by submission | Dec 14, 2013 | Story |
Author : Glen Luke Flanagan
Click, whir, grind. Melvin’s movements were always accompanied by this sequence of sounds. His jeweled clockwork joints moved with a decidedly inhuman precision, but his troubled face wore the mask of a truly desperate man.
“What is love?” he asked, while his golden fingers tapped nervously on the crystal casing of his knee. “This is the question that has been troubling me. It haunts all my waking moments, yet I cannot bring myself to wind down until I understand the answer.”
As if afraid that he would power down just by mentioning the matter, Melvin’s hands strayed underneath the casing on his back and began to wind himself up frenetically.
Delicate human hands came to rest on his crystal knees, and soft blue eyes found his mechanical ones. A gentle, melodic voice found its way through his tension, and soothed him.
“It’s alright, Melvin. As the first of your kind, it’s natural you should have these questions. We’ll find the answer together, I promise you.”
Dr. Lucy Malone always knew how to sooth him. Melvin relaxed with what almost looked like a deep sigh, but of course it was not, because he did not breathe. Dr. Malone smiled at him, patting his knee comfortingly.
“Same time again tomorrow, Melvin?”
She knew the answer would be yes, if only because the Institute of Strange Intelligences required these counseling sessions, but she always gave him the courtesy of treating him like any other patient. He nodded, and shook her hand.
Tucked away in a comfy little apartment provided by the Institute, Melvin poured over the classic human texts on love. Byron, Shakespeare, Solomon. But they all seemed to deal with the symptoms, rather than the crux of the matter.
Finally, Melvin gave up on his research, and spent the night in meditation, his gears and cylinders whirring quietly in the darkness.
Over the next several sessions, Melvin and Lucy discussed his problem. She described her personal experiences with love, and he tried to put these in context by comparing them to what he had read. Inevitably, there were discrepancies, which confused him and amused her. But eventually, he began to look forward to the sessions for the conversations themselves, rather than as an opportunity to sate his curiosity.
Then one day, he came in to find a stranger in the therapist’s chair. In many ways, she was like Lucy – tall, blonde, and soft-spoken. But she was not Lucy, Melvin felt that with every fiber of his being. Her eyes did not linger in the same ways hers did, nor did her touch have the same tender sympathy. She shook his hand with a crisp air of professionalism.
“Dr. Malone was in an accident,” she said. “She didn’t survive the resulting operation. I’m sorry, Melvin. I’ll be working with you from now on.”
Melvin sat quietly on the soft leather couch, processing. The new doctor watched him for several minutes, and finally reached to touch his knee lightly.
“Melvin? Is everything alright?”
Finally, he raised his head, and looked at her with sorrowful metal-and-glass eyes.
“I know what love is,” he said. “And I wish that I did not.”
In his own apartment, a curtain opened to let in sad silver moonlight, Melvin sat in reverie. The past weeks flashed through his mind, each moment with her as vivid as if he were seeing it again for the first time.
As the night crept on, the clicking and humming of his gears began to slow, but he made no move to wind himself up. After a while, there was only silence.
by submission | Dec 13, 2013 | Story |
Author : Tony Taylor
Out here things make sense. The only thing I see is the glitter of stars beyond my visor. My breath is loud in my ears, rhythmic and soothing. No longer do I hear that infernal whine. No more of the yelling. When I’m alone things are so much easier. There are no complications, just me and the stars. There are no constraints, no anger or jealousy, just the vast freedom of the universe. It is open to me like a book, free to explore.
I knew as a kid that I would never fit in. I was bounced from school to school as we moved about the country. Even when we did settle in for a while, I found myself quiet and reserved. I was the kid that sat in the corner, silently scribbling on his desk.
Things never got better as I grew older. From career to career, my focus shifted. Machines were my only lasting interest. They provided stability, a constant in my life. When everything else would change and falter around me, those metal cogs and rubber belts were a constant reminder of what was right. They made sense. If they didn’t work, there was a reason, and I could find it.
I thought they were supposed to weed out my kind of personality. I thought this kind of thing was supposed to be impossible. Maybe my mind is just what they were looking for. They wanted someone crazy enough to take the risks, someone stupid enough not to see the consequences, someone who wanted to leave everything behind as quickly as possible.
It all sounded so very romantic. Explore the stars. Observe the galaxy and go boldly into the unknown. I could get away, start over.
“Stop tearing at the walls!” They said. “You’re going insane!” I’m crazy? Couldn’t they hear it? Couldn’t they feel the noise drilling into their skulls? They say I’m not balanced, and that I wasn’t adapting well. Hah, what a joke. They are the ones trapped in that metal coffin. They are the insane ones.
