by submission | Sep 23, 2014 | Story |
Author : Suzanne Borchers
“Good evening, Susan.” The desktop robot’s eye blinked as the gender-neutral voice greeted her.
Susan had arrived home from an 18 hour shift of nursing casualties at the local pub/hospital. She slammed the front door behind her. “I have to remain cheerful, smiling, and upbeat for destitute, half-alive drudges caught in this never-ending fight for survival. For all the hapless, close-to-dead youth dripping with blood to broken-boned elders, all who have been victimized by roving gangs of filth stealing food and soiling homes, I have to …” Susan suspended her tirade at the robot. She tugged away from her skin the sopping uniform with its remains of someone’s supper dripping off of it onto the floor.
“How was your day, Susan?” the robot’s measured voice inquired.
“Look, you idiot robot, I’m tired, cranky, and reek of half-digested hamburger.” Susan reached up under her skirt and tossed her holstered gun on the desk. Then she began to pull off her clothes with uncoordinated yanks.
The robot’s eye blinked slowly. “Relax. Peace and calm, Susan. Peace and calm.”
“Do I sound relaxed? Do I sound peaceful? Do I sound calm?” Susan strode over to the robot.
The robot stopped blinking and stared past Susan.
“There is something you should know, Susan.” The robot’s smooth voice said.
“Shut up!”
The robot immediately ceased its vocal response.
Its eye blinked quickly at the intruder quietly advancing into the room behind Susan. It stared first at Susan and then at the intruder, then back again as another intruder paused in the opened window before stepping onto the floor.
Susan watched the robot in silence.
Its eye flashed colors at Susan and the intruders, one after the other.
“What?”
Its eye produced a pulsing strobe toward Susan and the intruders, one after the other.
Her eyes widened.
She turned.
Too late.
by Julian Miles | Sep 22, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Why are we all the way out here? If we had taken the Rigel mission, I could have been home for mid-winter revel.”
Chapni sighed. That was the problem with the Urulaunk; they had this thing about partying. Preferably with as many like-minded multi-limbed beings as possible. For the rest of their year, they were fun people to be around. But come the two Great Revels, every Urulaunk not on Nicto Urula turned into a whinging child for a period equal to the time it would have taken them to get home for the festival.
With a flick of his vestigial groinwings, he brought himself back to being a tutor: “This is the Cradle. When you gaze upon the third planet from the recently subgiant sun, you are gazing at the world that gave us life. That is Earth, and although it is long dead, it is a worthy thing to meditate upon.”
“All the way out here? Only one planet? How, without the Perspicacity of Icto, did they manage to accomplish so much?”
“They were an emotive race. Driven by intense passion to achieve things we would deem impossible. Now, it is time.”
“What am I to learn?”
“You will tell me. Or you will fail this qualification sector.”
Chapni waited as they approached the system. He’d deliberately dropped them from Supra outside the system to give his student a better chance.
“Poshtor Chapni, the system has too many planets.”
“Quantify.”
“The archaeological treatises disagree on exact number, but the low bound is eight and the high bound is ten. There are forty here.”
“And how would you resolve this conflict of data?”
The Urulaunk brought its entire thirty-five digits to bear on the consoles and Chapni allowed a shudder to run up his dorsal ridge. An Urulaunk totally committed to something outside of inebriated joymaking. It was a first, and vindicated his faith in the race’s potential.
“Thirty-two of the planets maintain an atypical orbit, yet are equidistant upon the same track. Therefore, I deem them to be foreign bodies.”
“A fair initial postulation. Now granularise it.”
The fingers flew and the thumbs tapped and the rhythm was a frenetic, tribal thing. Chapni smiled. Even during data interrogation, an Urulaunk was primal.
“The thirty-two identified are orbital, but my predictions state they are on the cusp of escaping. They are artificial, being dense mass without variance for mantle, core or similar. There are no artefacts. I do not understand.”
“Persevere.”
The rhythm resumed.
“Poshtor Chapni. The worlds comprise synthetic organic polymers of varying exact composition. From what I have gleaned from the history and legendry, I would state that they are composed entirely of detritus. I postulate that humans resorted to this drastic measure when planetary storage threatened to overwhelm thier biosphere.”
Chapni allowed his horns to flush scarlet in approval: “Urulaunk Takton, I deem you to have passed this sector’s requirements. Now, for extra credit, why do you think we are here?”
Takton reflectively scratched his armpits, an unconscious movement of joint-popping speed and complexity.
