by Duncan Shields | Jan 19, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Our breasts are sore and our balls itch.
We feel like half of our food goes towards our tumours now. The black accordion beside our bed makes our four lungs work, squeezing long and then flat, our only sense of passing time when the lights are off. All of the instruments around our bed make the room look like Christmas. They softly ping, beep, scratch, whine, record and bear witness.
We are in the grip of a sadness so total that it will last us the rest of our lives which, if the doctors and technicians are right, will be about another six days.
We raise our hand up to the button that makes more pain medication drip into the tubes and it’s exhausting. The competing muscles from two people fused together struggle and fail before flopping back down on the bed. Several medical alarms go off and then go quiet again, just like they do every time we move.
The irony is that we were in love before all this. Two cadets on a starship. Cadet Robert Jacobs and Cadet Linda Castle. Bright kids with bright futures that knew nothing about what cruel surprises fate had in store. We held hands in the corridors, had sex whenever we could, and blushed when we thought of each other.
What fools.
The transporter badly needed a resequencing, the official inquiry found. Our molecules were transposed, inverted, inverted back and then met in the middle somewhere. Normally, when this sort of thing happens, the victims die immediately or are returned to the pad intact and separate as their backup selves. In this case, not only were the safeguards dormant, we survived the melding.
The mashing of our bodies and minds together has changed us into a giant lump of flesh with arms and legs splayed out like a starfish. Our heads are mashed into one staring monstrosity. Our nervous system allows us to feel pain but we can barely move. The tumours started immediately and continue to multiply and grow. Our entwined DNA is rejecting itself but we cannot be separated.
And now we know way more about each other than we wanted to. We know that Linda did not love Robert and much as she said she did and that she had her eye on another cadet. We know that Robert had a history of sexual abuse that he never disclosed to Linda. We know that Linda was very mean to her ex-lovers. We know that Robert tortured rodents as a child. Our minds are one and the veil is down. We know so much more about each other than any human has a right do. Every insecurity, bowel movement, unfair thought, dark corner and weakness laid out like an autopsy for us both to see.
We’ve been told that our backup selves will be returned to life after we die and informed of the anomaly. This ruling is supposed to be humane. They will never be allowed to witness the abomination we’ve become. We will never be able to tell those two idiots to break up immediately. That’s the most frustrating thing about this entire experience.
We have a unity two humans have never before achieved.
We cannot wait to die.
by Patricia Stewart | Jan 18, 2012 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Day 1. Our transport ship just crash landed on Piscium III. It was a miracle that twenty-four of us survived. The subspace transceiver still works, but C&C said it would probably be eight months before a rescue ship could get this deep behind enemy lines.
Day 2. We buried the dead today, and inventoried our supplies. Food and water don’t appear to be a problem. We have enough ammo to defend ourselves against a modest ground force, but if they come at us from above, we’re toast. Starting tomorrow, we’ll begin dismantling the ship to build a more defendable base.
Day 7. The days are getting hotter. According to the ship’s database, Piscium III has a highly elliptical, orbit. For the two months near perihelion, the average temperature will be over 60C, and for the four months near aphelion, it drops down to 40 below. Apparently, we arrived near late spring. Good thing we packed sunscreen.
Day 12. We thought this planet only had plant life, but we saw a three foot tall spider-like creature digging out its borough this morning. Sarge figures they must have been in hibernation during the Piscium winter. We’re hoping that they might be good enough to eat so we can supplement our food supply. We’ve been living off rations since the perishables spoiled when the freezer crapped out.
Day 20. We’re starting to get concerned. There are thousands of those giant spiders running around, and they are getting more brazen. They started probing the perimeter yesterday. Dickerson blasted one to pieces, and it seemed to scare the rest of them away. As a precaution, Sarge doubled the number of sentries.
Day 21. Dickerson’s screams woke us up at 0200. By the time we reached his post, he was gone. It looks like he scuffled with the spiders. We followed the tracks, but they disappeared into a hole. Looks like we’re at war with these demons too.
Day 37. It’s over 60C all the time now, and the damn spiders are attacking us day and night. We’ve been forced to pull back to a smaller, more defendable position. We lost another three men last week. We’re down to twelve now, barely enough to rotate guard duty.
