by submission | Aug 30, 2014 | Story |
Author : Roger Dale Trexler
Loku heard them before he saw them. The strange sound came to him as he slept beneath the Aynt tree. He and Sheka had eaten their fill of the ripe, rich fruit and fallen asleep beneath its teal-colored leaves. He was not one to fear things he did not understand, but this odd sound sent a shiver of apprehension through him. Still, he stood and stepped out from under the tree.
He looked up into the auburn sky and saw the source of the sound.
He gasped.
A hundred feet above him, floating effortlessly through the air, a dozen creatures he had never seen before swirled in a circular pattern.
At first, he wanted to scream in fear and run like the others of his tribe. But, as he watched, the creatures flew off to the north. He watched them go.
He heard movement behind him and turned to see Sheka, her eyes wide with fear, standing beside him.
“What are they?” she asked shakily.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’ve never seen them before.”
He looked off to the north. The creatures were shrinking on the horizon.
“It’s a sign,” Sheka said. “There’ll be a bad harvest. We must tell the others!”
She started off, but Loku grabbed her and pulled her to him. She was shaking, but his embrace comforted her.
“It’s all right,” he said. “They seemed harmless.”
Below them, in the valley, he could hear the sound of the drums. The villagers had seen the strange creatures, too, and they were afraid. Morkin would, undoubtedly, be stirring up fear amongst the others. He would want to hunt down the creatures and kill them, or maybe sacrifice Lima, the dark witch of the woods, who got the blame for everything that happened in the village whether she was directly related to it or not.
More sounds came and Loku saw hundreds, maybe thousands, of the strange creatures fill the sky.
He slunked back under the tree and held Sheka closely. Maybe Lima was to blame, after all.
Several miles away, Torrence Anderson stood on the rocky bluff and watched as they released the last of the birds. It was a personal triumph for him. He had fought long and hard for the cloning of the birds. He’d cut through a million miles of red tape to make it happen and, now, he was seeing his dream come back to life.
He stood on the cliff and watched as the birds—eagles, sparrows, robins, a hundred other species—flew overhead. They were so beautiful, those birds. He wondered why mankind had polluted their natural habitats, killed off the woodlands and marshes in favor of the cities of steel and glass. The atmosphere had become toxic, and most of the wildlife on Earth had died.
But, he had seen hope in the stars. They had found this planet and Anderson had pleaded his case to the world leaders. “We can clean our atmosphere,” he told them. “Bring back the wildlife. But, it will take generations for the world to heal itself.
“In the meantime,” he said, smiling, “we found a world where the birds can flourish. It’s a perfect sanctuary for them.”
He was given the go ahead to clone two thousand birds. If the experiment went well, he would get to clone more birds, and other animals as well.
He stood on the rocky bluff and watched as a majestic eagle soared overhead.
In the distance, he heard the soft sound of drumming, but he paid the natives no nevermind as he gazed skyward.
by submission | Aug 29, 2014 | Story |
Author : Gerard Hutchings
When they arrived, they offered to restore the earth’s atmosphere, removing pollutants, reducing greenhouse gases, restoring ozone. In exchange they just wanted to settle on Mars. How could we refuse? After three years they had terraformed Mars and built many habitations.
Next they offered to take all our homeless, poor and terminally ill and those of their families who wanted to go with them. They settled them on Mars. They also wanted the asteroid belt and would throw in cleaning up our waterways and oceans. They removed the asteroid debris, built five planetoids and filled the interior with life and more habitations. These they offered to the overpopulated and crowded.
As part of the resettlement people were taught the culture and values of our visitors. All those off earth seemed to be living happy and content lives. They lived side by side with the beauty of nature, enjoyed a healthier lifestyle with less disease and illness, and had jobs that were exciting and relied on their imagination and real skills. The aliens imparted their knowledge freely to all those they resettled.
Slowly other planets and moons were colonized by the people of earth and eventually the changes were also made to earth. The high rises disappeared and there was more wildlife and vegetation. No animals or insects ever attacked humans again. It was this more than anything else that made people wonder if some form of technology was employed to also sedate mankind. For some reason the rich and powerful had not been able to hold onto their old ways. Perhaps because those who they relied on had simply left themselves.
