by Duncan Shields | Sep 5, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Season six of Starfleet Academy had just started on the television. Pizza boxes were stacked high around him. The lights were out. Underwear and dirty clothes lay strewn about the place.
Jim’s laziness was catching up with him. He was growing fatter by the month. His uncle had gotten him work as a janitor in the science wing of the university but he wasn’t liking it. It was only part-time but it was hard on his back and the boss kept disrespecting him.
He reached forward to turn up the volume on the remote control when a flash of light erupted in the front of the television and a large figure stood blocking his view of the show.
He pushed back from the television, scraping the floor with couch. The effort left him wheezing.
“Jim, don’t freak out. I only have a few minutes to talk to you.” The figure fumbled around the boxes and clothes and turned on a desk lamp.
Jim looked up into the face of the intruder and froze. It was him but a few years older. Still grossly overweight and unkempt but with less hair and more grey.
“Jim, I’m you. I’m still the janitor in the science department. They’ve invented time travel. I’m one of the only people that has a key to the place after hours. The whole team has gone out to celebrate and I’m here alone. I’ll probably get fired for doing this but here.”
He handed over a few pieces of paper with some numbers on them.
“These are lottery numbers. Use them wisely and don’t get greedy. Keep the janitor job and don’t spend like a crazy person.”
As he spoke, he grew several gold rings out of his fingers and a gold tooth appeared in his mouth. A diamond stud sprouted out of his ear. Modest but expensive.
“Also, do some pushups and hit the gym. Even a little regular exercise will do the trick. My heart is ready to burst and I’ve been told that I only have a year to live before I need a transplant. Luckily I can afford it so that’s not too worrying but please do that.”
As older Jim spoke, fat melted off of him. He didn’t grow buff but he did look decidedly trimmer. The missing hair didn’t look so bad. There was confidence and a healthy glow to his eyes. His posture improved and he seemed less panicked.
“And Jim, please go back to school. We both have a natural aptitude for math. It’s how I could figure out how to use the controls here. Imagine what we could accomplish if we really applied ourselves! Jesus, if you’d have studied then maybe I wouldn’t have ended up just being a goddamn janitor.”
The older Jim’s stained jumpsuit whispered away in fragments and was replaced by a lab coat and clipboard.
“My colleagues will be back soon. We can’t use the time machine for personal use so I’ll no doubt face disciplinary action if I’m caught. One more thing. Ask Janine out. While my work is fulfilling, I regret not having kids and she was the one.”
There was a pause while an expression shuddered across older Jim’s face.
“Okay I have to go. I need to get home and tuck the kids in and tell my wife the good news. Remember what I’ve said.”
There was another flash of light and he disappeared.
Jim sat staring at the empty space where the older version of him had stood. He slowly put down the remote control, looked around, and started cleaning up his apartment.
by Patricia Stewart | Sep 4, 2012 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“You know, Albert,” said Thomas Hoofnagle, “this has all the makings of a stereotypical science fiction story.”
“How so?” asked Albert Arnold as he made some final adjustments to the torpedo’s structural integrity field.
“Surely you are not oblivious to the fact that the UN is about to launch that torpedo into the sun with the specific intent to inhibit the rate of nuclear fusion in its core. You don’t see a million ways that plan can go wrong? Like the sun can go nova, or it could condense to a white dwarf. That kind of stuff.”
“Don’t be an idiot Tom, you know as well as anybody that this is the most understood of scientific principles. There is as much a chance of this going wrong as there is the sun not rising tomorrow.”
Hoofnagle spread his arms sideways and made an expression implying “That’s exactly my point”.
It took Arnold a second to realize what he had said. “Stop it, Tom. You know what I mean. The inhibitor’s effect is thoroughly understood. It will slow down the fusion rate in the sun’s core by exactly 0.12838441 percent. And, one hundred years from now, the amount of energy emanating from the surface of the sun will be reduced by the exact amount needed to compensate for the effects of global warming. Just in time to bring the Earth back from the edge of the cliff that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had predicted in their climate models. Our names will go down in history as the men who saved mankind from their own shortsightedness.”
“I’m sure they will throw you a big parade when you come out of stasis.”
“About that, Tom. You should reconsider your decision. Don’t you want to be around to see the fruits of your labor?
“No thank you. I’m content living out my life in this century. Now, let’s launch this puppy, so I can go home and get drunk, and forget that I ever heard of the United Nation’s Initiative to Curtail Solar Radiation.
***
Arnold’s return to consciousness happened quickly. He sat up, and immediately recognized that he was in the stasis recovery room. He blinked his eyes into focus and looked out the large picture window toward the Houston skyline. It was snowing outside, and the wind was howling like a banshee. He looked at the calendar that was hung on the opposite wall. It said “August”. Oh shit, he thought, Tom was right. But it can’t be. I’m sure our calculations were correct. “Nurse,” he yelled.
