by submission | Apr 7, 2012 | Story |
Author : Keigan Ewing
It was too good to be true. As Sonny hovered above the city, all but weightless, he couldn?t believe such technology existed. The feeling was indescribable. He marvelled at the device, humbly glowing in his palm as it worked its magic. Magic. That?s essentially what it was, he could only fathom as to how it operated. He had theories of course, but no evidence to support any of them. It was possible that it somehow interacted with the local gravity field, reshaping it in a way that caused it to forget he was even there. Regardless of how it operated, he was enjoying the experience. He reflected on how it came in to his possession.
The man who gave it to him had not said a word about the device itself. Only that it was necessary to leave it here for the time being. Sonny had no idea what the man was talking about, but something about his tone was familiar and soothing, almost fatherly. This was clearly very important to him, and Sonny found himself unable to deny him. So he took the device and promised to hold on to it. He had no idea why he was holding it, or for how long he was supposed to hold it, but it seemed like the right thing to do. After a brief thanks, Sonny could have sworn the man flat-out disappeared. Gone in the time it took him to blink.
As Sonny had started to walk home he noticed a slight warmth coming from the device now stowed in his jacket pocket. Taking it out to investigate, he noted a faint blue-green glow about it. He turned the small metallic object over in his hands. It was very subtle, and he wasn?t sure if he hadn?t noticed it before, or if it was a new development. Cupping the device in his hands, he suddenly felt the ground fall away beneath him. Panicked, at first, he considered throwing the small object as far from himself as possible. He quickly realized though, that he could control the velocity of his ascent. After gaining control over his flight he settled in at a nice viewing altitude above the city.
Sonny snapped backed to reality. Only now did he notice that he wasn?t the only person airborne tonight. There were a few others dotted around the nightscape. He could feel them more than see them, and he knew this was not the only area where this was happening. Sonny began to feel uneasy, only now questioning why this was happening. The giddy feeling of flying had worn off, and was slowly being replaced with one of dread. Without warning, the entire city went dark. In the distance he could see the lights of nearby towns going dark as well, one by one. The only light left came from the few people hovering above the infinite blackness. Sonny looked up, it seemed even the stars had gone dark. Still looking up, he saw the lights come on, and now understood where all the stars had gone.
by submission | Apr 6, 2012 | Story |
Author : Suzanne Borchers
Edwin studied the soft-fleshed android beside him on the laboratory bed. Fred had the same plug-in cables as himself, same size arms, legs, head and torso. What made Fred better? Was it his flesh colored appendages, his manipulative facial features, and his warmth?
Edwin tapped his cold metal fingers together. Father had pronounced him superfluous. Father had ordered him destroyed. Father didn’t want to see him ever again. Edwin despaired.
But then Edwin felt the warmth of the newly fused synapses in his brain. Even knowing Father intended to dismantle his parts and that he would be lost forever, Edwin didn’t believe it would happen. Was this warmth called hope? He remembered learning its definition long ago but not understanding the meaning. He still didn’t understand, but he enjoyed its warmth within his cold circuits. Could he survive? “Perhaps,” he murmured, and wished he could smile.
Edwin “slept.”
When Edwin’s circuits powered up in the morning, he found himself alone. Father had come for Fred and ignored him, leaving him to sleep, knowing the bed would be empty when he returned Fred that evening. Father didn’t want him. Edwin despaired.
Edwin welcomed the pulsing tiny warmth in his brain. Hope. He reached behind his head, stripped off the cables, and sat up. He waited. He hoped.
Hours later, footsteps approached. Measured, light steps. They weren’t Father’s steps. The cadence became faster, louder, and then stopped. The door opened slowly. A woman’s face appeared to scan the room until her eyes found Edwin.
Edwin remembered her as Father’s assistant. She would stand quietly as Father plugged in his cables. She was always in shadow. Hers was the feminine voice behind the door when Father ordered him destroyed. She was here. Edwin wished he could shudder.
As she approached him, Edwin realized her face was asymmetrical. Her right, blue eye was larger than the left. Her nose wasn’t centered, but pulled a bit to the right. She smiled at him with lopsided lips. A dimple on the right winked at him.
Could she understand how he felt? Perhaps.
“Hello, Edwin.” Her voice was soft. She reached out her hand to his and gently clasped it to flood his arm with warmth. “It’s time.”
Edwin jumped to the floor and paced his steps with hers. They left the room, moved down the corridor, entered the elevator, and rode down three floors. When the doors opened, Edwin hesitated.
