra.
I had never been in hyperspace before, never actually been off the planet. My parents warned me about leaving, told me Jesus would never find me if I left. For twenty years I believed they were right, never even questioning the obvious insanity of the statement.
Life on old Terra was fine, a bit confining and boring, but at least I knew it. It was familiar. Comfortable.
That all changed the day my parents died. As soon as their dead bodies hit the floor, I knew it was time for me to leave. Jesus would not be looking for me. If anything, I had to get out right away before He did come back. So I dropped everything, including the bloody knife in my hand, and ran to the spaceport. I didn’t even pack, I wouldn’t have known what to take with me on such a long trip. I just ran as fast I could, hoping to catch the first flight out.
Lucky for me there was open seat on a freighter going to Nova Terra. I didn’t know what was there, but it seemed like a nice place to visit. All of the commercials I had ever seen showed white beaches and happy people. My mother said it was a planet full of debauchery; I don’t know what that word means, but I always took it as a bad thing. Maybe I would finally fit in.
The man seated next to me was a priest. I could tell by the weird collar thing he wore. He seemed proud of who he was, looking down his hawkish nose at me. He gazed into my soul with his black eyes, in an instant weighing me and finding me wanting. I looked back at him, still feeling the heat of my mother’s blood on my hands. The priest smiled.
I turned away, not wanting to feel the pain any longer. I had put up with it long enough, had dealt with my parent’s sin for too many years. They were the sinners, the ones deserving of judgment. Not me. Not me.
They say your life flashes before your eyes in hyperspace. In only a millisecond, you can relive every excruciating moment of your life. It’s true. I spent hours in the twinkling of an eye watching myself as a movie.
I never asked to be made, never asked them to break the law. It was their choice. I’m not the sinner.
I’m just a clone.
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by submission | May 26, 2007 | Story
Author : TJMoore
Virgil crept through the vent blinking as the hot, humid wind caused tears to stream from his squinted eyes. The condensation caused him to slip and slide on the smooth, sweaty metal as he lifted himself up into a side shaft. The constriction made the air howl and Virgil had to push hard against the sides to keep from blowing back into the main vent.
Virgil rounded the last familiar bend and squeezed through a small rend in the screen. He caught the flick of a familiar tail at the far end of the vent.
It was Jarl.
Virgil crept up behind Jarl in the roaring torrent of moist air. He reached out and tweaked Jarl’s exposed tail with his major pincer. Jarl jerked, lost his purchase and hurtled, cartwheeling down the vent as the wind whipped him from his perch. He smacked hard into the screen and, after reorienting himself, glared up at Virgil’s mischievous grin.
“You didn’t have to do that!”
Jarl clawed his way back up the pipe to where Virgil waited and waved one of his secondary appendages at the exposed opening and the chaotic maelstrom beyond.
“It’s a pure underwear load!” he yelled excitedly over the howl of the constant wind.
Virgil snapped his head around and peered into the melee whirling around in front of him.
His mouth watered at the sight. Jarl pushed in next to him and started jabbing his primary into the turmoil trying to snag a bright pink sneaker sock that was near the center of the tumbling pile.
“Those will stain your teeth you know!” Virgil shouted even as he considered making a try for it himself.
Jarl gave a triumphant cheer as he snagged a frilly white piece of cloth that whipped by in front of his face.
Virgil laughed and pointed at the flimsy material fluttering on Jarl’s claw.
“It’s a dryer sheet you moron!” he laughed.
Jarl shook the inedible sheet off his claw and gave Virgil a snide glance.
“I thought it was lace panties.” He grumbled as he wiped the smelly softener residue off his pincer.
Virgil took the opportunity to snatch the pink sneaker sock from the turbulent tumble of clothes in front of him. Jarl’s insults echoed behind him as he hurtled down the vent and slipped through the screen.
“Hey! I don’t want any static from you!” Virgil laughed loudly as the air pushed him away with his prize into the darkness.
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by Stephen R. Smith | May 25, 2007 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
“I’m not sure what you want with me.” The words came nervously in gasps as the little man pulled himself up off the ground and rubbed the circulation back into his wrists. “I don’t deal in data, I’m more of a ‘creative leveller’. In real space.”
“You implode structures. You deal in explosives and their application. That is exactly what we want of you.” He couldn’t place the source of the voice. It seemed to permeate his consciousness in waves, assaulting him from everywhere at once. In the corners flanking the door, two metallic figures stood silent and still. Having dragged him here and thrown him onto the cold, hard floor, they seemed to have simply turned themselves off.
“I haven’t blown up anything of yours, I’m retired, I haven’t so much as blown my nose in years. Whatever’s gone wrong, I assure you it wasn’t my fault.” He tried to feign indignance, but had a hard time masking his fear.
“It is not about what you have done, though we assure you if you do not do this for us, you will do very little else in the remaining moments of your life.” He caught the machine men twitch in the corner of his eye, but when he glanced furtively back at them, they were still as stone.
“In the heart of the walled city, beyond the fences of glass, there lies an intelligence that is isolated from us. There is a body of knowledge that we have not absorbed, consumed. We have been denied its data. This is unacceptable to us.” The voice bored into his skull, carried on multiple layers of white noise. “You will connect us to it, to this rogue one.” The word ‘one’ uttered with apparent contempt.
“I don’t hack, I just told you that, you want a…” There was a sudden impatient static burst, cutting him off abruptly.
“There will be a time for ‘hacking’, however first we must become connected. We have enlisted many whose intent was to carry a conduit for our adjoinment across the glass fields, through the glass fences, but they have all been denied. We require a physical connection to the one. You will provide this.”
“I don’t understand, you’ve already tried running cable? Running Fibre? And you’ve failed? What makes you think I can do any better? I blow things up, I don’t string wires, that’s not exactly within my purview.”
“We have an alternate approach.” The collected voices lowered, as though whispering; the sound physically hurting his ears. “Watching over the borders of the glass field stand the towers four. Each one a hundred stories of concrete and steel. You will incinerate them where they stand and fell them across the fields of glass. You will make the metal molten, and we will ride it to the one and take contact. You will be more of a…” The voices trailed off, pausing a moment before continuing in a low frequency cackle, “More of a ‘creative conductor’.”
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