by submission | Jun 4, 2014 | Story |
Author : S. Tyrel Murray
Its cold all the time. I don’t mean cold, as in frozen. More like uncomfortable, chilly. Its still cold enough to die from hypothermia.
I was one of the first volunteers selected. They said we would travel. See the sights. They lied. They had us in cold sleep for the trip, so we didn’t get to see any of it. Even warping space and travelling at 27 times the speed of light, it took us more than 18 years to reach here.
There were sixteen of us when we left. We lost the first two a half million klicks from Earth. A secondary reactor in the aft storage module started leaking coolant. Johnson and Valasques went to shunt the coolant line so we could salvage some supplies, and dump the module. They were boiled alive. It wasn’t pretty.
You may be wondering, “Where is here?” “Here” is Kepler-186f. We found the planet orbiting an M class dwarf, a red sun, back in early 2014. It’s habitable, but barely. The air is breathable, the water is potable, the vegetation is edible. We haven’t seen any native fauna, but I’m no zoologist. That was Valasques’ job.
When we landed, and I use that term loosely, the wind was too strong for us to set up our survival equipment. We had to weather the storm in the crew module. It passed after almost a week, then we set about building our domed houses. Azzimi, a structural engineer, made sure our houses could withstand the high winds.
He was the first to disappear. We don’t know when it happened. There were no screams, and no bootprints or tracks to follow, thanks to the constant winds. Over the next four months, nine more men disappeared under the same mysterious circumstances. The rest of us were petrified to leave each other’s sight.
There are only four of us left, and we always have one person on watch. We’re all very tired, bored, afraid, and resentful. We haven’t been apart from each other in more than six months. We have begun to hate and fear each other. Suspicion runs high, but we still need one person watching at all times. It’s my turn for watch, so that’s what I’m doing.
They say familiarity breeds contempt, and I agree. I hate those guys so much. I think I’ll go for a walk.
by submission | Jun 3, 2014 | Story |
Author : Mae Thann
Rounds of heavy artillery sent the bunker shuddering. The dim desk lamp flickered. The deteriorating energy shields outside crackled. The only constant was the scraping of metal on metal. Sera shivered and padded toward the light. “Daddy? Will you tell me a story?”
Daddy continued to sharpen his knife. “Not tonight, Sera. Go back to bed.”
She watched the knife’s reflection dance over the dark patch on Daddy’s uniform where his insignia once was, then over his features, softened by a weariness Sera didn’t recognize.
Then Daddy set down his knife and offered a smile. Sera climbed onto his lap and he wrapped an arm around her. “Where did we leave off?”
“He asked her to dance.”
“Ah, yes. The fairest princess of all.”
Sera snuggled closer and waited with bright eyes.
“The music started and they fell in love right on the first step. They never noticed anyone else or even how long they danced. But before the prince could announce that he’d found his bride –”
The lamp flickered as if on cue. Sera gasped and covered her ears to block out the sharp crack of the weakening energy shields.
“ – the dark fairy appeared. ‘I have given you your princess. Now, prince, give me what you have promised.’ The prince sent for his prized steeds, paraded his rarest treasures, even offered the kingdom itself, but she refused them all.”
Sera frowned. “But didn’t she ask for them?”
“That’s what the prince thought. ‘I have offered you all that is dearest,’ he said. ‘What more is there to give?’ The fairy said, ‘I know where your heart truly lies.’ Then the prince knew that the dark fairy had tricked him, just as the good fairies had predicted. He took the princess’ hand and ran while the guards surrounded the fairy, but she disappeared with a flash.”
The outside world held its breath, waiting as Sera did for the next part.
“They ran through the halls, but the dark fairy always appeared to head them off. They ducked into the treasure chamber and hid.”
Explosions rocked the earth, amplified thunder rent the air. Sera screamed and threw her arms around Daddy’s neck.
“There was no escape.”
The light grew for a moment, then blew out. Horrible sounds came from outside – things crashing, people screaming, alarms blaring. Sera sobbed into Daddy’s shoulder. He rubbed her back and continued in a low, husky voice.
“The prince could only imagine why the dark fairy wanted his princess. He had to save her, even if it hurt him more than anything in the world.”
Shouting, pounding on the door.
“He held his princess close – like this. He knew there was only one way he could keep his princess. The castle bell began to toll.”
A pause. Then a terrific crash against the door.
“‘She’ll never take you away. I promise.’”