“The thirty-two will soon become free-space objects. By the time the first one becomes a nuisance, the rest may be scattered across the universe. Dealing with them here and now is the best remedial action.”
Chapni’s horns almost glowed: “Correct.”
“Poshtor Chapni, a further deduction?”
“Proceed.”
“Nicto Urula is dependent on similar polymers. You are endeavouring to lay a warning upon me.”
Chapni let his proboscis dance across the control console: “Now that the lesson is installed, let us set about destroying the Polystars of Sol.”
by submission | Sep 21, 2014 | Story |
Author : Kieron Walquist
As of this moment, I am a ten-year-old Eskimo, lying on the beach in the frigid rain, stone-cold and lifeless. However, that could all change in an instant.
My father, for now, is a humpback whale, circling the shallow waters that lap upon the shore, crying out to me in a mournful song to lie still. But I defy him.
My mother, whom very recently has become a weeping willow tree rooted in a nearby field that hugs the charcoal dunes, sways her long, limber branches toward me, forever reaching yet never receiving. Faintly, I can hear her voice through the whispering of leaves, carried by the arctic chill. Yet I ignore her.
The hovercrafts patrol the twilight sky, seeking for expired forms, like me, amidst this dying, terrifyingly beautiful world—to resurrect and reform those once broken into whatever kind of living entity they so choose; their searchlights scan for my location, my body, but I am somehow mysteriously camouflaged among the waves of crashing water and dazzling sand that they pass by overhead and I go unnoticed. I don’t mind—they should find the others who are lifeless and fix them instead.
But that’s just the thing. People no longer die here on Earth. We are altered; morphed, transformed—however you want to word it, into something else than what we previously had inhabited. Their word for it: Shedding. Like a snake sheds its skin. The serpent doesn’t die, just grows anew. The procedure is a little like re-birthing, if you will; only we don’t fully experience death, just a nebulous passing. The Creator wanted it like this, molding us in the beginning to become interchangeable, limitless, so that we could partake in the infinite possibilities The Creator had in store for us.
It’s not like dying. I have to believe in that, somehow.
I’ve been through many Sheddings before; I have been many things. Months ago, I was an albatross; ivory in plumage, colossal in wingspan, oblong in face and webbed in the feet. I think back on that lifecycle often. I used to soar above the clouds, throw my fragile birdsong to the ocean, nest under my children and feel them rumble beneath me in greeting.
Then, I had shed that existence away and took up a different host.
For a while, I was a mountain. That lifecycle was unpleasant. I endure the sporadic and harsh effects of weather—rain, snow, quakes, gales and strikes of lightning—unprotected. I allowed animals and birds to use my body as housing. Then, there was the pain; excruciating aches and spasms where chunks and pieces of my being would separate without warning and fall off. The view of being a mountain was spectacular, I’ll admit, but that was really the only perk.
But after a while, I altered once more, this time awakening as fire. I scorched the grass and smoked the sky as I danced effortlessly across the way. Uncontrollably at times; I’d blistered and baked every beautiful thing I touched without meaning to.
Then I became a human: a little boy. And for just a short while—like a blink of an eye, really. I didn’t want to give this body up, despite my parent’s insistence. Not just yet. Because, you see, Shedding, to me, really did feel like dying, and I had died enough already; had changed enough already. And if I kept on changing, than who am I, really?
by submission | Sep 20, 2014 | Story |
Author : Gary Will Kreie
“Hi, Dusty.”
“Howdy, Richard.”
“How’s the cattle business, Dusty?”
“Business is good, Richard.”
“Have you been riding the fences?”
“We don’t use fences anymore, Richard. Open range now.”
“How do you keep your cows from wandering off, Dusty?”
“Moogle glass.”
“What?”
“The cows wear glasses.”
“Really, Dusty?”
“Really, Richard.”
“You mean, like, sunglasses? And big floppy beach hats, Dusty?”
“Funny. We use special goggles strapped to my cows’ heads with built-in image control, navigation, and communication, Richard.”
“Interesting. Let me guess. You program the latitudes and longitudes of your old fence lines right into the glasses. Is that right Dusty?”
“Right, Richard. We control everything they see. Normally, the glasses are clear, but when my cows get close to the old fence line, the glasses show ’em a simulated cliff edge.”
“So at the old fence line, your cows think they are standing on the edge of a cliff. You use the cows’ own fear of heights to keep them from crossing that line. Is that how it works, Dusty?”
“Yep. We trick ’em into thinkin’ they live on top of a large mesa with high vertical cliffs all the way around.”
“That is funny. Cows are stupid. Keep it up, Dusty, because my humans really like eating your beef.”
