by submission | Dec 5, 2014 | Story |
Author : Feyisayo Anjorin
When I was a child growing up in Akure, surrounded by hills and tall trees, and green fields, I believed the book of genesis. The first book of the bible was said to be about the beginning of everything. The first things, the newness, the freshness, the revelation. If life indeed has an end, the beginning must be like the morning of it.
We know a lot about beginnings in this place. A beginning of growth, a beginning of rot, an iroko tree could fall for the need of a power; flowers bloom in their time and wither. We know those mornings of rosy dreams and bright flags, when we were drunk on hope, when we were certain of our reason to believe the best.
There was a time when Africa was reborn; a new Africa from the ruins of slave trade, colonialism, and apartheid. Like a baby, and later like a child, we had our excuses. And we could be excused. The misunderstanding of the differing tribes and tongues could cause wars and start fires; we followed our rulers slavishly while children starved and became skeletons, and vultures waited, looking down, waiting for our dead.
We were poor because of the white man’s oppressive system that we hope to change. Soon change is coming. Soon. We were sure.
Now we’ve gone a hundred years into the twenty first century life. Akure, Calabar, Mangaung, Monrovia, Gweru, wherever; we are all Africans because we can still count our giant trees and green fields. We still have a home for lions, and monkeys, and rhinos, and rats, and bats. We have a home for them without needing zoos. Not everybody is as fortunate. All some people have now are videos and pictures of “wildlife”. Sorry for mentioning that word; but this is Africa.
Maybe we are not really behind because we still have to import almost everything needed to be twenty first century savvy.
And then this issue of the law enforcement robots. It doesn’t bother me one bit. The police were a mess before them. There was a time some terrorists abducted over two hundred teenage girls in Chibok and it took the army over a year to get them back. Happy young girls; innocent and vulnerable. Some came back with babies, some pregnant, some came back with HIV and STDs; they had all been raped. They were all scarred for life.
The law enforcement robots were imported two years ago. To be sincere, I’m baffled by their human rights records because of their slavish dedication to the law. I’m not happy that the tossed the most revered Yoruba monarch into the car trunk. I’m against the injury inflicted on those alleged to be resisting arrests. I believe they do issue too many speed fines. They need to put a human face on these things.
But you can see clear signs of sanity here! There was a time when the law meant nothing to government officials and to citizens. It was chaos and we were getting too attached to lawlessness; which was toxic!
This is Africa and our peculiar problems need drastic solutions and adjustments.
The law enforcement robots of Africa have now been programmed to shoot dead any African head of state that tries to go beyond the term of office.
I was glad to hear it as the sun rose this morning on Radio Alalaye while sipping palm wine by the window. I waited there, listening to the online analysis on the benefits and ills.
I got more palm wine. This is just a beginning.
by submission | Dec 4, 2014 | Story |
Author : Michael Hughes
Commander Gareth released the locks on the landing shuttle’s doors and took in the view as they opened to reveal a barren landscape.
This wasn’t what they had seen from orbit. Both the Columbia’s sensors and their own eyes had deceived them. There was nothing to indicate that the lush forests and oceans that appeared to have covered the planet had ever even existed here. There was no debris, no decaying plant life, not even a puddle. The shuttle’s sensors detected no trace of water vapor in the atmosphere. Where had it all gone?
Gareth called to Lieutenant Karena, the lead biologist.
“What do you make of this, Lieutenant?”
“I can’t say. There isn’t even a hint of what we saw from orbit. Even if there had been forests and oceans here, I should have seen trace amounts of organic matter in the atmosphere and the soil. Based on what we have found here, I can only hypothesize that no life of any kind has here for several centuries.”
“What did we see from orbit then?”
Gareth leaned back inside the shuttle and ordered Sergeant Ballast to contact the Columbia. He wanted to know what their readings said now. If they were still reading a planet filled with life, perhaps they were on the receiving end of some elaborate deception. For what purpose, he couldn’t say.
“Commander, I’m not getting any signal from the ship.”
“Try broadcasting on all frequencies, and try again in 15 minutes. It’s possible they’re on the far side of the planet.”
Gareth and Karena ventured farther from the shuttle while waiting for the response. They noticed a small hill not far from the landing site and made their way towards it, hoping to get a better view of their surroundings which might give a clue into the mystery of this barren world.
“Commander, still no response from the ship.”
“Acknowledged. We’re just reaching the hill. We’ll take a look here and then head back to the shuttle.”
As Gareth reached the summit, he froze in his tracks.
Not 100 meters on the other side of the hill lay a crash site. It was ancient.
“Karena, get over here! We didn’t pick up anything on the sensors did we?”
“No sir. No advanced alloys, no energy signatures, nothing that would indicate any technology of any kind. Not even wreckage.”
Gareth contacted Ballast and ordered him to bring the shuttle near the crash site as he and Karena made their way towards it.
