by submission | Sep 13, 2009 | Story
Author : Iva K.
When you start your career in time traveling they tell you it’s safe. They tell you there’s only a one in thirteen billion chance of getting into “The Accident” and that fixing such a problem is usually easy.
You can call it simply a collision of time fibers – the fabric of space and time is woven very precisely but when you put a human being on one of the threads and let them slide… Well, the human factor always provides for the chance of getting a knob.
My crew had this routine slide – we were supposed to show some VIP guy around the Renaissance so he could decide what part of the nobility personnel needed replacement. It’s how we operate on the past – we don’t change a thing but we have what they call “representatives” of the nobility who are supposed to watch over history and civilization and show tourists around.
Our VIP, my VIP was an era manager as I have been told and I was to be his escort for the trip. “Break the ice,” that’s what my boss had told me and I was doing my best. Jokes and laughter all around, encouraging his ego by asking him about himself. I was fascinated with his experience – he’d been working for “Time Affairs Inc.” for ten years and he had been flying all through the ages, seeing all the faces of civilization. Hypnotized by his stories I couldn’t help but tell him every piece of truth he asked of me. Until the great big bang crashed us into one another.
The impact left me breathles, dizzy and on my knees. His subtle “Are you OK?” got me together as my fingers lay on the palm of his hand. Perfectly shaped, long fingered, and holding me tight – I couldn’t do much but murmur “Don’t worry about me, these things happen. Are YOU OK?” His smile, I suddenly realized, fitted his sparkling cosmic eyes of dark ink. He was fine, he told me, no complaints, only stress. With my heartbeat echoing all around my body I felt euphoria rush through me.
We stood there for two hours. His unbearable charms and me in a knob on the surface of time and space. He and I stuck in a collision where his discreet touch like the fluttering of a butterfly sent Goosebumps all over my very being.
The Accident proved to be the result of some time traveling coordinator’s mistake. He let two slides intersect at very high speed and the blow being very near to our fiber of travel sucked us in. When the mechanics fixed the cosmic issue and the time traffic police came we had to take the VIP to the hospital. “For insurance purposes,” he told me. As I went through the examination he was holding my hand. Except for the sparks of mutual attraction lighting up the space between us the trip continued according to plan.
The ice was broken. His marriage chip was blinking on the nail of his finger.
My one in thirteen billion chance took place. When you start your career in time traveling there’s something they don’t tell you. It’s that your own one in thirteen billion might get messy. And as personal as it can ever be.
by submission | Sep 11, 2009 | Story
Author : Martha Katzeff
They came riding into the City. Some in cars, some in rusted tractors from another era. Some looked up at the greenhouses glinting in the sunlight. Others stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge the life above. Shorter buildings allowed a full view of lush crops, sheltered from the bustle of the City by the lull of circulating water. They craned their necks and saw vertical farms on almost every rooftop.
The farmers drove down the wide boulevards. Trees lined the boulevards, casting dappled shadows in the morning light. Open green plazas offered free public access to the river. Each plaza had a farm stand overloaded with the ripe produce grown in the vertical farms. The bright red peppers, strawberries, and beets were grim reminders of the rich earth that used to sustain their dead farms. The crisp green lettuce, cucumbers, and squash were memories of lost pastureland. The vegetables and fruit were all fresh from the farms, shipped no further than an elevator ride to the street.
The men were silent and grim, saying little to each other. What was there to say in the face of such abundant life. Their weatherbeaten faces reflected a century of drudge, drought, rising fuel prices and a sharp decrease in demand for anything corn or soy.
by submission | Sep 10, 2009 | Story
Author : Q. B. Fox
Subject: No man is an island.
From: ISowending@EarnestPeople.com
Dear Robert,
I know that’s not your name.
They call me Jane. That’s not my name.
Does that remind you of something?
If you’d rather, you can call me Maria; because some things we can’t help, they happen on a completely subconscious level.