She could feel the tension in his embrace, the raggedness of his breath, the drumming of his heart against hers. Two, three crashes.
“‘You’re safe with me.’”
Four. She felt one of his hands pull away and reach toward the table. Five, six.
“‘There’s just one thing I want you to know.’”
Seven. The door screeched as part of it bent in. He kissed her hair. Eight. She saw a momentary flash, a shadow on the wall. Nine. She tried to push back, to look at his face, but he held her tight. “Daddy?” Ten. Another shadow, more terrible than the last. Eleven. “What are you doing? Daddy? Daddy?” she cried.
The clock struck midnight. “I love you, princess.”
by Julian Miles | Jun 2, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
We were getting pasted in a dogfight off Agnos IV when Team Havoc dropped out of subspace and chewed up the Havna interceptors that had been giving us grief. The thirty-two of us left were damn happy to see the cavalry.
“Marduk Leader to Havoc Leader. Cheers for the assist.”
“No problemo, Marduk. Happy to help.”
At that moment, the jaws of the Havna trap closed and seventy-two Crusis Class interceptors appeared in four ‘eighteen wheels’ formations.
“Marduk Leader to all Marduk units. Looks like we get to celebrate on the run. Havoc, you got flank?”
“Hell no. I got the latest version of Combat Assessor online. Predicts over eighty percent losses. Havoc Flight, reset to start of zone in three,-”
“Reset what?”
“Oh man, you’re realtime? That sucks. Havoc out in two, one… Seeya.”
Team Havoc vanished into subspace and the dying began.
The merging of flight simulators, multiplayer combat games and drone technology started back in the mid twenty-first century. When man went into space via the discovery that subspace could carry more than communications, ‘simdrones’ became the new frontier. Billions of young gamers could reconnoitre actual new planets, all from the comfort of their recliners and gameshelms.
When negotiations broke down with the Havna, we nearly won. A million simdrones piloted by teenagers from across the world had the Havna outnumbered and out-insanitied – there are no limits to what you’ll attempt when you can’t die.
Havna technology advanced and subspace feedback missiles gave the simdrone community their first casualties: 196,547 in two days, to be precise. Cocky became cowardly. So much so that ‘training missions’, supposedly in virtual environments on Earth, were actually live missions, pulled off without the knowledge of the all-too-aware-of-their-mortality little darlings safe at home.
Occasionally, clusterfucks like the one that killed all bar three of Team Marduk happened. Apparently, Team Havoc received a ‘stern’ reprimand.
We hear the chime within the house. It’s a fine day and people are sunning themselves by their pools. Stacey and I, we look summer-ish. Get too close and you’ll see angular outlines under our jellabiya.
The door opens and a woman who could be anything between fifty and ninety smiles at us, revealing teeth to match her million-credit bodywork.
“Can I help you?” Her tone indicates mild curiosity.
“We’re from SD Monitoring, Madam. Can we speak to the resident SD Warrior?”
She sighs: “Warrior? Pain the neck is what he is. CECIL! People from the base to see you!” With that, she leaves us standing there and saunters off, calling for the maid.
A few moments later, a well-built teenager in a silk dishdasha ambles out: “You two my new handlers?” He focuses on Stacey: “Oh man, they sent a babe.”
I rest the foot-long suppressor that fronts my Morgan .60 cal on the tip of his nose: “Marduk Leader to Havoc Leader. Karma time.”
The kick shocks my wrist, elbow and shoulder. Cecil’s head sprays across four metres of parquet and stucco. I look at Marduk Seven – Stacey. She nods.
“Next?”
She checks the datapad on her wrist: “Two houses down on the other side.”
“Law enforcement window?”
“Nine minutes.”
Three minute walk, one minute knock and wait, one minute kill.
“Send subspace co-ordinates for the road outside the next house to Marduk Twenty-Three. Evac in seven.”
Jimi’s that good. Put him in a captured Crusis Class and we become oni: unstoppable demons of vengeance. By the time questions are asked about surveillance suppression and the like, we’ll be back in our quarters on ISS Twelve having left no traces of our little field trip.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 1, 2014 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Shadow coloured stones crush and scatter under boot heels. Their passage unheard, two figures have slipped silently across the rooftop expanse to its eastern face. Lumbering mechanicals presenting themselves at intervals, drinking heat from the spaces below to exhale in great humid sighs. These are the only sounds to disturb the pre morning air. There are no bird songs, no passing vehicles, no murmuring undercurrent of peripheral lives. It will be hours before the first ships climb to the stars.
