by Julian Miles | Mar 13, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Did you see them? Silver streaks through cumulus, probably an Andorini scout formation. It’s not like anyone here would recognise them.”
Officer Peters looked over at the shuffling, muttering figure. Taking in the irregular gait, the handful of carrier bags stuffed to overflowing with obscure things, the neck of a bottle protruding from the brown paper bag clenched in the other fist, he nodded sadly. Another crackpot left to wander the streets due to cuts in the mental health budget.
“Second stage flare this morning. Guess that’s when they gated in. How many more can they get through before someone notices?”
This one had been out for a while, given the dishevelled nature of his layered clothing. He’d give the shelter over on Pasadena a call.
As he reached for his radio, a cat yowled from nearby and he jumped at the sudden sound. Peering about for the enraged feline, he forgot all about making that call.
*
Officer Fuentes sighed. Another muttering loon on the loose. This one smelt like a pickled sewer, too.
“You stupid angshor, how could I see them? I’m on another continent!”
She shook her head. Just what she needed, a care-in-the-community failure right at the end of her shift. She checked her watch. Five minutes. Enough time to start the process.
“They’ll not notice until it’s way too late. We’ve known that for ages. Just keep moving so the volkfängers cannot get a line on us.”
Fuentes flipped through her notebook looking for the Church Homeless Programme’s number. It flipped past her searching eyes like it momentarily didn’t exist. With a sigh, she noted where she’d seen the derelict and headed for the station to clock out.
*
On a rooftop far away, something with stealthy gossamer wings and hungry red eyes sniffs the air and clicks mournfully at the waning moon. It will find the shuffling ones eventually. They cannot keep moving forever.
by Duncan Shields | Mar 12, 2015 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
If I was tripping, my colleagues must have been as well because we all saw it. Just us four janitors on the night shift, mops and brooms dropped, staring at the nightmare in the corner of the building. It spoke to us but I couldn’t see where its mouth was.
“There is more than one timestream. They are connected.” it said.
The alien being glowed blue like a special effect from a bad movie. It took up a corner of the warehouse in a way I didn’t understand. My eyes couldn’t focus on it properly. I could make out tentacles but then they would look like arms and then tentacles again.
“To further the analogy, one could say that there are tributaries, rapids, and rivers as well, all cascading madly in one direction towards the unknowable, distant event horizon of the future. They weave, grow fatter, splash apart and trickle, adding ‘what ifs’ to each other’s histories with the participants being none the wiser before splitting off again.
To abuse the metaphor further, I would say that I am part of a corporation that builds dams. We make time lakes. Smooth-surfaced, still and stable.”
I glanced at Stephen. He stared at me in confusion and fear. We didn’t understand what it was saying. But none of us ran away. We all stood, fascinated and rooted to the spot.
“There are beings that detest the constant motion of naturally occurring time. The sudden turns, the splashing arcs, the stop-and-go nature of it. The eddies and small whirlpools of déjà vu and karmic re-entries. They don’t like the bumpy ride.
Some of these beings build crafts to navigate the streams but only the richest can afford to make them sturdy and strong. The poor ones can only strap together the equivalent of a canoe with a paddle.
They pay to take their ships and drift slowly and softly out over the unchanging surface of our time lakes.
As a bonus, our time reservoir generates huge amounts of power as multiverse entropy fights to keep the time going. We let a small stream through near the bottom to keep the universe happy and to keep the lake at a constant level. We rent the surface time and we sell the power. We win both ways.
This is all metaphor, of course, told to you in terms you can envisage.”
The being shuddered and started to lose its consistency. It seemed to go away from us, down from us, and fade out all at the same time.
“It’s hard to talk to entropic, finite beings about this. You are trapped in time but we live on top of it. But I have to tell you what’s happening.
I’ve fallen overboard and I can’t swim. I’m drowning in your dimension. I can’t conform to your angles and time direction. I was by myself so I don’t think there’ll be much chance of a rescue.
Oh no, this is it. I can’t hold on. I’m sinking.”
The creature disappeared with a shudder and a pop and reality wobbled where it had been.
Stephen looked at Jake and Peter looked at me.
We decided filing a report wouldn’t be worth the paperwork seeing as we’d all probably get fired for using drugs on the job.
We agreed to never speak of it again.
But every now and again, I think of the time lakes while I’m cleaning.
by submission | Mar 11, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
Consciousness returned slowly to Inderak and Wynep. Memory took a little longer but in short order the events that lead up to the present flashed back into recall: The malfunction with the hyperdrive. The failed attempt to enter orbit around the moon of the third planet in the alien star system. The violent turbulence as the ship entered the third planet’s atmosphere. And then…now.