And all this week I’ve been sending you a message.
You listen to rock music, don’t you? Do you remember hearing Metallica? Perhaps it was on the TV, or the radio, or the internet.
In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram ran some experiments at Yale University. He showed that a significant minority of us are so socially conditioned so that we will just do as we’re told, no matter how outrageous the consequences. And it’s not necessarily the people you think.
I know you don’t think of yourself as a rebel, or even disaffected, but you don’t really fit in, do you? You weren’t one of the cool-crowd at school, right?
Have you ever seen Donnie Darko? It was on TV this week. Do you remember that haunting music? How does it make you feel? Not quite real, right?
If you think about it, you can see yourself sat at your computer now, reading this e-mail. Go on, imagine it; looking down on yourself, like you’re watching yourself in a film. You’re just a character in a film.
In that film, this e-mail is a virus, exactly like a computer virus. Except this virus is for people; it’s for reprogramming people.
You’re a creative person. You have a good imagination. And you remember things. Not always useful things, but trivia, random facts. You make good use of your subconscious.
Not everyone remembers where they’ve come across Hemingway. Perhaps they read the book at school, or saw the film with Gary Cooper; perhaps they just read the synopsis on Wikipedia, or in those encyclopaedias you had when you were a kid. Perhaps they don’t know how they know, or even remember that they do, but some people will remember it all, subconsciously.
I think you’re one of those people; in fact I’m counting on it. Not everyone will respond to this e-mail, and we’ve sent it to millions of people.
But you will.
Tomorrow, you’ll wake up; you’ll know were to go; where to collect a van. And you’ll drive the van to a bridge, you’ll know which one. Then you’ll detonate a bomb that’s inside.
Today you don’t think you’ll do that.
And I appreciate your scepticism. But you are still reading this, aren’t you? Ask yourself: why am I still reading this?
If you concentrate, inside your head, you can hear the repeated clang of a single church bell.
You can, can’t you, if you concentrate?
Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it’s for you, sweetie, it’s for you.
Isabel Sowending.
by submission | Sep 9, 2009 | Story
Author : Jennifer C. Brown aka Laieanna
One, two, three fireflies into the jar. Just like that, all at once. Probably some kind of pact. I check the remains. Two girls, one boy, none over eighteen. Nobody brings anything to the jar except the young. They don’t plan, they just go. Money is all I really look for, paper better than chips. Spends immediately without paying for identity wipe. These kids have little between them but I take what I can. Even a shirt from the boy, he’s my size and it’s a color I’ve never seen before. The shovels won’t care what’s left with the remains. Their mechanical eyes see a job, not a loss. They’ll take what I didn’t steal all in one scoop.
I see more coming over the hill. Old man with five fake crying women making a half circle around him as his hovering chair reads and mimics the bumps over a grass path to the jar. No one ever built a real path. The jar is for everyone but no one is invited here. “Never forgotten. Never celebrated.” someone once scratched onto the plaque near the jar. True words.
I’ll get nothing from this geezer and the snakes who are already tonguing the rich out of his pockets. I don’t need to see him put into the jar. The smiles on greedy make me sick especially when they’re tossing into the jar. I take for need, not for greed. I’ll come back at the dark.
I see stars. I count stars till I forget the numbers. Only see stars when high on the hill now. Each time the jar gets brighter and brighter at night. I always hope to take good sunglasses from a remain, but they haven’t left them yet. Might have to buy a less good pair. Eyes half closed, I walk to the jar. No one comes at night. It scares them or makes them cry. Couple times they tried but years have gone by and no one, no more.
The fireflies are dancing, their long sleek bodies without arms, without legs, illuminating white floating in the jar, swirling around each other. Can’t touch the jar or be a firefly. The jar isn’t glass like some food containers, just a barrier between us and them. I can touch the metal ring the jar sits on and feel a vibration in my hand.