This is the silence before the break of day.
Two figures sit, silent, legs dangling into space from the parapet, the last of the previous night’s beer in hand, each absently slaking the thirst neither of them feels anymore.
It’s not the night’s antics that make this moment memorable, indeed those memories are lost now. Not even the rise of the sun itself, though I’m sure as always it was worth the wait. The rising of this particular sun on this particular day was merely an ending, it had no significance beyond that.
The memory, rather, is of two accidental friends sharing the last moment they’d know together, in silence, waiting for the sun to rise and give them permission to leave one another, to leave home.
It is these few moments, this shared time of solitude so exquisitely inscribed upon which I now reflect. A time remarkable in its clarity, plucked from a sea of murky memories, of happenings that have long since faded from view. Brought forth by the thought of a sunrise I can’t remember watching, and will never see again.
by submission | May 31, 2014 | Story |
Author : David Barber
“You might have seen my paper in Thaumaturgy,” the sorcerer was saying. He’d introduced himself, but the name hadn’t stuck. Maxine complained that Jeff just didn’t try.
“So you’re Maxine’s husband? Maxine’s father and I met in England.”
Jeff was sitting in his office, disappointed by the lack of magic paraphernalia.
“Boyfriend.”
“Of course, popular notions of magic are completely wrong.”
Jeff had shared a narrow office at Fermilab and knew all about clutter, but this room was shabby with neglect, a dusty chlorophytum was dying on an antique PC. Jeff began to rehearse his excuses. He’d need to be careful because it would get back to Maxine.
“People think magic is like wishing, that you can just wish for gold.”
Jeff wore his jacket, jeans and an I Survived the Great Vowel Shift t-shirt. He’d promised Maxine he would give it a shot, but that didn’t mean he was selling out.
“You can only get something from nothing at the energies you work at. Ha. Ha.”
Jeff smiled wanly. He didn’t know much about start-up, except somebody had a useful skill and somebody else had finance. This Brit was mistaken if he thought Jeff was the one bringing money to the table.
“If Alchemy taught us anything, it’s that magic can’t transmute lead into gold. But it can change something into something similar.”
Jeff’s last interview had been with the IRS. There’d been a PhD biochemist, a geology graduate, and him, all going for the same job. They were overqualified and underemployed; Jeff was only there to keep Maxine happy. Hire those other two guys, he’d joked. They could get blood from a stone.
The old guy stared hard at an unlit match.
“Fire is exothermic. Magic just changes the probabilities…”
Outside, occasional traffic hissed down wet roads. Finally, the match ignited.
Jeff cleared his throat. “You know, I’m wondering if…”
“Theoretically, the simplest way to get gold is to steal it. Portal magic, from the jeweller’s window to your pocket. Depends on gravitational potentials, conservation of energy and so forth. Magic still obeys rules. Shot a necklace straight through a window with that spell. Awkward moment.”
Don’t go chattering, Maxine had warned. Let him do the talking, see what he has to offer.
“Or gambling. But a die or a roulette ball are slippery beggars. Horses were the best bet once, of course. Trouble is, blocking magics are always easier than transforming magics. Second Law of Thermodynamics and all that.”
He sighed. “Everything is magic-proofed these days.”
They stared at one another.
“So, Jeff, you worked at Fermilab?”
“Two years, yes. They’re shutting the accelerator down. Hard to get a grant now. Maxine said something about a start-up…”
“Same in magic. A lifetime of study and I drive a Toyota Yaris.”
“Look…”
“I’m looking for someone familiar with…” He consulted his notes. “Quantum states, Hamiltonians and er… eigenvalues.”
Jeff shrugged. “Sure.”
“Ever since I was at Oxford, I’ve nursed this idea about influencing individual electrons with magic.”
“That’s a quantum calculation. From what I know of magic.” What he had gleaned from Wiki, Jeff meant. “It’s doable, I just don’t see why.”
“To flip selected bits in a computer memory.”
“In computer memory?”
“To add zeroes to the end of a bank balance.” He nudged his papers parallel with the edge of the desk. “For example.”
After a while, Jeff said: “There’d need to be some tests.”
“Yes.”
Maxine would be pleased.
“Then it might be more… prudent, to go into business selling blocking magics.”
Jeff grinned wolfishly. “I’ve got a great name for our new company.”
