by Duncan Shields | Dec 10, 2013 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
We meet every six years.
The project churned out over two hundred of us. When they ordered us terminated, twelve of us escaped. There are eight of us left.
The government made a Superman straight out of the comic books back in 1952 but you know what they say about absolute power. They gave the strength and the nigh-invulnerability and the flight capability to a handsome, decorated young soldier named Walter Johnson. You should have seen him. Blonde hair, tall, honest, great shape. What a shame. He did what he was told for almost six months until one day, in a fit of pique, Walter killed his commanding officer by accident by punching him in the face.
They found the officer’s helmet embedded in a brick wall about a block away. They theorize that his head may have been atomized. Walter had been ordered to kill a few too many innocents and his sense of nationalism finally eroded to nothing. The rest of the team, following the eventuality scenario orders, opened fire. It didn’t work. He killed them, too.
Feeling hurt and betrayed, he went rogue. He tried to go underground but he was recognized wherever he went. He couldn’t get plastic surgery because nothing could penetrate the force-field around his body. Eventually, they cornered him in a warehouse in Texas where he’d been posing as an airport mechanic.
Their last-ditch insurance policy was cruel. Walter had a brother. They hauled the brother out and said that if Walter didn’t kill himself, they’d kill his brother. Walter was borderline suicidal by this point anyway. He’d been thinking about ways to do it.
He flew up into space. The vacuum did him in. He may have been invulnerable to the cold but he still needed to breathe. It didn’t take long. His body fell back to earth like a meteor and landed outside of Lubbock.
They killed his brother after that. No loose ends.
Using a specially designed drill bit, they drilled into Walter’s body and scraped a few cells out from beneath the force field.
Enter us. We were a batch of clones made from Walter. They figured if they could make us and control us from birth, we’d be more obedient. They kept us off the expense charts and away from the media. We were to be covert. They outfitted us with new tech as it became available. Things went great until puberty.
Scientists are always so shocked by nature. Wet dreams, anger issues, sullen feelings of not being understood, the need to explore, sex, growth spurts, massive confusion, floods of hormones causing borderline insanity. They couldn’t control us.
They had weapons that could penetrate our force fields. One morning, mechanical soldiers came in and opened fire on our bunks. They got most of us right then and took a bunch more of us out in the ensuing battle. Sixteen of us fled. Twelve of us made it past the outer defenses and survived the trek to civilization.
We were homeless for a while. We drifted apart. We stole where we could but some of us got jobs. The secondary backup that they had was to turn off our powers remotely. They wanted us intact in case they collected us so that they could make more.
Every six years, we meet up. Joey’s missing an arm. Jamie’s got cancer now but it looks good for a complete recovery. Sarah only pops in for a second, looking great in her suit. This time even Jake made it but he looks like the heroin is winning.
We talk for a while.
by Julian Miles | Dec 9, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
They never understood how I could be so smart when it came to food. Of course, when I was rushed into hospital and they found Deke, it all came out. He’d started out as one of the things that lives in our guts, but he either evolved or was a mutant or something. ‘Or something’ being the winner of the vote, I was told.
Anyway, he got big and his smarts came from me. Funny, we never talked about him because he had no history apart from suddenly waking up in me. Took him a while to work out what he was and trawl my memories to get real words and pick himself a name.
I’d been having tummy trouble for a couple of days; there I am, sitting on the throne and this voice in my head says. “Hi. I’m Deke. Sorry about the pain, just moving myself out the way.”
Well, I fell off the toilet and just about brought the place down screaming. Thankfully, Dad wasn’t home. All the time, Deke’s talking to me, explaining, calming. In the end, I could either go to the doc’s and get carted off in a long-sleeved T-shirt with buckles up the back, or I could get to know Deke.
So I got to know him-it. Within a few months, I was a lot smarter (two minds are better than one) and my ability to detect stuff in foods was attracting attention. Give Deke a ‘taste’ and he could recognise it in any food I ate.
That was the problem. Some protesting people found out about me and asked for my help. Since Deke and I liked the idea of good food, we helped. A lot of corporations got to look silly and got fined heaps of cash.
The next thing I know, blokes in black suits and doctors in white suits turn up at my Dad’s place, all wearing masks. They said I’d been ‘invaded’ by an ‘organism of unknown origin’. Dad never liked my habit of talking to Deke. So he let them take me away. As the mask came down and the men made reassuring noises, Deke said to me: “I’ll be back.”
