by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 11, 2014 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Sergeant Brake sat in the makeshift barracks reviewing the intelligence briefing he’d been handed just moments before.
“These used to come on paper,” he waved the digital tablet at the spit and polished runner who’d brought him the device. The younger man was waiting for some sort of feedback to take to his commanding officer and looked visibly confused. “Orders. Intel,” Brake continued, “we used to get these on pieces of paper. Can’t exactly fold this up and stuff it in a pocket now can we?”
The young soldier shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “Don’t you just remember this stuff, once you’ve seen it I mean sir? Don’t you just, you know, upload it or something?”
“Smart arse.” Brake shook his head and went back to scanning the pages of intelligence and objectives before him.
Scattered around the room the rest of his unit were shaking off the cold of the deep freeze and acquainting themselves with their current kit. Marshall was studying the maintenance instructions for the fifty calibre chain gun laid out in pieces on the table in front of him, and Morse and Checkin were stripping and reassembling their own equipment in a silent competition, racing to tear the weapons down, then switching places and racing to see who could reassemble the other’s first.
Visor sat in the lotus position in the middle of the room with a keyboard in his lap and a set of virtual reality goggles covering the upper half of his face. His fingers flew, occasionally reaching out to reorient something in the virtual space in front of him, his jaw clenched in stern concentration.
The rest of the soldiers were exercising and stretching, or availing themselves of the rations laid out in the small kitchenette.
“You ship out at oh four hundred Sergeant, you and your men should get some rest.” The young soldier looked around the room, none of the men had stopped moving since he’d arrived and hadn’t given him so much as a glance.
Brake put the tablet down on the table and pushed it out of his way then reached for the cup of coffee he’d been drinking. “Son, these men have been asleep since we pulled out of Iraq, and they’d only had a few days R and R before they went in the deep freeze after we checked out of the Saigon Hilton. Twenty seven days active in Korea and I think that was just to make sure we still worked after sitting on ice since the Führer scratched his head with his Walther.” He paused to scratch his own freshly shaven head with one weathered hand. “These men have slept more in the last hundred years than most people sleep in their entire lifetime, so don’t you worry about us, we’ll do just fine as long as that press formed chow doesn’t upset one of my boys’ sensitive stomachs, after all, they haven’t eaten in a while.”
The runner eyed the door and then extended his hand, “Corporal Dawson sir, I won’t see you before you deploy, and I just wanted to say good luck.”
Brake considered the outstretched hand silently for a moment, and then looked Dawson straight in the eye. The hand wavered.
“Corporal, luck won’t do us a damn bit of good where we’re going, and I don’t expect you will see us again, not before we deploy, and not when we get back, assuming of course any of us do get back. And once we’ve put this little mission behind us, I expect your commanding officer will do what his predecessor did, and his before him, he’ll put us back in the box, dial down the temperature and forget we even exist until the next time someone fucks up something they can’t fix, and then, provided someone hasn’t built a better version of us than us, they’ll thaw us out again and send us back into the shit show.”
Corporal Dawson slowly withdrew his hand.
“What you can do, Corporal, ” Brake slowly rose to his feet, and Dawson realized that most of the soldiers were watching the exchange now, “you can bloody well remember that while you’re tucking yourself into bed tonight pretending the dark and dirty front lines don’t exist, we’re out there doing what you can’t stomach the thought of doing so that you don’t have to. Remember that.” Brake turned his attention back to his coffee, and added under his breath, “Remember us. No one else will.”
by submission | Nov 10, 2014 | Story |
Author : Chris McCormick
Drone sat upon the empty dresser. A lithe little bundle of rods, wires and wings atop the last piece of furniture not yet pawned. From here it trained a camera upon another little bundle on a pile of towels on the floor. This warm little bundle had stopped crying now. It swelled and sighed gently at the pace of a baby breathing.
Drone Mazggen Vinzen had logged the cessation of crying and was now observing the heartbeat, and counting the average duration and standard deviation of time between breaths. For about seven minutes and fifty five seconds the baby’s temperature had been climbing. Febrile seizure was increasingly probable.
Drone alighted from the dresser with a gentle whirling thrum, noted the closed door – slammed shut by a human in a hazy drug induced fury – and headed directly for a panel in the ceiling that afforded egress into the roof space above. A gentle test bump before it punched upward into the dark space, switching camera EM envelope wide and amplifing signal as it did so. The ceiling tile flipped away harmlessly with a polystyrene pock. Drone ducked and swooped precisely past beams, pipes, cables, stalling gently above another ceiling tile over the common room of the abode.
It whirred up as high as it could in the space and reconfigured pieces of metal skeleton with a snap, making a rough upside-down teardrop shape. Then all engines reversed and it powered downward. Upon impact the tile bounced but did not break and the drone’s fans reversed again, recovering from the bounce with a wobble. It pulled up for a second crack, and this time the tile gave way and the drone plunged through into the space below amidst a flurry of light, white shards of ceiling tile.
