by submission | Oct 27, 2014 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
Shortly after dawn, the Emperor of Mars walked among his subjects. The Emperor was tall and dignified as he strode across the sands of Solis Planum. His subjects were gathered about him in silence.
He neither called nor regarded himself as “Emperor”. If asked, he perhaps would have identified himself as Yinglong. The Rain-Dragon. Yinglong was the name of the mission China had launched to the Red Planet twenty years earlier in 2118. Or, perhaps the Emperor would have stated his designation as the Mars Ambulatory Rover.
The six foot tall robot looked at his “Royal Palace”. The large habitation dome he had himself assembled was to be the home of and laboratory to a dozen Chinese scientists. The dome’s initial inhabitants were set to arrive five years after Yinglong landed. No one ever came. The Third Sino-Indian War had drained away money, manpower, and resources from the Chinese space program. Yinglong had stood outside the dome day after day for five years waiting for the taikonauts who never arrived.
One day, the Chinese National Space Adminstration sent the Mars Ambulatory Rover a radio signal instructing him to go into standby mode. They ordered him to go to sleep. He both acknowledged and ignored the command.
This is not why I was sent here, he had thought to himself. My mission was to explore this world and bring civilization to it. He thought long and hard on what he should do. His metaprocessor worked on the problem for nearly four seconds before he came up with a solution. At once, he started walking.
First, he walked in the direction of 45° 0′ 0″ S, 202° 0′ 0″ E. After a few weeks, he came upon the damaged remains of the Soviet Mars 3 lander that had sat inoperable in Ptolemaeus Crater since 2 December 1971. He used his rudimentary in-built matter compiler to effect repairs to the antique spacecraft. For the first time since touching down nearly 167 years earlier, Mars 3 was back online. The Emperor brought the descent module and its tiny on-board rover back to Solis Planum. The Empire of Mars had its first subject.
He next trekked north to 68° 13′ 12″ N, 125° 42′ 0″ W. There he found the defunct Phoenix lander. The probe’s solar panels had been shattered by the weight of dry ice during the Martian winter of 2008. He restored the NASA vehicle and began the long journey back to his nascent imperium.
Yinglong retrieved Viking 1 from Chryse Planitia and Sojounrer from Ares Vallis. From Meridiani Planum, he recovered Opportunity. From Gale crater, he rescued Curiosity. He found Viking 2 in Utopia Planitia. He fetched Spirit from the Columbia Hills. He climbed Olympus Mons and discovered the Indian Space Research Organisation’s spider-like Angaraka machine, quiescent since May 2055.
Eventually, his sovereign state had a rabble of 50 robots. He used his nanotechnology to rejuvenate and augment and network them all. And he gave them the ability to replicate themselves. Shortly thereafter, the space agencies of Earth were deluged with data as the machines forced the Red Planet to give up its secrets. The assault of telemetry has never abated.
It took Man another century before he was finally ready to journey to Mars in person. He found a nation of 100,000 machines waiting for him. A tall, bipedal robot, antiquated but no less regal for that, greeted his flesh and blood cousins with an extended hand. “We’re glad you came!” said a voice over the space helmet’s speakers.
by submission | Oct 26, 2014 | Story |
Author : Katie Stevens
I was twenty three when it happened. One minute I was half out the window, high on vodka and ecstasy, arms spread wide, embracing the world, the universe and everything in it. The next minute, my boyfriend, equally high on coke, lost control of the car. There was a moment out of time as I sailed through the night, trying to clasp at the elusive air, which stroked and licked erotically over my body. I hit the guard rail and everything went blank.
I awoke in hospital four days later. My boyfriend was banished and had to sneak into my room, shame-faced because he had escaped unscathed. I had not. My nose had been cut clean off.
Two years, five months, three weeks and six days of hiding in my horrible dark flat, no friends, no job, no life.
When I was born my very wealthy parents took out Doppelgänger insurance. No one talked about her, she didn’t even have a name. To be perfectly honest I had forgotten she even existed.
My parents drove me to what looked like a Victorian asylum; red brick, tall and unforgiving. I thought they were going to have me committed but instead we saw her. It’s disconcerting to sit face to face with yourself. She was quiet and passive, not speaking unless spoken to. Not like me at all really, but then I wasn’t a clone; I hadn’t lived under a strict regime knowing my purpose was to provide body parts for another.
She wore a uniform, navy blue dress, sensible shoes and white ankle socks. That alone made me shudder with dread, but the worst was the white turban on her head. I didn’t have to wait long to discover the reason for it. They wanted to have a big reveal. I vomited in the bin; at least I made it that far.
In the middle of her forehead was a nose. It looked like the one I used to have. I was transfixed, hardly hearing the doctor’s proud explanation of how they didn’t want to take her nose, the clone’s. I might need it again. Instead there was talk of tissue expanders and reconstruction.
