by submission | May 21, 2011 | Story
Author : Martinus Guzman
My confused senses grasped at the world about me. Skin pulsed along with a faint rhythmic metal tick of a clockwork engine. Ozone, cinder and iron burst over my tongue, tasting a room filled with energy and power. Dank corners and oiled machinery echoed in deep tones. I inhaled cold metal and pain. Eyes drank of hazy images in dry brown, blood red and steel blue. I screamed, agony reverberating on my skin, synesthesia swirled my senses into a horrendous nightmare. The angelic voice of my love whispered a word of peace and I drifted to darkness, thankfully.
Madrid was the site of our meeting, a city under the spell of science and art at the eve of the new century. I lived a lavish life of a professional student paid from my inheritance. By day, my intellect drank in the lectures from the most progressive thinkers of our age. By night, my body consumed beauty from the women of blessed city. But alas, under legal advisement, I was forced to seek employment as a tutor to defray the cost of my delicious excesses.
My ward, the darling Adeline, was a slender girl of fair complexion with eighteen years of sunlight captured in her raven hair. On our first meeting, she sat bemused through my flirtatious preamble but shone brightly when I commenced my instruction. As the day progressed, she entered a state of rapture, body thrown back upon her chaise with climax upon her lips not unlike the Saint Theresa receiving the holy ghost.
Those intelligent amber eyes were never quenched and soon I was forced to bring my maestros along to feed her desire. With Qevando, she built delicate automatons. With Caja, she sowed various animals into small magical beasts. And yet this was not enough, for as i would part for my nightly roguery, she would hold vigil with spiritualists and alchemist, gorging on all knowledge with equal excess. Yet I remained her confidant, when nightly as I swayed on the edge of the chaise from drink, she press her head against my chest to discuss the progress of her studies.
Upon notification by my jackal lawyers of my diminishing inheritance, I asked for my siren’s hand. She accepted without hesitation with but one condition. My nightly excursions would be ignored but my presence would be required to feed her intellectual needs each night. So I would return, still smelling of wine and woman, to find her within the laboratory. She would lounge seductively upon my chest, now a woman of staggering beauty, to spend hours in shared scholarly passion.
One night, as I stumbled through the streets, recent from the arms of a deflowered maiden, I was confronted by no other than my prey’s father. I remember little of what followed save for the snap of my back upon the stoop and the smell of my skin as the lamp oil caught fire.
Three days later, the whisper of my angel awoke me, “don’t worry m’love.” My head shifted downward with the whorl of gyros to spy my patchwork body of flesh and metal. Agony burst from my lips powered by the bellows in my hollow chest. A simple word of silence uttered by my love, caused my mouth to snap shut. Upon her direction, whispered in tender tones of seduction, I moved to my customary spot upon the chaise to receive her buxom body pressed against my new frame. She recounted her advances which had finally turned me into her dutiful husband.
by Patricia Stewart | May 16, 2011 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Earthmen first encountered the Sprites in 2384. The Sprites were fist sized glowing spheres that emitted a pulsating white light. However, the light defied known physics. Normally, a prism would refract white light into a colorful spectrum, but not the white light from the Sprites. When passed through a spectrum, the light simply vanished, but would reappear as white light if passed through a second prism.
It was originally assumed that the Sprites were a natural phenomenon, like ball lightening. But as scientists attempted to collect them, it became crystal clear that the Sprites were both evasive and intelligent. All attempts to capture the Sprites were fruitless. Eventually, it was concluded that they were a harmless interstellar life form, so they were permitted to roam freely among the stars.
Initially, the apparently harmless Sprites began following small recreational spaceships, similar to the way pilot fish swim alongside sharks and stingrays. Among the élite, Sprites became a type of status symbol. The more Sprites you had attending you spaceship, the better. Over the years, the sprites also began attending interstellar passenger liners and large cargo ships. Since the Sprites didn’t interfere with ship operations, most captains tended to ignore them. Eventually, crews became accustomed to their presence, and even felt apprehensive when signing onto ships without Sprites. Sprites were considered good luck omens, and by the end of the century, they were attending all non-military space faring vessels.
