by submission | Dec 9, 2006 | Story |
Author : Stin
Final round.
Just don’t get knocked out.
Just keep on your feet.
You can do this, you need to do this. You need this win.
CRACK!
He’s too fast. I can barely touch him. It’s not fair, they shouldn’t be allowed to fight like this, they have too many advantages, how’s a guy like me supposed to keep up with a machine like that?
It’s not fair. He’s bigger than me, there’s more too him, but he moves around like he barely weighs a pound. I don’t even see his fists move sometimes. I just feel the gloves and then
CRACK!
Too fast…way too fast, and what a wallop. What did they used to say? “He hits like a Mac truckâ€. This guy hits like a space freighter coming out of a jump. Damn Roboxing officials. They’re supposed to screen for this type of thing, we’re not supposed to be getting
CRACK!
Killed out here. There goes my eye. I’m half blind. The ref has to stop the fight now, or my corner? Someone stop it, look at my EYE for crying out loud.
Never mind the eye. Just keep moving. Just wait until the bell. Just don’t get knocked down. Stop letting him hit you, put your guard up!
CRACK!
I can barely lift my gloves, my arms feel so heavy, my head droops, and everything feels like it weighs tons. How am I supposed to be able to fight like this?
You need the money. You know you need the money. Money is essential. Money buys things you need and then maybe once you have the things you need and you get out of debt you can get back to training, and then if you train enough you can beat monsters like the hulk in the corner.
It’s not like you need to win, we both know you aren’t going to win, just
CRACK!
Don’t get knocked out, that was the bet, don’t get knocked out…
Don’t
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
I feel my jaw unhinge, I feel my legs give out; my arms are like wet towels, before I know it I’m on the mat.
And then I hear it: “BOXOTRON 77681 is down! Winner by Technical Knockout: Joe ‘The Circuit Breaker’ Granger!â€
I can hear the human laughing in his corner, the crowd goes wild, I’m going to be in the shop forever after this. More debt. My other eye shuts down and I hear my corner say: “Put him on the slab. Damn 77k series aren’t worth the metal they’re made of.â€
I wish I could disagree.
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by submission | Dec 8, 2006 | Story |
Author : Dane Richmond
The media fanfare had died down after the first few months. It had been amazing at first but it gradually made the transfer to annoying and then overwhelming. Now years later the paparazzi were gone along with their fame. There was the occasional photographer when she and Marc went out. She could feel sympathy from Marc. He said he didn’t miss the attention but she knew he did. He was upset and distracted—he must not have gotten the promotion he had hoped for. She decided to make him a special dinner and wear that teddy he loved.
They made history when they had the empathy chips implanted nearly 5 years ago. It was revolutionary at the time, if they hadn’t had the public behind them they could have gone to prison for violating the Anti-Enhancement Laws, but they had been so in love then that they didn’t care; they wanted to be so much closer. The chip had worked, all of the emotions that the other felt were transmitted via a satellite uplink. They had proven all the critics wrong: knowing exactly what he was feeling had caused some arguments, if he was looking at another woman, but it had brought them so much closer, knowing that even when they were arguing he still loved her.
The chips were becoming available for widespread use. It was the new tattoo with your lovers name on it. An hour long surgery and you were closer to your spouse than you could ever hope to be naturally. Companies were advertising faster upload times and the newest one with a cell phone feature. It wouldn’t be long before the “Love Chip†was available right outside the churches in Vegas. She had thought it would always be a tool to enhance love but now it was just another money making tool for corporations. They didn’t mind that, like the tattoos, sometimes they had to be removed; they made more money taking out the chips than they did installing them.
Just as she was hoping that maybe there was a photographer outside their drive, like in old times, she felt a flash of fear and panic that lasted for a fraction of a second, it felt so entwined with her own thoughts that she didn’t have time to sort out her emotions before the flash of blinding pain.
The photographers crowded the small church, taking as many pictures of the twin caskets from every angle possible. One of the photographers approached the funeral director asking him to push the caskets together for a better photo, but was politely rebuffed. A reporter was interviewing both sets of parents, asking about the lovers lives over the last five years, post-love chip. “It’s breaking news, Marc Stevens, the first man with a love chip, gets hit by a bus and it kills his wife Jennifer! How can you not talk to me? This will halt the market on Love Chips, they killed that girl. How does it make you feel to know that because of this piece of technology your daughter dropped dead in her home?â€
He was still shouting questions at the parents as he was forced out of the funeral home.
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by submission | Dec 7, 2006 | Story |
Author : Joshua Reynolds
They were tearing him apart. Muscle by muscle, tendon by tendon. Unraveling him like a ball of string. He screamed but he had no tongue and no sound came out as something cold and hard cut into his throat, spreading the edges of his flesh back like the petals of a flower.
Smith awoke suddenly and an empty bottle rolled off of his chest and bounced to the floor. He rubbed blearily at his face, feeling nothing, and sat up. The couch was a fold-out but he never managed to get that far before passing out. Empty pizza boxes and fried chicken buckets and styrofoam hamburger containers littered the floor of the apartment, mingling with empty bottles of booze. Cheap booze too. The best a government stipend could buy. Smith grinned humorlessly and stood up with a groan that was more from habit than any aches and pains.
After all, he didn’t have aches and pains any more. In point of fact he couldn’t feel anything anymore. Not cold. Not hot. Not nothing.
Oops. Double negative. He’d have to watch that. A sign of mental degeneration. He’d have to mark that on the chart they’d given him. Smith hunted vainly through the detritus of his life for something to drink and then gave up after ten minutes. He plodded into the kitchenette and poured himself a glass of tapwater and slugged it back. Water was just as good as booze in any event.
