by submission | Jan 31, 2012 | Story |
Author : Jarrod Chestney-Law
Sapphire, threaded with white and then a diamond studded blackness. Sapphire and white fill my vision again. They remain now. Chirps and static bursts chatter in my ears. Emerald threads begin to fill my vision, cascading down, faster and faster until a fine web blossoms across my vision, overlaying the sapphire and white before me. I suddenly twist to the left and to the right, but it’s outside of my control. It stops and I stare forward at the vast swell of blue and white.
A tiny green envelope emerges from the web of light and bobs gently in my vision. I imagine it unfolding, and it does. An emerald mist overlays the sapphire beneath and white letters emerge. Look right. I smile and turn. It could have been anyone. Thousands of white dots are floating around us, shimmering and exploding with flashes of brilliance in the untamed sun. Scarlet lines begin to stretch out across my vision and I dismiss them.
Is it how you imagined?
The words flowed from my mind and were made real. With a sad pop, they shrink and collapse to a tiny point that crosses the distance between us.
I never imagined at all.
Of course.
Live forever?
Not now.
There are flecks of brown and green among the sapphire now. Tiny specks that taint what had been pure. I sigh and will myself to move to the right, but nothing happens. Only more of the scarlet lines, which I dismiss again.
Come to me?
I watch and wait. The other hesitates and then gently closes the distance. White arms extend and wrap around me. Long legs follow and the black plane of glass which shows only my reflection gently nudges against mine with a soft thud. I sigh and the sounds of the sigh blink away so quickly I barely see them. There are more scarlet lines than emerald now, and I leave them, watching as they gather and knot together, obscuring the scene in front of me.
Always and forever. These words trickle through, held and released with regret. Watch with me?
Always, comes the reply. My vision warps and doubles, looking down an infinite series of mirrors.
We turn our masks, our bodies still twined together and I push the red lines away one last time. The specks of green and brown consume our vision, swallowing the space around them rapaciously. I grip, and am gripped tighter as the doubled image flickers and vanishes. White flashes past us, again and again. The sapphire is gone. The white flashes one last time and then there is only green and the twisting scarlet lines.
And forever.
The last words having struggled through, shimmer and fade.
by submission | Jan 26, 2012 | Story |
Author : Geoffrey Cashmore
Regret. That was new.
My life had been built into a shape where regret had no place. I only had one purpose – my entire existence leading up to it – and it wasn’t just me – I couldn’t even guess how many others were involved; working behind the scenes so that everything came together at the right place. The right time. Just so I could say that one word…
You wouldn’t believe there was anything special about Lenko. Not to look at him, anyway. I actually thought he was a little too stupid, even for a Senate candidate, but that shows you how much I know.
Fifteen years in the satellites, ferrying him from one station to the next while he built his popularity. Stuck in that ugly Behemoth without even any view-screens except for the docking cam. Not that there’s anything to see up there. Black space. All the stations, one just like the next.
There wouldn’t have been any regret back then. Every time he came back on board Lenko would slap me on the shoulder as I secured the airlock and tell me “not long now, Cormac. Not long now until I’m in the Senate and we can finally go down to the surface. Then it will all have been worth it.”
I’d nod my head and smile like the loyal servant he’d always taken me for.
And then one day it finally happened. The vote came and Lenko was a Senator.
The transmission with the access codes arrived straight away and I docked the B at Threshold – the only station I’d never been to before. We stepped through; inside the atmosphere for the first time. It had actually worked.
There were a few technicalities to sort out but within an hour we were in the car pool – and there she was.
Lenko was saying something about the honour the people had bestowed upon him and the privilege of becoming the first off-worlder to make it to the highest level of the legislation, but I just couldn’t take my eyes off the Zephyr. Perfect smooth lines, no jutting stabilizers or thrust pods. She gleamed in pale yellow – the first thing I’d ever seen that wasn’t the plain grey of spaceware.
The command centre was familiar – I’d done plenty of time in the simulators – but when we slipped out of the launch chamber and saw what seemed like the whole planet stretching around us on the view-screens, I could hardly breathe.
Even Lenko shut up for a minute to look out at it.
The low-level flight plan was pre-programmed for when we hit traffic closer to the surface but up there I could pull her in big banking arcs, punching the boosters just for the feel of it.
When we dropped in below the marker a little indicator on the panel started to blink and the automatics cut in. We drifted into the traffic flow and crossed the sprawling cityscape until the Senate building came into view. That was when I really started to feel it. All the years of preparation and biding my time, waiting.
I ran my fingers over the controls of the Zephyr.
