by Julian Miles | Jul 2, 2013 | Story
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“It’s a vampire!”
“No, it’s not. It’s a biological construct designed to look like a creature from mankind’s horror mythology.”
“It’s got slicked-back hair, fangs, pronounces ‘double-you’ as ‘vee’ and is dressed for a black-tie reception under it’s red-lined black cape. It’s a vampire!”
“How did you see it’s hair?”
“It tipped it’s top hat to me when I screamed the first time.”
“It saw you?”
“Well, yes.”
“Oh bugger.”
With that, Cliché Lugosi drops on us. Time to try one of the psychological tactics suggested by our ‘Asymmetric Controls’ team.
I straighten up with the fake nonchalance of my best imitation toff. “I say, could you possibly take the cabbie? I have an appointment at the opera.”
The pasty white face turns to regard me with eyes of burning blue. The accent is pure Hollywood-Teutonic and tinged with condescension. “For vun who haz not lived even a zingle lifetime, you're a vize man. You may go.”
My informant is not impressed. “What’s a cabbie? Why are you leaving? Oh no! You bast-argh!”
Blimey. It worked. These things must be programmed from old footage as well. That could be useful. Don’t know exactly how, but any edge is another one to stick in your opponent.
Thankfully we didn’t trade the Waddamalur any slasher horror before EarthGov reneged on the trade agreement and made off with the cure for cancer. They are so tiny, we just laughed at them when they threatened revenge. Of course, they are master bioengineers, hence being able to cure cancer. We never guessed they could create whole creatures. Or deliver them to Earth.
I break into a run as my informant’s screams gurgle into silence. Definitely time to be elsewhere.
“Headquarters? This is Helsing Two.” Yes, I know it’s a ridiculous callsign. Don’t blame me. “The werewolf is down. New encounter: vampire by The Clink.”
“Roger that, H2. Return to Southwick Depot.”
The Waddamalur have another trait we didn’t allow for: they have no concept of penance or forgiveness. You offend one; they afflict you back in proportionate measure; end of activity.
We now live on a planet that suddenly has active populations of vampires, werewolves, frankensteins and rakshasa, with no ‘off’ switch for the nightmare. The vamps and weres are even infectious! Some sort of bio-pico-mutation-thing in their blood and saliva.
I certainly picked the wrong decade to go into pest control.
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by Duncan Shields | Jul 1, 2013 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
It’s the hands and the eyes that give it away. They’re too quick, too exact. There’s a precision and surety there that ‘belie the tech’, as they say.
I wouldn’t say that there’s a war brewing but the division between the haves and have-nots is deeper now than it’s ever been. It was like in years past when people that could afford breast implants and liposuction and other kinds of body sculpting transformed themselves into something other than human. Something more that human.
It was the beginning of evolution being taken into our own hands.
The whole concept of growing slowly, generation after generation, was boring to us already. The attention span of the rich two percent of the human race demanded more and demanded it now.
So it happened. The leaps and bounds made technological leaps possible. There were people that refused to get implants but really, there were people that refused to get cel phones and email addresses as well back in the day.
Left behind. Job security went to the people with the drive and capability to handle the pressures of the employment and reaction time was a factor.
Demands became higher. America climbed up to the top of the tech and labour ladder again.
I am not one of those people that had enough money to be improved. I am here in the lobby of the lawyer’s building, fresh out of law school, top of my class, and I’m ready for work. I’m watching the receptionist sort through her papers looking for my appointment and I can see that even the secretary here is augmented.
Her hands move like insects through the papers. She finds my data and taps the page twice. Her hands stop moving and they’re as still and dead as statues while she pauses.
This is the part I hate the most. It’s only a second or so but it feels like thirty. They’re uploading my file and accessing the relevant parts of my file to precede me into the interview.
The eyes look straight ahead, a little crossed, and they don’t move. The only movement I can see on her is the pulse in her neck. It ticks twice before she looks up at me.
