by submission | Oct 23, 2010 | Story
Author : David Barber
The boy grew tired of scrubbing crud. He wiped his nose, streaking chlorophyll across one cheek.
The green boomed and bust. The man knew this. Booms, you tapped off the extra green. Busts, you dumped the crud into the recycler and started with fresh green. But the tank had to be clean first. The boy knew this now.
Tell me about when they threw things away.
The man roused himself, focused on the boy.
I mean, where did they throw them to?
The world was bigger. They just left them somewhere else.
But
His apprentice asked lots of questions and the man kept explaining but the boy just wasn’t very bright. People said IQ had dropped. Some by-product that was building up in the closed loop. Or getting low. Nobody knew. Nobody even knew how to find out. Some said it was nonsense, but then the stupid would say that.
What did they throw away?
Everything. They had so much they just picked up a new one.
The boy sort of understood new. Each daymeal was new. It might be yeaststick or krill cake. Sometimes it was vegetables. Vegetables was best. The boy knew this. It was the notion of something being wasted he didn’t get.
Like stuff, he suggested.
Stuff was the irreducible exhausted residue left over. Recyclers wouldn’t touch it. Not now anyway. Lots of strains had gone weak.
No, said the man irritably, Not like stuff. What do we do with stuff?
The boy sniffed. Another flu going around. Chairs, he said. Shoes.
Furniture that bent. Cups that sagged when hot. They stored bricks of stuff in case somebody came up with a use for it.
Nobody wants stuff to be to wasted do they?
The boy shook his head.
Alright. Say a man has a worn-out shoe.
Couldn’t he mend it any more?
I don’t think they mended much. They’d take the shoe and… just bury it somewhere.
But where’s the new shoe come from?
Hard to explain a world full of things and empty of people.
They made it out of things that hadn’t been used before.
The boy wiped his nose again, unconvinced.
Look, said the man, impatient now. They took things from the pile they hadn’t used yet and when they’d used them up, they threw them on another pile. Alright?
The man didn’t hit the boy much but he was getting angry again. The boy couldn’t get past that first pile getting smaller. Best he said nothing.
Nightmeal was krill cake. Another baby had died in their corridor. This new flu mainly hit the young. People watched silently as they did the recycling. Only the mother tried to interfere.
The man usually read until his eyes got tired. There was talk of tithing books again. Cellulose for the bulk feedstock. But the man knew it was iron and magnesium the green needed. Grumbling, he looked everywhere for his book.
The clean tank waited to be seeded with fresh green tomorrow. The boy settled down behind it and thought hard about waste.
Something not put in the recycler. He tried to see what that meant. You could tear it up and scatter it. But that was just mulching. You could even eat it and it still wouldn’t be wasted.
It took hours to move blocks of stuff, bury the book deep and cover it up again. He’d thrown the book away.
He said it out loud. He’d wasted it. The boy tasted what it was like to be selfish.
In years to come, he remembered that was how the end began.
by submission | Oct 22, 2010 | Story
Author : Thomas Gray
Luckily, I guess you might suggest, he came at a bit of a sticking point for Me in that I’d sorted the algorithm for maintaining which level of quantum field to generate, I just couldn’t get it to stay to that level for longer than a few nanoseconds.
“You had the partitioning for the molecular quantifier set up all wrong” He explained to me over eggs the morning after.
That should have been the first sign. I had always been allergic to eggs, and I know, KNOW you can’t make people “un-allergic” to things, it’s part of your DNA, you can’t change it.
“Some medical guys managed to change all that, man” Fuck, He sounded just like Me.
“So I guess I can have eggs, and you can’t? Sucks to be you!” He says with a harmless laugh, that same laugh I’ve laughed a million times over. I so, so want to believe Him.
His reason for coming, he told me, was to
“See life on the other side of the sub-cosmic fence” with My grin and My Eye and My Hair and My mind.
I should have remembered that he had My mind.
Because, you see, I’m not a completely nice person. I’ve tricked people for personal gain. I’ve lied to get high in the world. I’ve conned to make my money. After all, the equipment for a Dimensional Drift Barge doesn’t come cheap.
I should have remembered He thought like Me.
His visit was only scheduled to last two weeks, but He left after only a week and a half. I should have realised something was amiss, but I had spent two weeks feeling as if He could read My mind, know when to laugh or cry, understand every concept I could ever express. Hell, it felt like I’ve made the best friend in the world. I was truly saddened when He left.
She had been backpacking around Europe when He arrived. I had missed Her everyday, but the arrival of an exact copy of “the self” from another dimension tends to push things like “spouses on vacation with friends” out of your mind.
