by submission | Mar 6, 2015 | Story |
Author : Decater Collins
Two years ago, they wouldn’t have been able to afford such a house. Debra didn’t like thinking about before.
“We can afford it now. That’s all that should matter.”
“You’re not worried about it being too remote?”
“Look at this bay window.”
The house was lovely. A dream home, the brochure said. Get it while it’s still here.
“Okay, we’ll buy it.” Stephen reached for his checkbook then remembered no one took checks anymore. He grabbed his phone instead.
Debra huddled excitedly with the agent, forcing Stephen to wander his new house alone. He’d never owned anything so expensive before. But then again, money didn’t mean what it used to.
They agreed on minimal decoration. The fewer possessions the better, at this point. Stephen was reading a new bestseller on the Buddhist rejection of attachment. All Debra said she needed was a television.
“Does that mean you don’t need me?” They both laughed awkwardly.
“Stop teasing, silly.” But he noticed she didn’t contradict him.
Every week, Debra came home with a different car. She said her old ones kept slipping but Stephen wondered if that were true. He knew a thing or two about statistics and, though it was possible she was just incredibly unlucky with her car choices, the scientists kept saying that everything was random. Debra’s cars shouldn’t be more likely to slip than anyone else’s. If anything, these days it seemed there were more cars than people. He wished she’d pick a car and keep it. At least for a month. Some consistency would help him pretend that everything was normal.
Stephen brought home a dog from next door. “The neighbors slipped.”
“As long as you clean up all the poop,” was Debra’s only comment on the matter. She had never liked dogs, even before.
“Maybe I won’t have to if it just slips.” She gave him a look that said she didn’t appreciate the joke.
“Just make sure you clean it up, okay?”
They’d lived in the house about six months when the foundation slipped. Sometimes it was hard to know where the boundaries were. One page out of a book might slip, or an entire city block, like what had happened in Florida. At the office, he’d heard about a guy who’d lost just one eye, but otherwise was fine.
The house was no good without the foundation, so they picked up and moved next door. Except there was no bed, just a bunch of sofas. Debra and Checkers didn’t seem to mind.
“Why are you always so hung up on everything? At least we haven’t slipped.”
“Aren’t you scared?” He’d never asked her about it before. He wasn’t frightened of her answer so much as her asking him in return.
“A little. What if it hurts? What if only a part of me slips? What’s it going to be like on the other side?”
“The scientists still don’t know if there is another side.”
“I read they are sure. They just don’t know if we’ll survive the slip or not.”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
“Are you scared?”
“I’m scared I’m going to be the last one to slip. I don’t think I could stand being here alone.”
The next day, Debra didn’t come home. He tried calling her phone but the number was out of service. He knew she was probably just tired of being with him, the same way she got tired of a new car in less than a week, but it was easier to tell people that she’d slipped.
With Checkers around, he didn’t miss her so much.
by submission | Mar 5, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
I raise my hand and wave to get Scott’s attention as he walks into the restaurant. He comes over and joins me in the booth. He gestures at my drink.
“Is that whiskey? Never seen you drink anything stronger than red wine. Something up?”
“Yeah. Remember a couple of weeks back when you, me, Angela, and Kim had dinner? You mentioned you’d grown up in Warren, Michigan on a street called ‘Loretta Drive’ and Angela corrected you and said it was ‘Loretta Avenue’?”
“I remember,” says Scott. “I got out my phone and googled it. Angela was right. It was ‘Avenue,’ not ‘Drive’.”
“But you’d been so certain. I mean, it’s where you grew up. How could you have been wrong about something that basic?”
“I don’t know. But I was. Look, Tim, what’s this about?”
I finish my drink. The waiter takes a drink order from Scott and I order another drink for myself.
“I’ve been noticing some similar things since we got back,” I say. “Subtle things. A picture of me as a teenager wearing a shirt I have no recall of ever having. The water faucet on the back of my house being about a foot to the left of where I remember it. That sort of thing.”
The waiter brings our drinks. Scott consumes half of his with one swallow.