Perfect eyes look at me with none of the imperfections that usually give away us pure organics. I’m struck again and how the beauty of the human race lies in its diversity and how that diversity is disappearing. She’s looking at me with a tight smile and I have the uncomfortable feeling that I’m being scanned instead of merely regarded.
“They’ll see you in ten minutes. Have a seat”. She says.
I know I’ve already lost the job.
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by submission | Jun 30, 2013 | Story
Author : Bob Skoggins
Jacob Nash was the first man to penetrate Titan’s ice and explore the world beneath. With a heat suit resistant to the dense atmosphere, for thirty-six years he lived in a small sphere of ice and metal.
It was from him that we exist. Though we’re called Titans, we aren’t like the ancient gods of Earth Jacob spoke about. We first existed in Petri dishes. A biological experiment to create a being that needed no suit to survive. A cross of oxygen-breathing endoskeleton DNA with nitrogen-feeding exoskeleton DNA. I was the first successful Titan.
Nash was like a father to me. He was seventy-eight when I was spawned. He lived for only two more years, but during that time he taught me everything. How to create, how to survive, where he came from…
How such a great man could come from such a horrible place, I do not know. He came from a place where they wear masks to breathe, wear suits to keep their skin from burning, and are divided against each other like tribes of some primitive land.
There are 3,000,000 of us now. We no longer use the machines to create, but we can now procreate ourselves. We live peacefully and have a mutual respect that Nash’s kind does not have.
When more of his kind came to our moon, we were nothing but hospitable. Most of them returned to Earth, disappointed because we would not send a Titan along with them.
It was not until a man who claimed to be Nash’s grandson came, that I considered going. He had a resemblance. I was the only one who saw it for I was the only one who knew Jacob Nash. I decided to go. Though he spoke of its horrors, he created me. He created Titans. I could tell Earth his story. I could tell mine.
It took three months to reach Earth. The reek of chemicals stung my nose from miles away. I had to put on a suit in order to protect my skin from the heat and sun. Once there, I helped design a room that would allow me to live without the suit. It is in that room that I now sit and write this.
Nash’s grandson is nothing like Jacob. Though he was curious at first, he soon lost interest in my story. He built glass windows surrounding my room and told me it was for observation. He took away my suit so I could not leave the room, or else I would die.
I now endure endless floods of humans and their children watching me and taking photographs. Nash’s grandson told me it would gain us fame and fortune. Fame and fortune is nothing to me.
Earth is still as Jacob Nash described to me years ago.
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by submission | Jun 29, 2013 | Story
Author : George R. Shirer
The saleswoman had gray hair piled atop her head in a beehive. Her lips were painted a garish shade of red. Tremaine thought the color would have looked more appropriate on a whore. The pantsuit she wore was black polysilk; her boots were made of vat-grown human skin.
Rich, Tremaine decided, but lacking taste.
She flashed a garish smile. “Before we begin, Mister Tremaine, I’d like to know what’s brought you to us? According to your social profile you’ve been involved in several long-term relationships.”
“Which proved unsatisfactory,” sniffed Tremaine. “I want something, madame, that I haven’t been able to find on my own. So, an associate suggested I try you people.”
“And what is this quality you’re looking for?”
“Loyalty.”
The old woman’s eyes brightened. Her smile was shark-like.
“Easily accomplished. You do realize that this solution is only temporary? Your purchase will only last for a maximum of three years.”
“I do,” sniffed Tremaine. “May I ask where you get your raw material?”
“A girl’s home outside Newcastle. If you’d like, I can show you our paperwork. We won’t be offended and our clients’ trust and satisfaction are of paramount importance to us.”
“That won’t be necessary, madame. When can we begin?”
She handed him a pad and a stylus. “Simply select the traits you want from the menu and we’ll generate a number of simulations that you can choose from.”
“And she’ll be loyal?”
“As a dog,” said the saleswoman. “Behaviors are hardwired into the brain and there are failsafes that activate in case of a breach.”
