by submission | May 17, 2009 | Story
Author : Jeff McGaha
My head ached painfully.
I squeezed Matthew’s hand tight as he squirmed. Sweat seeped between us, lubricating and aiding his attempts at escape. I sighed and gave up on holding his hand. I grabbed his wrist instead. He continued to struggle, but it was a losing battle.
I looked over at Lilly. Her brown hair stuck to her flushed face.
“We shoulda bought him a leash,” I said smiling.
Lilly rolled her eyes at me, but grinned.
The line continued to move leisurely. An upbeat song rang from the speakers, looping without any noticeable breaks. Matthew hummed the tune, while maintaining his escape efforts.
I felt it before I heard it. It started with a low vibration in my feet, turning into a low bass that shook everything. Lilly asked, “What’s going on?”
I ignored her and scanned the crowd instead. Confused and worried looks played across the faces I saw. Heads everywhere swiveled, searching for the source of the sound. “Look,” a middle aged man shouted, pointing to the sky. As a group, everyone gazed upward. A collective gasp sounded from the crowd.
Lilly, Matthew and I stood in the stopped line under an overhang. Our view of the sky blocked.
The crowd parted, forming a large round empty space. I finally saw it when it was about forty feet above the ground.
It was unmistakably a spaceship. It could have been a flying saucer from a 1960’s science fiction film. A few people, believing this to be a stunt or show, applauded and began snapping pictures.
The ship stopped a few feet short of touching down and hovered in place.
“Oww, Datty, you hootin’ me,” Matthew cried. I looked down at him, realizing I’d been steadily squeezing him harder since the vibrations had begun.
I picked him up and held him in my arms. I glanced at Lilly’s panicked face and then turned back to the spaceship.
An opening appeared in the side of the ship and a ramp slid to the ground. The crowd stood frozen, waiting. The music from the rides still played.
Two aliens appeared at the top of the ramp. They were living cliches. Just like their spaceship, they too could have been designed for a classic science fiction film. They were green with large heads and eyes. Their mouths, ears and noses were small. Their bodies were tall and lean.
One stood motionless at the top of the ramp, holding something in its slender hand, while the other began moving forward gracefully.
Once it reached the edge of the crowd, it stopped. It motioned for a woman in the front. She muddled forward. I wanted to scream for her to run, but was unable to force out the words.
It placed its hands on her head, its fingers wrapping around her. They both stood unmoving for ten long seconds. It let go and the woman sprinted back into the crowd.
It turned to the other on the ramp and with an unmoving mouth, uttered, “No, not these.” It glided back up the ramp casually and spun to face the crowd, “Do it.” The other began tapping furiously on the device in his hand, his fingers blurring with the speed. It halted beating on the device abruptly.
My head ached painfully.
I squeezed Matthew’s hand tight as he squirmed. Sweat seeped between us, lubricating and aiding his attempts at escape. I sighed and gave up on holding his hand. I grabbed his wrist instead. He continued to struggle, but it was a losing battle.
I looked over at Lilly. Her brown hair stuck to her flushed face.
“Let’s get out of here. I feel like I’ve been standing in this line forever.”
by submission | May 15, 2009 | Story
Author : Benjamin Dunn
Little Tyler looked around nervously. Tim dragged him into the reception area by the hand, a scowl engraved on his face. He marched up to the reception desk, hoisted Tyler by the armpits, and sat him down in front of the receptionist.
“I want a refund,” said Tim. The receptionist’s eyes flashed red, and she continued staring into the middle distance. After a few minutes, her eyes turned green and she looked up at him, a well-practiced frown on her face.
“A refund, sir?”
“Yeah. My son’s a dimwit.”
“I beg your pardon?” Tim unlovingly shoved Tyler across the desk. Tyler looked up, confused, looking like he was going to start crying.
“He just stares off into space during his reading lesson, and when I went to get him his first neuro-implant, the doctor wouldn’t do it because he said he had an ‘abnormal brain.’” Tim started to raise his voice. “What the hell does that mean? I paid for a gifted child, and a gifted child’s what I’ve come here to get!” Tyler was crying now, his mouth a big toothless cavern. Tim ignored him.
“What is your child’s name?” asked the receptionist.
“Tyler Bernard Horton Conway.” The receptionist’s eyes went red again as her mind floated off into the main database. They were green again a moment later.
“Sir, I read here that, although you did order a gifted child, the warranty you purchased guarantees only normal-level brain function. Now, if he had somehow become mentally retarded, the warranty would cover you, but in this case, there’s nothing I can do.” Tim’s face went red and he pounded his fists on the desk.