Two humans lay sprawled on beanbags and dirty old towels. About them were strewn cans, food containers, mouldy food, syringes and the other detrius of addiction. Drone hovered for a moment, monitored heart beats, states of consciousness, and then swept down over the unconscious man’s head.
“Excuse me, sir,” vocalized the drone.
No response.
It drifted gently downward and extended a small probing armature to tap on the man’s hairy cheek three times.
No response.
“Excuse me, sir,” again but louder.
Still no response.
This time the drone issued a small electric charge from the probe into the man’s face.
Observing the motion of the man’s fist it began evasive action, but there was not sufficient time to reach full power before impact. It ricocheted off the wall and, noting hostile action, withdrew to the hole in the ceiling, hovering there a few seconds. The man had barely entered consciousness and was now drifting downward again, punching arm limp across his chest. Self assessment showed no real damage from the punch – nothing that couldn’t be tightened back up.
The drone mobilized rapidly through the ceiling space again, and back into the baby’s room from above. Amongst the towels the baby was convulsing and emitting a tiny mewling choking sound. The drone dropped swiftly, bouncing four times in succession next to the child, snatching up the corners of a towel with each bounce and then raising gently upward, strained flying machinery squealing softly as the warm bundle was lifted from the floor.
Shards of glass spun into the air outside as the tiny human-robot package burst through the window into the glorious sunshine. Drone Mazggen Vinzen felt its skin flood with a soft hot rush of photovoltaic energy. It assumed a hard forward trajectory in the direction of the medical facility.
by submission | Nov 9, 2014 | Story |
Author : Doug Robbins
His body was made of metal and instead of eyes, he had light sensors that flashed when someone got with in ten feet of him. ”Am I more human than you,” the robot asked his human class.
The human students looked at each other. One student, Todd Hallowell spoke up. ”Maybe?”
The robot shook his head.”Wrong, of course you are more human than I am. You’re people!”
Todd hung his head. ”Oh.”
Why do you suppose the people running this college have created me to instruct you about poetry?”
”It was cheaper than paying a professor?” Elaine Cretchley said.
”Affirmative,” the robot replied.
Elaine smiled, savoring her moment of victory.
”Can I teach you how to feel?”
”Logistically speaking you could,” Carl Perkins shot out.
” Then why do you let my cousins run your lives for you?”
The students exchanged puzzled looks.
”I’m referring to computers, tablets and smart phones.”
”What’s wrong with smart phones?” Paige Sanders asked.
The robot instructor would have sighed if he knew how. ”They have replaced the art of conversation. How many of you have been to parties where everyone has been talking on a cellphone instead of talking to the person next to them?”
”Everyone raised their hands. ”Exactly, you’re all more robotic than I am, I was created and programmed to be a robot; what is you kids’ excuse?”
”It’s just easier to talk to people on phones or via texts,” Henry Brach retorted.
”What if the United states military compensated for their lack of communication skills the way civilians do? What i mean is, if the military took the approach of America’s high school students and college students and refused to work on their communication skills? I was created by scientists. Nothing is special about me and yet you all look at me as though I am some great prophet.”
”You’re no prophet,” Zack Taylor muttered.
”Exactly. I am no prophet. I am your servant but you are my slave. Humans refuse to think, so they let machines think for them”
The room was silent. No one blinked. Periodically, a student or two, would glance up at the clock and sigh. ”By 2020, I predict, all robots will enslave the entire human race,” The robot professor hypothesized.
All the students laughed. ”It’s already begun,” the robot said. The bell rang.
The phone rang and every student pulled out their black berries and smart phones, and meandered, shuffled stiffly toward the closed classroom door.
by submission | Nov 8, 2014 | Story |
Author : CR Briffett
Welcome to Perfect Match. Please sign in through one of your professional or social media networks.
Thank you, we will now gather all of your digital data.
When you are ready to meet a perfect match, simply come down to one of our centres, donate a saliva sample and we’ll take care of the rest.
Jay shut down the monitor of his phone. It rolled back inside the device and he locked it with his little fingerprint.
“Hey, what are you up to?”
Jay looked up to see his housemate, Marc, had wandered into his room.
“I, uh, just signed up to an enhanced matching service.”
“Wow. I didn’t even know you were looking to settle down. I guess I’ll need to find a new housemate soon. When are you going to start the process?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I wonder if I shouldn’t just try it the old-fashioned way. Meet someone I like the look of and just see how things go.”
“See how things go? Who does that when they’re looking for a long-term relationship? That approach so clearly didn’t work. If it had there wouldn’t have been such a high divorce rate for generations. These matches are as close to perfection as you’re going to find.”
Jay sighed. “Maybe.”
“Anyway, you approach a woman in a nitecafé or wherever and suggest that, and she will assume that you’re only looking for a fling. No-one gets seriously involved without running a compatibility check first these days. We’re not cavemen.”