“Meaning?”
“If your purchase should ever break your trust, Mr. Tremaine, her brain will shut down.”
“She’ll die?”
“Painlessly,” assured the saleswoman. “And if that happens we’ll replace her with another model at our own expense.”
Tremaine pursed his lips, considered the options on the pad.
“Can you make her love me?”
The woman shrugged. “Truly. Madly. Deliriously.”
“Really?”
“Of course,” the saleswoman added, smiling her shark’s smile, “love costs.”
Tremaine snorted and started making his selections. “So I’ve been told.”
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by submission | Jun 28, 2013 | Story
Author : Bob Newbell
Rancent-1664 walked into the office of his Preceptor, Ferrin-3411, and waited to be acknowledged. “Enter, Rancent,” Ferrin said to his understudy. Rancent's thirteen pairs of legs glided the excited young scientist up to the workstation of his superior.
“Preceptor, I've found it! An Earth in another brane with a technological civilization!” Rancent's antennae quivered as he spoke.
Ferrin-3411 looked at the eager physicist and said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, young professor.”
“But I have the proof, Preceptor! Over the last eight weeks I've sent countless probes across into the other brane. Each time they could only linger for a very few moments before collapsing back into our brane-space. But the computer has been able to process and collate the data from the probes.”
Ferrin looked skeptical. “The volume of data you're talking about would be staggering.”
“It was! I had to get permission to use nearly the entire Lunar Processing Array for a brief time.”
“Nearly the entire array?” asked Ferrin, impressed that his apprentice was able to obtain such permission on his own.
“From the surface to the core,” said Rancent.
“And after a Moon-sized computer chewed on your data what was the conclusion?”
“Preceptor, I have found an Earth inhabited by intelligent mammals.”
Ferrin let that sink in. Rancent was a good scientist. Precise, methodical, respectful of orthodoxy but not bound by it. He was not the type who would make such a seemingly outrageous assertion. Ferrin could accept a parallel Earth with some sort of non-trilobite intelligence. But mammals? It sounded like the plot of some frivolous piece of speculative fiction.
Sensing that his mentor was not entirely convinced, Rancent said, “Preceptor, you will recall the discovery by Blorek-2832 of a parallel brane containing an Earth populated by reptiles?”
“Of course,” said Ferrin. “Blorek's discovery is the most significant in the history of brane exploration.”
Up till now, thought Rancent, who then replied, “Blorek theorized that life on the Earth in the universe he discovered developed much as it did here until a mass extinction event killed off the primitive trilobites. This, he suggested, may have allowed the reptilians to develop and eventually rise to dominate the planet.”
“That part of Blorek's theory is still controversial. But it does fit the facts. You propose that in the world you discovered a catastrophe destroyed the trilobites and the mammals rose to prominence?”
“That's one possibility,” said Rancent. “Or, perhaps, the reptilians came to dominate this newly discovered Earth as well for a time and they in turn were wiped out by a cataclysm that allowed the mammals to ascend. The data I've collected is most consistent with this latter scenario.”
“So you plan to ask the Brane Exploration Authority for the allocation of more probes to investigate this new world to confirm or deny your theory?”
“I had a somewhat different idea in mind, Preceptor.”
“Such as?”
“I want to ask the inhabitants.”
“What?!”
“That would be the most efficient way to find out. Based on the level of technology the mammals appear to possess, it's likely that they're advanced enough to have string theory. Parallel branes have likely been at least theorized by their physicists.”
Communication between two intelligent civilizations in two branes, thought Ferrin. In his mind, Ferrin pictured trilobitomorphic rodents discussing 11-dimensional membrane theory. He laughed.
“Preceptor?” asked Rancent, afraid his mentor was not taking him seriously.
Ferrin gave Rancent a gesture of reassurance. “Just wondering how one addresses an intelligent mammal,” he said as he opened a communication channel to the Brane Exploration Authority.
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