by Duncan Shields | Oct 25, 2010 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
She came from the First Cities. I suppose that’s why we all thought she was stuck-up. Our whole office gave her the cold shoulder.
Not that she acted like it. She was just quiet. To our fertile and vengeful minds, she appeared haughty and aloof. Too good for us. Looking back on it, she was probably just terrified of our overt, racist ignorance.
With each day that she failed to figure out a way to make friends, our opinion of her cemented.
Not that any of us walked forth with an offer of coffee. God, I hate looking back on those days.
It was the damn colony ladder social formation. “A combination of royalty and democracy”, they called it. “Screw those who had the bad taste to be born here out of wedlock”, we called it. The families that landed first made the rules and made provisions for their children.
It wasn’t long before the first bastards were born. It’s harsh setting up a colony. Those bastards were put to work and stripped of their last names. So were their parents.
The seven First Cities (New Omaha, New Minsk, New Albion, New California, New Vancouver, New Singapore, and New New Delhi) still maintained strict adherence to original colonization dogma. They preached abstinence before marriage and were obscenely rich off of the original patents set up by their fore-fathers. The last names that came out of those cities were known world-wide as the ruling class.
They were also the keepers of The Needle.
That was the communications array that kept us in contact with updates from what they called our Home System. The updates were centuries out of date when I was a child. I still remember the day that The Needle went silent. On all of the screens, the First Cities Networks showed the faithful in the streets, wailing, not knowing how or why their god had gone silent.
My father simply said “Well, that’s that.” and got up to get another drink. Our whole family was fifth-generation bastards with no last name like our entire neighbourhood.
The First Cities were outnumbered. Their only strength was their stranglehold on the economy and their status as keeper of The Needle. Now that The Needle was no longer talking, a lot of the rest of the population of the world became increasingly concerned about the unfair distribution of wealth.
A rebellion was brewing. Sides were being chosen.
All this was happening when the First Cities girl joined our office. I got trapped in an elevator with her. We shared a few nervous hellos at first and then I launched into a tirade about why I hated her people.
Astoundingly, she agreed with most of it.
I listened to her talk about what her parents had told her about keeping the rest of the planet in line and how she didn’t like it.
She’d run away. We pretended to keep hating each other but over the next few months, we ended up sleeping over at each other’s apartments. It was only a matter of time before people found out.
My friends disdainfully said I was really ‘coming in first’ and stopped calling me after I broke one of their noses on a lunch hour. They washed their hands of me. I shouldn’t have been surprised that it happened so quickly but it hurt.
We’re both outcasts now and we couldn’t be happier. We moved in together. The rebellion’s coming but we’ll worry about that when it gets here.
by submission | Oct 24, 2010 | Story
Author : Clint Wilson
Dan was excited as he ushered his wife and children into the 2100 Exposition’s most popular attraction. “The World of Tomorrow” was in actuality the world of well over a century ago depicting what the future was supposed to become one day.
“Look at the cheesy old coms Dad!”
“Those were called phones Jason.”
Just then a holo popped up in front of them. It was a basic host-guide type, tall, handsome, perfect teeth, impeccably dressed. It spoke to Jason in a deep, commanding voice. “Your father’s right Jason. The word “phone” is short for “telephone” and the so-called futuristic vision of this portion of the exhibit was limited to folks one day being able to carry them around wherever in the world they went, which actually did come to pass, but only for a few short decades before plants became affordable.”
Jason absent-mindedly flexed his facial muscles and the green icon came into view in his lower right perception, showing him that he was on-line and had in fact left a browser open to his friend Steven. He exercised another small facial tick and the browser closed. Then he continued along after his family and the holo.
Now they moved into a supposed modern kitchen where the guide explained that people had once reveled at how an archaic and dangerous device called a “microwave oven” was able to make meals available in minutes.
Nine year old Jennifer looked bored as she said, “So what? What’s so great about taking that long to prepare food?”
The holo laughed in a smarmy, condescending way, a way typically reserved for country club chaps, “Oh little girl, the microwave oven didn’t prepare food, it merely heated it!”
Jennifer scowled, not in distaste at the holo’s comment, but because it was the motion required to activate her dine-pod. Less than a second later a steaming cinnamon bagel sprang from her carry-all and into her hand. As she munched her instant treat they carried on. Both her and her mother found the exhibit mostly uninteresting and entirely overrated, but Jason and Dan were still enjoying themselves.
“Look at the old two dimensional flat screens Dad. Can you imagine watching that all day? Say, when exactly was 3V invented?”
All in all they spent another twenty or so minutes in the exhibit before finally making their way out and then gradually toward a park exit. It had been a long day and they had seen pretty much all there was to see. Jennifer and her mother were tired and lagged behind as the family crossed the huge parking lot. But Dan and his son were still energized about the whole experience.