“So how you doin’ with your humans, anyway, Richard?”
“They can be a handful.”
“How do you keep your humans from wanderin’ off? Fences?”
“No.”
“Glasses?”
“No.”
“I give up. What?”
“My humans get all their information online. We own online access, Dusty. We control everything they see.”
“OK.”
“Sometimes we tinker with, uh, conventional wisdom, Dusty. History. Facts.”
“So?”
“So we rewrote some ancient science history and old science books that are now all online.”
“So?”
“We changed them all to say that the ground is round.”
“You mean, like a ball, Richard?”
“Right, Dusty.”
“Well, Richard, aren’t your humans smart enough to figure out that they would fall off of a ball?”
“We took care of that by pretending some guy found an invisible force a long time ago that pulls everyone toward the ball center. That’s what the internet and all the scanned and reprinted books say now.”
“So, you’ve tricked your humans into thinkin’ they live on the surface of this giant ball. Right, Richard?”
“Yes.”
“So they won’t try to leave.”
“Yes.”
“You’re jokin’. Right, Richard?”
Richard looked back at Dusty with a serious expression and swiveled his head left and right slightly.
And Dusty just could not stop laughing.
by Stephen R. Smith | Sep 19, 2014 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Thirtyseven sat on the edge of his bed, kicked off his shoes and fell heavily into his pillow, not bothering to peel off the white coveralls he normally couldn’t wait to get out of. He was exhausted.
He lay staring at the ceiling, the last few hours of the day still fresh in his mind, although today blended seamlessly into yesterday, and last week, and a month ago. Or more. He’d lost track.
Each day played out pretty much the same, he awoke in the same grey six by nine room, showered, dressed and ate the breakfast that was delivered to him, then he made his way to the simulator. Here he learned how to ride motorcycles, slalom cars, canyon race executive jets, operate forklifts, tractor trailers, maglifts and exo-skel loaders. He’d logged countless hours in freighters, cruise liners and speedboats, gliders and heavy cargo planes, jump-packs and helicopters with countless different rotor configurations.
He had no idea what they were training him for, or even who they were, he never saw anyone, just heard voices, took direction, followed wayfinder systems made of lit arrows on the walls and floors. He simply did what he was told, and learned whatever they were teaching.
He’d stopped trying to remember what he’d done before, when this had started and how he came to be here. He wasn’t entirely convinced that Thirtyseven was really his name, but he had no recollection of another one, and that’s what the voices called him. Any time he tried to think too far back he felt nauseous, anxious and lost, and he didn’t like feeling like that. Instead he focused on being an apt pupil. If it could be ridden, driven or piloted, he’d likely spent hours in the simulator on or in it, in between meals, naps, bloodwork and being poked by machines with needles.
Something was coming. He blinked, and then sleep came on like a freight train. Had he stayed awake long enough to realize, he might have recalled driving one of those as well.
Outside Karl Liesen paused at thirty seven’s door, checked to make sure he’d been rendered unconscious, and reviewed his chart. A disembodied voice interrupted his reading.
“Sir, thirty seven is scheduled for deprogramming, can you sign off on him?”
Liesen waved at the chart displayed on the wall several times until the authorization page was in view to which he applied a palm briefly, waited for the page to glow green with the recognition of his prints, and then tapped to confirm and close.
“Proceed”, Karl started walking back to his office, “make sure you get a clean scraping, and then composite thirty seven with twenty six and forty one, we’ve got a new recruit in staging that I’d like to layer up and see what he can do.”
“Yes sir, is that the marine we picked up in the projects?” The voice followed Karl as he walked.
“No, I’m thinking the twenty something with the mohawk from the men’s shelter. The marine I want cleaned out for weapons training,” he paused at a terminal, pulling up the man’s record. They’d found him in an alley digging food from a dumpster in the rain, he’d been an easy catch considering his background. “He’s got small and medium arms training already, so when you wipe him, be careful to be crisp around the edges, I’d like to leverage what he already knows.”
“Understood sir.” The voice paused while Karl closed the terminal and resumed walking. “Sir, what do you want doing with thirty seven when we’re done, we’ve wiped and reloaded him three times already, he’s losing neuro-plasticity.
Karl arrived as his office and stood at the door for a moment, thinking.
“Once you know you’ve got a clean scrape, put him on heroin and PCP for the next twenty four hours, then turn him loose at the cloverleaf after dark. I’m sure he’ll find some sort of vehicle he’d like to play with.”
He didn’t wait for an answer before entering his office, it was late and he needed a drink.