I’m not the guy who chose to bring along that asshole. I’m not the one that plowed through our rations like a starving animal. I’m not the one who refused to listen to reason. Why couldn’t they leave me alone to do my work? Why couldn’t they just stay away? I was just trying to help them, yet they couldn’t let me.
He deserved that bloody, ragged wound on his arm.
It was suffocating in there, nothing but sweaty, smelly bodies. All of them whining and talking and demanding and yelling. All the time, like broken records, they droned on about what they left behind. To turn back now would be insane. Fools, the whole lot of them.
I’m delirious? I’m insane? You’re the one that locked me in that airlock. You’re the one that hit the release and sent me into the void. At least you had the decency to give me a suit.
I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel a little happy when that metal coffin erupted into bright light.
No, I’m not crazy. I’m just a drifter.
by submission | Dec 12, 2013 | Story |
Author : Ellen Ahlness
“We’re entering the closest point of the arc,” Yeltsin calls. “Fourty rels now!”
We all take our positions, Marko, Kovsky and I. Marta’s already been at her place since we got in range of the Planet.
Earth. It’s such a strange word, tingly and rough on my tongue. Yeltin’s always saying they’re like our cousins across the solar system—they just haven’t gotten around to visiting us. Koysky says they’re actually our descendants, that some bastard children got left here when we last visited millennia ago.
That’s ridiculous. Koysky’s the worst conspiracy theorist of the lot. The proof’s irrefutable that our first trip here was nothing but damage. All we did was kill all those lizards.
“Why can’t we just make contact?” Marko’s got the worst job of all: systems upkeep. Of course he’d want to be home sooner than later. He handles the cold of space worst of all.
“Don’t be stupid!” I poke. “We need to land to prove ourseves. If the humans have made anything clear, it’s their ability to explain away even the most explicit evidence.”
“Oh, you’re the mission genius now, are you Korzna?” Marko rolls his eyes over his tablet. I make a not-at-all nice comment about his father, and then we’re laughing, trying to blow off anxiety in one of the few ways we can. Our chuckles quickly fade, and soft pings take over the chilled space.
“This isn’t right…” Yetsin’s going over the charts, and I agree, even from here. The lights are changing position every few seconds, charting new courses. Each one lead further from…
“Earth! We’re approaching too fast!” Marta buzzes in on the intercom. “When we rebounded into their system we started accelerating. It didn’t seem like much, but it’s been increasing. If we keep at this speed…”
“We’ll burn,” Yeltsin finishes. Marta hums agreement.
“It’s likely they’d burn with us.”
Yeltsin purses his lips. He has less than twenty rels to decide. “Is there any way to slow down?” None of us have to answer. Marko’s not a specialist, but even he knows what happens if we approach Earth at this speed. “Then it’s decided. Pull out immediately!”
“Sir! We’ll still be close—”
“Do they have long-range analysis capability yet?”
Koysky checks his pad. “No, sir.”
“Then they’ll think we’re debris. Or an asteroid.” He pauses. “Act immediately. That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir,” I bark, fingers flying to the console keys. They do their job dutifully enough, but it still hurts. “Course changed.”
“Very good,” his tone suggests it’s anything but. “Will you let me know when…”
I nod and watch the data flowing in. “Closest point, sir, and…” the moment lingers. “We’re past Earth.”
A gloom settles over us. I rest my head against the console. The cold’s a comfort now, reminding me I’m here. Yeltsin is the first to speak. He’s always been uncomfortable with disappointment. “The miscalculation was to be expected. We hadn’t anticipated such drastic atmospheric changes. At past levels we’d have been able to make it in.”
There’s muttered agreements, hushed acceptance. We’ll be home soon enough, and our descendents will see the next departure leave for Earth. They’ll leave in a better ship—one that’s bigger than this, where they won’t be so high-strung. I push myself up from my slump, but when Yeltsin steps away, I send one more glance to the screen, to the green and blue sphere slowly shrinking. We’re going, yet they remain unaware of the life that desperately tries to reach them. Their night sky remains empty.
We leave. And their lonely planet keeps turning.
by submission | Dec 11, 2013 | Story |
Author : Jonathan VanDyke
With a rush, the ground was beneath me. The blacktop was cold, wet, and unforgiving. I pulled my jacket close. I was sure I looked ridiculous. We’d comprised my outfit from old pictures of the times. Leather jacket with a sheep skin collar, flannel shirt, rugged jeans and brown leather boots. Cliché at best, but as long as I blended in, that was the important part. The cold nibbled at my cheeks. I took a deep breath. The oxygen flowed through my lungs freely and abundantly. The air was so fresh. The smell of pine from the nearby wood line behind the motel lingered in my nostrils. It reminded me of being a kid, although I wasn’t quite sure why. Perhaps it’s because the air was so pure, almost innocent. It was absent of smog. Absent of the smell of motor oil and lubricated metal. Absent of the smell of blood and feces.