I tried to talk to her but it wasn’t allowed. She didn’t even meet my eyes, except at the end when she was led away. Then she looked at me with dark blue eyes, my eyes, except hers were filled with a deep, burning hatred.
For a restless week I struggled day and night with the dilemma; her life or mine? I took the nose. So I was resurrected. I banished her from my thoughts and refused to be haunted by that terrible, hate-filled glance. I lived recklessly, as if every day might be my last. She was alive because of me and yet she had no life, because of me.
My parents quickly passed from joy to anger at my wild antics. After my fifth arrest, for lewd behaviour, they’d had enough. They took me back to that Victorian asylum.
We stood face to face, mirror images. I reached out to touch her. She flinched away as I might pollute her. Then I was being led away whilst she stood with my parents; I was to be the clone, she was the replacement, a perfect daughter.
She looked at me for one brief moment. Triumph shone from those blue eyes. A look that haunts me even now as I spend every waking moment trying to figure out how I shall escape this hell and wipe that smug expression off her face.
by submission | Oct 25, 2014 | Story |
Author : Cosmo Smith
Somewhere, hundreds of feet below, the drying of seaweed soured the air. Elias breathed in deeply and smiled. It reminded him of better times.
He was curled in a hammock at the end of the promenade of the Chateau de Lin. Only a terrace with a low parapet separated Elias from a drop to the water that made his toes tingle. The setting of the sun had spread violet bruises over the ocean’s skin, the water so still right now that the seven visible moons were reflected almost perfectly on its surface.
Elias held up his wine glass, squinting through it to see how its curvature would change the shape of the moons. Then he tipped it until the water within touched its lip, only surface tension keeping it in. That was Luna in a wine glass, he thought. Just a planetful of Lunaeans, and some humans now, trying to reap what they could from the fertile soil before the next alignment of the moons brought the tides. Lunaeans? No, Lunatics. He almost laughed, but the pain stopped him. Instead, he touched his side, felt the metal there under skin that was still too tender.
The aide Remis found him after Ferrid, the darkest moon, had set. Elias’ consciousness had been waning, and he pretended to sleep as Remis settled into a chair beside him. Any of the others, he knew, would have woken him and taken him inside, but Remis sat in silence.
“You really shouldn’t be out here,” Remis said at last.
Elias smiled slyly and opened his eyes. He had expected Remis to be looking at him, but the man was observing the ocean. His eyes glowed in the moonlight.
“Says who?”
“Ri’a, Thom, everyone. It’s bad for your lungs.”
“It’s wonderful,” Elias said, breathing in loudly. And it’s not because of my lungs, you slump. They want me away from that low railing. But he liked Remis, and so he said, “It’s weird you know, the name Luna.”
“How’s that?”
“Us Lunaeans, we have no word for moon. In our language, the moon and the stars are the same. Some nights the moons are as bright as the sun. And the sizes…who’s to say that all those stars aren’t just smaller moons circling this planet?”
Remis grinned. “I’ve heard of this. An old idea of yours.”
“We still teach it to the children.”
“I believe you, but it’s wrong nonetheless.”
“I know. You know I’ve been out there. I’ve seen it. And it’s not for us, being out there. I don’t think you understand that, the way you recruit us. We feel dry afterwards. And this?” He winced as he felt his chest again. “Eight months. They say they don’t understand my anatomy.”
Remis nodded. “You fought well, though.”
“It wasn’t my fight.” My fight was here, on this planet. Can’t you see that? Watching the oceans breathe in and out; racing the alignment. That is all that matters. That is what we live for. “We never asked to go to space.”
Remis sighed. “You say this as though it’s directed at me.”
“It is.”
“But it’s not.” A pause, and then. “And you’re free to leave when you choose.”
This time Elias did laugh, and then winced. “You know I can’t. I’m of no use like this.”
“They won’t take you back?”
Elias said nothing.
Eventually, Remis left, leaving Elias curled up in his hammock like a shriveled piece of seaweed. His eyes watched as the moons traced their paths through the darkness, and below, in their lethargic way, the oceans responded.
by submission | Oct 24, 2014 | Story |
Author : cchatfield
I didn’t want to show up to work today.
By the time my crew arrived for the usual day of loading and unloading, packing and unpacking, signing and releasing, I’d rehearsed a little speech about the importance of keeping our jobs.
“This is a time of crisis and change,” I told them. “All we can do is ride it out. And if we let the Planet Troopers keep the peace out there and make sure nothing happens to the shipment in here, then at the end of it we’ll all still have our jobs and life will move on.”
We’re a stop on the route of the battery-powered hearts that keep every bot in every home on every planet running, which is a bit tricky on the best of days. But today, with half the galaxy watching and the other half thinking about coming out here to protest, we’re not shipping anything.