After they let me out of the special hospital, I wasn’t so good at stuff. Things didn’t make sense anymore and most food I ate made me hurl. I ended up racking carts at my local supermarket.
Then early one morning, there was banging on my door. Dad went downstairs all fired up, opened the door shouting and then went quiet. So I got up and went downstairs, cricket bat at the ready.
She was standing in the hall; Dad was laying on the floor behind her with a silly look on his face. She looked up at me and smiled. I recognised that smile. I saw it in the mirror every morning.
“Deke? What did you do to Dad?”
“Gave him something to help him understand, Eddie.”
“How did you – what are you doing in – How?”
“Found out something new, Eddie. I can split off little me’s. But I wasn’t happy with the bloke they put me in. This is his daughter. I’m just hitching a ride with Linea in Julie’s body for now.”
“Until when?”
“Until I can come back to you.”
“How?”
“Kiss us, Eddie.”
by submission | Dec 8, 2013 | Story |
Author : Dakota Brown
Silence.
The familiarity of it comforted her, but her mind was busy with preparation.
The lights had gone out in a moment, the fluorescent image of the room around her burned into her eyes. The radio had ceased the peppy tunes of bands long disbanded and commercials for products long forgotten. What remained was the towering clock perched against the wall near her bed… ticking… tocking.
Clockwork. In a way it was all like clockwork. She checked to see that the front door of her twelve by twelve room was locked, despite the fact that she had abandoned the idea of leaving it unlocked long ago. The process involved testing a series of bolt locks and iron bars covering the lone entrance/ exit, and though the security measures were constantly in place, she found that the check settled her mind. Next, the candles were lit. Fifteen candles scattered around the room somewhat resembled electricity, but with two now burned out and another thirteen near the end of their wicks, the room was far from its typical acceptable state. She would have to leave for some more candles when the lights came up. But for now, she fell to her bed gripping her father’s knife tightly and waited.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
At first it was tolerable because she could see the other apartments being illuminated as well through her now boarded up window. But one by one the candlelit rooms remained pitch black and neighbors she had once known had been whisked away.
Despite it all, the silence forced her mouth into a smile. It gave her purpose, it gave her fight. The dragging sounds and dull, wet thuds echoing in the hallway made her giggle and when a hollow voice would call “Please come with us” she had to bite her lip to keep herself from mocking the creature on the other side of her door.
She would wake in the morning to a prerecorded radio show she had heard many times before and wipe the drool of a pleasant night’s sleep from her jaw. She would turn the radio down and listen to the gentle pendulum of the clock while considering her next night.
Tick, tock.
It has been fun.
Tick, tock.
But there’s no one else left.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
I guess that makes me the winner of this little game.
Tick, tock.
Maybe tonight I’ll let them give me my prize.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
by submission | Dec 7, 2013 | Story |
Author : Willis Weatherford
“Mr. Lengua.” The man Nathan knew only as ‘the Agent’ paused a long moment in his crisp black suit before continuing. “Do you know why you’re here?”
“No. I don’t know where ‘here’ is, either. Nor who you are, where I am am, nor why,” Nathan Lengua said, and thought to himself “but I know you are feeling scared, old man”. The knowledge gave him a feeling of power and security.
The Agent’s carefully combed, purely white hair created a simple arc over the rim of his black glasses as his eyes scanned the file scrolling down the bifocal lens. As the Agent re-read the final page, Nathan felt the old man’s fear grow, and expand to include uncertainty. The Agent’s eyes flicked up to meet his own.
“Your location and my identity are classified from everyone without security clearance. That includes you. So, let’s focus. Tell me about Lexington.” The glasses pointed forward, the white hair glowed in the incandescent light, and the black suit remained perfect, but all Nathan needed to know, he could feel: the Agent’s hesitance and growing fear were as obvious to the detainee’s senses as the clothes were visible to his eyes.
Nathan thought back to Lexington, his most recent gig as a professional “Feeler”. Mr. Berg, a venture capitalist, hired him to be in the room “taking notes” as entrepreneurs pitched their ideas. Little did those budding businessmen know that the dark skinned, quiet clerk in the corner was taking notes on their every feeling, and would later reveal his findings to Berg in a private office.