“Are you alright?” Inderak asked.
“I’m not sure,” replied Wynep weakly. “What’s on top of me?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? I can’t stand up. I thought I was pinned underneath debris.” Wynep was lying face down on the deck of the bridge.
“Before we crashed, sensors indicated this planet has three times the gravity of homeworld.” Inderak was on his back. He pushed back against the deck with all four of his arms. He barely moved off the deck plate.
“Computer, status?” said Wynep. “Computer, respond!” The ship’s computer remained silent.
Inderak saw a straw-colored liquid dripping from various points in the overhead of the compartment. “There’s neural fluid leaking from the processor chamber,” he said. “The computer’s injured, possibly dead.”
“Then we’re probably not broadcasting a hyperwave beacon. No one knows where we are.”
Wynep managed to push herself up about a centimeter for a few seconds, long enough to turn her head so she faced Inderak. She saw that her wings were plastered to the deck, not that they’d be of any use in this gravity. “It feels like we’re moving.”
“We are. The ship is floating in an ocean of dihydrogen monoxide. Most of the planet’s surface is covered by it.”
“Well, of course it is,” said Wynep bitterly. “The Divinities wouldn’t settle for landing us on a world with three times normal gravity. We have to land in a sea of poison, too. I assume the atmosphere has no chlorine?”
“The air is mostly nitrogen and oxygen.”
Wynep uttered a series of curses that left no Divinity unblasphemed.
“The planet’s inhabited,” said Inderak. “Scanners showed numerous cities and there were at least several hundred artificial satellites in orbit.”
“The moon we were hoping to orbit was barren,” countered Wynep. “There was no sign of civilization on it. If the locals haven’t even colonized their own moon then they must be pretty primitive. I doubt they’d be of much help, even assuming they’re non-hostile.”
“You’re probably right,” conceded Inderak.
They were silent for a while. Breathing was difficult in the oppressive pull of gravity and talking made it worse.
“Maybe Navigation Command was still tracking us before we dropped out of hyperspace?” Wynep speculated.
“We’re probably done for even if they know exactly where we are,” Inderak responded matter-of-factly. “NavCom couldn’t send people down here. They’d be as incapacitated as we are. They’d have to send robots. And then what? Blast off the surface? Can you imagine the escape velocity for this planet? The acceleration would almost certainly kill us. They might rig up a space elevator, but that’s never been done on a planet with this much gravity. It would take Divinity knows how long to overcome the engineering problems, assuming they could be overcome at all. There’s only one thing Navigation Command could do to help us.”
“What’s that?”
“Blast us from orbit. Put us out of our misery. If there’s a NavCom ship on the way here, it’s mission isn’t rescue. It’s euthanasia.”
by submission | Mar 10, 2015 | Story |
Author : David Atos
The man was sitting at Donald Thompson’s kitchen table when he got home, reading a file.
“Right on time, Mister Thompson.”
Donald jumped back against the wall in alarm.
“Who are you, and how the hell did you get into my apartment?” he shouted.
“I suppose the short answer is that I am a Time Agent, and I got here by time travel.”
“Time travel?”
“Technically, we’re supposed to call it the Quantum Entanglement C-P-T Modulation Transfer, but that’s quite a mouthful. Time travel.”
Donald let out a single barking laugh. “And I suppose you’re here because I’m going to become a horrible serial killer, and you’re going to stop me before I can claim my first victim?”
“Oh, no, Mister Thompson. Donald. Don, if I may? Quite the opposite. You’ve lived a life that is, overall, full of kindness. You’re not a criminal. And even if you were, I couldn’t come back here to kill you.” He shook his head, “No, Don, I’m here because you’re about to die.”
“What?”
“That’s right, Don.” The man consulted the file and his watch. “In twelve minutes’ time, a small aneurysm in the motor cortex of your brain will rupture. Your downstairs neighbour will hear you fall and come up to investigate. The ambulance will take you to the hospital, but the doctors won’t be able to help you. You’ll persist in a vegetative state for five hundred twenty three days, sixteen hours, and thirty two minutes, then pass away. It’s all here in your file.” He slid the folder across the table towards Donald.
Donald snatched at the file. The front page was a cranial MRI. His name on it, and a date two days from now. In the middle of the image was an ugly solid white stain. Donald sat heavily down on the chair opposite the intruder.
“So, are you here to save me, then?”
The man in the white coat smiled ruefully. “I am truly sorry, Don. I’m not here for that either. Time is . . . not robust. It cannot heal changes. The ripples, the perturbations, they expand exponentially. We cannot kill those who deserve to die, nor can we save those who deserve to live.”