Once He had left, and I had got over the somewhat “overwhelming” shock (as I’m sure the reader can imagine) I started dropping her emails again. I was bemused to find Her mother replying to them.
She had disappeared the day before He headed for home.
I received an email about a month later. He had told Her that He was Me. That I (He) had perfected the drive for interstellar travel, and had convinced her to leave Her old life behind and join Me (Him) in a new world, full of possibilities.
In My world, we were married at 21, had two daughters, and the only thing in the universe greater than our love for them was our love for each other.
In His, she had died in a car crash 4 months prior to him concocting his plan.
To steal Her from Himself.
I still cry everyday, lose my breath in the night from crying so hard, sadness still grips Me like the sadness, not of being forgotten, but unable to forget.
It took Him 4 months to decide. I hope She’s happy. Truly.
The worst part?
It wouldn’t have taken Me 4 minutes.
by submission | Oct 21, 2010 | Story
Author : Timothy Marshal-Nichols
I never did like Manzoor’s driving. I much preferred the modern way. Put your license in the Drive Slot and then the Transport Device does it all. That’s conventional, easy and, above all, safe. But that methodology was far removed from Manzoor’s temperament. And he always insisted on driving.
As soon as we set off I wished I’d never given in. “I’ll drive carefully,” he had promised. “Be in auto the whole way,” he had insisted, “we’ll just relax, chill out, some sounds.” I knew these promises, knew them well and I knew what he’d do. I was the elder brother so why did I always gave in?
No sooner was the Transport Device on the roadway than it was clicked out of auto. Manzoor was doing 350 plus in a 200 zone.
“You promised me,” I screamed.
But he was enjoying himself way too much to listen. As brothers we could not be more different. Five minutes later it happened. Inevitably we shot passed a Patrol Unit loitering at the roadside. Inevitably the Unit started after us. Inevitably there’s no outrunning these miserable androids.
Everyone hates these Patrol Units, even I do. These androids lurk at the roadside scanning for any minor traffic offence. Attached to speed bikes they can outrun any conventional Transport Device. Mostly they do not need to. They can force most Transports stop automatically. It’s all an easy source of state funds and the fines imposed are exorbitant. Even worse, as my brother has no income, it will be me who’s culpable.
“What did I tell you,” I said, I was not at all happy, “I knew this would happen.”
“Relax wimp,” Manzoor said, “no hassle,” and the transport unit glided to a standstill.
“I got this,” he said calmly, “so shut your mouth.”
The window of the Transport Device slid down and a nonchalant Manzoor poked his head out.
“Problem?” he said.
The Patrol Unit dismounted and mechanically strutted up to Manzoor.
“Do you know what speed you were doing?” the units synthesised voice rattled in a dull monotone.
“I afraid not, sir, were in auto the whole way.” I could not believe Manzoor could utter such a flagrant and obvious lie. How could he expect not to be caught out?
“Can I see your license sir.”
Manzoor took his license from the Drive Slot and held it out to the Patrol Unit. The Unit’s hand scanned it. The demeanour of the Patrol Unit immediately changed and adopted a somewhat less aggressive and intimidating stance.
“Have a nice journey sir,” the Patrol Unit’s voice crackled. Then it – gulp – saluted. Really, it saluted.
What? I was just amazed. I could just not believe what I saw. Manzoor just smiled on benignly.
The Patrol Unit returned to its bike, mounted, and set off at a pedestrian pace. I still could not believe it and stared at Manzoor. These Patrol Units are always, but always, extremely harsh on even the most minor traffic infringement. As the window of the Transport Device slid shut Manzoor grinned.
“Viral,” he said.
“What?”
“Viral, the license, it’s viral. Suckers.”
I had heard of such things, rumours always rumours, but had never know anyone who possessed such a thing.
“Where you’d get it?”
“That’d be telling. Did you get that sucker ‘have a nice journey.’ What a mug.”
Manzoor smirked. It was that smug superior smirk that always annoyed me so. And Manzoor knew it, yes he knew it. That’s why he enjoyed it so.
He shoved the license in the Drive Slot and put his foot down. Almost instantly we were back on the 350 plus. In seconds we had caught up with the Patrol Unit and Manzoor gave a friendly wave as we sped passed.
I hung my head in shame.
by Roi R. Czechvala | Oct 20, 2010 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
I couldn’t bear to look at the young punks sitting at the bar. A smartass kid about 21, 22 thinks he knows how the world works, and two pretty, but brainless devotchkas hanging on his every word as if it were a golden nugget of wisdom.
They don’t know shit.
“You don’t know SHIT,” I yelled at them. They gave me a disdainful look and dismissed me as a nut job.