I pulled out a small strip of paper with the numbers 101 hastily scribbled onto it. The snowfall cast a halo around the parking lot’s street lights making each one look like an oil painting. At least, I thought so. I’d only seen a few of those in my lifetime. Room number 101. The light was on. Through the blinds I could see a woman sitting on the bed. Sad looking. Tired. Next to her laid a baby curled up and fast asleep. I stood there for a moment, in the silence of the cold. The baby wasn’t really responsible for what happened, not yet. He wasn’t capable of comprehending the horror, the atrocities he’d commit. Maybe he could change. I thought about choice, about free will and fate, things we’d all discussed for countless hours over and over again. For a moment, just a split second, I almost felt empathetic. Then I thought about the machines. He didn’t deserve a chance. He didn’t deserve a choice.
The pistol was already in my hand. I had come to terms with my intentions. I knocked. The door opened. My hand cupped the woman’s mouth and I pushed her back into a chair. The fear in her eyes struck me. Blue eyes. I had expected brown. She whimpered as I leaned in close.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered into her ear.
I stepped back into the cold to flee the scene. A noise a few doors down stopped me. A baby’s cry. A wave of anxiety raced down my spine. Despite the weather, I began to feel hot. My body temperature rose. I was sweating. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the piece of paper. My hands were shaking as I tried to read it again. 101. I pulled it closer. My eyes scanned from left to right. In black ink there was a one, followed by a zero, and then I saw it. A faded angle. It wasn’t a one. It was a four. Room 104.
by Duncan Shields | Dec 10, 2013 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
We meet every six years.
The project churned out over two hundred of us. When they ordered us terminated, twelve of us escaped. There are eight of us left.
The government made a Superman straight out of the comic books back in 1952 but you know what they say about absolute power. They gave the strength and the nigh-invulnerability and the flight capability to a handsome, decorated young soldier named Walter Johnson. You should have seen him. Blonde hair, tall, honest, great shape. What a shame. He did what he was told for almost six months until one day, in a fit of pique, Walter killed his commanding officer by accident by punching him in the face.
They found the officer’s helmet embedded in a brick wall about a block away. They theorize that his head may have been atomized. Walter had been ordered to kill a few too many innocents and his sense of nationalism finally eroded to nothing. The rest of the team, following the eventuality scenario orders, opened fire. It didn’t work. He killed them, too.
Feeling hurt and betrayed, he went rogue. He tried to go underground but he was recognized wherever he went. He couldn’t get plastic surgery because nothing could penetrate the force-field around his body. Eventually, they cornered him in a warehouse in Texas where he’d been posing as an airport mechanic.
Their last-ditch insurance policy was cruel. Walter had a brother. They hauled the brother out and said that if Walter didn’t kill himself, they’d kill his brother. Walter was borderline suicidal by this point anyway. He’d been thinking about ways to do it.
He flew up into space. The vacuum did him in. He may have been invulnerable to the cold but he still needed to breathe. It didn’t take long. His body fell back to earth like a meteor and landed outside of Lubbock.
They killed his brother after that. No loose ends.
Using a specially designed drill bit, they drilled into Walter’s body and scraped a few cells out from beneath the force field.
Enter us. We were a batch of clones made from Walter. They figured if they could make us and control us from birth, we’d be more obedient. They kept us off the expense charts and away from the media. We were to be covert. They outfitted us with new tech as it became available. Things went great until puberty.
Scientists are always so shocked by nature. Wet dreams, anger issues, sullen feelings of not being understood, the need to explore, sex, growth spurts, massive confusion, floods of hormones causing borderline insanity. They couldn’t control us.
They had weapons that could penetrate our force fields. One morning, mechanical soldiers came in and opened fire on our bunks. They got most of us right then and took a bunch more of us out in the ensuing battle. Sixteen of us fled. Twelve of us made it past the outer defenses and survived the trek to civilization.
We were homeless for a while. We drifted apart. We stole where we could but some of us got jobs. The secondary backup that they had was to turn off our powers remotely. They wanted us intact in case they collected us so that they could make more.
Every six years, we meet up. Joey’s missing an arm. Jamie’s got cancer now but it looks good for a complete recovery. Sarah only pops in for a second, looking great in her suit. This time even Jake made it but he looks like the heroin is winning.
We talk for a while.
