by submission | Jul 24, 2015 | Story |
Author : Suzanne Borchers
“Hey, Cuz, why are you sitting on that refuse pile?” George5 glided by snickering. “Thought you were high end, not dead end!”
Eddie kicked at the garbage beneath him. He couldn’t be obsolete! He could still warm and cool his skin with just a thought.
He should have had two more years before the luxury spa was renovated. He had enjoyed regulating the restoration/whirlpool. He had enjoyed the soothing waves of the water mixed with the smiles of the bathers. He had been necessary. An Edward450 bot needed to be of service.
Eddie wasn’t ready to be recycled. He’d have to find something new. Eddie called, “Hear about any good jobs?” Even though Georgi5 was already down the alley at the corner, Eddie could hear his derisive laugh.
“My hands can still massage human muscles into relaxation,” Eddie mused. “I’m going back to my job at the Yoga to Go Studio.” After all, they knew he was hardworking. Then he remembered that it had been razed for a fast food chicklet joint.
Eddie wished he could frown. He kicked the pile beneath him.
It was then Eddie noticed an old ragged man writing on a cloth. The man slowly limped past shivering. His clothes were of light material, and he wore no hat or gloves in the freezing air. Eddie didn’t take his orb from the shaky form until a piece of rag drifted toward him on the wind. He pulled it off his stained metallic leg to read its handwritten words.
There once was a bot in my alley
Who certainly needed a pally
So join with me bot
You’re in a poor spot
The garbage ship’s here so don’t dally.
Eddie looked at the man who had turned to stare back at him. He heard the recycle ship rumbling behind him, the sound getting louder.
“You coming?” The ragged fellow turned and began to shuffle away.
“Wait!” Eddie was an intelligent bot and knew he only had seconds. He jumped from the pile and landed on his feet.
Later that evening, Eddie and Charles sat together inside a rickety box of piled metallic pieces tied together with strips of rags. Eddie emitted warmth and light into the space. Charles scribbled on another cloth, occasionally stopping to gnaw on a chicklet bone and take a swig from an ancient flask.
Charles sniffed then showed the cloth to Eddie.
There once was a ragged old man
Who prayed to his god for a plan
To keep him alive
And help him survive
So he sent a fantastic tin can.
Eddie wished he could smile.
by submission | Jul 19, 2015 | Story |
Author : Helstrom
“Hey honey, come look at this.”
I took my bearings and found Samantha’s voice, drew a bead on it and pinched space in her direction. She was far out on the edge of the universe, casually riding the expanding frontier.
“What is it?”
“Have a look. Out there.”
“There’s nothing out there.”
“Well, don’t look then. Feel. Do you feel it?”
She got like this sometimes. I squeezed in close beside her and playfully arranged some photons into the shape of a heart.
“Oh you,” she giggled, drawing an arrow across the photons before they blinked off on their way, “Now really, focus and feel it.”
“What am I feeling for?”
“Not that,” she said as she pulled slightly away from me, “Feel what’s out there.”
“Alright, so I’m feeling…”
I felt it. There was something out there. It was subtle but it sort of bent the edge of the universe. There was nothing that could do that. There wasn’t supposed to be anything out there. The whole concept of ‘out there’ didn’t even make sense.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know.”
We sat there for an aeon or two peering into nothing. To our left a civilization of marsupials sprang up, spread across a few hundred thousand star systems and started to rip itself apart in a bloody conflict.
“Stop it,” said Samantha, briefly flashing an avatar before them.
I chuckled. Always the warden. Such an offhanded gesture for her, but to these creatures the universe would never be the same again. They suddenly realised they were not alone, that there was a great, powerful being watching over them who loved them and wanted them to be happy. There was a great potential for suffering among the stars. We had inherited enough memories from our progenitors to decide we were not going to allow that again, ever.
The edge began to buckle. The universe was no longer expanding in a uniform way. Something was pushing against it, into it, disrupting its fabric. Things started to go wrong. Time wasn’t spreading right, matter folded back in on itself, clusters formed in all kinds of grotesque ways.
Samantha got nervous: “Honey what’s going on?”
“I don’t know baby,” I said, drawing her close again, “I don’t know.”
It stopped in a singular instant. The buckle vanished. Galaxies were rattled like flakes in a snow-globe, shifting violently before finding new points of balance.
Something outside told us: “Sorry about that, I wasn’t paying attention.”
Neither of us knew what to say. I glanced over at the marsupials. They had been playing nice, building shining cities and many flattering monuments to what they called the Star Mother. But with their skies suddenly re-arranged they were having something of a panic.
