by submission | Apr 20, 2016 | Story |
Author : John Carroll
I wade deeper into the syrupy present as the drug saturates my blood. It is a hallucinogen. The deck party envelopes me like a parrot’s wings. The air becomes delicious. Through the interactive viewscreen of this observation deck that extends outward from our glittering orbital city, Jupiter can be seen hanging in space like a bloated satyr lounging grotesquely on a black hammock. I devour genetically modified lobster imported from Europa’s vast subsurface ocean. Deafening music rattles my sternum.
The music becomes dissonant and arhythmic. For hundreds of seconds, the impetus of our dance still jerks our limbs through space, and then the parrot’s wings cease their fluttering. This is not arhythmic music. An alarm is shrieking.
The city’s supercomputer overrides my personal computer and throws a video message in front of my eyes. Even when I close them, the vid plays against the wet blackness of my eyelids.
On Europa, Jupiter’s prison moon, prisoners harvest the bounty of the underocean and send that harvest to our glittering city. Enormous, terrifyingly powerful drilling lasers carve access tunnels through Europa’s surface. The prisoners in Faust District have commandeered their drilling laser. I am watching all of this happen in real time through Faust District’s camera feed. The laser is pointed skyward. Slain guards lie entombed in their own visored interdiction suits. A blinding pillar of energy leaps from the laser’s maw, slicing through Europa’s artificial atmosphere and out into space.
I have to turn off my computer completely to stop the video. I have never turned off my computer before. The loss of its whisper is like a blow to the stomach. I turn it back on and the video has stopped. The parrot shrieks and beats its wings with hurricane force. I retch. I whirl and run to the viewscreen. My numb hands swipe ineffectively at the complex interface like wooden planks. After hundreds of seconds I get the view I want. It is the view from the starboard side of the city. The side facing Europa. I see the laser beam bearing down upon us like a golden snake. In seconds we will be vaporized at the speed of death. In seconds I will be ready to die.
I wink my left eye twice and the supercomputer inside me sinks its tendrils deep into my brain, releasing a host of chemicals. The machinations of my mind accelerate to inhuman speeds. My perception of time slows to a crawl. From the sea of blissful smiles surrounding me, I can tell that many of my fellow partygoers have chosen this option as well.
I experience another one hundred years of life in four seconds as I stand before the viewscreen and wait for the laser. The hallucinogen courses through my veins for the rest of my life. For a while I watch my own vaporization with fascination. The laser devours me atom by atom at a glacial pace. It doesn’t hurt to lose one atom at a time. Eventually I retreat inside my computer and spend all of my time in the Net. I interact with other computer-enabled citizens who managed to activate slow-time with a few seconds to spare. We create a virtual city identical to our own and construct virtual avatars thrice as beautiful as our real bodies within the Net and live out the remainder of our lives there. Then, four seconds later, one hundred years later, the laser consumes us. We all die with a smirk.
by submission | Apr 19, 2016 | Story |
Author : Philip Berry
I placed the flat of my hand against the thick wall and felt the vibration of a hundred thousand pistons moving in synchrony. Pressing an ear, I heard the high hiss of gas igniting under pressure, expanding, driving the piston heads and collapsing into vacuums. Then, the whir of the great fly-wheel, collecting the energy of those controlled explosions into a huge momentum, its endless rotation invisible to the people it served, encased, concealed within a towering central hall that none were permitted to enter.
I would enter. I would work there. Not for me the usual occupations and vocations of this immense, travelling society. I wanted to work at the source, in the heat and racket of the perpetual engine.
To get this close I had wandered for months, from the peripheral zone of my birth, through numerous unfamiliar townships, complexes and multi-levelled agricultural matrices. I had escaped the propaganda, the ‘countdown to journey’s end’ that never seemed to reach zero. I no longer believed the pronouncements – where was our new world? Did it really exist? For a fifteen-year old, I was highly cynical.
I had reached the great ship’s lowest level. A portion of the wall slid open. A scratched, sexless mech walked out, holding an oversized spanner. I slipped in before the door shut.
A maze of gantries separated me from the blurred edge of the fly wheel. Gleaming piston-rods charged back and forth, driven by muffled explosions within the impenetrable housings. Invisible field-cords connected them to the speeding fly-wheel, from where the collected energy was transmitted to aft propulsion units according to the helmsman’s whim, or to the millions of residences where my fellow travellers demanded power for their gadgets, via remote couplers.