He surveyed a large room filled with android parts in overflowing boxes. Metal heads stared blindly from rows on a top shelf, with huge crates marked “Feet,” “Hands,” “Arms,” and more on the successive lower shelves. Across the room, two technicians were dismantling a metal android on a slab.
His brain pulsed with warmth that became fainter as he stood looking out of the elevator. This was the end. Father had ordered her to destroy him. It was her job.
He felt cold, and he despaired. He wished he could disobey. He wished he could plead.
He hoped it would be over soon. “I’m ready,” he said.
He stepped out of the elevator with the woman. He began to move toward the technicians when she stopped him.
“No, Edwin,” she said.
She led him to a door that opened at her touch. As it opened, he blinked his eyes at the brightness on the other side. He stepped through the doorway into warmth.
“We’re going home.” She gently squeezed his hand.
Edwin wished he could smile.
by Patricia Stewart | Apr 5, 2012 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“It was one hundred years ago today, on April 6, 1992,” stated Joshua Noyle, “that one of the greatest minds in the history of mankind passed away.”
“And who might that be?” inquired Tom Vittna, although to be honest, he didn’t really care.
“Isaac Asimov, of course,” was the matter-of-fact reply. “And today, I will continue the legacy of his favorite story, The Last Question.”
“Is that why you dragged me out here to the edge of the solar system, to pay homage to some long dead science fiction writer?”
Annoyed, Noyle raised his hand and began ticking off his rebuttal. “One, he was much more than a science fiction writer. Two, that story encompasses the essence of universe, the ebb and flow of time, the very…”
“Okay, okay, I yield. What’s the plan?”
“I plan to decrease entropy in a closed system.”
“What, reverse entropy? Violate the second law of thermodynamics. That’s impossible. Damn you Joshua, if I knew you were bringing me out here for such a lame brained scheme, I would have…”
“I can do it, Tom. I just need you to stay on the ship and watch my back. If the experiment goes awry, I need you to shut it down remotely.”
“Whoa, what experiment?”
“I’m going to take the Entropy Reverser with me in the shuttlecraft and establish a reverse entropy bubble around it. I’m not sure what will happen on the inside, so I need you to collapse the bubble by throwing this switch five minutes after I start the experiment.”
At this point, Vittna was more concerned about his friend’s sanity than anything else. Better humor him for now, he thought, and figure out how to get to the medical cabinet for the hypo sedative without raising suspicion. “Alright, Joshua, I’ll stand by the switch. But tell me what you expect to happen, er, inside the bubble?”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure,” Noyle replied. “In many respects, entropy is a measure of the direction of time. As time moves forward, entropy is always increasing. I suppose that when I reverse entropy, time will move backward. I’m taking an atomic clock with me to measure the effect.”
“Is it safe?” inquired Vittna as he meandered toward the storage closet. As Noyle began answering, he ducked onto the closet. He found the sedative and returned to the bridge, but Noyle was already gone. Looking out the forward viewport, he spotted the shuttlecraft moving away at maximum speed.
***
When Noyle was far enough away from the mothership, he primed the Entropy Reverser. A few seconds later, three green lights flashed across the control panel. Smiling, Noyle activated the Reverser. Instantly, he regretted it. He tried desperately to inhale, but the cabin air refused to fill the partial vacuum within his lungs. Millions of chemical reactions within his body no longer sought to lower their free energy, but to increase it. The fluids in his body froze solid. He died an agonizing, but rapid, death. The bubble began strengthening exponentially. It reached out beyond the fundamental force of electromagnetism, and began reversing the nuclear forces, and finally, gravitation.
***
Back on the mothership, Vittna watched as the shuttlecraft collapsed in a flash of blinding light, followed by the explosion of space itself. In a millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second, the cosmological inflation consumed his ship and raced outward in all directions. In a few minutes, the new expanding universe would be cool enough to begin nucleosynthesis.
by Julian Miles | Apr 4, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Underarm with the knife!”
Every instructor I have ever had said that. It’s not strictly true, but it’s a good start. When it comes right down to it, you stick the knife through any gap available, switching grip as necessary. You need to be quick to do the switch, but after a few hundred years it becomes second nature.
I come back to the moment to find Corporal Stevens flying through the air and Sergeant-Major Kejiro looking at me intently. I must have lost the plot and used an old move for getting rid of irritating knifemen quickly. I straighten up shakily by over-correcting my suit and finish in a very non-combative stance, pointing at Stevens.
“How?” I ask plaintively.
Kejiro relaxes a bit as the other recruits laugh at me. Drill resumes and I spend the rest of the session being very average. After the post-session diagnostics and stripdown I take a long run.