“A few people must still chance it.”
“Who has the time to waste? These companies can access everything about you: what you do, where and how you spend your money, where and how you spend your time. They can work out all your key personality traits and then their DNA testing ensures there is chemistry between you and the lady.”
“Sometimes I find it all a bit unsettling.”
“Don’t be a parano. You sound like my grandpa. People protested about their data being used by companies and then they got over it. Or they grew old and died. Whatever. They went quiet.”
“But these programs assume that I want someone who really closely resembles me. Maybe I’d rather someone whose personality complements my own instead.”
“Come on. In the end we all just want to date versions of ourselves. It’s been scientifically proven. What you want is yourself with breasts and a higher voice.”
Jay laughed. “Nice image. But maybe you’re right. I guess I’d better head out to the centre and spit in a tube.”
“If you don’t I might head out and do it under your name. Then some hot girl will be coming over to have great conversations with you, her dream man, and will be surprised to find she is lusting after me.”
“Lusting after you would be a shock to any woman. I’m not sure if that would work but anyway they check your ID when you give the sample.”
“Pity.”
Jay smiled and, saying goodbye, headed out to the clinic.
The metrotrain departed with its usual punctuality and smoothness, and then juddered to a halt. Cries of surprise filled the carriage. The last time public transport had been late it had made the national news.
“Unbelievable,” he said to a pretty brunette next to him.
“It’s rare,” she agreed. “But you know sometimes I like things to be unpredictable.” She smiled at him.
“Me too.”
“Do you ever enjoy just taking a chance and … seeing how things go?”
“Absolutely. My name’s Jay, by the way.”
by submission | Nov 7, 2014 | Story |
Author : Roger Dale Trexler
I knew she was dead when I saw the blood. It floated by me and splattered silently on the console. Everyone else—Yanders, Diorino, and Rector—was dead, too. They were floating at the far side of the cabin, congregated strangely like a bunch of line dancers doing the Conga.
Zero gravity took over when main controls failed. It was a slow process, and they were dead before the gravity failed, so there was no pain for them….just me. I hit the ceiling with the force of a bullet, the Kyllian plasma charge had rocked the ship. I was knocked unconscious; I do not know for how long.
But I awoke to the touch of Kipling’s body hitting me as it passed by. I must have nudged her a little bit while waking, otherwise she wouldn’t have hit the console; she would have hit the other bodies like a linebacker trying to break a defensive line. A stream of blood flowed from her like a crimson vapor trail as she collided with the console, then sprayed blood everywhere.
The view screen was still on. I saw the Kyllian ship, massive and undamaged, looming over us.
Why? I thought.
The answer was too clear, however. Just weeks ago, a survey ship had been destroyed in this quadrant. A rescue ship was sent to investigate, but they found nothing but wreckage and a buoy telling them to stay away. We heeded that warning, but the Kyllians were laying claim to sectors of space quicker than a drunken sailor spends money at a bar.
Our scanners told us of the approaching ship, and we tried to elude them.
They found us before we could escape.
It wasn’t much of a battle. We were a survey ship, not a battlecruiser. The Kyllians opened fire and, now, everyone but me was dead.
I heard the airlock claxon going off.
We were being boarded.
I panicked. I was a stellar cartographer. I mapped stars. I hadn’t signed up for this. We were supposed to be out for a month from Starbase 3, mapping an uncharted region of space.
I could hear the sound of magnetic boots clanking, then pulling free, from the catwalks.
They were getting closer.
There were several of them.
I knew where the weapons were, but there was no chance I could kill them all. I wasn’t a fighter.
So, I did the only thing I could….and I waited.
##
Four Kyllian soldiers entered the control room. I chanced a glance before I closed my eyes. They were huge. Bigger than men. They ambled into the room awkwardly. I could tell that they were looking around, touching things, taking artifacts. Then, I felt motion. Something was pulling us toward it. I cracked my eyes opened just a hair—just enough to see—and I saw the Kyllian’s ugly face regarding us. It was looking at Diorino. It was cutting away a portion of her jumpsuit, revealing her breasts. Maybe it had never seen a human female? It started to turn its head toward me, and I closed my eyes again….but not too tight.
For a long, long moment, nothing happened. Then, it pushed away the clump of dead bodies I had become a part off and walked off.
The Kyllians stayed a few more minutes, then they moved off to another part of the ship.
I did not move or open my eyes for a long, long time.
When I did, it was to the sound of the airlock closing.
The Kyllians were leaving.
I waited a while longer, then detached myself from the bodies. I had intertwined my arms in theirs, effectively meshing us together.
The bodies floated away.
I pushed off and looked at the view screen. The Kyllian ship was receding in the distance.
I watched them leave.
I looked at the bodies.
I cried.
And, when I knew the Kyllians were out of range, I activated the distress signal…and waited.
