by submission | Jan 27, 2012 | Story |
Author : Victoria Barbosa
“You want to do what?” said Alice’s mother, Irene. “That’s insane!”
“Not really,” said Alice. “We always speak about time as if it were a great surprise, an uncontrollable element. I think it’s time we tamed it.”
Her father smoothed his muttonchop whiskers. “Has this something to do with all this monkeying around in your laboratory?”
“Something,” Alice said. “Come, I’ll show you.”
She led the way to her laboratory. They had seldom been inside, and stepped in gingerly, staring around.
They saw nothing out of the ordinary in the high-ceilinged, curtained room, unless it was the device on the table, a scintillating orb that whirled so fast it was a blur, emitting a faint buzzing sound.
“Is that it?” asked her father. “What does it do?”
“It’s a remedy,” said Alice. “You know how one is always saying, ‘oh how you’ve grown!’ to children? And ‘it seems as if Christmas was just last week, and here it is again.'”
“Yes, of course,” said Irene. “Time does seem to fly, and more so as you grow older.”
The twins, Agnes and Roger, peered in. “What are you doing?” Roger asked. “Can we see too?”
“Come in.” Alice drew her niece and nephew in, smoothing Agnes’ unruly red hair. “Remember the twins’ birthday party?” she asked her mother. “We enjoyed it, didn’t we?”
“I remember it,” said Agnes. “We had red balloons, and I got a doll and Roger a truck.”
“How long ago was it?” Alice asked.
“Why, it was . . .it wasn’t long ago. Let’s see, what month is this?” said Irene.
“We’re in summer,” said Alice.
“Why, then it was just last fall.. . ” Irene looked puzzled.
“But it seems much longer ago,” said Alice. “Doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s . . .it’s been quite awhile, but of course we’ve had Christmas since then, and Easter . . . and . .. .”
“Time has stopped,” said her father, looking pale. “You’ve stopped it somehow.”
He pulled out his pocket watch and consulted it. “The second hand is barely moving. I hadn’t noticed.”
“Everything in this house has remained the same for some time,” Alice said. “We haven’t really noticed because time is an unnatural element for us. We were meant, after all, to live in eternity.”
“Is this . . .eternity?” whispered Irene, looking around rather wildly, as if she expected to see archangels materializing.
“Not at all.” Alice laughed. “It’s just time slowed down.”
“But the supplies?” said Irene faintly. “The housekeeper . . .”
“Helga has bravely ventured out occasionally. Rather like stepping in and out of a moving carriage, she says. But there is a small problem.”
Her father looked grim.”What is that?”
Alice crossed to the window and lifted her hand to the curtain. “Well, things have not stayed the same outside. Time has been moving on, there.” She opened the curtain.
Bright sunlight spilled into the room, blinding them at first to the scene outside. Alice, who had not looked out for some months, blinked at it herself. Bridges and skyways looped from one soaring edifice to another, rising into apparent infinity, while under and around them whizzed vivid neon vehicles at speeds approaching sound.
“I’m not quite sure what will happen if I turn it off,” said Alice. “But I suspect we shall be quite an anomaly.”
by submission | Jan 26, 2012 | Story |
Author : Geoffrey Cashmore
Regret. That was new.
My life had been built into a shape where regret had no place. I only had one purpose – my entire existence leading up to it – and it wasn’t just me – I couldn’t even guess how many others were involved; working behind the scenes so that everything came together at the right place. The right time. Just so I could say that one word…
You wouldn’t believe there was anything special about Lenko. Not to look at him, anyway. I actually thought he was a little too stupid, even for a Senate candidate, but that shows you how much I know.
Fifteen years in the satellites, ferrying him from one station to the next while he built his popularity. Stuck in that ugly Behemoth without even any view-screens except for the docking cam. Not that there’s anything to see up there. Black space. All the stations, one just like the next.
There wouldn’t have been any regret back then. Every time he came back on board Lenko would slap me on the shoulder as I secured the airlock and tell me “not long now, Cormac. Not long now until I’m in the Senate and we can finally go down to the surface. Then it will all have been worth it.”
I’d nod my head and smile like the loyal servant he’d always taken me for.
And then one day it finally happened. The vote came and Lenko was a Senator.
The transmission with the access codes arrived straight away and I docked the B at Threshold – the only station I’d never been to before. We stepped through; inside the atmosphere for the first time. It had actually worked.
There were a few technicalities to sort out but within an hour we were in the car pool – and there she was.
Lenko was saying something about the honour the people had bestowed upon him and the privilege of becoming the first off-worlder to make it to the highest level of the legislation, but I just couldn’t take my eyes off the Zephyr. Perfect smooth lines, no jutting stabilizers or thrust pods. She gleamed in pale yellow – the first thing I’d ever seen that wasn’t the plain grey of spaceware.