“You can’t kill people, you can’t save people. Why are you even here?”
The Time Agent stood up, and began pacing. “All that we can do, Don, is offer . . . small mercies. An extra styrette of morphine for the soldier bleeding out on the battlefield. A few words of love carried from a husband to his dying wife. We help — where we can. For you, we can offer . . . oblivion.” He reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a single clear capsule, filled with tiny red and white balls.
“Oblivion?” asked Donald, confusion in his voice.
“Yes, Don. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. The ruptured aneurysm destroys your motor cortex, but the rest of your brain remains completely undamaged. You remain fully aware for all five hundred twenty three days, sixteen hours, and thirty two minutes. And, again, I’m sorry, in significant pain the entire time.”
“But . . . but, you said you can’t kill me either.”
“No, Don. We can’t. This pill,” he holds up the capsule, “is nothing more than a measured dose of Aspirin. A blood thinner. If you take this pill, the bleeding in your brain will be ever so slightly worse. Not only will your motor cortex be destroyed, there will also be irreparable damage to your cerebrum. Your body will continue to live, but your consciousness, your sense of self, that will be gone the instant you drop to the floor in,” he glances again at his watch, “seven and one-half minutes.”
“So, that’s the choice you’re giving me? Take this pill, and instead of a year and a half of agony, I just pop straight off to Heaven?”
The man in the white coat laughed. “Oh, Don! If only we could answer that question for you. For all of our advances, we still don’t know what happens to the consciousness, to the soul, after death. A dozen dozen religions argue just as passionately about that in the future as they do now. I can’t offer you any assurances, Don. I can only offer you a chance to avoid suffering.”
Donald slammed the file sitting in front of him and stood up, pointing an accusatory finger at the stranger. “Why should I believe you at all? Huh? You’re just some guy who got into my apartment somehow!”
“Well, it’s a bit like Pascal’s wager, isn’t it?” replied the stranger. “If I’m lying, all you’ve done is taken some painkillers. But if I’m telling the truth . . . Look, I’ll even make it simpler. If you don’t trust this pill,” he placed the capsule on the table, “you need to take two extra strength Aspirins. But you’ll have to hurry. You are running out of time.”
Donald slumped down into the chair at his kitchen table again. He stared mutely at the file in front of him. Slowly, he reached out and picked up the capsule.
The stranger walked around the table and sat next to Donald, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t promise you much, Don. But I can promise you this: You won’t die alone.”
Donald lifted the capsule for a closer look, and inspected the tiny printing on the side. Two words, in simple, black lettering:
small mercies
by submission | Mar 9, 2015 | Story |
Author : Connor Harbison
The old man watched red-orange dust rise from the trail. Perks of living up on this promontory, only one way to come in. He filled his pipe again and leaned back in the rocking chair. The visitor would be here soon enough.
The visitor dismounted his hoverbike and strode up to the porch. He pulled off the rebreather and pushed the goggles away from his eyes before addressing the old man.
“Are you Packard?”
“Might be. Who’s asking?”
“I represent the board of Maxicorp United.”
“Hm.” Packard recognized the logo, though back in is day the company didn’t have the scratch to send someone all the way out here. Part of the reason he’d picked this planet.
“Yes, it seems there was an irregularity when you abruptly left the company. Twenty years ago, it says. A sizable chunk of money disappeared right around the time you quit.”
“Do I look like I have a ‘sizable chunk of money’ to you?”
“Well, no, not really. But our intelligence division tracked you down to this planet. Your homestead is the only one I found on this continent.”
“Intelligence division? Lordy, my old bosses have been busy. You seem like a nice kid, so I won’t waste your time.” The visitor’s face lit up.
“So you’ll tell me what happened to the money? I can file the report right away and…”
“There’s no money left, son.”
“I don’t understand. What did you do with it?”
“Look around you. I made a ‘sizable’ real estate purchase.”
“This planet?”
“Now you’re catching on. Reminded me of Mars, where I grew up. Plus it was far away from the likes of you. At least it used to be.”
“Maxicorp United will have to repossess this planet, in addition to anything else you may have purchased with the stolen funds.”
“Nope.”
“I’m sorry, what? If you don’t surrender any property that rightfully belongs to Maxicorp United, we will be forced to take drastic measures.”
“Hm.” Packard was getting tired. He wasn’t young like he used to be. This visitor was boring him. Packard slowly reached into his pocket and clicked a button on a remote. Seconds later there was only a pile of ash where the visitor had stood.
A flock of battle drones rose around the house, waiting for their next instructions. Real estate wasn’t the only thing Packard had bought. He looked forward to the next visit from the company.