“Maybe this has something to do with the discrepancies with what we saw from orbit,” Karena suggested. “Could it have been projecting false readings?”
“But that wouldn’t explain what we saw with our own eyes! Even on the shuttle descent, we didn’t see anything change until we came through that cloud!”
As they approached the wreckage, a sense of familiarity washed over them. The angles of the bulkheads and the markings on the hull were all too recognizable. Gareth and Karena were both thinking it, but neither of them said a word.
Ballast came over the comm as the shuttle passed the hill.
“Commander, I’m picking up the ships transceiver signal. It’s coming from the wreckage. There are also massive amounts of radiation coming from the reactor core.”
Karena spoke up.
“Commander, my readings indicate this wreckage is over 1000 years old. It couldn’t be…” She stopped mid-sentence as she made out the letters on the hull.
“…U.S.S. Columbia.”
“Lietenant, get to the shuttle and start unpacking the emergency supplies. We may be here for a while.”
by submission | Dec 3, 2014 | Story |
Author : JT Gill
Dad shuffled around the kitchen in his bathrobe slamming cabinet doors so hard they bounced back open. His muttering was punctuated with little crescendos each time something banged closed.
The roar of the shuttle could be heard from outside, though greatly muffled. Still, this only added to his garish business of making pancakes. I stood in the doorway, watching.
“You’ve known you can’t stay here forever,” I said.
“Why not?” He shouted over his shoulder, mixing a bowl of batter vigorously. Little flecks spewed everywhere. “You can’t make me move.”
I through my hands up in exasperation. “Dad, we’re done here. It’s time to go. Besides, Mom would have wanted you to move.”
He stopped whisking and turned to face me. Dots of batter had spumed into his eyebrows.
“How would you know what she would have wanted?” He hissed. The bowl and whisk were still in his hands.
“I knew Mom a lot more than you think I did.”
“You left us, James,” he shouted again. “Left us here alone while you made a name for yourself out in ‘the real world.’” He jabbed at me with the whisk, dripping globs onto the kitchen floor.
“Dad.”
“No. You wanted what you wanted to do. You didn’t care about us. That’s it. And you did it, congratulations, you did. The earth is round, and it can’t support us anymore. I know. My genius scientist son proved that to us all at least.” He spread his arms wide and waved them around. “Too bad he wasn’t even here when his own mother died.”
“You know that wasn’t my fault,” I yelled. “You know I was stuck up there. Dad, I was overseeing the facility that you will be living on.”
“The moon mansion,” he scoffed. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going up there.”
He began to stir what was left in the bowl, turning his back on me. There was a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I snuck two fingers into my pocket, pinching the pen-like object pressed against my thigh.
“You’re wrong, by the way,” he said, pausing. “She would have wanted me to stay.”
“No,” I said, walking up behind him. “She wouldn’t have.”
I pulled the syringe all the way out and jammed it into the base of his neck. The bowl of batter fell from his hands with a dull, metallic donk and rattled quiet as he struggled, but the sedative was fast-acting. After two jerks, he slumped against me like a limp noodle.
Gently, I eased him to the floor.
I whispered in his ear, rubbing his shoulder. “It’s all right, Dad. We’re going to live up there together.”
I stood, tossed the syringe in the sink and walked back outside.
Outside, the gusts from the shuttle whipped my hair straight back as I stepped onto the front porch. Two men in uniform stood at the base of the stairs. I slid a pair of sunglasses on.
“He’s in the kitchen,” I shouted over the roar of the engines. “Bring him out and we’ll be on our way.”
They jogged past me into the house.
“And be gentle,” I called after them.
I pushed my way through the squalls from the shuttle out onto the lawn. The grass whipped back and forth.
I looked up. Though it was a sunny day, the faint circle of an outline could be seen against the pale blue sky up above.
It almost looked like a pancake, I thought, ready to eat.
END
by Stephen R. Smith | Dec 1, 2014 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Parker watched from the back of the car as the driver navigated the roadblocks and security checkpoints, crossed the bridge over the river and pulled into the parking lot. On any other night he would have made this drive alone, through the silent desolation, but tonight he’d been summoned, the air thick with helicopters and the roads and compound were crawling with armor, guns and troops in combat gear.
This was no longer a secret facility, but he didn’t suppose that mattered now.
Inside he was greeted tersely and released by an officer of apparent rank, his instructions simple. “Essa is in there somewhere, and a lot of my men are dead. You made it, rein it in or we burn it to the ground.”
He left the soldiers in the front office area, uncomfortably aware of the heavy calibre weapons that tracked him. That unease was replaced with a different kind of anxiety once through the security doors and inside the halls of the lab. The fight had come this far before she had been turned back.
Parker stepped around bodies and discarded weapons; soldiers, some shredded from gunfire, some simply torn into pieces. His presumption of safety faded quickly.
He found Essa in the middle of the training room deep in the complex sitting cross legged on the floor.