Arnold hadn’t seen the young man napping in the chair next to his bed. “Damn,” he exclaimed as he fell out of the chair. He quickly jumped to his feet and explained, “Thank God you’re awake. Sorry, Mr. Arnold, but we had to bring you out of stasis twenty years early. There’s a problem.”
“I can see that through the window. What the hell happened? The inhibitors shouldn’t have…”
“No, no, sir. You don’t understand. It’s not the inhibitors. It was the climate models. Those bastard ‘scientists’ from last century fabricated so much evidence to ensure their perpetual funding that they hid the real problem, an impending ice age. We need you to turn off the fusion inhibitors. We need every available BTU in order to stop the oceans from freezing solid.”
“You don’t understand the science, son. The inhibitors did what they had to do eighty years ago. It just takes a century for the effects to percolate to the surface. The sun is going to cool, and we can’t stop it.”
by submission | Sep 3, 2012 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey
“Twenty-five quid”, the androgynous doorkeeper said, looking bored despite the deafening beats and boisterous atmosphere in the club behind him/her. I waved my hand over the ID scanner/ electronic debit transfer and hoped I had enough cash left for tonight’s shenanigans.
The bouncer was practically a wall of muscle and eyed me with impassive scrutiny. Even his eyeballs looked like they spent time on a universal gym. Guys like him were bred in test tubes, raised on steroids, protein and barbells and hired out to places like this by private security companies. What a life.
I slipped past him into the humid, smoky, inferno. My ears naturally adjusted to the volume, filtering out the damaging frequencies as my eyes compensated for the darkness, smoke and ultraviolet light.
I scanned the gyrating crowd. The usual suspects were here. Dougal stood out like a sore thumb. At nine feet, he towered over the other patrons and his mane of platinum hair glowed vividly in the black lights. Lennix was prowling. Her lithe figure moved with feline grace as she shamelessly seduced an obviously blitzed out emo-infant sucking a blinking soother. I wondered what his parents were thinking when they ordered that particular mod for their unborn. There was simply no accounting for taste. Tabitha was all breasts and hips, as usual, flashing her excessive cleavage to all who cared. Someone told me her gene mod included ample back support. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least.
I couldn’t see my chums, so I elbowed my way through the twisting, spinning, bobbing, slithering dancers, aiming for the bar. Someone caught my arm.
“Oiy, Maggie!” Damian squealed, his forked tongue darting salaciously across his thin lips.
“Hello, Damian. Long time no see.”
“Felicia’s looking for you.”
I nodded and let the crowd push us apart. I didn’t like being too close to Damian. Something about his pupil-less red eyes gave me shivers.
“There’s a ghirl what makes me horny”, a musky satyr slurred in Scottish brogue as I sidled up to the bar. His furry legs were obviously fake, but the horns and hooves looked real enough, as were the overpowering pheromones radiating off him like waves. “Cannae I buy you a drink, pett?”
I ordered a triple scotch. I was anything but a cheap drunk. My mother’s work, I’m sure. My mods included a ridiculously high metabolism and resistance to alcohol, which usually sucked, but at times like this it was a blessing. You take what you’re born with, I guess.
Thirty quid later he was less impressed by my womanly charms, but his pheromones were starting to affect me. I was grateful when Felicia tapped me on the shoulder and broke the aroused trance I was settling into.
Felicia’s unique epidermal mod was fascinating and beautiful. I don’t know how they did it, but the constantly changing melanin patterns were truly breathtaking. I kissed her long and hard, releasing my mounting desire triggered by the Satyr’s chemical excretions.
“Care for a third?” goat man crooned when we finally broke apart.
“Toss off, Puck.” Felicia said as she led me toward an empty booth, arm around my waist. “I’ve got wonderful news”, she whispered in my ear.
“What is it?” I asked as we cuddled in the shadows.
She patted her belly and grinned coyly.
I knew immediately what she meant. After six attempts, our in vitro transgenic hybrid had finally taken root in her womb. I smiled. Extensive gene mods had left us, like most people, infertile, but with enough cash and skilled doctors anything was possible.
We were having a baby!
by submission | Sep 2, 2012 | Story |
Author : Sierra Corsetti
He’s late again, which is becoming the norm. Unless he decided to jump off a high-rise on Level Three without his parachute again, I have no reason to worry.
I’m on Level Twelve in a bar that stinks of vomit and cheap liquor. Like Rex’s lateness, that’s not unusual either. Toilets don’t flush up, and when you’re at the bottom of a twelve-story city, you’re fresh out of luck.
I strum a few more notes on my guitar and unplug from the amplifier. Nobody’s listening and I’m not getting paid, so what’s the use?
They finally want me up top. The Dean sent a nice little note this morning saying if I come up, I’ll have all my training paid for and my mom will get the best care they can give her. And I’ll have a job where I can get a view of something more than gutters. But…
Rex shows up and throws back the rest of my drink before I realize what he’s doing.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says.