Lenko was getting all choked up as we started final approach. We could see the Senators lining out in their bright blue robes on the docking point, and in the middle of them all – out there in broad daylight instead of hidden away in the depths of the palace – Garlania, the President. She was actually smiling as we touched down and the airlock opened.
Regret. It was the last thing I thought I’d ever have to deal with. Not for that fool Lenko, not for the bowing and scraping Senators who would inevitably be caught in the blast, and certainly not for the bitch Garlania.
As I speak the control word and feel the chemical reaction of the deadly device planted in my guts begin to mount, my one regret is that I only got to drive that beautiful car just once.
by Julian Miles | Jan 20, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The office was tidy and the boss sat smiling behind the desk as he finished pouring a second glass of malt whiskey. The smell almost made John drool. Andy looked up with a beaming smile.
“Come in John. Take a seat. This is informal so you can take the suit off.”
“Thanks, Andy.”
The scream of a decompressing astronaut made Anders tear his headset off again. To his left, Chas added a third upright to the second five-bar gate on the whiteboard. Over the speakers, the scream trailed off to silence broken only by the dreadful snapping noise of something slamming into John’s battered brain through his ruined nasal passage. Everybody swallowed hard as Commodore Vinter stormed in.
“Gagarin take it! That’s eight of my lads it’s deluded and data-stripped. How in hell are we going to get it? The data in its spirals must be priceless.”
Thurlow stood up shakily.
“It’s the oldest we’ve encountered. Brilliant at mental hallucinographics and very aware. We may have to torch it. Can’t let any of the other companies succeed.”
Vinter purpled from the neck up before bellowing at all and sundry.
“I am open to suggestions that do not involve blasting several billion Eurodollars worth of alien DNA data store to space dust.”
“Got a winner, chief.”
Everyone turned to stare at Phillips, the stick-thin two-metre genius data analyst from somewhere rustic in the North of Britain. Vinter looked about for someone to object before nodding for Phillips to continue.
“My mate Eddie. He’ll bring that in. I’ll stake my bonus and his freedom with full share reinstatement on it.”
Anders and Chas ducked as Vinter threw a datapad across the bridge before bursting out laughing.
“You’re on. But if Eddie gets brain-stripped, you’re next man up. Don’t need a data analyst if I can’t get any data.”
Phillips paused and then grinned.
“Deal. I’ll go and brief him while the bay lads suit him up.”
Eddie gusted from the hatch and drifted over to the door. The office was plush, shiny hunting rifles on the wall and a bearded old boy who reminded him of his poacher granddad sat by the table pouring ale from a frosted green bottle. He looked up.
“Take a load off, son. Ditch the suit and tie one on.”
“Up yours.”
The old boy looked nonplussed.
“Easy lad. No need for that. It’s why I asked you in here, so I could compliment you on the way you handled yourself. Need a few more like you, we do.”
Eddie strode up to the table and looked at the bottle. The label read ‘S’YHPRUM’, just like he’d seen it in the mirror the night he glassed his Dad. He smiled.
“Okay, pass a glass.”
“Can’t sink a cold one in that rig, boy. Unzip and get stuck in.”
Eddie’s smile got wider.
“Tell ya what, I think I’ll skip the unzip and just get stuck in.”
He finished with a shout as his gauntleted fist slammed into the old fellow’s face with the amplified force of his suit behind it. There was an audible snap and the room vanished.
Eddie floated in front of a spindly form that was wrapping itself almost lovingly around the extended arm of his suit.
On the bridge, Phil laughed out loud as he explained.
“The patterns show that as a Spindle-drift gets more data, it takes a fraction to enhance its basic defensive imaging capability based on hierarchal command structures. But for Eddie, giving an authority figure grief isn’t learned behaviour, it’s damn near genetic.”
by submission | Jan 8, 2012 | Story |
Author : Z. J. Woods
Crowley said, “You sure you wanna do this?”
I brushed at the front of the faded jumpsuit. Nothing on it, of course. Nervous habit.
He took a long drag from his cigarette, sighed the smoke out. “Well,” he said. Expecting me to fill the silence. With what?
“Dammit, Crowl,” I said eventually. “Just do it. You won’t be back this way for … what? Six, seven years?”
“Seven on the inside,” he said. “Really can’t say.”
“I can’t wait that long.” Pictures of my broke-down apartment tumbled through my head. Leaky ceiling, peeling wallpaper, the works. Anything you can think of to make a home uncomfortable, that place had it. That whole damned world had it. “Do the thing before I change my mind.”
“Ain’t nothing much better out there,” he said.
“We gonna sit here all day?”