“Ah! Welcome.” An old, gentle voice. I was sure he would understand me. I climbed several flights of metal steps, drawing ever closer to the fly-wheel’s rim. I felt the breeze it created against my cheek.
“Curious, eh?” asked the man, who wore stained overalls. He stood near the wheel, and his white hair moved in the turbulent air.
“I’ve always wanted…”
“Of course, of course. Yet… do you have any idea what it is, this engine, this ship?”
“I know we are the last transport. I know we are all that’s left.”
“Quite right. But do you know where we are going?”
“We’re looking for another world, in another galaxy.”
He looked disappointed.
“If you are going to work here you must know the truth. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Yes.”
“We travel at the universe’s edge. It is burning up behind us. There is no specific destination. We live at the envelope of existence, but we succeed, we have done so for centuries… we outpace entropy. It is enough, don’t you think?”
“But how long can we…?”
“For as long as we want to. But we must want it. You see, this engine’s only fuel is hope. Here, at the edge, thought is energy, and the plans that people make, delusions perhaps, but alive, colourful, are enough to keep the pistons moving and wheel spinning. Young man, we cannot stop hoping that the journey will bring us to a new home.”
“But if they knew, the people…”
“They will never know. You will never tell them.”
“But my family…”
“The family you fled? Boy, take this rag.”
I took it.
“And take this can of oil.”
I took it. He glanced towards the innumerable, shuttling pistons, and added,
“Now get to work.”
by Julian Miles | Apr 18, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Mark waited just inside the shadows of the alley. Outside, people bustled past with their heads down. Nobody made eye contact with passers-by. Lens readers and the urban legends about malware being zipped into your headware by opti-flash kept everyone down. The real threat of eye-poppers seemed to be less terrifying. Mark often thought about that. To be brutally blinded scared most people less than having their data raped.
His puzzling was interrupted by his target wandering into view. The man moved with the furtiveness of a long-time resident in the low-end, but Mark knew how to tail a paranoid, because he was one.
For twenty minutes they wound their way through the low markets and the shanties of the London that the tourists never saw. They avoided groups of people engaged in whatever business caused their hostile stares and ignored the struggles in the darkness off the main drag, because to be curious was to be drawn in to an uncertain fate.
Eventually, the man darted through the awning that hung down into the water, the flash of light from within sudden and gone nearly fast enough to make you think it had been a passing aircar. Mark stopped to check his GingGam Ten. It had been his sidekick and protector for too long for him to take it for granted.
Looking both ways and then up, he darted for the awning, the blades on his gauntlet slicing it away as he moved quickly within, gun levelled. The rent-a-thug sitting by the door to the premises took one look at the size of the piece and rabbited out into the night. Mark grinned. Cheap protection was always a waste of credit. Without pause, he kicked in the door of the shop and charged in.
His target was standing with his back to the door, peering at a screen held by a fat woman in a colourful kaftan. Both straightened as Mark stormed in and he saw the matte-black case open with wires running from within to the display.
“That’s all I need, people. Unplug and hand it over.”
The target came round fast, spinning while drawing from a shoulder rig. The GingGam fired, the ‘boom’ deafening in the confined space. A crater appeared in target’s forehead and the fat woman got sprayed in bits of skull and brains.
Mark knelt to retrieve the late target’s Ruger Automag without moving his aim from the fat woman. Standing slowly, he pocketed the gun and smiled: “The gun’s good for me, you can have what’s left. Except the case.”
The woman pulled the wires from the case and snapped it shut, then slid it down the counter to him.
“It’s useless without a reader, gunboy.”
Mark nodded. “I know. And I ain’t no gunboy.” He shot her in the face, reached over and grabbed the scrip behind the counter, took the target’s wallet and picked up the case. Stepping over the bodies, he exited through the back of the shop as faces started to peer in through the shop windows. The place would be stripped bare before the plod arrived. He was free ‘n’ clear. Again.
by submission | Apr 17, 2016 | Story |
Author : Sallie Lau
I am listening to Ocean Acidification and the Prisoners of Omega when they come in.
It’s the 0.05 mark of this Mu-sec. Of course it’s them. Them and their perfectly-proportioned domains.