I appeared before them: “Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay.”
A complimentary cult to the Star Father promptly appeared. Samantha and I pinched off in separate directions. There were a lot of scared species around that needed reassurance that their gods were still looking after them. It would only take a moment of negligence for them to feel abandoned and do all kinds of horrible things to themselves. That much we knew from experience.
by submission | Jul 16, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
“C’mon, judge, you can’t be serious. That’s an old Earth name for an ancient product. There can’t possibly be trademark claims. There isn’t anything living in North America…it’s under a mile of ice.” Praxton Billings sat up straight before the judge. He rubbed his mustache a few times. Nerves.
“We, the court, understand your defense, but the retention of ancient code is a tradition upholding our humanity, far beyond our origins. This is the last Earth colony. We maintain our culture or we become another lost, migrating species passing through space.” Three judges sat before the lanky space cleaner, under a fiber tree, as was the custom.
“Look, I just clean ships. I barely make out after costs for fuel and repairs. You have to admit it’s one reason they come to our little outpost; that, and the water. If they don’t get the crap off their bulkheads they risk miscalculating exits from star drive. No one wants to eat an asteroid through the hull. Penalizing me for using Mr. Clean as a business name could close me down.” He raised his pale hands, stretching his white jump suit in supplication to the tribunal.
“You had an approved name from the licensing council. Was that not sufficient?”
“Not really. They picked it. Barnacle Bill…really? Nobody out here knows what the hell a barnacle is, and my name is Praxton. Their business name dishonored my parents.”
“And your reasons for desiring to continue this line of work?”
“Not too hard there. With my puny physique I was unfit for farming or water works. Sex slave would have been ridiculous. But the first time I learned about dark matter, and all those life forms that were building up on the skins of spaceships, I knew I could make a difference just removing debris, making junkers and cargo hulks look shiny again. I could bring pride back to the lonely pilots and crews that were ashamed of the hulks they pushed through vacuum. I love what I do and my clients relate to me as Mr. Clean.”
“So why didn’t you reapply to the council? That is the normal process.”
“And be down for six months, waiting on their decision? Think of the lives lost if those ships aren’t sparkling. I couldn’t sleep if I knew that I caused their deaths. And consider the critical cargoes that show up late when stellar customs finds creatures on the outside that are forbidden in our sector. Pilots have no way of knowing what snatched a ride as they move out of hyper drive. So, not only do I protect other worlds, I protect ours, before they land. In fact, I was scheduled to work on a contaminated cruiser before it sets down over there this afternoon.” Praxton pointed at the city’s single space port.
The senior judge scowled before calling his adjutants to his side to whisper. They soon turned and faced Praxton.
“We have judged that you have a special case worthy of dismissal. Based on need and value, we have selected to overturn the council’s claim and we reinstate you as Mr. Clean. Now, for the sake of us all please go decontaminate that ship.”
Praxton rose, bowed lightly to the tribunal, and walked off the field to his waiting cleaning scow. His brain was spinning, trying to remember if there was any scheduled incoming freighter he could offer free services to cover his story.
by Clint Wilson | Jul 9, 2015 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
“And what is the world?” The teacher asked the pupil.
The student’s joints straightened as it stood tall, nearly a millimetre, big for a ninety minute old, and it answered. “A jagged chunk of rock, roughly seventy-six kilometres long and forty-two kilometres wide, orbiting the sun.”
“And how many other worlds are there?”
“Some three hundred and twenty-six thousand, four-hundred and sixty and still counting. We encounter new worlds nearly every day now.”
“How many do we know to house life?”
“At least fifteen have at one time for certain. Only ongoing attempted communication continues with three, and this is difficult due to all the radioactive interference.”
“What is Bibum’s Theory?”
“That all of the worlds were once one world, and that all life derived from that one world.”
“And what do you believe?”
“I have had many of the dreams already. I believe it is true.”
“What did the dreams show you?”
“A sphere, many thousands of times the size of the world, covered in bizarre substances and beings. The visions make my mind press down in agony.”
“My dear pupil you have come far. And I believe you have perceived much more of our history than many your age would. Tell me, have you chosen a side yet?”
The student retreated back and its steely mandibles relaxed into a suddenly confident grin. “You mean the great debate of origin? Can you be serious? There can be only one answer.”
The teacher focused its intense gaze on its student, knotting its wrinkled silver brow in concern. “Well before you spew your opinion please tell me what you actually know.”