“Look here!” he bellowed, and then turned to Tyler. “Stop crying, young man!” Tyler stopped immediately. He’d had enough harsh spankings to understand that his father meant business. “Tyler, what’s the capital of Argentina?” Tyler’s tear-streaked eyes looked up at his father, then flicked over to the receptionist. She stared at him blankly; she wasn’t in the business of getting friendly with products.
“Bwenos Awes,” said Tyler, sniffling. Tim’s face creased in disgust.
“You see how long that took him? The boy’s a moron! I want to talk to your superiors.” The receptionist barely suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Those eyes went red for a moment as she contacted them, and a moment later, a hologram of a sharply-dressed man appeared behind the desk.
“My name is Herman Coll. I’m head of the public relations department. How may I help you?” asked the hologram.
“Yes! My son is an idiot, and I specifically requested a child of above-average intelligence.” The hologram turned red, then blinked green.
“Sir, as Mrs. Richardson has already informed you, you purchased a warranty that guarantees only normal intelligence. If you wish to dispute that warranty, I can direct you to the correct people, but I should warn you: GeneTopia’s lawyers are well-engineered, and they have never lost a case.” Tim scowled at the hologram. Then he scowled down at his son, who was busy sucking his thumb. He turned to the hologram.
“Can I trade him in?” The hologram smiled.
“Certainly, sir. That’s GeneTopia policy: trade-ins always welcome.”
“Fine. Then take him back. I want a son who can think.” A representative in a black jumpsuit appeared from around the corner and led little Tyler away. Tyler cried and cried, screaming “Bwenos Aweeeees!” until he disappeared down the hallway.
by Patricia Stewart | May 14, 2009 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
The caravan of return vehicles lifted off the comet in rapid succession. Allen Culbert looked out the porthole and watched silently as the comet shrank into the distance. For the last nine months, the 1288 men and women of the Comet Deflection Team had worked twenty four hours a day cutting one ton blocks of ice from the quarries, feeding them into the mass drivers, and launching one into space every five seconds. Their mission was to deflect the comet’s orbit by a mere 120 miles, so that it would miss the Earth. As the retrorockets fired, Culbert began to think of the 52 men that volunteered to stay the extra week to give the comet one last nudge. Could their sacrifice make a difference? No one knew for sure. It was going to be very, very close. Culbert closed his eyes and began to pray.
***
Jonathan Amsterdam stood on the wooden deck of his Florida home and watched the southwestern sky. Although the comet was still thousands of miles away, it appeared four times larger than a full moon, and it was getting bigger by the minute. The news reports had said that the comet would miss the surface of the Earth by five miles, but would plow a trough through the atmosphere. They also said that tidal forces would split the comet into many pieces. Some pieces would be deflected into new orbits, and some may be captured by Earth’s gravity. A few would inevitably impact the planet. Hopefully, these would be small pieces. As Amsterdam watched, countless white streaks flashed across the sky as the microscopic debris of the comet’s coma rammed through the mesosphere. The near surface of the comet began to glow as atmospheric friction turned the ice to incandescent vapor.
***
As mass driver Delta launched the 3,985,291st block of ice into space, the 52 exhausted men collapsed for a well deserved rest. It would be a short, yet eternal, rest. As they neared the closest approach, the Earth filled the entire sky. Less than a minute earlier, Miguel Martínez had watched Mexico City pass overhead. He wished he could have jumped the narrow gap, to hug his wife and son one last time. Then the ground began to quake as fissures formed. The comet was ripping itself apart. The temperature began to climb rapidly as the surface of the comet tore through Earth’s upper atmosphere. The thrashing wind whipped the melting ice into a horizontal hurricane. The men quickly lost their feeble holds, and were ripped from the surface of the comet and vaporized in a fiery flash.
***
Madoka Shotoko sat cradled in her mothers lap on a park bench beneath the transparent dome in the center of the Ptolemaeus Moon Colony. They were on the sun-side of the Earth, and were still unsure if their homeworld had avoided the catastrophic collision. Then the crowd erupted into a frenzied cheer as the onlookers saw the comet skirt past the Earth by the smallest of margins. The Comet Movers had performed a miracle. Madoka watched tears run down her mother’s smiling face. Over the next few hours, the onlookers watched the comet fracture into six large cometoids, and countless smaller ones. Some of the smaller ones plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean. Others arched out into new orbits. Considering the potential alternatives, the damage appeared to be minor. “Mommy,” asked the small girl, “how come that piece of the comet isn’t moving? It’s just getting bigger and bigger.”
by submission | May 11, 2009 | Story
Author : Jacob Lothyan
“It’s an old family story. A mystery, really. Or was. I just know it meant a lot to my dad, his dad, and so on. That’s the only reason I held on to it.