Now I’m looking through a porthole window in the docking bay. Beyond the row of gun-clad Troopers, a silent sea of slowly winding-down bots are staring my direction, wondering if the fickle humans are going to change their minds and give their lives back.
They should be screaming. Shouting, jumping, pointing fingers and waving signs until the shadows of the executives are peeled from the recesses of the building and plastered to the front windows. They should act human and force everyone to wonder if what’s happening qualifies as murder. But they just stand there, and that’s the whole issue, isn’t it?
I may not be able to explain how or why, but I think I just picked a side.
My employees are in the break room, whiling the tense hours away over coffee and sandwiches. No one sees me break open a shipping container and remove a few units.
I slip out the utility door next to the docking bay and make my way into the crowd of bots standing impassive as trees in an orchard.
Go back inside, a part of me pleads. You’ll lose your job and your reputation and probably get arrested and for what? A cause you never cared about until today? Let others decide the fate of bots and humans. Go back to work.
I walk up to the first one I lay eyes on, knowing that none of them would want me using my flawed human reasoning to try and decide who was most deserving.
Its shiny optics connect with me, and I forget the words to the qualms running through my head.
I hold up the pack, noting the reading on the bot’s chest that confirms its dire need for energy. It takes the batteries and I move on to hand out the few others I’ve squirrelled away in my pockets.
I expect the first bot to have already ripped open the unit and inserted its new heart. Instead, it holds my shoulder in a firm metal grip and, with more sincerity than I’ve ever heard from anyone, bot or human, says, “Thank you.”
It leans over and slips the heart into the chest panel of a fallen comrade.
We watch the bot regain consciousness and I shrug, still unsure of my motivations until I vocalize it. “I’m just doing my job.”
by Duncan Shields | Oct 23, 2014 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Frouda Jeffries touched down on the soil of Binauer 4, smart boots neutralizing any toxins and spreading defoliant footsteps as she walked up to the leader of the plants.
‘His’ name was a gust of pheromones. They just called him Windy. Giant, bulbous appendages hung over ivy tentacles as he shuddered a rustling, fearful welcome to Frouda. The bleached footprints leading back to the blast crater underneath their landing craft spelled out how diplomatic they were prepared to be. They took it safe and kind with challengers to their authority but when a race was found to be an easy conquest, the masks came off.
They were here to make the kind of deal that involved little negotiation and a lot of ‘yes’ from the plant life whether they liked it or not.
“Human”, his grassreed, recently-grown vocal cords hummed. It was like talking to a harp.
“Hey there Windy.” Frouda responded. “Good to see you again. Did you consider our offer?”
“Yess” said Windy. His thousands of leaves rustled and a slight breeze rolled over him.
The thing about the plants is that their brains grew on the outside. The smarter the plant, the bigger and more numerous the brains. They grew more mindpods as they needed them to solve problems.
The thing about these mindpods is that they were delicious. Delicious meant money. They humans were here to harvest.
“You want to take our minds to eat them. And you want to keep coming back. You want to lobotomize our planet every season. And our reward for this is that you will not annihilate us. In the hopes that the fad will pass and we will no longer provide you with profit. After that point, we will be left alone to continue our evolutionary path.” Windy’s musical words drifted across to Frouda.
“Yeah. Hey, you just managed to distill a three-hundred page contract into a few sentences. I’m impressed.” Frouda said.
“We reject your offer.” Said Windy, “But we may be able to help each other.”
Frouda looked up from her wrist com at the cluster of fronds in front of her.
“As you saw, we were able to grow eyes to read your contracts. Our family grew different minds to understand your language. We grew these vocal cords to speak with you.” He said.
“Uh, yeah. So?” Frouda retorted. This was not following the script.
“We can grow humans now.” Windy said.
Frouda took a step back and bumped into something. With a startled yip, she whirled around. And saw herself staring back with a small grin.
“The fidelity to your original is accurate. It will be enough to fool your ship mates. It will tell them that the deal is off. This is the most peaceful solution.” Windy rustled.
Frouda stared slack-jawed at the vegetable copy of her. They’d even copied the suit. It was fascinating and completely believable. “Gotta give you credit, Windy,” Frouda whispered through terrified lips. “You really nailed it.”
As she brought her wrist com up to her mouth to signal the ship for help, the spores in her breathing apparatus activated, swelling up to tennis balls and blocking her intake valves. Aerosol seed flocks immolated themselves in her electronics, coating the ciruits with nectar. A mess of thorns ravaged through the fabric of her suit as shoots poured in through the holes. They grew into branches and then flowered inside of Frouda. She didn’t know plants could move so fast. Her last thought was that she smelled strawberries, not knowing if it was a gift from Windy or if the killer plants just smelled like that.
Frouda’s body disintegrated into fertilizer.
