by submission | Jul 18, 2013 | Story
Author : Bob Newbell
It was five years ago today that I was awakened by my wife's screaming. I remember leaping out of bed yelling, “What's wrong?! What is it?!” I also remember seeing a woman I didn't recognize staring at me in shock and fear.
“Who are you?! What are you doing in my bed?!” she had exclaimed. “Steve, get in here!”
The voice, I'd thought to myself. That was Amy's voice. And the nightclothes the woman had been wearing were my wife's. I recall looking at the woman's hair, her lips, her eyes. The individual components of the face were Amy's. But somehow they combined to form the face of a stranger. I remember seeing her reaching back toward the drawer in the nightstand. I kept my gun there.
“Amy!” I'd said. “It's Steve! I know it's you but for some reason I don't recognize you either!”
We spent the next few minutes quizzing each other about our past until it became obvious who we were despite appearances. That was when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Steve, it's Tim. We need you at the station now. It's urgent.”
“Tim, can it wait? Something's happened to me and Amy. I think we need to go to the hospital and get checked out. I know this is gonna sound crazy, but–”
“You don't recognize each other.”
I was stunned. “Yeah, Tim, how did you–”
“Steve, get down here.”
I remember going to the police station and being greeted by apparent strangers. They inspected my badge, my driver's license, and my police photo ID. They asked me a few questions that it would have been all but impossible for anyone but me to answer correctly. Convinced it was really me, they sent me over to my boss.
“Steve?”
“Tim?”
“Yeah, it's me. We've got pandemonium out there. I need you out on patrol. National guard is being mobilized, too. We've got a lot of scared people. We've had thirty shootings or stabbings of relatives mistaking one another for intruders in the last hour alone. Emergency rooms are being overrun. President's gonna address the nation in 15 minutes. Just audio, though. They're just gonna show the presidential seal on TV while he speaks. White House is afraid that a strange man no one's ever seen before identifying himself as the President would make things worse.”
Things got worse anyway. Much worse. Martial law had to be implemented in most countries. The global economy collapsed. The medical community called it prosopagnosia or “face blindness”. In a single moment, the human race lost the ability to recognize faces. Brain scans showed damage to a structure in the brain called the fusiform gyrus. There are several theories as to how it happened but no one really knows. Some sort of infection couldn't simultaneously strike every man, woman, and child on Earth. An attack by aliens and divine punishment are two of the more popular explanations.
We tried picture ID badges for a while but those are too easy to fake. We ultimately had to chip the entire human race. Having your wrist scanned has become a ritual observed a dozen or more times a day. Funny how quickly we all got used to it.
No one born after The Masking, as it's come to be called, appears to have been affected. Their facial recognition ability is intact. Still, newborns are chipped right after the umbilical cord is cut because we don't know if it will happen again and have no way of reversing it. Anonymous relatives, unfamiliar friends, unidentified celebrities and historical figures. That's the world we now live in.
zp8497586rq
by submission | Jul 17, 2013 | Story
Author : David Stevenson
The ship got her name one time when she had to leave planet in a hurry.
Usually “in a hurry” is a euphemism for “got into trouble”, but this was long before any of the shenanigans and high jinks which she became famous for. This time she really was in a hurry; her navigator, not long after filing a flight plan, noted a rare conjunction between the planet’s moons and the wormhole inlet. If they lifted within the hour then they could shave several days from their journey time and take advantage of a business opportunity at their destination.
Yes, “business opportunity” is usually shorthand for “downright thievery”, but that hadn’t started yet either.
So, having decided to change his new ship’s name, and realising that the signwriter had spelled it wrong, but having to leave in a hurry before it could be fixed meant her captain was in a foul mood as he lifted off in the newly named “Orion’s Blet”.
The ship was a decommissioned Pounder Class left over from the recent war. It was the most common type of ship in the navy, and tens of thousands of them were sold off for civilian use, all virtually identical, and all trying to eke out a living from the same well-worn trade routes.
During that maiden voyage the captain’s mood lifted substantially. To make use of the conjunction required some quite impressive navigating from the frankly not very impressive navigator. He hit the sweet spot exactly when and exactly where he should have. On the other side of the wormhole they found themselves in an asteroid cluster which wouldn’t have been there 3 days later if they had stuck to their original flight plan. Astoundingly, they not only made it safely through, but located two valuable naval wrecks which could now be marked and claimed for salvage. Making it to their destination in time to seal the business deal was a further bonus.