Day 65. Our prayers are being answered. It’s finally starting to cool off, and the spiders are getting sluggish. We hope they go into hibernation soon. Eight of us are still hanging on, popping stims every few hours so we can stay awake. If we get off this God forsaken rock, we’ll probably need to spend months in detox. C&C says evac is five months minimum. Winter, please hurry.
Day 91. By the grace of God, I think we’re going to make it. We haven’t seen a spider in three weeks. We’re able to get four hours of sleep for the first time in months. However, it’s really getting cold. We’ll have to hunker down for the winter, but that will be a cakewalk compared to the hell we just lived through. Only four months to go.
Day 115. Sanchez went missing last night. His sleeping bag was ripped to shreds. But it wasn’t the spiders. By the looks of the footprints in the snow, it was some kind of large quadruped. Damn this world. Giant spiders in the summer, carnivore bears in the winter. The bastards are howling now, nonstop. There must be hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Three more months. God, have mercy on our souls.
Personal Log: Timed out
by Stephen R. Smith | Jan 17, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Ambassador Shaylin steepled his fingers and pursed his lips in a half smile.
“Now Envoy Tsak-tuk, you must appreciate the cost of transporting your exports to other planets, we’re happy to facilitate trade, but we’re simply unable to be any more charitable than we are at present.”
Across the table, The Tsak-Tulian Envoy huffed in and out several times, expelling great gusts of pungent air as he did so. Those directly across from him shifted uncomfortably in their seats until he spoke.
“Ambassador, you speak of high costs, and yet you pay nothing for our goods and they command high prices amongst your buyers. You would appear to be taking…”, the envoy paused, waiting for the correct word to bubble up through his consciousness, “advantage of what you assume to be our ignorance.”
Shaylin raised his hands and eyebrows at the affront.
“Envoy, you insult us. We’ve opened your doors to interstellar trade, brought you cultural knowledge and business from outside your planetary boundaries and you repay us with accusations and insults?”
It was the Envoy’s turn to smile.
“Knowledge? You bring us stories, select fragments of your history, tales of your heroism in the stars, of your benevolence and grace. You feed us your stories of Matthew, John and Luke and yet your knowledge is so clearly…”, again he paused, waiting for the correct word to present itself.
“Fascinating?” Shaylin offered.
“Sanitary.” Tsak-tuk finished the thought. “Your history as you present it hides the contributions of your Napoleons, Sun Tzus and Ghengis Khans.”
Ambassador Shaylin sat straight up in his chair, listening intently to his earpiece for some explanation of this information breach and receiving only static.
Tsak-Tuk laughed, a low rolling belly laugh that Shaylin felt rumble through his ribcage.
“You wonder how we know things you don’t show us? We have those among us for whom barriers and safeguards are of no consequence, you have your… John Drapers, we have ours.” He raised one worn appendage, noting how pitted and cracked the dermal plates were. Too long at work. “We have learned a great many things from you, about your ruthless subjugation of the weak, your wars, your failed societal systems, we’ve learned of your politics and insatiable lust for power.” He looked pointedly from delegate to delegate, weighing their discomfort. “Why don’t you provide us with your ships, and we’ll take our goods to the stars ourselves and broker our own deals?”
A melodic tone began sounding from outside, Shaylin recognizing it as the midday chiming of the towers in the city square.
Tsak-Tuk narrowed his eyes. “You come to us promising opportunity, your assistance and equal prosperity and yet you take advantage of us and seem intent on keeping us powerless. The time has come to renegotiate the terms of our arrangement.”
The Ambassador moved forward in his seat, reddening in the face.
“How dare you…”, he started as Tsak-Tuk cut him off.
Shaylin, focused too on the envoys cracked and pitted appendage still held aloft suddenly realized the other held a short but impressive looking handgun.
“Today’s chiming unites all of our people against all of yours.” Around them, weapons appeared, amply covering the off-world delegation.”I believe it was your Mao Tse-Tung who said ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’?”
Shaylin shrunk back into his seat in a pool of his own sweat.
“He wasn’t ours, exactly.” Was all he could think to say.
by Julian Miles | Jan 16, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Telemada Centre is pretty on a New Year evening. The displays in the shop fronts are outshone by the Christmas lights. I watched on live AV as Veleria Diesel turned them on. Seemed right that her fight for the rights of the poor was finally getting recognised.