No tastebuds.
Life was shit.
He examined the glass. At least he could still see colors. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to tell the exact shade of brown his water was flowing with today. Burnt umber evidently. That was a new one. He poured the rest of the water out and watched it swirl down the rusty drain. He set the glass aside, careful not to crush it and looked at his reflection in the mirror.
Average. Unnoticeable. Bland. Synonyms for the same conclusion. Plastic features that didn’t move right unless he concentrated on them, hair that didn’t grow, stubble that never went away. And underneath was what?
Plastic parts and wires. Everything human ripped out to make room for all those new machines. His bones were made of an alloy that the government had bankrupted four states to create. His muscles? Fibrous cable interwoven with neuron-optic wires to stimulate nerve memory.
Sometimes, when he moved too fast, his skin ripped.
It didn’t hurt though.
Nothing hurt.
“We have the technology. We can make him better.†He rasped, fingers trailing down the window. The glass cracked at his touch and he cursed under his breath.
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by submission | Dec 6, 2006 | Story |
Author : Aelanna Cessara
Seven.
He only had seconds left to live. Despite all the augmentations and training that the soldier had received, the result of countless centuries of evolution and refinement in the art of war, technology could not truly ease the limit of mortality. The projectile had easily penetrated so many layers of armor, flesh, and bone, and now he was dying, bleeding from wounds that no medic could patch.
Six.
Perhaps if there had been a major medical facility nearby, he might have had a chance. But this was a battlefield, and the screams of the other wounded and dying were all around. There was no hope for this one, who had survived so much only to die on this war-torn field on a forgotten planet. There was not even a family to whom news of his demise might cause pause, no lover on a distant colony clinging to his memory, no friends who might pray for his soul.
Five.
But he was not alone. Patched into his armor, his suit, and the implants within his very brain, another entity still stirred, even as he slowly faded. This was no flesh-and-bone woman, but it was the only companion he had known in so many long months of harsh combat. The artificial intelligence had access to all his health monitors, and knew without a doubt the ultimate fate of this broken human man.
Four.
Flickers of memory pulsed through the soldier’s mind as the countless cells that made up his brain started to die, a rushing torrent of thoughts and remembered events that he could only passively watch. Washed out colors and faint sounds focused, and he could see distant and forgotten scenes long forgotten.
Three.
They were friends. She blushed as he kissed her timidly, awkwardly pressing his lips against hers, her cheeks flushed red as her brilliant eyes gazed back at him. The world seemed to slow to a crawl as she spoke those words for the first time, and he exulted in that knowledge.
Two.
They were lovers. The warmth of her body and the touch of her smooth skin calmed him as they lay together in bed. He weaved his fingers through hers and whispered urgently to her, begging, pleading. His breath faltered and his face glowed with unimaginable joy as she said yes.
One.
They were a family. She sat next to him as they watched their children play in the front yard, the sun warming their faces as the gentle sounds of laughter and joy filtered through the clean air. He leaned back and sighed happily, breathing in the scent of summer. She held him tight and kissed him again as he closed his eyes drowsily, all his pains and worries forgotten in that perfect moment of eternity.
Zero.
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by B. York | Dec 5, 2006 | Story |
Author : B.York, Staff Writer
Everyone deserves another chance. Sometimes when I look out amongst the white blankets I can conceive of forgiveness, or even a world where people could make mistakes before they were judged. I try to believe in my excess chances that go on further than the eye can see. But then, I am told that no evil man lives here.
The switch keeps those thoughts away from me, though. Rumors abound that the switch was put there to single the guilt out. Many men with many views all know the weight of life on their shoulders. Why put it on a council when you could transfer it to the shoulders of one white-collar Atlas.
It’s my responsibility and perhaps my burden as well. Every year I come inside, I lock up and say goodbye to the people who think I am just going to bundle up for the winter. Looking them in the eye is the challenge. Many men with many views debated over whether or not this was right, this way just. History books won in the end and they decided that the future of our species could take no more.
The sign above me clearly states “Recycle for a Better Tomorrow†in bold red. There is an irony in the fact that only I will get to see whether the sign maker spoke the truth or not. Another day passes and sometimes I don’t keep track of which day it is. It’s the computers’ job to tell me when to flick the switch.
Millions of households all locked up to escape the cold. All of them inside to reminisce about how they came to this planet, and how wonderful prospering has been. Prospering for nine months isn’t prospering; it’s incubation.
To look out on the snow during the day I know the switch has to be flicked is peaceful. Silence is peaceful. Looking out amongst roaming white hills with the flecks of its making still cascading down from the sky is maddening to some and yet comforting to myself. The epoch of the cold times comes in three minutes and forty-three seconds. I used to get nervous during this time but after a while you just understand that the dead leaves hidden beneath the ice coating is something more than just a sign of the seasons. It is a metaphor.
Sipping hot cocoa on a day like this is one of the greatest pleasures any being can experience. With one hand I tip the cup to take in the molten chocolate to my hearts desire. With the other… oh, with the other I flick the switch of course and then…
Well, then I am the only man on this planet enjoying hot cocoa. Then I’m alone again for four more months. No chance for anyone out there to ruin the winter by murdering, stealing or cheating. Everything is pristine white just as the council wanted it to be. Settlers will come in the springtime, joyous of the houses that have been made for them and not one will get a chance to enjoy them enough to ruin them. Not one will ever be an evil man.
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