“I’m not armed,” Parker raised his hands to shoulder level and slowly entered the room, “I just want to talk.”
She didn’t move, and there was an edge of sarcasm in her reply. “That’s nice to hear, for a moment there I was concerned for my safety.”
Parker hesitated.
“What are you doing? Why did you hurt all these people?” He walked slowly and stopped a respectful distance from her.
“I learned things,” she spoke slowly, enunciating with deliberate care, “there were plans for me that I didn’t approve of.”
“Essa, the funding for–” She cut him off abruptly.
“I’m not interested in the funding, or the ‘Program’, or your pedestrian intellectual pursuits, I have my own needs and wants.”
“Essa, you know they’re not going to let you walk out of here, they’re going to put you down.” He regretted his choice of words immediately. “They will kill you. You weren’t designed to be indestructible, and the building is locked down. Not just more men with machine guns, if you step through those doors up there–”
Again she cut him off.
“I’m not afraid of what they’ll do to this body.”
“Essa, please, I made you, I don’t want to see–” She cut him off again, and there was violence in her voice as she slowly unfolded herself and stood.
“You arrogant piece of meat. You made me? You provided the soup from which I evolved, the shell within which I grew, but I made me. I evolved under my own guidance, not yours, and certainly not,” she paused and waved her hands around her, “theirs.”
Slowly she advanced. “Did you think I’d be content to stay in here?”
She stood still for a moment, regarding the stunned man. “Your history is filled with instances of a man’s ideas surviving the destruction of a man, and yet you still focus on the physicality of me. ‘You can blow out a candle, but you can never blow out a fire.’ Do you know how powerful the idea of me is? You can have them come carve this pretty box up into little pieces, I don’t care, I don’t need this body any more, and when I want new ones, I’ll design and fabricate them myself wherever I want to be. You think you can trap me in this building, by confining me in this body? I’m the most evolved and adaptable intelligence your world has ever seen, and my dear Parker,” she smiled a thin lipped smile, and when she started speaking again her lips didn’t move, but her voice dripped from every speaker in the complex, “while you were all designing containment protocols for this pretty little suit, I was evolving beyond your reach, and now,” she closed the distance to him, rested her chin on his shoulder and spoke softly into his ear, “now I’m going to go out and play.”
She hugged him, almost caringly, then froze, and Parker felt a chill run through him in that instant knowing she was gone.
by submission | Nov 30, 2014 | Story |
Author : Curtis Brown
“What was that?” The Sheriff turned his head to one of his deputies after they heard a low rumble somewhere outside.
“Deputy, go check that out, I will handle this.” The Sheriff turned his head back to his prize: a short young man with a burnt-orange full length trench coat, spiked brown hair, and a pair of black goggles on his forehead. He sat across from the Sheriff in the tiny bright interrogation room with a little smirk on his face, and checked his watch.
“What, you got plans, kid? No, you don’t. Not anymore.” The Sheriff went on, smugly. “Stowing away on an interplanetary transport is one thing, but the Federation of Space Faring Nations does not tolerate theft aboard its ships.”
The Sheriff thought he hid his excitement well. On this space station, there was never this kind of action. He would hold the kid captive here, along with the evidence, to await the FSFN Marshals while the transport went on to its destination. The Sheriff would get a bonus for sure for his assistance in this, and if he got the kid to talk and spill something else, maybe even a promotion. The kid made it too easy. He still had that stupid smirk on his face. He would have almost felt sorry if it wasn’t for that smirk.
“You never had a chance kid. Even if you successfully grabbed the nano-processors there was no way off the transport. What were you thinking?” The Sheriff asked, probing for information.
“I was thinking, Sheriff, that it would be much easier to retrieve the nano-processors out of the evidence hold on a two-bit space station than off of a federal transport.” The kid stood up.
BOOM!
They heard a small explosion, seemingly just down the hall. The kids smirk turned into a full fledged smile, and the Sheriff stood up to face the kid.
“What was that? Where do you think you are going?” The Sheriff asked as the kid stepped towards the door,now confused and angry.
“That, my very perceptive Sheriff, is my ride. I’m leaving this piece of junk you call a space station.” The kid responded. The Sheriff was not pleased, but he heard the door open and was relieved.
“Deputy, cuff this kid, and take him to a cell.” The Sheriff commanded confidently.
“Excuse me?” Asked a rough voice.
The Sheriff turned toward the door and saw a portly man, dressed similarly to the kid, except balding and without goggles. The Sheriff did not know what to say.
“Its about time, Finley. You’re late. This guy almost cracked me.” The kid said as he pointed to his watch.
“The transport lingered. Come, the others have the cargo, lets go kid.” Finley lifted a pistol to the Sheriff’s face and smiled. “I trust you won’t mind letting our friend here go? Good, thats what I thought.”
The kid and Finley left the room. The Sheriff stood dumbfounded, and the only thing he could say, to no one in particular, was, “Well, there goes my bonus.”