However, when the war broke out with the Epsilon Reticuli Empire, Sprites became a strategic military asset when it was discovered that their normally white light turned crimson whenever a Reticulian warship approached within a light year. As the war ramped up, military vessels actively sought Sprites as early warning devices. The potential military value of the Sprites even prompted the Earth Alliance President to issue an executive order requiring citizens to surrender their Sprites to the Government. At the height of the war, the bulk of the Earth Alliance Fleet, including sixteen Battlecruisers, thirty-two Destroyers, were poised to engage the Reticulian fleet in a pivotal battlefront along the outskirts of the Denebola System. As the opposing forces aligned their starships in preparation for battle, the Sprites glowed bright red. As if fearing the Reticulian forces, the Sprites began to nestle closer to their Alliance ships in an apparent effort to seek protection. Then, in rapid fire succession, the Sprites blew themselves up, severely damaging the propulsion and weapons systems of their host ships. On cue, the Reticulian warships swooped in and finished off the helpless and bewildered ships of the once powerful Earth Alliance.
by submission | May 4, 2011 | Story
Author : Asher Wismer
Words cannot describe the light, the heat, the impossible closeness of a star. In this place, even with the best shields science could build, the sheer intense pressure of solar power is more than I can even attempt to explain.
Of course, it was worse outside the flare rooms. I cupped my hands to the comm and hissed, “I can’t open the gates!”
“You have to!” Her voice knifed through me. “There are literally two gates and I’m safe! All you have to do is open them two feet!”
“I can’t take the risk,” I said. “You’ve been out in it too long, and the flare is at its highest peak. If I open the gates we’ll all be bombarded with radiation. I have to save the mission.”
“I AM the mission! And I’m clean, the radiation hasn’t gotten me yet, it’ll be hours before it builds up that much!”
“Kang was with you,” I said. “Where is he?”
“I lost him, I don’t know. Just open the gates! One foot, even just half, I can squeeze through!”
“I can’t.”
She was so close. I ached to reach through the comm and stroke her hair, tell her everything would be all right, but I couldn’t lie to her or myself. She’d been careless. They both had. To be careless, this close to a star, was death.
The mission was everything. I tried to turn off the comm. I couldn’t.
“Let me in! The shielding is burning away! Just open the gates! You don’t even have to admit to it! I’ll take all the blame, I’ll tell them you were unconscious, let me in!”
Where was Kang?
“I’ll do anything you ask! Anything at all! I know I turned you down before but I’ll do it now! Anything, everything! Just please!”
He’d been with her, down there, outside the flare rooms and closer to the shields than anything in the station. I had taken their last reports, they said they were on their way up… it had never occurred to me that they might not make it. When the flare warnings went off, I sealed the rooms like I did every other time.
“You leave me out here and I’ll leave something for the next crew! Something that tells them what you did! I’ll make sure you never work crew again!”
The shields were very sensitive. Maybe the flare was false, just an artifact from the star.
“Promise me you’ll continue my research? I worked here from the beginning! My name, my legacy!”
Or maybe she killed him. I might never know, if I couldn’t find his body after the flare was over.
She had been quiet for a long time. I tapped the comm. “Sasha?”
“I can feel it now,” she said. “I know it’s silly, but I can feel the radiation eating me away from the inside. You were right. I’m sorry.”
“You and Kang never came back,” I said. “I didn’t know you were still out there.”
“It’s not your fault. I can see it coming through the shields.”
“Sasha, push the button.”
“Button?”
“On your suit, the one you should never ever push? Push it now.”
Silence. If she pushed the button, it would inject a vein with a full gram of morphine. She’d be dead in a few minutes, no pain.
“Kang?”
Her mind was going. “It’s ok,” I said, and my voice broke. The flare would be finished in a few days, and then I’d take care of their bodies.
“Just close your eyes. Everything’s ok.”
by submission | Apr 30, 2011 | Story
Author : Juliette Harrisson
‘I don’t know why you still bother with this,’ Sam said, looking down at me as I crawled along, knee-deep in mud. ‘There’s no funding for it, no one wants it, no one’s interested in it. Why do you do it?’
‘That’s not true,’ I answered testily, ignoring his offer to help me out of the ditch and deliberately brushing my muddy jacket against him as I hauled myself up. ‘Plenty of people are interested, they’re just not people with money.’
‘Don’t you think you should get a proper job, and stop pestering Mum and Dad for money?’ grumbled Sam, saddling his horse and preparing to head back to the city.
I pulled out my quill, ink and notes and prepared to write up the day’s work. ‘This is a proper job,’ I answered in a flat monotone. I sighed and looked up at him from my desk. ‘If you must know, I think there could be money in this.’
‘Oh?’ Sam paused, about to mount, and re-tethered his horse to come and talk to me, adding another log to the bonfire on his way.
I took a deep breath, not sure how to start. ‘There’s money in science and technology, right?’
‘Of course!’ Sam snorted. ‘Scientific and technological advances make our lives better!’