“So what are you suggesting?” Scott asks. “Do you think traveling through hyperspace did something to our memories? They checked us out really thoroughly after we got back and gave us both a clean bill of health. They even did full-body medical scans on both of us.”
“You’ve seen the surgical scar Kim has where she had her gallbladder out?”
“Yeah, when she wears a bikini. Not that I was checking out your wife or anything,” Scott says with a smile.
“The scar’s gone. She says she’s never had gallbladder surgery.”
Scott finishes his drink with a gulp and stares at me.
“Scott, this morning I spent two-and-a-half hours in a meeting with the administrator of NASA and a bunch of higher-ups trying to explain some discrepancies. Among other things, they wanted to know how the software for the ship got upgraded to a version that they’re just now completing.”
“What?! Tim, how is all this possible? We thrusted out to the orbit of Mars, completed a hyperspace jump one light-year away, stayed in the Oort Cloud for 30 minutes while the jump engines charged back up, then jumped back to Mars’ orbit. And we came right back to Earth.”
“Scott, the prevailing theory at NASA is that we’re from a parallel universe. This universe and the one we came from are nearly identical, but not exactly. So the street you grew up on and the clothes I had as a teenager and the women we married…”
“Okay, do the geniuses at NASA have a plan to get us back where we belong? Do we jump again? Are our counterparts from this universe in the world we’re supposed to be in?”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple. They think that every trip through hyperspace lands you in an alternate universe. We landed in a different world when were came out in the Oort Cloud. And in yet another world when we jumped back. They think it’s statistically impossible to ever jump to the same world twice.”
“So we’re trapped?”
“Yeah. And it also means you can’t use FTL to explore the universe. Not the same universe, anyway.”
The waiter returns. “Would you like any more Zack Daniel’s whiskey?” he asks.
by Julian Miles | Mar 4, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The robot stands there just after dawn, under the skies of another beautiful day, atop a rusting hulk, waving a steel pole about in a way that hints at long-lost purpose. On the ground nearby, two large felines rest on their haunches, their harnesses loosened and packs put aside as they watch the strange ritual.
“Why does hee do that, grantom?”
“Because that pole used to have a piece of cloth tied to the top, Clayre.”
“Was hee trying to signal other hees?”
“No. Hee is obeying his last order, to wave the cloth defiantly, so enemy hees will know his Tom and clan have not surrendered.”
“They had clans?”
“Yes, Clayre. Huge ones. So big they didn’t work properly.”
“That’s why H’n made hees, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. They made hees to do the things they couldn’t. H’n were very weak. They had no claws; couldn’t even see at night.”
“Is that why they tried to change everything?”
“That’s right. The real world scared them, so they tried to cover it up. But it wouldn’t be covered up. In the end, it won.”
“Q’een Norton saw that coming.”
“Yes. She saw there was no winning, just an ending. She set us on our path in defiance of her Tom and his clan. But she saw through the coming night better than any. That is why we People walk the greenways alone today. No other People’s Q’eens or Toms saw clearly.”
“Why do we wait, grantom?”
“Because this is where she left her mark. She swore a hee to her service and it cut words into the stone of the bluff. They are ancient, but you can still see them when the morning sun shines on them. After you have seen, we will go.”
“Q’een Norton left something? Why did the elders not tell us?”
“Because they did not believe my grandam, so she passed it to down within our clan.”
“What, grantom?”
“The telling I had was that her clan dismissed Q’een Norton. They thought her sun-touched. So she used the hee to leave an insult her Tom and his get would see every morning until the day they died.”
“What is ‘words’?”
“‘Word’ is one, ‘words’ is more. They had no proper speech. They had to leave marks on the ground to talk. A word represented something in that low speech.”
“How do we know what she left?”
“My grandam had the speaking of the words from her grandam and so on back and forward, so we will know what to say if the H’n came back from the stars like the oldest tales say they will.”
“What is the speech cut into the stone?”
“‘All your banners are dust.’”
by Clint Wilson | Mar 3, 2015 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
“Kraaaxxx, a full report please.”