“So it goes, my great great-grandfather worked at the Santa Fe Depot in Leavenworth—first city of Kansas, you know? He worked there until the day they closed the line. He passed on shortly thereafter. He loved that station. Loved the trains. Practically ran the place before all was said and done.
“They had these storage lockers there, for packages that were sent ahead, or left behind. A few months before the line was to be shut down, my great great-grandfather took an ad out in the paper. Wanted to tell anyone who had things in the lockers they would lose their stuff if it wasn’t claimed. Well, the day came and went, the trains stopped coming, the line closed. Only one locker went unclaimed. It contained an old telegraph that was never picked up, put there for safekeeping.”
Lou laid the yellowed, tattered paper on the slick, glossy table top. Several men leaned over to examine it. It read, simply:
[BEGIN TRANSMITTAL]
dear terrance matthews [STOP]
the apparatus does not travel [STOP]
kindly [STOP]
yourself [STOP]
[END TRANSMITTAL]
The men stared wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Lou delicately retrieved the paper, causing several of the men to gasp, folded it lightly, and slid it back into its protective case.
“My great great-grandfather, he tried to find Terrance Matthews. He went to the police station and they told him he did everything he should have. They told him he could trash the telegraph. He asked if he could keep it. They said yes.
“Now, in time since, my family has done a lot of work on this letter. It became somewhat of a project. Terrance Matthews, other than the Terrance Matthews you all know, he was a great man. He pioneered much of the technology and science that led to commercial air travel. Space travel, even. He had his fingers in every single technological advance in his time. He made himself a small fortune. Funny thing is, most of his fortune was spent trying to keep his name out of the headlines. Quite successfully, too. He was more of a legend, a myth, than a man.
“We couldn’t find anything about his early life, though. Not even a birth certificate. Nothing.
“It was a mystery. Until yesterday morning. I read this.”
Lou laid his personal data device—a thin flat card—on the table. The table auto-synced with the card and quickly populated the tabletop with a task menu. “News,” said Lou. The table responded, filling its entire length and width with the days top news stories. “Previous day,” said Lou. The headlines and dates shifted. “A-1,” said Lou. One of the many stories expanded to include full text and photos. The headline read, Terrance Matthews to Attempt Time-Travel.
“It sort of all made sense after that. Gave me goose chills and everything. Hundreds of years my family has been on this. And I cracked it.
“Funny thing, though. Airplanes pretty much put the trains, the depot lockers, out of business. Figure a smart guy like that would of thought of that.
“Anyway, I want to warn him myself. Terrance Matthews, that is.”
The men standing around the table all looked sickly pale. Some of them had tears welling in their eyes. Others just looked afraid. One of them, shaking slightly in the hands, mumbled, “But he traveled this morning.”
by submission | May 7, 2009 | Story
Author : Rosa King
It’s the fifth day and she still hasn’t given up. She sits just outside the range of the station defenses and she watches.
I look out of the window and shiver despite the warm fug of the laboratory. “She knows.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tom says. “It has no way of knowing what’s in here. You’re imagining things.” He catches sight of my hand where it cradles my still flat belly and sneers, and I wonder what I ever saw in him. “You’re anthropomorphizing. It’s a low level life form and there’s no way it will miss one egg from fifteen.”
“She knows,” I insist. “Look at her. She knows we have it.”
Tom throws down his data module and stalks away, leaving me to stare out of the window and face her.
The creature gets up in a ripple of iridescent scale and walks away, graceful on her six delicate legs. She disappears into the cover of the yellow bushes, so similar to our own but subtly different.
My other hand steals to my abdomen unbidden, and I stare at the space where she was and wait.
The alarm buzzes and Tom runs to the main console and swears. “Something just hit the back wall. How did it get past the defenses?” He moves to the airlock and the suits and guns, preparing to check the damage.
I stay where I am and, sure enough, she comes back and sits right where she was before and stares at me.
My chest tightens as I face her golden slotted eyes and I try to force down the lump rising in my chest. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper, and I know that she wouldn’t care if she knew. Not as long as we have her baby. Something flutters under my heart and it feels as though my own child knows my shame.
I turn and look at the yellow egg, nestled in its bed of native sand sealed within a protective atmosphere. It glows red-gold in the warmth of the heat lamps and I watch it shift under my gaze as the baby tests its tiny world, waiting to see its mother when it wakes. Except it won’t, because we stole it. I wrap my arms around my abdomen and hate myself a little bit more.
She’ll be back tomorrow, and I’ll have to face her again, the same way that I have to face her every day until Tom decides that we have enough samples and we return to Earth with our stolen treasure.
I don’t think I can do this job anymore.