“So what was your favorite thing all day son?”
“The World of Tomorrow!”
“Yeah that was pretty good alright. It sure is funny though how people lacked any real vision as to how things would turn out. I mean everything seemed so… well… as you put it, cheesy!”
“Except for the flying cars though, right Dad?”
“Yeah, I have to admit, they were pretty cool. I can’t believe they still… Oh crap!”
“What’s the matter Dad?”
Dan pointed at their two year old Gates which sat in a parking stall directly ahead. “Would you look at that, we’ve got a flat tire!”
by submission | Oct 23, 2010 | Story
Author : David Barber
The boy grew tired of scrubbing crud. He wiped his nose, streaking chlorophyll across one cheek.
The green boomed and bust. The man knew this. Booms, you tapped off the extra green. Busts, you dumped the crud into the recycler and started with fresh green. But the tank had to be clean first. The boy knew this now.
Tell me about when they threw things away.
The man roused himself, focused on the boy.
I mean, where did they throw them to?
The world was bigger. They just left them somewhere else.
But
His apprentice asked lots of questions and the man kept explaining but the boy just wasn’t very bright. People said IQ had dropped. Some by-product that was building up in the closed loop. Or getting low. Nobody knew. Nobody even knew how to find out. Some said it was nonsense, but then the stupid would say that.
What did they throw away?
Everything. They had so much they just picked up a new one.
The boy sort of understood new. Each daymeal was new. It might be yeaststick or krill cake. Sometimes it was vegetables. Vegetables was best. The boy knew this. It was the notion of something being wasted he didn’t get.
Like stuff, he suggested.
Stuff was the irreducible exhausted residue left over. Recyclers wouldn’t touch it. Not now anyway. Lots of strains had gone weak.
No, said the man irritably, Not like stuff. What do we do with stuff?
The boy sniffed. Another flu going around. Chairs, he said. Shoes.
Furniture that bent. Cups that sagged when hot. They stored bricks of stuff in case somebody came up with a use for it.
Nobody wants stuff to be to wasted do they?
The boy shook his head.
Alright. Say a man has a worn-out shoe.
Couldn’t he mend it any more?
I don’t think they mended much. They’d take the shoe and… just bury it somewhere.
But where’s the new shoe come from?
Hard to explain a world full of things and empty of people.
They made it out of things that hadn’t been used before.
The boy wiped his nose again, unconvinced.
Look, said the man, impatient now. They took things from the pile they hadn’t used yet and when they’d used them up, they threw them on another pile. Alright?
The man didn’t hit the boy much but he was getting angry again. The boy couldn’t get past that first pile getting smaller. Best he said nothing.
Nightmeal was krill cake. Another baby had died in their corridor. This new flu mainly hit the young. People watched silently as they did the recycling. Only the mother tried to interfere.
The man usually read until his eyes got tired. There was talk of tithing books again. Cellulose for the bulk feedstock. But the man knew it was iron and magnesium the green needed. Grumbling, he looked everywhere for his book.
The clean tank waited to be seeded with fresh green tomorrow. The boy settled down behind it and thought hard about waste.
Something not put in the recycler. He tried to see what that meant. You could tear it up and scatter it. But that was just mulching. You could even eat it and it still wouldn’t be wasted.
It took hours to move blocks of stuff, bury the book deep and cover it up again. He’d thrown the book away.
He said it out loud. He’d wasted it. The boy tasted what it was like to be selfish.
In years to come, he remembered that was how the end began.
by submission | Oct 22, 2010 | Story
Author : Thomas Gray
Luckily, I guess you might suggest, he came at a bit of a sticking point for Me in that I’d sorted the algorithm for maintaining which level of quantum field to generate, I just couldn’t get it to stay to that level for longer than a few nanoseconds.
“You had the partitioning for the molecular quantifier set up all wrong” He explained to me over eggs the morning after.
That should have been the first sign. I had always been allergic to eggs, and I know, KNOW you can’t make people “un-allergic” to things, it’s part of your DNA, you can’t change it.
“Some medical guys managed to change all that, man” Fuck, He sounded just like Me.
“So I guess I can have eggs, and you can’t? Sucks to be you!” He says with a harmless laugh, that same laugh I’ve laughed a million times over. I so, so want to believe Him.
His reason for coming, he told me, was to
“See life on the other side of the sub-cosmic fence” with My grin and My Eye and My Hair and My mind.
I should have remembered that he had My mind.
Because, you see, I’m not a completely nice person. I’ve tricked people for personal gain. I’ve lied to get high in the world. I’ve conned to make my money. After all, the equipment for a Dimensional Drift Barge doesn’t come cheap.
I should have remembered He thought like Me.