“Momma,” I whisper. Four fireflies come a little closer. There are no faces, I don’t know if any of them are her. “Why did you leave me?” I hate tears. Some nights they just come. None of the fireflies will tell me. I don’t know if they even can. Heard different men explain the jar for years. An alternative to the unknown. People can avoid death, live in their minds in the jar. That’s it’s purpose, man-made crossover. Some hate it, some think it’s wrong, screaming about it’s devil workings. Lots take advantage of it, especially the real sick. Most just don’t know, debating it’s use for hours before they cross or walk away.
“Momma” I say again. My heart hurts, my mind takes me back to the day she crossed. Don’t know if she was sick. Think she was just scared. When she stepped in the jar and her remains fell to the ground, I held a cold hand till the shovels scared me away. I was only seven. Been here since and still don’t know if she’s really in there or if it’s all just a lie. Don’t really care. Just can’t leave her like she did me.
by Patricia Stewart | Sep 8, 2009 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Alpha Doore is a Mars size planet orbiting an orange-red main sequence dwarf star called BD+56 2966 in the Constellation Cassiopeia. The oxygen and water rich world had several large continents and a flourishing ecosystem. The exploration team was near the end of its six month long mission of categorizing the various indigenous life forms when Commander Komney authorized a two-man sojourn into the subterranean caverns, which had been classified “promising, but tertiary” by the Mission Assessment Team.
The following day, the two would-be spelunkers were a quarter of a mile into an immense corrasional cave when they encountered a herd of giant centipedes “grazing” on the chemoautotrophic moss growing on the damp cavern walls. The creatures were enormous by any standard. Their fifteen foot long segmented bodies were about eighteen inches in diameter; with a dozen horizontal leg-bearing segments trailing two vertical arm-bearing segments capped by a head section. The main body stood three feet above the ground on long but obviously sturdy limbs. The posterior leg pairs were slightly longer than those preceding it, giving the creature a pronounced trough between its “back” and the vertically oriented front end. The head contained two flexible eyestalks that were so high above the ground that the human explorers had to look up to make eye contact.
“Wow, look at the size of those guys,” exclaimed Doctor Zabell, the landing party’s Medicinal Chemist slash Structural Exobiologist (cross-disciplinarian specialization was commonplace on the mission, since crew members were selected using the standard “double-up model,” where each contributor was expected to wear multiple hats). In addition, Zabell fancied himself a zoologist, a botanist, an anatomist, and anything else that allowed him to pontificate ad nauseam. “Adam,” he whispered, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Oh, I doubt it,” replied Adam Ryder, the team’s Maintenance Engineer slash Galley Chef, who volunteered for this particular excursion because he needed a break from cleaning the anti-matter injectors, but mostly because be was bound and determined to find a viable supply of Agaricus bisporus for his famous Mushroom Bisque.
“Well,” continued the doctor slash lecturer, “I was thinking that they must be intelligent. Their heads are enormous, and if that’s where the brains are, then they must be twice the size of ours. And look at their four hands. They have opposable thumbs. These creatures are probably capable of delicate manipulation. I wouldn’t be surprised if they can make, and use, sophisticated tools. You weren’t thinking that?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, I was also wondering what was driving their evolutionary process. For instance, are they this large because the gravity on Alpha Doore is only four tenths that of Earth? And listen to the rapid clicking noise. I think that they might be trying to communicate with us. And why are they traveling in herds? Earth arthropods don’t do that. I have a million questions. Aren’t you curious about any of that?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, Adam. So tell me, what is it that you’re thinking?”
“I’d rather not say, Doctor. I don’t think you’d consider it very professional.”
Dr. Zabell studied his companion for a moment. The young Maintenance Engineer was eying the nearest centipede with steely determination, his jaw tightening, his fingers flexing. “Dammit Adam, you want to try to ride one, don’t you?”
Slowly, the corners of Adam Ryder’s lips curled upward into a devilish grin.