The command centre was familiar – I’d done plenty of time in the simulators – but when we slipped out of the launch chamber and saw what seemed like the whole planet stretching around us on the view-screens, I could hardly breathe.
Even Lenko shut up for a minute to look out at it.
The low-level flight plan was pre-programmed for when we hit traffic closer to the surface but up there I could pull her in big banking arcs, punching the boosters just for the feel of it.
When we dropped in below the marker a little indicator on the panel started to blink and the automatics cut in. We drifted into the traffic flow and crossed the sprawling cityscape until the Senate building came into view. That was when I really started to feel it. All the years of preparation and biding my time, waiting.
I ran my fingers over the controls of the Zephyr.
Lenko was getting all choked up as we started final approach. We could see the Senators lining out in their bright blue robes on the docking point, and in the middle of them all – out there in broad daylight instead of hidden away in the depths of the palace – Garlania, the President. She was actually smiling as we touched down and the airlock opened.
Regret. It was the last thing I thought I’d ever have to deal with. Not for that fool Lenko, not for the bowing and scraping Senators who would inevitably be caught in the blast, and certainly not for the bitch Garlania.
As I speak the control word and feel the chemical reaction of the deadly device planted in my guts begin to mount, my one regret is that I only got to drive that beautiful car just once.
by submission | Jan 25, 2012 | Story |
Author : Maria Coello
“The problem with sibes – the main problem with sibes – is that they won’t lie down when they’re dead,” Kirsten said three days ago, spitting bits of sausage across the dinner table. I ought to have told her years ago, of course, but it never seemed like the right moment. By the time it became an issue I didn’t know how she’d take the news. “Fuckers keep coming back for more. And then when you’ve shot them to bits, their mates come around and put them back together again, and they come right back at you.”
“That’s nice, dear,” I said vaguely. I never wanted her to join the cops, but after her father got killed by one of his own creations she seemed to want revenge. It’s not what he’d have wanted, but there’s no way I could make her understand that.
“Last night,” she continued, “me and Lenny were in a bar, you know, a metal poke joint. A sibe brothel.” She only said these things because she knew they’d upset me. I sometimes thought that she really hated me. “This fucking plastic prozzy came up to Lenny, trying it on. Lenny nearly puked. They say the things are supposed to look like us, but God knows who’d find that attractive. Anyway, we got the metal madam locked up and booked a couple of the punters. Some of the sibes got in the way. It’ll be a few weeks before they’re walking around dirtying up the place again.” She laughed. I’m not sure where my daughter picked up such repellent views. We were always such a moderate family and her father’s role in the CYBE program was important to him. I’d met my daughter’s partner Lenny; a tall tattooed Cro-Magnon with a bundle of second-hand prejudices where his brains should be. He and my daughter, though it shamed me to admit it, were quite well-suited.
“So anyway, Mom, tomorrow’s their stupid Kruppler day,” she got up from the table, sending crumbs all over the floor. “They’ll all be out on the streets, the disgusting bastards, demanding equal rights and all sorts of stupid shit like that. There’ll be trouble. I need some kip. Night.” She pecked me on the forehead and went up to her room, clearly relishing the prospect of ‘trouble’.
That was the last time I saw my daughter until today. I watched the Kruppler Riots on the news. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but it seems to me that if you create a bunch of, well, people, as intelligent as humans, and expect them to knuckle down and do the dirty jobs with no rights, no pay and no representation, you’re asking for trouble. And they got it that night. Lenny came round to the house afterwards, his cap in his stupid great hands. I almost laughed in his face when he told me my daughter was dead.
So now I’m here at the morgue. I always said I was going to tell my daughter one day. I ask the usher for some privacy.
There is good news and bad news, I tell her as I reactivate her. The good news is that you aren’t dead.
I hope she sees things my way eventually.
by Roi R. Czechvala | Jan 24, 2012 | Story |
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
He awoke to the cloying smell of marijuana mixed with patchouli. His eyes fell on a poster featuring a cartoon rendering of a short bald man in yellow robes and flowing white beard. One sandaled foot was outthrust. The caption below the figure admonished the viewer to “Keep on Truckin'”
A soft sigh drew his attention back to the stunning beauty beside him. Soft auburn hair framed an angelic face. Her flawless skin was creamy white. He ran his hand across her full, firm breasts and down her taut stomach. Her eyes fluttered open. She smiled at him. “I love you, Dave.” She grabbed him and squeezed gently.
“Hey,” he said laughing, “I need those.” He bent and kissed her softly on the forehead. He rose and began to dress.
“You don’t have to go. You can stay with me. What’s there that you can’t have here,” she asked.
“Nothing Sweetheart, you know that. It is better here. Much better.”
“Look, there’s this guy in California I read about. He’s got a ranch in Death Valley. We could go there.”
“You don’t want to go there. Trust me. Nothing good will come of that place. I know.”