‘Well, I – that is to say, several of us at the Department – we have a theory. We think that a long time ago, maybe a thousand years ago, people were more technologically advanced than they are today. We think that something happened – we’re not sure what – and that technology was lost. But if we can find something from that period, some remnant of their technology that will give us a clue how to work it, perhaps we can re-develop their old machines.’
Sam raised his eyebrow and said nothing. I could tell he wasn’t impressed. I ran a hand through my hair, feeling frustration gnawing at the edges of my bones.
‘Look, you’re my brother, you love me. Don’t you want me to do something I’m passionate about, something I care about?’
Sam turned his back to me and mounted his horse, and for a moment I thought I’d lost him. But then he looked down at me and managed a small smile. ‘As long as you don’t bankrupt us all while you’re at it,’ he said.
He started to ride away and I jumped back into the ditch. But within a minute or two I was yelling at the top of my lungs, ‘Sam! Sam, come back! Come and look at this!’
I had broken through a layer of dirt to a hole in which lay a trove of discarded goods – most likely, the remains of an ancient rubbish dump. I could see a small, dark grey box with thin brown material spooling out of it, lying against a bigger, more square box and two small cylinders. Hands shaking, I pulled out an academic paper entitled ‘Batteries – the electrical missing link?’ and an illustration of an ancient portable device called a ‘Walkman’.
Wordlessly, I handed both to Sam.
‘ “Mains electricity,” ’ Sam read aloud, ‘ “is currently beyond the financial or technological capabilities of our government. However, if we could successfully reproduce the antiquated device known as the ‘battery’, it might be possible for limited use of electricity to return to our homes and offices.” ’
‘What does that look like to you?’ I demanded smugly, pointing to the illustration and the object I had uncovered.
‘Yeah, well,’ said Sam, looking both pleased and embarrassed. ‘You just got lucky!’
by submission | Apr 25, 2011 | Story
Author : Jordan Whicker
Henry Goodman sank readily into the welcoming embrace of his favorite recliner; the whoosh of air escaping these cushions and the groan of its leather was the only ‘Welcome home, honey!’ he’d ever known. He sat in silence for a few moments, his eyes closed, his mind working to quell the tempest of thoughts that had roared unabated for years. He wasn’t having much luck.
He opened his eyes after some time and stared at the TV across the room. A large part of him wanted to leave the TV off, as if doing so might preserve his anonymous existence here in his comfortable chair. He knew it was impossible; whether he watched or not millions of others around the world would be glued to their sets at this very moment, seeing his face and speaking his name, committing them both to memory. Henry Goodman, the father of the Second Computer Revolution. The Singularity. No, nothing would ever be the same. Not for him. Not for the world.
He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.
Moments ago, Henry Goodman, a Senior Researcher at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, committed a cyber attack against the United States of America. His unprovoked attacks crippled the nation’s internet, cellular, and telephony capabilities, plunging the nation into a communications deadzone. As Goodman has effectively deafened the nation’s police and counter-terrorism forces, a $10 million bounty has been placed on Henry Goodman, effective immediately. Authorities warn that Goodman is extremely dangerous, likely armed, and liable to intensify his cyber attacks against the United States of America at any moment. President Ibson has authorized the use of lethal force to neutralize the domestic terrorist Henry Goodman. May God bless the United States of America at this dark hour.
The message looped, then, the female voice speaking over security camera footage of Henry working in his lab.
“No,” Henry croaked. “No no no no no no no.” He cycled through the channels on his television. They all broadcast the same message, the same voice intoning his death sentence.
How can this be happening? Henry thought. We put controls in place and –
His thoughts were cut off by three staccato bangs on the door.
“You in there, Good Man?” The muffled voice added stress to the second syllable of Henry’s last name where there typically was none. “I don’t really need to ask. I seen you come home and I ain’t seen you leave so unless you already offed your own fool self I reckon you still in there.”
Henry’s eyes darted around the room; he cursed the sudden uselessness of all his possessions. He grasped the lamp that stood next to his recliner, yanking it away from the wall and plunging the room into darkness.
“Well then. Guess there’s my answer. Make this easy on me Henry, it’s gonna happen eventually.”
A clipped blast freed the deadbolt and set the door swinging wildly on its hinges. The man stepped in, shotgun pressed to his shoulder as he scanned the room.
“It’s too late,” Henry stated from his hiding place behind the recliner.
“I know it is, and I’m almost sorry Good Man.”
“No, you don’t get it. I’m the only one who knows how to stop it. And it realized that.”
The man stepped around the recliner and leveled the weapon at Henry. “Good for it. Any last words?”
“All hail the computer overlord,” Henry said. His voice was even; a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He had done it.