The transparent escalators are the tourist feature: Dubbed ‘Stairway to Heaven’, they ascend nine storeys from the entrance plaza up to the restaurant tier. People who want to do anything as ordinary as shopping can use the lifts.
I am on it now. The sensation is eerie, provided by some retasked military stealth technology. Ahead of me Haddad is oblivious to his nemesis standing quietly watching the view from three metres behind him. There’s no hurry. He’s going to a very exclusive restaurant with his latest nanodoll. A little harsh as the young lady is actually an undercover Narcotics agent, but the role she has did necessitate selection by her proximity to looking like a porn star.
He’s on the phone to his legal team, who are informing him that his appeal has been rejected and he has twenty-four hours to present himself at any law-enforcement office for last will and demise.
He finishes the call and laughs out loud, commenting loudly to his bodyguards that if they think he’s going to step up for death, they are mistaken. Then he orders them to prepare his airliner and transfer his remaining funds to Grenada. He will leave for the airport after lunch. The exercise of unthinking arrogance is almost artistic in its nonchalance.
We arrive at the top tier and he wanders into the restaurant. I walk over to the bar and order absinthe over sake with a twist of speed, a cocktail colloquially referred to as ‘Emerald Seppuku’. Haddad notices that. He nods to me, the respect of a hard-living man acknowledging conspicuous excess in another. My n-tech reduces the drink to the danger level of water, but he doesn’t know and that’s the idea.
Everybody has n-tech of varying types from the age of six months. The health of the world has improved beyond measure with every medical procedure reduced to micro surgery with a few million surgeons already on board. Just lie down, let the master surgeon guide your n-tech and you’re fixed. Your ID is onboard as well, so the amputational horrors of implanted chip theft are a thing of the past.
A better society. As n-tech can only interface from under three metres, the big-brother worry is removed as well. Utopians are already hailing the new age. Not quite. Dangerous and greedy people still take advantage of society. In a landmark and completely secret agreement, my agency appeared.
Haddad is seated and I have an Emerald Seppuku delivered to him. He sips it appreciatively and gestures me over. I walk over and combine flattery with macho humour. I walk away with his card. I am sitting at the bar when he rises and heads for the toilets as the nephritic doubler instruction resolves. Minutes later the bodyguards get frantic and I am just leaving when the paramedics arrive. Too late: Nbola is always fatal. For some reason all of the n-tech in a person just goes berserk, becoming several million tiny blades. A paralysed, agonising ninety seconds as you are pureed from the inside out.
Nbola is very rare and a cure is being sought. It is also fictional. The more enlightened the society, the more insidious and decisive the means of protecting it need to be. I am a Surgeon-General. Never need me to operate on you.
by submission | Jan 15, 2012 | Story |
Author : Kevin Ware
It was only because of the eighty years that the first probe had been studied that the true meaning of the next was clear. The teams of muttering specialists who had travelled to Alberta to examine the wreckage in exhaustive detail had wrung every last shred of information from the charred and flattened hulk.
It was a simple probe. It was not the last of its kind. It had travelled a long way, but only by our standards. It was from outside the solar system, but only a bit. The best expert thought was that some kind of ship had lobbed this one (and presumably others) into the inner solar system to see if any of the planets there had something of interest to take. Technology, life, artifacts?
Listening post after listening post confirmed the path of the compact and unnaturally reflective object doing a gravity-assisted momentum dump around Jupiter. A few million calculations carefully run by a small woman hunched over a cup of cooling coffee quickly determined what several telescope jockeys had already guessed weeks before. This was another probe, seemingly identical to the first, heading inbound for the center of the largest landmass of Earth. It would land just to the east of Lake Baikal, in the Russian Federation, in seven hundred and fourteen days.
After months of intense hotheaded political debate and scattered but intense societal unrest, it was decided by the powerful but ultimately cowardly leaders of this small insignificant marble of a planet that we did not want to be known. The risk was far too great. It would be better to remain small and insignificant and lonely than to have to face the other.
As the probe was still out of visual observation range and passing behind Saturn for a last slingshot braking, hundreds of carefully arrayed nuclear warheads rained down on the shores of Lake Baikal and the diverse wildlife until recently protected there.
Fifty billion miles away on a small Spartan school ship, a young student frowned at her wrap-around panel of telemetry displays as the probe’s cameras focused on a desolate lifeless wasteland, crushing any hopes she had at further funding.