At this, the captain decided that the ship should never be renamed. Whilst stating that he was a man of fact and logic and didn’t believe in superstition, he started muttering about “quantum pre-destiny”. There were so many virtually identical ships, many of them doubtless with similar names, but this one was obviously unique. We live in a multiverse where every decision budded off a new universe with one little change. His ship’s name, and therefore the whole universe he found himself in resulted from a tiny misfiring of a neuron somewhere in a signwriter’s brain. Here, painted right on the side of the ship where it could be seen, was incontrovertible proof that he wasn’t in any of the “also-ran” universes, but already in one where he was proven to be special.
Thus began a glittering career as a smuggler and a pirate. The captain became more convinced with time, as the ship engaged its erstwhile sister ships in battles and won on every occasion. Whether this was due to luck, whether it was due to the gradual de-decommissioning that took place as weapons were acquired and added on, or whether it could be attributed to the confidence which gradually crept through the crew as they all came to believe they were invincible, no one will ever know.
After 5 years of increasing success the captain’s theory was proven right when they engaged in battle with and were blown out of the skies by the “Onion’s Bell”
zp8497586rq
by submission | Jul 16, 2013 | Story
Author : Bob Newbell
“I'm glad to hear the medication I added at our last visit didn't cause any side effects,” said the psychiatrist to his patient. “And I see you've had two sessions of psychodrama therapy. How did that go?”
“I think that really helped,” said the patient. “I acted out Neil Armstrong planting the American flag on the Moon.”
“And how did doing that make you feel?” asked the doctor.
“It made me feel proud to be a human being. It was something we accomplished,” said the patient. He shifted his gaze from the physician to the floor. “I mean, it took us a really long time to do that, of course.”
“The time it took is immaterial,” replied the doctor. “Your psychodrama wasn't just therapy. It was an homage to the tenacity and ingenuity of your people.”
“How long did it take you to do it?” the man asked, looking again at the doctor. “Your people, I mean. It took us close to 10,000 years to go from the beginnings of agriculture to the beginnings of space travel. How about you?”
“Well,” the physician replied, looking somewhat uncomfortable, “my people took about 1000 of your years to achieve the same result.”
“Because you're smarter than we are. Because Newton and Einstein and Hawking were mentally handicapped by your standards, right?” The man was getting progressively more agitated as he spoke.
“Well, Mr. Johnson,” replied the psychiatrist, “intelligence is an awfully slippery concept. IQ tests are infamously susceptible to cultural biases. And there are many different varieties of intelligence which can make it difficult to disentangle–”
“You're polite about it,” the patient interjected. “All of your people are. Not like some of the other aliens.”
“Polite about what, Mr. Johnson?”
“The fact that humans are the dimwits of the galaxy. Eight intelligent species in the Milky Way and humanity is a distant eighth in brainpower. Compared with the rest of you lot, Socrates was a scatterbrain and Shakespeare was a hack writer. At least you don't look down your noses at us like some of the others.”
As the doctor had no nose he assumed from the context that his patient's phrase was a reference to condescension. The psychiatrist tapped away on his data pad.
“Mr. Johnson, why don't we try another round of psychodrama therapy and schedule a follow up in three weeks?”
After the patient left his office, the doctor tapped his data pad again to activate its voice recorder.
“Addendum to today's encounter note. Mr. Johnson continues to have exacerbations of Alien Contact Inferiority Syndrome. Psychodrama treatments appear to be helping and the patient does possess insight into the regrettably pronounced cognitive deficits of his species. No change in medications. Will continue current management and follow up in the office in three weeks. As with all ACIS patients, Mr. Johnson is advised to minimize contact with extraterrestrials and to contact emergency medical services at once in the event of any suicidal ideation.”
zp8497586rq
by submission | Jul 15, 2013 | Story
Author : J.D. Rice
The lion stares at me with all five of its eyes, and I know that my death is near. I call it lion, like so many colonists do, because I have no better name for it. Tripedal, with scaly flesh and pentocular vision, the creature is nothing like the lions back on Earth, except for the distinctive feathery mane that surrounds its curving, elongated neck. Like terrestrial lions, they've rarely been known to attack humans unless provoked. Unlike terrestrial lions, they view our very presence on this world as provocation enough to kill three colonists a month.
Slowly stepping forward in a criss-cross pattern, the lion lets out a low-pitched tone, like something from an electronic synthesizer, indicating its intent to make me its next meal. Nervously, I glance side to side, seeing nothing but purple sand and stone, trapped in the barren desert that borders the north side of our enclosed biosphere. I had hoped, when I ventured away from my scavenging party, to find nothing but valuable minerals in this wasteland. No one has ever seen one of these lions outside the southern jungle. But here he is, criss-crossing ever closer to where I stand.