“Well, Mr. Berg, I wouldn’t go for this one. When you asked him about his market research, he sounded confident but felt nervous. Judging by his resentment when you asked about his family, I’d say he has either a bad breakup or an illegitimate child in the recent past – of course that may be a flaw you are willing to overlook.”. Usually, Berg took his advice. And, judging by the growing profits, it was usually paying off. Nathan brought his thoughts back to the question at hand, and decided to keep up the facade. After all, the Agent couldn’t feel his nervousness.
“Lexington was my home for the past four months, my most recent job. I was working as a clerk for a venture capitalist. Your thugs nabbed me and brought me to wherever ‘here’ is. Presumably, you know why. I do not.”
The Agent’s irritation mixed with his own as the old man firmly planted a hand on the cool black desk in between them.
“The Security of Mentally Stored Information Act declares accessing the thoughts and emotions of compliant citizens to be illegal. You are suspected of violating that law at a level requiring, at the least, long term incarceration.” The Agent punctuated his official statement with a stern glance at the small man seated on the other side of the table. “Your compliance here, in this very room Mr. Lengua, will determine whether your offences require more severe penalties. You won’t be able to feel your way out of that one.”
Nathan considered his options. He recalled the foundational truth of his trade: ‘Uncommon knowledge is power; Common knowledge is weakness.’
“I’d like a lawyer”, he said.
“Feelers like you, Mr. Lengua, are non-compliant citizens, and as such have no right to a lawyer. I assure you, you’re on your own here.” As the Agent’s feeling of power and control grew, Mr. Lengua’s shrank until a rising tide of fear and helplessness swallowed it completely.
“I’ll take my chances in jail”
by Clint Wilson | Dec 5, 2013 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
At first many were skeptical about teleportation but nowadays more and more were doing it all the time. I still took the bus. Riding along I had my choice of seats. So few utilized old mode transportation now. Some called us superstitious, while I preferred the term scientist.
The diesel hydrogen transport bounced along through endless rows of gray factories and billowing smokestacks. Suddenly the massive building that housed the human bio-matter store for southern Alberta loomed into view. I had once worked in that place. Those of us employed there had called it, “The Aquarium”.
I sat in an uncomfortable chair at my niece’s birthday party, balancing a piece of cake on my knee. She was now seven and was telling me about her visit to China’s great wall. “It was lovely Uncle Pete. We stepped into the booth, Mum, Dad and me, and then poof! We were in China!”
I sent her along to play with her friends and turned to glare at my sister. She stared coldly back at me. “We’re still the same people and you know it Peter.”
Of course exact copies would say that. Still I had no real proof. But I had my somewhat educated theories. Sure my sister and her daughter still seemed like the people I knew and loved, but how could they be really?
All the propaganda said it was safe. Sure you were disintegrated and vacuumed up in a fraction of a nanosecond, and sent at the speed of light, a chain of photons arranged in exact replicas of your molecules, to a receiving station where bio-matter was sucked from the nearest pipe and reassembled into your exact form before your brain could register what had happened. But how could it still be you?
Subjects had been studied exhaustively, answering endless questions and submitting to batteries of tests. Every memory seemed to remain intact. Every emotion was still present. Loved ones recognized and still cared for one another as much as ever. Yet I remained as suspicious as ever.
I managed to hold off for most of my life. I was ninety-four now and still my original self. Everyone I knew had teleported. None of them were their original selves. They were all copies. I had lasted this long but now it would end. They said I was too frail to be moved by ambulance. The distant hospice of course had a receiving booth large enough to accommodate a hospital bed.
Well at least now I would finally know for sure. Would I still be me? The attendant hit the button and, as I looked around with my own eyes for the last time, there was a bright flash.
It was like watching another me suddenly jump out and away from myself, as my entire makeup was copied in an instant and flung forward at the speed of light.
There was a sound like all of the air being sucked out of a room at once, and the next thing I knew I was swirling around in the beige soup of the southern Alberta aquarium, or at least my consciousness was, while an exact copy of me was now being rolled out of the teleportation booth and into the Spokane hospice. That copy would be dead in less than a week. I integrated with the bio-matter and knew once and for all that I had been right all along.
As the concoction continued to swirl I mixed thoroughly with the flowing elements and began to hear the voices of others, wondering what was in store for me next.