I doodle on a spare beta sheet, feigning indifference. But now they’re standing right across from me and I can see each amino acid dotted on their body and it’s lovely and organized and chaotic and I doodle harder and –
Oh shit. I’ve mutated my doodle.
They clear their throat. My cheeks heat up.
“Can I help you?”
“I need something printed.”
“Yes, well. You’ve come to the right place. This is a print shop. We print – ”
They look at me with their ochre gaze, and I am spellbound into silence. They slide across a USBase stick. A sleek, perfectly-proportioned USBase stick.
“How many copies?” I ask, even though I know the answer. It’s The Answer, because it’s the answer that everyone gives.
“Two, thank you.”
When you’ve been working at the print shop for a long time, you’ll start having favourite customers. And when you start having favourite customers, you’ll start thinking of ways to become their favourite employee.
“We actually have a deal this Mu-sec,” I tell them.
“Indeed?”
“Mmm-hmmm,” I flash them a smile, “It’s two for the price of one. The second copy’s on the house. Complementary.”
Watson and Cr*ck! I hope I have enough Nucs in my bank account to cover what’s “complementary”.
“Oh,” they beam at me, and I blush even harder, “that’s wonderful!”
That’s right. I’m wonderful.
I take the USBase stick and insert it into HelicaseTM, our state-of-the-art initiator.
“So, when should I come back for it?”
“It’ll only take two Nan-secs.” I’m underestimating and I know it and they know it. But I want them to stay so I can admire their peps.
“Ehhh, I’m afraid I can’t hang around. I’ll be back by 0.08.”
They’re one domain out the door.
“Wait!” I say, “ Do you want an audio version as well?”
They pause.
“Who’s reading?”
“DNA Pol III.”
Their lip curls, “DeePeeThree? They make an awful lot of mistakes, don’t they?”
I gape at them, offended. “DeePeeThree’s the best reader we’ve got!”
“I much prefer the father. Let me know when DeePeeTwo comes on.”
And with that, the bell of the print shop tinkles, and my customer is gone.
by submission | Apr 16, 2016 | Story |
Author : John Carroll
I wondered if the pain in my ribs had woken me up, or if it was the sterile stench of the gelatin. It was probably a combination of both. The pirate standing in front of me noticed that I was awake. She didn’t look any older than 24 standard.
“Good morning,” she said. Her hair was long and black, spilling over the shoulders of her extravehicular combat armor. “Welcome aboard the Petrichor.”
I was suspended in a tank of inhibitive gelatin with my head sticking out, stripped of my own EVC armor. Just enough wiggle room for shallow breathing.
“I’m Captain Lorelei Van Buren ” she said.
I didn’t reply or react. I was trying to regulate my breath. Inhibitive gel turns everyone into a claustrophobe. But I recognized the name, and I knew that I was most likely a goner. Captain Van Buren was the most dangerous criminal in the Orion Arm. Her ship, the Petrichor, stalked hyperspace and subspace shipping lanes at the speed of thought, brutally and effortlessly raiding heavily armed convoys. The Petrichor’s shipboard AI was rumored to be sentient and infested with cursed code, slowly turning her crew into soulless, obedient automatons by constantly scanning their most private thoughts and broadcasting them aloud for the entire ship to hear. I never believed that part, even when I was a kid.
“I’ll get right down to it, I suppose. When we engage vessels crewed by human beings, our policy is to give no quarter. However, as of…” she checked the time, “… fifty standard minutes ago, we’ve had a job open up. We’re looking for someone to fill the position, so I arranged this interview.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“I’m talking about fifty standard minutes ago when my negotiations with the captain of your own pirate vessel, the Ninth Disc, turned sour and spiraled into… well, it would be generous to call it a “space battle.” I think “massacre” would be more appropriate. However, you managed to slay one of our crewmen before we dispatched your crew and slagged your ship to vapor. When one of our crewmen is killed in battle, we always interview his killer for the position. Your skill in zero-g combat is virtuosic. I think you would excel on the Petrichor.”
“What happens if I don’t care to join?” I asked.
“I think you know,” she said.
I did indeed. She would run a lethal electrical current through the gelatin and kill my ass.
“I’ll join,” I said. I didn’t have any good buddies back on the Ninth Disc. No hard feelings.
“I didn’t have any good buddies back on the Ninth Disc. No hard feelings,” said an electric cello voice that seemed to come from the walls.