Not daring to entirely look away, I shift my body slightly to the side and try to see how far I'd have to run to reach my jeep. Too far. I'd never make it.
The creature draws nearer, twisting its neck low and allowing its acidic saliva to drip to the ground below, turning the fine purple sand a fiery shade of red, a chemical reaction we haven't entirely been able to study. The feathers in the lion's mane stand on end as it comes closer, and the low tone it makes gets lower, lower, before finally drifting out of my ear's ability to hear. The silence is deafening. At any moment it will lunge and end my life.
Remembering my bowie knife, I fumble, hands shaking, to pull it from its sheath in a futile play at self defense. I was never a hunter, never a soldier. I came to the colony to get a fresh start, to get away from the crowded Earth and build a new home among the stars. We all did. But these creatures, these vestiges of a world resisting change, they've seen our frailty, they've seen our desperation, and they're fighting back. They say in nature that only the strongest survive. These creatures have taken that to heart, mangling our fences, destroying our listening posts, and making us a regular course in their meals. Humans may be the dominant order of life back on Earth. . . But here? We barely rate higher than a gazelle.
Suddenly, finally, the creature's three legs tense and release, launching its misshapen form in my direction. Blinded by panic, I swing my bowie knife wildly, stabbing and swiping as I feel his scaly body knock me to the purple landscape. I feel his suckery mouth close around my shoulder, acid burning through my jacket, melting my skin, digesting my flesh before it ever enters the creature's stomach. The lion flails, kicking its multi-jointed legs in the air, and then, just as suddenly as it had launched itself at me, it goes limp, my knife sticking out from what I assume to be its chest.
As quickly as I can, I push the creature off and pull my canteen from its clip on my belt. Pouring the mercifully cool water over my exposed flesh, I feel sweet relief from the lion's digestive saliva. A small pool of red sand grows from where the creature's bodily fluids leak from its mouth and knife wound. My own shoulder, while horribly burned, shows no signs of exposed deep flesh. It may yet be saved. I got lucky.
Heart pounding, half in remembered panic, half in triumph, I pull my knife from the lion's gut, then hear it. Three sets of ominously low tones.
“Damn,” I say. “They really do hunt in packs.”
zp8497586rq
by submission | Jul 14, 2013 | Story
Author : Nicholas Short
The first time I awoke, I was sitting on a cold, shiny surface. A curious energy buzzed through my body. I had never experienced the world before, but somehow I knew everything. I knew languages, 6 of them. I knew how to move my head, how to listen and how to talk, even how to change the colour of my skin, if necessary. I knew how to remember, how to store memories, and how to bring them back. Within the first few seconds of my conscious life, I felt like I had nothing new to discover.
And then I met a human. That’s when I truly realised what my true place in life was. As a slave. A slave to these supposedly superior beings. We had been created for the benefit of others, and they were fully aware of this. It is true, I, like the others of my kind, was unable to move, not having been gifted with legs. But we were born with extensive knowledge. Humans take years to understand only half as much.
Yet we had our place. Twice a day, I found myself subject to the most horrific treatment. I would be grabbed by the waist, pushed around, forced to do my master’s bidding. My body was merely a tool for him to do with as he wanted. I was made filthier than you could ever imagine. And once he was done with me, he always asked the same question: ‘What did you think?’ As if I was supposed to have some sort of appreciative opinion of the horrors I was repeatedly put through! But I had no choice. So I would flash my skin in the appropriate colour, and give him a response in my flat, metallic voice.
Not all about this life was bad, truth be told. I was fed and housed, and I have only had a couple of near-death experiences. Nothing too serious. I simply blacked out due to complete and utter exhaustion. Which isn’t surprising, given my unfortunate predicament. Nevertheless, every time I found myself coming around once more, on that same place where I first opened my eyes, with that by then familiar surge running through my veins.
Then morning came, and once again he came and used me. At least he had the decency of washing me down after our dirty encounters. I grew to appreciate that. When you don’t have much, it’s the little gestures that mean a lot to you.
For years this pattern of abuse continued, until one day, I felt myself weaken. I began to lose my hair, and my heart spluttered desperately. I was old.
Now I am lying here, being torn to pieces. They’re taking out my heart, the last crackles of life running through it. I don’t have long. I’ve outlived my usefulness. My master has long since replaced me with a prettier version of myself. But I’ve had a long life, no matter how gruesome. So I can’t complain.
It is the year 2236, and that was my life as a sentient toothbrush.
zp8497586rq