The pupil hinged sheepishly forward, quickly losing some of its cocky confidence. “I know that the primary intelligent species of the Bibum world destroyed its cities and technology along with the entire sphere that once housed it.”
“And then?”
“Not much is certain. After the great explosion countless pieces of the old world tumbled through space, many with assumed hangers-on clinging to precious life on their surfaces and in their crevasses.”
“But of all the fossils, all the recovered data from here, on our world, where do you think we actually came from?”
The student suddenly seemed nervous. “I just think that it’s unlikely…”
The teacher interrupted. “Unlikely how? Like a naturally occurring living being could have invented other living beings simply by combining metals and elements in certain ways?”
The pupil felt a burst of outrage. “Well no more likely than a bunch of extremely environmentally dependant creatures were able able to survive as their gravity and atmosphere were stripped violently and horrifically away from them!”
The teacher leaned forward. “Do you know nothing? The giants are long gone of course. We are but the children of the viruses that once crept and hid in the shadows of oblivion. We survived it all and this is now our prize. We are the new rulers of the world!”
The pupil turned away, knowing that it could not win this argument. It looked down at one of its foreleg wrist joints and spun the circular maintenance cap out of the way. There was the secret tattoo. It was an etched representation of gears and cogs. When you were a part of the society of the created ones you learned to pick your battles.
The teacher suddenly hitched up and smiled, “Don’t worry. Young minds often rebel. You’ll come to your senses. Give it a few minutes!”
by submission | Jul 8, 2015 | Story |
Author : A. Katherine Black
The bulkhead door’s round window slowly split in two as Clyde’s vision skewed. He continued pushing air from his lungs. That’s it, his lungs yelled, none left, but he knew they lied like everything did eventually, so he kept on blowing. Every bit of Earth air must be purged.
The computer chimed. “Please breathe in,” said a soft inhuman voice.
Tightening his lips around the wide tube, he breathed in, long and deep. Prickles burst in his chest. He’d felt worse. He held his breath while he stepped through the bulkhead. The heavy door thumped shut behind him. He breathed out.
No turning back now.
Clyde slipped into the last open seat and buckled, avoiding eye contact with the other twenty or so escapees. He was on his way. A brief elevator ride, a not-so-brief space jaunt, and he’d be back to repairing big rigs, like he’d always done. Just with a small change of scenery, is all.
He breathed in and winced at the pain.
“Hurts, don’t it?”
Duh. Clyde had no interest in acknowledging the face attached to that comment. He’d be stuck in conversation forever after that. Easiest way to get along with these people was to stay as far away from them as possible.
So he grunted, eyes on the floor, pretending to be interested in the beige tile design. No doubt a subtle attempt at soothing the passengers, who could freak out at the realization they were leaving everyone they’ve ever known forever, who might scream at the thought of microscopic robots reconstructing their lungs to breathe fake air on some frozen asteroid hurling toward deep space at a gazillion miles per second or whatever.
Clyde decided the soothing tile patterns were a brilliant idea.
Sweat rolled down his cheeks. It felt like his lungs and his heart were in a fight to the death. Either way, he suspected he was on the losing end.
A throat cleared next to him. Clyde finally looked the guy’s way, suddenly wanting the distraction. Maybe the guy would be a world-class jerk, and Clyde would hate him more than the bleeping nanos tearing his insides apart.
“My brother said it’s normal,” the guy said. His long black beard shimmered as he coughed. “Feels like World War Six just started in your gut, eh?”
Clyde looked away and grunted again. No point in conversation. He and Joe started with innocent chats on the bus to work, and six years later Joe moved out of their apartment while Clyde was on shift, ruining a perfect run for no good reason. Commitment? Sharing a lease and a bed every night isn’t commitment enough? Well, yesterday he’d signed his life away, and now he’d be tethered to an asteroid ‘til death do they part. If that wasn’t commitment, Clyde didn’t know what was.
Engines powered up as the room lighting faded to blue. Soft computer voices instructed them to hold on, don’t worry, they’ll only feel the crush of a few g’s after a small explosion underfoot.
Then everything shut down. Overhead lights turned searing white. The engine cut, giving way to a whining ring in Clyde’s ears.
Some lady’s voice on the com. “We have an emergency call for Claudius Rain.”
The activity in Clyde’s chest doubled. He was near vomiting.
“Mr. Rain, will you take the call?”
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. So he shook his head.
“That’s a no?”
Tears mixed with sweat, indistinguishable. “I’m already gone.” His chest burned.
“Okay then.” A pause on the com. “We’re off, people.”
And the engines roared.
END
