by submission | Jun 6, 2014 | Story |
Author : Sam Davis
I think I’m a robot. Hi. I’m Arthur. My parents, well I guess I should say the people that own me, they like to call me Artie. All my friends here at school call me Arthur though. They say I seem more grown up that way, and that makes sense to them since I was in my wreck. To be clear, it wasn’t really my wreck. I didn’t cause it or anything. Really it was just a wreck that happened to me.
That’s when it happened. At least that’s when I think it happened. I remember being a kid and all that other stuff. I even remember the car slamming into my bike. There are some bits and pieces of a few other things-ambulance, nurses, a lot of yelling and some sobbing in the background. After that though, it’s all blank.
My mother says that’s because I was in a coma. It is what the doctor said too. But I can tell I’m different. I think I died and they bought a robot body to put what they could harvest of my consciousness in. Marco says they do it all the time on the streets like some sort of reverse back alley abortion. Marco likes to seem like he knows things, because he is the only Latino we know. His dad owns the dealership on Park. We all take what Marco says with a grain of salt. Laura says it’s total bullshit.
My parents don’t love me anymore though. At least, not how they used too. Instead of taking care of me, it feels like they are taking care of a car. I don’t even mind that much except when my dad stares at me for a long time at dinner. I think he is worried I’ll snap and kill them like in the movies. But that’s not the plan.
Marco said his dad has the stuff at the Dealership to make an EMP. He was right. It took us about three weeks of after school “study groups” to build it the right way. Laura says we shouldn’t do it. What if it does kill me? I told her I thought she said it was total bullshit. Apparently so would me being dead. But I’m pretty sure I already am.
We are going to try it tonight. I guess this is my note, though I don’t think this counts as suicide. Maybe vandalism? Don’t punish Marco or anything though if it works. I know it will work. I wonder if I’ll feel myself fuse together. I wonder if I have a soul any more. Or if I got a new one when I got remade. If there is an afterlife, I wonder if I’ll get to meet myself.
by submission | Jun 5, 2014 | Story |
Author : Aaron Koelker
Most said I was crazy, some wished me luck and only one said, “I love you”.
Though I was strapped to a flaming arrow that the archer had no intention of ever retrieving, I had yet to question my own sanity. In fact, I thought I was the sanest person on the planet, and it was about to lose him.
Thousands volunteered for the opportunity and thousands backed out; hundreds were declared unsuitable and dozens were thanked for their commitment but ultimately turned away. Now there was just me, soon to be the first man to stand on that little red rock in the sky.
A psych test wheedled out the majority of applicants and declared that I was in undeniably perfect mental health. It didn’t take a subtle mind to see the overwhelming irony in that, but I believed it, and I was impressed with whomever had designed the test to actually deign me sane. Perhaps they, too, understood things like I did.
I wasn’t scared as the rocket locked into its ignition procedures and I didn’t think I would need the luck people had thrust upon me over the last few weeks. You can’t be the sanest man in the world and believe in a thing like luck, but it was interesting how much I learned about fear from those concerned folk. Sometimes you saw it in their eyes or in the way they asked, but you could always tell. While they surmised little from me, I took a lot away from them.
“Won’t you get lonely?” one asked me. I then knew they were terrified of solitude.
“Won’t you get bored?” asked another. I knew they cherished material goods and struggled with restlessness.
“Such little space!” said the claustrophobic one.
The solid boosters lit beneath me, yet they seemed far away and unimportant. I was picturing the day’s headlines sprawled out above a black and white of my hideous mug. “MAN’S ONE WAY TRIP OPENS FUTURE!” it might say. Think of all the petty, uninspired jokes there would be when people saw the face of the man who chose to run away from all of humanity. They couldn’t understand, just like the people who feared for me didn’t understand and the people who thought me crazy didn’t understand. If they did, they might be strapped into this rocket with me.
Only one person came close to that claim, and while I wouldn’t necessarily miss her, I regretted not knowing her better. My mother walked out on my father, who died when I was fifteen shortly after remarrying. My stepmother and I, between which there was little animosity, had never spent much time together. But she knew she was the only flake of a family I had left, and that must have compelled her to say, “I love you,” when I told her I was leaving for good. No comment or fuss, no attempt to understand why or dissuade me. Just, “I love you.” She couldn’t understand why, but I was glad to know she at least understood me.