His visit was only scheduled to last two weeks, but He left after only a week and a half. I should have realised something was amiss, but I had spent two weeks feeling as if He could read My mind, know when to laugh or cry, understand every concept I could ever express. Hell, it felt like I’ve made the best friend in the world. I was truly saddened when He left.
She had been backpacking around Europe when He arrived. I had missed Her everyday, but the arrival of an exact copy of “the self” from another dimension tends to push things like “spouses on vacation with friends” out of your mind.
Once He had left, and I had got over the somewhat “overwhelming” shock (as I’m sure the reader can imagine) I started dropping her emails again. I was bemused to find Her mother replying to them.
She had disappeared the day before He headed for home.
I received an email about a month later. He had told Her that He was Me. That I (He) had perfected the drive for interstellar travel, and had convinced her to leave Her old life behind and join Me (Him) in a new world, full of possibilities.
In My world, we were married at 21, had two daughters, and the only thing in the universe greater than our love for them was our love for each other.
In His, she had died in a car crash 4 months prior to him concocting his plan.
To steal Her from Himself.
I still cry everyday, lose my breath in the night from crying so hard, sadness still grips Me like the sadness, not of being forgotten, but unable to forget.
It took Him 4 months to decide. I hope She’s happy. Truly.
The worst part?
It wouldn’t have taken Me 4 minutes.
by submission | Oct 21, 2010 | Story
Author : Timothy Marshal-Nichols
I never did like Manzoor’s driving. I much preferred the modern way. Put your license in the Drive Slot and then the Transport Device does it all. That’s conventional, easy and, above all, safe. But that methodology was far removed from Manzoor’s temperament. And he always insisted on driving.
As soon as we set off I wished I’d never given in. “I’ll drive carefully,” he had promised. “Be in auto the whole way,” he had insisted, “we’ll just relax, chill out, some sounds.” I knew these promises, knew them well and I knew what he’d do. I was the elder brother so why did I always gave in?
No sooner was the Transport Device on the roadway than it was clicked out of auto. Manzoor was doing 350 plus in a 200 zone.
“You promised me,” I screamed.
But he was enjoying himself way too much to listen. As brothers we could not be more different. Five minutes later it happened. Inevitably we shot passed a Patrol Unit loitering at the roadside. Inevitably the Unit started after us. Inevitably there’s no outrunning these miserable androids.
Everyone hates these Patrol Units, even I do. These androids lurk at the roadside scanning for any minor traffic offence. Attached to speed bikes they can outrun any conventional Transport Device. Mostly they do not need to. They can force most Transports stop automatically. It’s all an easy source of state funds and the fines imposed are exorbitant. Even worse, as my brother has no income, it will be me who’s culpable.
“What did I tell you,” I said, I was not at all happy, “I knew this would happen.”
“Relax wimp,” Manzoor said, “no hassle,” and the transport unit glided to a standstill.
“I got this,” he said calmly, “so shut your mouth.”
The window of the Transport Device slid down and a nonchalant Manzoor poked his head out.
“Problem?” he said.
The Patrol Unit dismounted and mechanically strutted up to Manzoor.
“Do you know what speed you were doing?” the units synthesised voice rattled in a dull monotone.
“I afraid not, sir, were in auto the whole way.” I could not believe Manzoor could utter such a flagrant and obvious lie. How could he expect not to be caught out?
“Can I see your license sir.”
Manzoor took his license from the Drive Slot and held it out to the Patrol Unit. The Unit’s hand scanned it. The demeanour of the Patrol Unit immediately changed and adopted a somewhat less aggressive and intimidating stance.
“Have a nice journey sir,” the Patrol Unit’s voice crackled. Then it – gulp – saluted. Really, it saluted.
What? I was just amazed. I could just not believe what I saw. Manzoor just smiled on benignly.
The Patrol Unit returned to its bike, mounted, and set off at a pedestrian pace. I still could not believe it and stared at Manzoor. These Patrol Units are always, but always, extremely harsh on even the most minor traffic infringement. As the window of the Transport Device slid shut Manzoor grinned.
“Viral,” he said.
“What?”
“Viral, the license, it’s viral. Suckers.”
I had heard of such things, rumours always rumours, but had never know anyone who possessed such a thing.
“Where you’d get it?”
“That’d be telling. Did you get that sucker ‘have a nice journey.’ What a mug.”
Manzoor smirked. It was that smug superior smirk that always annoyed me so. And Manzoor knew it, yes he knew it. That’s why he enjoyed it so.
He shoved the license in the Drive Slot and put his foot down. Almost instantly we were back on the 350 plus. In seconds we had caught up with the Patrol Unit and Manzoor gave a friendly wave as we sped passed.
I hung my head in shame.