“Yeah, you do. Won’t you stay for me? For this?” She rose displaying her shapely figure and long legs to full advantage. Her unshaven armpits did nothing to curb the lust he felt.
“I want to, Beautiful, I want to so bad. But you know I can’t stay. I have work to do.”
“Come back to me. Promise you’ll come back. Promise me.”
“I will, Carol. I promise. To this very day.”
“How will you remember this very day.” She pursed her lips in a very attractive pout.
“How could I forget, Beautiful? Besides, it’s my birthday today. Or will be. In thirty years. I still can’t believe that you believed me right away. You’re too trusting.”
“I could read it in your eyes. Besides, any day now men will be walking on the moon. Why shouldn’t I believe that in sixty years there will be time travellers.” She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. “Please, come back to me.”
He bent and kissed her gently. “I will.”
“Dave, are you all right?” Several men ran to the crumpled form of Dr. David Jansen.
“What happened? Did I… The experiment…”
“Nothing happened,” replied Dr. Jay Snell, helping his stricken colleague to his feet. “You entered the machine, everything went fuzzy for a moment, there was a brilliant flash, then you collapsed.”
“So, it didn’t work?”
“No.”
“But I remember…”
A young woman burst into the lab. “Dr. Jansen. There is someone here to see you. I explained you were busy, she insisted. She said she is… urff…”
An elderly woman pushed the young lab assistant aside and with determination strode to face Dr. Jansen. “You lied, you told me you’d come back. You promised you’d come back to me. You lied.”
“Grandma, what are you doing here? You should be at the home. I promise I’ll visit Tuesday.”
“You promised you’d come back to me sixty years ago. You lied.”
“What are you talking about? I…,” his face fell as realization sank in.
“Why didn’t you come back to me? Was it because of her?” She pointed at the lab assistant, pulling her red hair back into a ponytail. “Does she remind you of someone?”
“Grandma… Caroline? No…”
“There is the question of our daughter. Do you think we should tell her? How do you think your… mother… will take it.”
“I’m going to be sick.”
by submission | Jan 23, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson
The herd of Separable Hybrates fed veraciously on the nutritious fungus. You had to get your fill when you could and patches like this didn’t usually strike up so abundantly this early on.
The old matriarch was larger than the rest, and her feeding tubes liquefied and drew in more fungus than most. As she cleared patches and clumps, her four main legs carried her slowly along toward more and more of the delicious food. Ahead of her six forelegs — which had long since stopped detaching for mating purposes- stood her head, which contained her forebrain and four thinner appendages.
As her six fore, four main and six aft load-bearing legs provided all the support, her quartet of head appendages typically hung limply, until they were needed of course, which was suddenly now.
As her mid body continued to feed hungrily, her head appendages straightened and made contact with the ground. As if on cue the matriarch’s wide face grimaced and her head detached from the rest of her body with a wet sound, millions of tiny nerve endings and muscles releasing their miniscule handshakes simultaneously. And away her crown bobbed across the field on those four spindly legs. This part handled all communications and upper level decision making, and there was business afoot with neighboring herds, important business regarding territory agreements, pasture sharing and the like. The head would be back again soon enough. A neighboring animal’s crown also detached and joined the matriarch’s, and as the two disembodied heads trundled off toward the neighboring ridge their host bodies continued to feed, their aft brains handling all necessary functions.
Nearby the sextet of another creature’s aft legs wandered by, returning a posterior section back to its host after a necessary bit of waste dumping in the nearby pit. And so did the animals function, their efficient bodies gaining maximum nourishment while detachable parts carried on about other important business.
The matriarch had now cleared an area of fungus twice the size of her home cave and it wasn’t even midday yet. Suddenly her head appeared on the ridge. Her aft brain was vaguely aware of its missing part’s proximity and imminent return through mild telekinesis, yet on it fed unwavering.
Soon enough the head returned and replaced itself onto the matriarch’s body without ceremony. Suddenly turned around in the other direction her face showed instant surprise and alarm as she spied the returning head of her advisor that had fallen quite far behind on its shorter and weaker limbs. But what had the old leader so concerned was the diving Skyrat.
For once the matriarch stopped eating, and turned all bladder valves skyward. She trumpeted a deafening call meant to both warn her wayward companion and possibly scare off the approaching marauder as well.
Skyrats were too small to lift one of her species whole but a separated head was relatively easy pickings for one of the strong predators. Sadly the attacker was not deterred in the least by her warning and the next thing she knew, the head and forebrain of her trusted advisor were picked up and carried off into the sky to be devoured.
Full of melancholy the matriarch went over to console the body of her now headless companion. She rubbed against it, sending thoughts through nerve endings. “Don’t worry,” she thought. “Maybe one day we’ll find you a stray,” knowing full well that stray heads were as rare as stray posteriors were plentiful. She then added a thoughtful gesture, “If you need to talk with your family at all, you can borrow my head.”