He shrugged, ground the cigarette into an ashtray that pulled out of the front console. Then he held the bike handle-looking thing with one hand and flipped switches with the other. “Ain’t too far off now. Look.”
The black mass blotted out the stars ahead. Space serpent, as Crowley had promised. Only they go fast enough to make jumping between the settlements possible. And only they know where they’re headed.
“The fuck do you plan to wrangle that thing?” I had to ask. “Can’t hardly see it.”
He tapped on a screen above the bike handle. The serpent squirmed, an orange blob
in green space. “Besides,” he added, “the harpoon knows its business better than I do. Nothing to worry about.”
When the ship knows more than its pilot, well, let’s just say it’s a hell of a universe we live in.
“Alright now, watch this.” Crowley did something with the bike handle, and the harpoon roared out faster than the old tug it came from could ever hope to go. Took about twenty, thirty minutes to hook the serpent. When I tell you I could hear my heart beat the whole time, wondering if it’d work at all or if Crowley was just a crazy bastard like he’d always been, God knows I’m not exaggerating.
I can’t say Crowley isn’t crazy, now, and he’s sure a bastard, but one thing he isn’t is a liar. Pain kicked the serpent into action. The line behind the harpoon pulled tight. Space disappeared.
Seven years. On the inside.
by Roi R. Czechvala | Jan 3, 2012 | Story |
Author : Roi R. Cechvala, Staff Writer
Helmut Rose made his way down the broad avenue to his office at the Aerospace Centre. He looked up at the hundred foot long banners displaying the movie star good looks of the President’s face. Hitler’s picture was everywhere. The only resemblance to his great-grandfather was an untidy shock of black hair on the forehead and pinched moustaches.
Berlin was electrified. Overhead, Zeppelins announced “Alles Gute zum Geburtstag Führer” in brilliant colours flashing and crawling around on the dirigibles silver skin. Adolph Hitler IV’s birthday celebration was shaping up to be bigger than last year’s.
As was his habit, before heading to his office, Rose visited the engineers of the Von Braun Zentrum für Raum Studium. As he entered the spacious, brightly lit room, an enthusiastic “Heil Hitler” rang out from the assembled men jumping to their feet with an outstretched arm.
“Heil Hitler,” Rose replied, casually throwing back his right hand. The men looked harried, but bright eyed and excited. “How’s it going? Everything okay?”
Heinrich Globus, lead engineer on the Ares project, strode over and pumped Rose’s hand. “Perfect Herr Doktor, Perfect. Who could have imagined Mars’ approach would match up with the Führer’s celebration. The launch will occur on time. It’s almost as if it were a birthday gift from God himself.”
“‘Gott Ist Mitt Uns'”, eh Heinrich,” Rose laughed. “I hope not. We don’t need some Jew god interfering with the triumph of the German people.” They laughed.
“This launch is a tribute to you Herr Doktor. You must be proud.”
“I am but a humble administrator, Heinrich.”
“Don’t be modest Helmut. Everybody knows that Werner couldn’t have made it to the moon without you. And your ICBM’s? They have kept the British and their American lap dogs at bay.”
Rose felt colour rising in his cheeks. “I am just doing my small part, but thank you Heinrich. I must get up to my office. Make sure the men get a good rest after the launch. They’ve earned it.” The head of Germany’s space program strode briskly to a bank of elevators.
Rising to the top floor of the towering structure he thought back to the metaphorical heights his career had taken him. As a young man on Werner Von Braun’s team, he had sent three men to walk on the lunar surface. Now a team of eight were soon headed for the red planet.
Entering the outer office, his secretary beamed at him. “Guten morgen, Herr Doktor. Are you excited? Just think of it, our Aryan astronauten on another planet.”
“Yes Greta, truly a coup for Germany, though hardly unexpected. Still it is a great accomplishment.” He retrieved the morning paper, Der Informant, from her desk and made for the inner office.
“Oh, Herr Doktor? There are two men waiting inside who wish to speak to you. Reporters I imagine. I hope that’s okay?”
“That’s fine, Greta. Danke.”
Entering his sanctum sanctorum, two men rose to greet him. They were identically dressed in black suits, black leather trench coats and black fedoras. Had they not been wearing the unofficial official uniform, he would still have recognized them for what they were.
Rose sat down behind his massive mahogany desk. “How may I help you gentlemen,” he asked, the disdain evident in his voice.
“You are Doktor Helmut Wilhelm Rose? Director of the ZRS?”
“I am. What can I do for you?
The man continued. “Herr Doktor…,” he consulted a small notebook, “… Rosenbaum? We have a few questions for you.”
The Gestapo man smiled widely. A smile that never touched his piercing blue eyes.