This planet is like rural Lincolnshire; level with far horizons across rolling farmland, broken by copses where plants resembling dog-daisies nestle under wind-biased trees. There is nothing moving. With our sentry gun regime, the lack of visible activity is easily understood. We could be inadvertently conditioning a new generation of stealth predators to trouble the local farmers and hare equivalents, all in the name of security.
Returning several sprinted kilometres later I head for the showers, having left enough time for the other recruits to move on. Coming out of them I find Kejiro waiting. I had been too good at being not very good for the rest of the session, it seems. He casually asks me: “When did you study with Abuta?”
“Just before the dojo-“ I pause. He had asked me in formal Japanese. Oh, I was having an off day today.
Kejiro swings himself to stand square in front of me before performing a deep bow. He straightens up but keeps his head down, gaze below mine. Of all the places to meet a believer.
I say the words again: “Look up, warrior soul. I am nought but a ghost passing on the wind.”
He does so, his features suffused with wonder and question: “Kalpa-sama?”
“Yes. But I shall be gone soon, out to battle amongst the stars. Can you hold true?”
He looks about carefully before dropping to his knees and making the shin bow to me, with not a teapot in sight.
“I can, soke. But may I ask, how came you here?”
He deserved that, at least.
“From Thermopylae to Fuji to Mars to here, I have followed the centuried trail of the one who told me to come and find my kin when I was ready. I am slowly going home. Rise.”
He stands, a tentative smile on his face. Then he turns to one side and gestures with his far hand: “Would you take tea? My grandfather sends it from Akihabara. Then I would ask a favor.”
Here it comes. It always does.
“I would like to take Ikebana to the stars, hakase. It is said that you studied Ikenobo?”
Astounding. I expected the lost five kata of the Nine Dragons, or maybe the nerve touches of the Linguakai. But this? Hundreds of light-years from Kyoto a man is asking me to teach him the purest art of flower arranging. I am humbled again. This time, I bow to him.
“It would be a pleasure. Lets have that tea and discuss the fundamentals.”
by Clint Wilson | Apr 3, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
The depressing gloom of twelve noon hanging dark in brown smog was only outdone by the endless rows of ash grey skyscrapers; so many housing projects, so many broken windows, so many bodies rotting in the steel towers of the eastern seaboard.
An open sign buzzed in the window of a greasy bar and grille that fought to stay noticed amongst the shadows of tattered awnings and flapping clotheslines. On the dirty sidewalk in front, a seagull with one eye was fighting over a severed human finger with a tattered black raven. A sudden FRAAAP!!! of a bored out Harley shovelhead engine running through open pipes echoed off the cement jungle and both birds scattered, the finger rolling unclaimed into the storm drain for the rats.
A headlight crested the rise and seemed to aim directly at the bar and grille. Badass Benny Boots knew the joint. He gunned the hardtail’s 103 inch engine and headed straight for Uncle Larry’s.
A size 15 Doc Martin flicked out a chrome kickstand as the big shovelhead motor hissed and farted to a halt in front of the run down establishment. The six-foot-five 275-pound man swung his leg over the chopper, got up, stretched and yawned, his leathers creaking in accompaniment.
Suddenly there was the scuff of a shoe in a nearby alley opening, followed by a click.
Benny rolled his eyes and sighed, “Here we go again.” He spun on his heel, drawing his plasma cannon with the speed of an old west gunfighter. And before the desperate junkie could raise his beat up ancient revolver, he had a fist sized hole burning in his chest.
The huge man holstered his weapon and disappeared into the gloom of the bar. The front door slammed shut behind him as the dead junkie keeled over onto the sidewalk.
“It’s amazing what a guy has to do to get a beer and a burger around here.” He eyed Uncle Larry, a short Chinese man with a stony face and a stern gaze. “Gimme the special Larry.” The biker suddenly noted nervousness in the proprietor’s eyes. Benny looked toward the restroom’s slightly ajar door. He shook his head sadly, “Here we go again.”
The drug dealer, an old adversary of Benny’s, suddenly burst forth from the toilet with machine gun in hand. Again the plasma cannon sprung forth from its holster. Again it left a gaping smoldering hole in the chest of its target. And as the dealer collapsed to the cheap linoleum Benny turned back to the bar, to see smiling Uncle Larry plop down what he had ordered. A frothy pint of lager and a charred piece of meat, hopefully not rat, on a stale crusty bun, a bit of heaven on earth.
And as he sat upon the bar stool he could smell the bubbles from his beer. He smiled and picked up the burger. He opened his mouth to take a bite and saw, in the reflection of the chrome napkin holder, a figure in a black balaclava raising a huge knife above his head.
He began to set down his burger, his brow furled. “Here we go again.”