As I soared into a black heaven dotted with starlight, I knew I completely understood all those people with their faces titled up to the sky imagining themselves in my position, terrified at the idea. They could only wonder and guess why a man would willingly condemn himself to my fate. My problem was that I knew them all too well. I read them like an open book while to them I was some alien hieroglyph etched on a dirty wall.
I didn’t condemn myself; I condemned humanity.
by submission | Jun 4, 2014 | Story |
Author : S. Tyrel Murray
Its cold all the time. I don’t mean cold, as in frozen. More like uncomfortable, chilly. Its still cold enough to die from hypothermia.
I was one of the first volunteers selected. They said we would travel. See the sights. They lied. They had us in cold sleep for the trip, so we didn’t get to see any of it. Even warping space and travelling at 27 times the speed of light, it took us more than 18 years to reach here.
There were sixteen of us when we left. We lost the first two a half million klicks from Earth. A secondary reactor in the aft storage module started leaking coolant. Johnson and Valasques went to shunt the coolant line so we could salvage some supplies, and dump the module. They were boiled alive. It wasn’t pretty.
You may be wondering, “Where is here?” “Here” is Kepler-186f. We found the planet orbiting an M class dwarf, a red sun, back in early 2014. It’s habitable, but barely. The air is breathable, the water is potable, the vegetation is edible. We haven’t seen any native fauna, but I’m no zoologist. That was Valasques’ job.
When we landed, and I use that term loosely, the wind was too strong for us to set up our survival equipment. We had to weather the storm in the crew module. It passed after almost a week, then we set about building our domed houses. Azzimi, a structural engineer, made sure our houses could withstand the high winds.
He was the first to disappear. We don’t know when it happened. There were no screams, and no bootprints or tracks to follow, thanks to the constant winds. Over the next four months, nine more men disappeared under the same mysterious circumstances. The rest of us were petrified to leave each other’s sight.
There are only four of us left, and we always have one person on watch. We’re all very tired, bored, afraid, and resentful. We haven’t been apart from each other in more than six months. We have begun to hate and fear each other. Suspicion runs high, but we still need one person watching at all times. It’s my turn for watch, so that’s what I’m doing.
They say familiarity breeds contempt, and I agree. I hate those guys so much. I think I’ll go for a walk.
by submission | Jun 3, 2014 | Story |
Author : Mae Thann
Rounds of heavy artillery sent the bunker shuddering. The dim desk lamp flickered. The deteriorating energy shields outside crackled. The only constant was the scraping of metal on metal. Sera shivered and padded toward the light. “Daddy? Will you tell me a story?”
Daddy continued to sharpen his knife. “Not tonight, Sera. Go back to bed.”
She watched the knife’s reflection dance over the dark patch on Daddy’s uniform where his insignia once was, then over his features, softened by a weariness Sera didn’t recognize.
Then Daddy set down his knife and offered a smile. Sera climbed onto his lap and he wrapped an arm around her. “Where did we leave off?”
“He asked her to dance.”
“Ah, yes. The fairest princess of all.”
Sera snuggled closer and waited with bright eyes.
“The music started and they fell in love right on the first step. They never noticed anyone else or even how long they danced. But before the prince could announce that he’d found his bride –”
The lamp flickered as if on cue. Sera gasped and covered her ears to block out the sharp crack of the weakening energy shields.
“ – the dark fairy appeared. ‘I have given you your princess. Now, prince, give me what you have promised.’ The prince sent for his prized steeds, paraded his rarest treasures, even offered the kingdom itself, but she refused them all.”
Sera frowned. “But didn’t she ask for them?”
“That’s what the prince thought. ‘I have offered you all that is dearest,’ he said. ‘What more is there to give?’ The fairy said, ‘I know where your heart truly lies.’ Then the prince knew that the dark fairy had tricked him, just as the good fairies had predicted. He took the princess’ hand and ran while the guards surrounded the fairy, but she disappeared with a flash.”
The outside world held its breath, waiting as Sera did for the next part.
“They ran through the halls, but the dark fairy always appeared to head them off. They ducked into the treasure chamber and hid.”
Explosions rocked the earth, amplified thunder rent the air. Sera screamed and threw her arms around Daddy’s neck.
“There was no escape.”
The light grew for a moment, then blew out. Horrible sounds came from outside – things crashing, people screaming, alarms blaring. Sera sobbed into Daddy’s shoulder. He rubbed her back and continued in a low, husky voice.