“This one will be easy sir. Take out their electronic web and they’ll be virtually blind. It’s still in its infancy and these bipeds are extremely dependant on it for everything from news to communication.”
“Excellent. So a couple of well placed hits into their major technological hubs then should do it.”
“Actually sir, if we are to topple their hierarchy quickly then we should really hit their major financial centres first.”
Captain Jjjoooorg rubbed his front pincers together with glee. “Well why didn’t you tell me they were monetarily dependant Kraaaxxx? This will be like taking sulphur nodes from a youngling!”
“So then, proceed in that direction sir?”
“Yes Kraaaxxx, hit their financial centres with a couple good photon blasts. That should disable their world leaders.”
“Right away sir,” answered the gunner as he focused on his targets. And as he keyed the triggers forward he added, “First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 2, 2015 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
“It’s not meat you know.”
He’d slipped up silently beside me at the meat counter and was pointing to the shrink-wrapped flat of striploin I was holding.
“They print those, from meat flavoured engineered inks, but they’re not meat.”
As I turned to look at him, he withdrew slightly and glanced furtively around, shrinking into the hooded sweater he was wearing.
“LeGrange and Baxter, those are real meat. Grown in a field, real. Not those ones though, they’re all printed.”
I put the steak down and looked further down the coolers at the LeGrange display.
“Your jeans too, not cotton. They sell them as cotton, but it’s not organically grown cotton, it’s engineered. Ever wonder why it itches? You should stick to Levi Strauss and Company, quality clothing for over one hundred and sixty years.”
It took a moment to process that the man was just talking about Levi’s. I stopped and took a look around. This was the strangest man I’d bumped into at the grocery store in recent memory.
“You’re a jean snob too?” I grinned despite myself at the man’s odd phrases.
“Quality never goes out of style.”
I noted that he was without a cart or basket. “Are you shopping, or just here to help me make better choices?”
Before he could answer, there was a shout from the end of the aisle.
“Hey, I told you buggers to stay out of my shop!” A heavy-set man in a green apron tied at the waist was hobbling up the aisle towards us, pointing.
The man beside me blurted “Pick Energizer, keeps going and going and going,” as he turned and ran, making it almost to the top of the aisle before another man in a white butcher coat rounded the corner weilding a large aluminum shovel. The strange man skidded, turned sharply and sprinted back past me, arms and legs pumping in a manner that suggested he wasn’t used to this level of exertion. He raced right at the green aproned grocer, then tried to dodge around him at the last instant. The shopkeeper raised one meaty arm, catching the strange man around the neck and clotheslined him, lifting him clear off his feat to drop like a stone on the floor unmoving.
I abandoned my steak shopping and my cart and rushed to kneel beside the man lying motionless on the floor.
“Jesus, that was a bit unnecessary don’t you think?” The storekeeper stared at me, seemingly just noticing I was there. Behind me I heard the butcher arrive with the shovel and grunt as he leaned on it. “He was just making conversation,” I continued “weird conversation granted, but he wasn’t doing any harm.”
The shopkeeper reached down and roughly unzipped the supine man’s sweater.
Where the still man’s hands extended from the cuffs, they were convincingly flesh toned, and his face was similarly real looking, but beneath the fabric he was merely a pale plastic shell, more like a carefully articulated mannequin than a man.
“Jesus.”
“You keep saying that. I assure you god had nothing to do with these things.” He stood back up and toed the thing none too gently where the ribs would be. “I get at least one of these a month in here. They’re paid advertisements, corporately sponsored. Mostly they’ll walk around the big box stores where there are no real sales staff to discover them, but occasionally they’ll wind up here in the independents.” He kicked the thing again. “I’ve got four in a bin out back. I’m pretty sure they’ll have them GPS tagged, but nobody’s come offering to buy them back.”
As I stood again, I couldn’t help noticing the shop keeper was wearing Levi’s.
I nodded and smiled, then backed away slowly to where my cart sat abandoned. Without a word the butcher folded the thing at the waist and carried it past me up the aisle to the back room.
I decided to have chicken instead. That’s probably what the steak was made out of anyways.