The big project now was building interstellar ships similar to those of the aliens. We would travel away from Sol together to bring the same benefits to other systems and their inhabitants.
As we set forth with our alien friends I still wonder, have we lost our individuality. It certainly doesn’t feel like that, although we no longer seem capable of doing wrong by others. Perhaps we have just regained the humanity we should have had all along.
by submission | Aug 28, 2014 | Story |
Author : John Plunkett
The girls were dressed in simple skirts and blouses of homespun wool from their father’s sheep. They spoke brightly to one another, rejoicing in a day of swimming and play at the small pond just over the hill from their father’s house.
A young, naked boy darted from tree to tree, his eyes focused on the group of girls walking down the path. He was filthy, covered in dirt, dead leaves, and a greasy smear of dried blood and hair around his mouth.
The youngest girl stopped suddenly, pointing into the trees and asking in a loud voice, “What’s that?”
The other girls looked, but seeing only the trees they shushed their sister and gently forced her to continue down the path.
The boy continued to follow them, but allowed more space between himself and his prey. It would hardly do to let them escape.
The girls arrived at the small pond, a place where the creek turned sharply and had carved out a deep hollow in the soft dirt between the trees. Having been to the little pond many times before, the oldest girls led the rush into the water, leaving woolen garments in small, neat piles on various rocks, tree stumps, and low branches near the water.
Laughing and playing in the water, the girls didn’t see the boy watching from the undergrowth until he burst out of the trees, running and jumping from shore into the cold water.
Shocked and uncertain at the boy’s sudden appearance, the girls didn’t start to move until after he landed in the water, and even then the oldest girls moved toward him at first, unafraid of such a young boy.
When they saw his skin change to a dark gray color, and his arms and legs shrink down into fins and a tail, then they reversed course, swimming hard for the shore they believed would bring safety.
Once he was in the water, the boy knew they were his for the taking. He flicked his powerful tail, opened his mouthful of long, sharp teeth and grabbed the closest girl by her leg, pulling her under the surface and toward his new lair at the bottom.
Very subdued, the girls walked home, already mourning their oldest sister, who had given her life so they might live. Many of them kept their eyes on the trees around them, watching for any threat.
A young, clean naked boy followed at a discreet distance, watching the girls, and waiting for an opportunity.
by submission | Aug 27, 2014 | Story |
Author : Roger Dale Trexler
Tom Jacobs awoke.
It was 9 o’clock.
It was always 9 o’clock.
His mind swam through an ocean of grogginess. He did not know where he was. It was dark and, in a moment, he realized he was floating in some sort of liquid. He tried to turn his head, but something prevented him from doing so.
He wanted to scream, to call out for help, but his lips would not obey his mind’s command. He found that he could not move in the darkness, either. It was as if he’d been paralyzed.
What the hell has happened to me? He wondered.
A bitter cold surrounded him, but he could not even shudder from it. His body was completely and utterly immobilized.
He looked at the display again. Its red digital light was the only illumination in the darkness. 9:00 it read. He wondered if it was 9:00 A.M. or P.M. Or was he on military time?
He stared at the display a few moments, then his eyes slowly drifted off into the darkness. What little light the display gave off only masked his surroundings in a soft redness. The contours were smooth.
Where am I? He thought again.
He felt panic start to grip him as his memory began to drift through the fog bank. He had been here before. Many times, he realized. Awaking in the bitter cold darkness. Always at 9 o’clock. He wondered what the significance of 9 o’clock was. If, perhaps, this was his own personal hell developed by….
….He drew a blank. The fog had not lifted completely yet. He could feel the answer lurking at the back of his mind. But, the panic was increasing with each moment. The liquid that covered his body also covered his ears, and he could heard the steady beat, beat, beat of his heart. It echoed like a distance bass drum. But, it was so slow….shouldn’t a frightened man’s heart be pounding faster?
That only scared him more.
The fog lifted a little more and he remembered a woman. An older woman, but pretty in her own right. She had a kindness in her eyes. It was a worldly kindness that told him volumes that no conversation could. She was hurting for something, someone.