“The prince could only imagine why the dark fairy wanted his princess. He had to save her, even if it hurt him more than anything in the world.”
Shouting, pounding on the door.
“He held his princess close – like this. He knew there was only one way he could keep his princess. The castle bell began to toll.”
A pause. Then a terrific crash against the door.
“‘She’ll never take you away. I promise.’”
She could feel the tension in his embrace, the raggedness of his breath, the drumming of his heart against hers. Two, three crashes.
“‘You’re safe with me.’”
Four. She felt one of his hands pull away and reach toward the table. Five, six.
“‘There’s just one thing I want you to know.’”
Seven. The door screeched as part of it bent in. He kissed her hair. Eight. She saw a momentary flash, a shadow on the wall. Nine. She tried to push back, to look at his face, but he held her tight. “Daddy?” Ten. Another shadow, more terrible than the last. Eleven. “What are you doing? Daddy? Daddy?” she cried.
The clock struck midnight. “I love you, princess.”
by Julian Miles | Jun 2, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
We were getting pasted in a dogfight off Agnos IV when Team Havoc dropped out of subspace and chewed up the Havna interceptors that had been giving us grief. The thirty-two of us left were damn happy to see the cavalry.
“Marduk Leader to Havoc Leader. Cheers for the assist.”
“No problemo, Marduk. Happy to help.”
At that moment, the jaws of the Havna trap closed and seventy-two Crusis Class interceptors appeared in four ‘eighteen wheels’ formations.
“Marduk Leader to all Marduk units. Looks like we get to celebrate on the run. Havoc, you got flank?”
“Hell no. I got the latest version of Combat Assessor online. Predicts over eighty percent losses. Havoc Flight, reset to start of zone in three,-”
“Reset what?”
“Oh man, you’re realtime? That sucks. Havoc out in two, one… Seeya.”
Team Havoc vanished into subspace and the dying began.
The merging of flight simulators, multiplayer combat games and drone technology started back in the mid twenty-first century. When man went into space via the discovery that subspace could carry more than communications, ‘simdrones’ became the new frontier. Billions of young gamers could reconnoitre actual new planets, all from the comfort of their recliners and gameshelms.
When negotiations broke down with the Havna, we nearly won. A million simdrones piloted by teenagers from across the world had the Havna outnumbered and out-insanitied – there are no limits to what you’ll attempt when you can’t die.
Havna technology advanced and subspace feedback missiles gave the simdrone community their first casualties: 196,547 in two days, to be precise. Cocky became cowardly. So much so that ‘training missions’, supposedly in virtual environments on Earth, were actually live missions, pulled off without the knowledge of the all-too-aware-of-their-mortality little darlings safe at home.
Occasionally, clusterfucks like the one that killed all bar three of Team Marduk happened. Apparently, Team Havoc received a ‘stern’ reprimand.
We hear the chime within the house. It’s a fine day and people are sunning themselves by their pools. Stacey and I, we look summer-ish. Get too close and you’ll see angular outlines under our jellabiya.
The door opens and a woman who could be anything between fifty and ninety smiles at us, revealing teeth to match her million-credit bodywork.
“Can I help you?” Her tone indicates mild curiosity.
“We’re from SD Monitoring, Madam. Can we speak to the resident SD Warrior?”
She sighs: “Warrior? Pain the neck is what he is. CECIL! People from the base to see you!” With that, she leaves us standing there and saunters off, calling for the maid.
A few moments later, a well-built teenager in a silk dishdasha ambles out: “You two my new handlers?” He focuses on Stacey: “Oh man, they sent a babe.”
I rest the foot-long suppressor that fronts my Morgan .60 cal on the tip of his nose: “Marduk Leader to Havoc Leader. Karma time.”
The kick shocks my wrist, elbow and shoulder. Cecil’s head sprays across four metres of parquet and stucco. I look at Marduk Seven – Stacey. She nods.
“Next?”
She checks the datapad on her wrist: “Two houses down on the other side.”
“Law enforcement window?”
“Nine minutes.”
Three minute walk, one minute knock and wait, one minute kill.
“Send subspace co-ordinates for the road outside the next house to Marduk Twenty-Three. Evac in seven.”
Jimi’s that good. Put him in a captured Crusis Class and we become oni: unstoppable demons of vengeance. By the time questions are asked about surveillance suppression and the like, we’ll be back in our quarters on ISS Twelve having left no traces of our little field trip.