I sling my guitar across my back, toss some money to the bartender, and follow him outside. We step onto his hoverboard, me with my arms wrapped around his waist from behind, and take off.
He smells like fuel and grease, with a hint of the soap he uses to try and scrub the grime off. It’s all familiar to me, a part of me that I can’t imagine living without. I reach up for a moment to ruffle his hair, and know from the way his head tilts that he’s smiling.
The ride takes an hour, with transfer stations and all, but we finally set down on the top of the med center on Level One. We can see the sunset from here, but I suspect Rex chose here tonight because he knows something’s up. When I called him, I told him I wanted to talk. We both know that’s never a good thing.
“You could have all this,” he says after a long silence, and sweeps his arm to indicate the horizon. The honey-red sky lights the reflective windows of the tall buildings on fire, nearly blinding us if we look at them from the wrong angle.
“You could help people,” he presses when I don’t reply. “Sick people. Like your mom.”
But nobody can help my mom’s ALS. Even with all the prosthetics and drugs that enhance liver performance and muscle tone and eyesight and whatever else a person can possibly want.
“I could give her nurses and painkillers, nothing more.”
“It’s better than nothing.” Which is what she has right now, but he doesn’t say that.
And what would I have? More money than I’d know what to do with, a posh apartment, glamorous clothes, and people calling me Doctor Allie instead of ‘hey you.’
“But I wouldn’t have you,” I say, and turn to face him.
The look in his eyes could kill me, I swear.
“You’d make do,” he manages.
“And would you?” But he can’t answer that, and neither can I.
The sun’s nearly set now, and we’ve both begun to shiver in the growing dark. We’ll have to leave soon before the night security force comes out, but we can wait a little longer.
by submission | Sep 1, 2012 | Story |
Author : Chris Louie
Zanth was cool. He had this bad-ass helio-rocket that could take us out to Moon 2 and be back before curfew. We were always adept at breaking the rules, which was no small feat, considering the punishments for some of the stuff we did. Smoking space-pot, punishable by limb reallocation. Swearing, punishable by castration. And most of all, drawing, punishable by banishment to Io.
Drawing was his favorite activity. In my lifetime, it’s always been illegal to draw anything that doesn’t exist in the natural world, but Zanth would draw the most bucolic, crazy scenes. “This thing standing next to the tree, that was called a cow,” he’d say, pointed to his latest masterpiece. I was fascinated. Not only was the tree missing its electrical panel, there was this four legged–THING that was unlike anything else I’d ever seen. “An animal,” he’d say.
“An animal.” A scant two paragraphs in our grammar-school history books. “Animals: Extinct by the time of the great Fusion Revolution of 3:RR67, animals once littered the landscape, ruining the environment with their feces and using up valuable resources that could have been used for humans,” the books said. No pictures.
“I dream these,” Zanth would say, and the oddest things would appear on the paper. “Cats.” “Kangaroos.” “Beetles.” “What kind of cities did these things live in?” I’d ask. Zanth told me that they didn’t live in cities, that they were free, freer than the beta-humans whose wings took them to StrataCity and beyond, freer than the astronauts laboring in far-flung colonies, freer than ourselves. They had no language, yet they lived in violent peace. There was no order for the animals — there was just existence.
“They were assigned no Purpose by the Administration at birth?” I asked. “They had no purpose, except when we forced them to work in our fields or raised them to be slaughtered and eaten,” he said, and it frightened me, that this “cow,” this peaceful looking creature, once lived solely to be gutted and devoured by people. The playful-looking “dogs” had their tails cut off or ears clipped. The fascinating “insects” were killed outright, exterminated by home dwellers. “This went on for thousands of years,” Zanth told me.
“Until the Fusion Revolution, right? That’s when…they became extinct, because they hadn’t evolved to modern life like humans and beta-humans. They were obsolete,” I said, but Zanth was shaking his head. “No. They killed themselves. As unintelligent as we thought they were, they all acted in concert. When the first blades of grass started to glimmer with enhanced circuitry, it was like they all knew, all the animals at once, that the earth wasn’t a nice place to live anymore. Not that it had been in a long time for them, but it had become…hopeless.
“And so the next day, after the Fusion Revolution, people woke up to find that all the animals had died. They had given up.” Zanth started to cry, which I made him stop, because a patrolman was nearby and crying is punishable by electric flogging. We flew out to Moon 2, but the volcanoes didn’t seem as beautiful that day. We were both silent.
That was all a few years ago. Zanth went on to pursue a Permission to Create Art grant, but was kicked out of school when he was caught doing unauthorized doodling. I eventually went to medical school, and now I screen humans who are potential Beta Morph candidates. I never heard from Zanth after his stint on Io, but occasionally, in my sleep, I dream of Them. The animals, running across hills, swimming through oceans, climbing about trees. And silently, carefully, I cry.