He saw her standing above him, in a white lab coat, looking down at him like he was on a bed or something.
She said something.
He tried to remember what it was, but the fog would not let him.
Then, she bent forward and kissed him.
He returned the kiss with passion. This was a woman he loved.
Yes, he loved her. That much, he knew with certainty.
Then, the words came to him.
He remembered what she said.
“I’ll see you when we get there,” she said.
“Promise?” he had said.
She smiled. “I promise,” she told him. Then: “I love you.”
He remembered the concern, the compassion, as she stood back and slowly, ever so slowly, the darkness enveloped him.
Only redness filled that darkness.
It was the display.
It read 9:00.
He turned to the display. It silently clicked over to 9:01 and then he remembered nothing.
##
Somewhere in the vast colonization ship, a computer registered the malfunction the in cryotank. It had registered the malfunction many times before, of course, but the drones were too busy repairing the damage from the asteroid strike to the main hull to be bothered with such a minor anomaly. In time, when the repairs to the hull were finished, they would address the cryotank. There was no threat to life….just a momentary thawing and refreezing. A simple matter to repair, and the cold, calculating computer had no understanding whatsoever of consciousness, so it did not understand the horror.
by submission | Aug 26, 2014 | Story |
Author : Cameron Filas
It’s about a five year process, the whole prison-rehab formula. Since the introduction of Memwipe, crime rates have plummeted. The idea is to take a dangerous criminal, wipe their memory, then give them a basic education and return them to society.
Still, I’m not so sure it always works as planned. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been a firm supporter of Memwipe. That is, until my brother got convicted.
It was a bullshit arrest. If your girlfriend leaves her apartment door unlocked, and you show up with flowers and invite yourself inside, I don’t think that’s really a crime. At least there wasn’t intent. The way he smashed open the other guy’s face when he found them in the bedroom was pretty bad, I’ll admit. He did have a sort of violent streak in him growing up.
It’s no surprise they nabbed him within the hour and hauled off to a rehab facility. With crime rates so low, anything like this makes headline news. I couldn’t believe it when I first saw his face on my TV.
He got out a few weeks ago. He’s simpler now, like a minimally functioning human. When you go through Memwipe, everything you own, your house, your stuff, your dog, it’s all taken away. Supposedly, exposure to things from before rehab can have adverse effects on the treatment. They also encourage family members to avoid Memwiped individuals, for the sake of society. But he’s my brother.
When he was released, I found him wandering through a mall by chance. He wasn’t drooling or zombified or anything like that, he was just…blank. I almost didn’t recognize him without his beard and colorful sleeve tattoo down his left arm. They use laser surgery to remove all tattoos, pictures from the past.
“Jake?!” I said. “Oh my god, Jake!” I gave him as big a hug as I could manage around his broad shoulders.
He didn’t embrace me back and, when I let go, only had a confused look on his face.
“It’s me, Sarah…your sister.” It hurt, him not recognizing me. But it wasn’t his fault. “Come on, you’re staying with me.”
We had been close all our lives and I couldn’t bear him being out in the world alone. It wasn’t breaking the law, per se, but it was definitely not advised.
Back at my place, Jake seemed to be having a hard time taking everything in. It would’ve been impossible for me to tell him we’re siblings without explaining why he has no memory of this. He just kept shaking his head, saying he didn’t remember.
Pictures of family vacations and Jake and I holding up beers on my 21st birthday hung on the wall down my hallway. He studied them intently, like a scientist who’d just discovered a new species. I kept tearing up, flooded with mixed emotions. In a way I felt bad for telling him what he’d done, and about the life he’d had before Memwipe. But he’s my brother. He deserved to know.
I couldn’t really tell if any of it was coming back to him, or if he was just soaking up what I told him. Either way, he started asking questions.
“My girlfriend, what did she look like?”
I dug through a box of old photos and handed him a picture of them together.
“I think I’ll go find her.”
I couldn’t understand his motivation. “But Jake, she cheated on you.”
“I know.”
I haven’t seen him for a week.
I hope that Memwipe really works, changes people. I hope, for both our sakes.