I’ve seen it all. Battle cruisers blasting unarmed hospital ships to pieces. The sick, lame and lazy, still in their beds spilling out of the ruptured hull to suffocate in the vacuum of space.
I was on Europa when a grief crazed sergeant sentenced a virtually unarmed colony of Asiatics to a slow death by asphyxiation when he blew their Tesla Field generator.
Nobody cares, nobody gives a damn.
Nobody noticed as Joey Preston, formerly 2nd Lt. Joseph L. Preston, 3/125th, 1st Infantry Division, took a large swig of his beer, lowered his head and fell unconscious to the grimy steel floor.
John Carsten, grimaced as he jabbed the needle into his arm and thrust the plunger home. The rictus of pain was quickly replaced by the winsome smile of euphoria as he loosed the belt on his arm and allowed the blessed fluid to burn away his nightmares.
The nightmares of the impenetrable jungles of Venus. The combat was so close it often came down to hand to hand battle. A gook impaled his thigh with a screwdriver.
He reacted immediately, slashing at the dinks body with his K-Bar. The slope fell atop him, covering him with his slimy entrails and their filthy stinking contents of raw shit. He gagged and vomited. He was on his back choking on his own ejecta, triggering a second wave of nausea.
There was nobody in the cramped, filthy apartment to remove the needle from the arm of retired Gunnery Sergeant John Carsten, nor to call the medics as he drifted into a coma from which he would never wake. Above his body, thumb tacked to the wall, was a crimson banner emblazoned with a golden Eagle, Globe and Anchor.
In a secluded wooded lot, not far from Dog River, Saskatchewan, stood a makeshift lean-to “fort”, composed of logs, branches, bits of sheet metal, and whatever detritus could be lashed together to form a hide-out for young boys.
Almost simultaneously, William Hunter ( age 12), Billy to his friends and family, and Christopher “Chip” Pike, 11, pulled the leads of their Nintendo Gameboys from the sockets behind their right ears.
“Wow,” exclaimed Billy, “I was this loser alchy dick who fought in the Lunar Colony Wars.”
“That’s nothing,” Chip interjected with unbridled enthusiasm. “I played a drug sick dope head Marine after the Venusian invasion. I got extra points every time I hit the vein first try.”
“Damn,” Billy exclaimed admiringly.
Just then there was a knock on the rusted tin door. “That’s not the secret knock,” Billy said testily.
A second knock came. “Close enough,” said Chip and pushed open the door.
Chips little brother and constant pest Charles (Chucky, 9) eagerly barged in. “Guys, guys, look what I just got. I just downloaded it from the library. It’s the latest game… it’s almost like ancient history.
He held out a small box emblazoned with the name Hanoi Hilton III: The Ganja Express.
Their eyes were aglow as they smeared saline paste on their leads, slapped them into their cranial jacks and plugged into the wonderful mind numbing game.
by submission | Oct 19, 2010 | Story
Author : Almn
Richard’s mother was sitting in the corner, looking at me. “You’ve been a lot easier to be around lately.” It was yet another straw on the camel’s back. My mind silently ground to a halt for a second, trying to parse a correct response. Didn’t want to blow it.
“I guess those counseling sessions really helped. Understanding why people do the things they do, it really turned a light on in my head. I don’t know why, but everyone seems so much more reasonable now.”
This wasn’t in my parameters, and even with the frequent coaching of the psychologist and the effort of every electron in my brain, it was a struggle. I was doomed.
“Well, it’s been good to have the real you back.” Richard’s mother beamed. “You’ve been so sad for so long, and we were so worried about you. You know I love you, right?”
“Yes mom. I know” It was getting harder and harder to keep up the masquerade, the conflicting orders jangling around my head. I am a “beta”, a duplicate, and an imperfect an inorganic copy. I would never stand close scrutiny.
“Well make sure to call me when you get back to school. You know we’re worried about you, so far away.”
“Yes mom, I will.” She reached up at me, and I took her in my arms and hugged her tight, the way I knew Richard had hugged, squeezing like crushing the life out of her would bring them closer. In the back of my mind the second order started up it’s klaxons, insisting I obey, but I held back, for it would conflict with the first one.
I headed out into the rain that Richard had professed to love but never spent much time in, and cried. I was a failure, a waste of resources and time, a sham of a masquerade. No one would believe me for another week, and I had to keep this up for as long as his family was alive? Drinking water to replenish my tear ducts and wondering where I could get more salt from, I found a shelter, and there took out Richard’s suicide note, reading it again and again, looking for some way I could obey all of my orders, and prove that I was not a failure, like him.
