by Roi R. Czechvala | Apr 28, 2010 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
Herbert Quigman was not a man. Well, not a man like you and I. Oh, he had all the parts. Bi-lateral symmetry of course, four major appendages, a head with a nose, mouth, ears and eyes in, more or less, the general configuration one would expect. But the ancient saltwater that comprised much of his blood came from a different ocean, not the one in which we evolved, on a planet that circled a distant star.
However, he did share much in common with men like us. Herbert was an accursed man, for you see, Herbert was married.
After a gruelling day as an insignificant junior partner at Veeblefetzer, Blorquesuong and Goldstein, Herbert liked nothing more than the thought of retiring to his basement workshop to tinker in peace.
No sooner had Herbert donned his safety goggles and fired up his torch to complete his latest invention, when, from the top of the cellar steps came, the VOICE.
“HerrrrrrBERT! What the hell are you doing down there?”
“Nothing Dear, just tinkering with a project.”
“Myeh, myeh, myeh, tinkering with a project,” she said in that mocking tone that made his flooglesang stand on end. “Why couldn’t you be like Edith Cohen’s husband Mort? He runs a successful accounting firm you know.”
Yeah, and he’s only one shaky step to suicide, Herbert thought.
“I should have married Chaim Rosenblatt like my father wanted. `Now there’s a real man,’ my father said, `nothing like that little worm Herbert’ he said, but did I listen? Nooo, I had….”
As her hateful, nasal, tirade bore on, wistful fantasies flickered through the amateur inventor’s anguished mind. Thoughts of the peace and tranquillity that slitting his throat might bring. Drowning is a peaceful way to die, Herbert had heard somewhere.
The verbal harangue continued as Herbert plodded on, intent on completing this, his greatest invention to date. “And another thing Chaim is rich, do you hear me, rich. When was the last time I had a decent dress, or went out to dinner? Why, I am ashamed to have my friends over to this dump…”
“Honeyblossom? Could you come down here for a minute,” he called over his shoulder as he finished up and replaced a spanner to its outlined space on the wall above his workbench.
He remembered when they were first married. She was so delightful and gay. He loved to take her dancing. She used to stand on his feet, like a little blork dancing with her daddy. Now as she hauled her ponderous bulk down the flight of stairs, stairs that didn’t creak so much as scream, he shuddered at the thought of her standing on his toes.
“What do you want? You know how I hate it down here. It’s so wet, and musty smelling. Did you fart? You’re a real prize you know that? Why if I…,”
“Just hold these a moment Dear,” he said as he placed a smooth metal rod in each of her hands.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with these? Shove them up your….”
“and place this on your head,” he continued, placing a gleaming metal cap atop her thinning hair.
“I went to the salon today….”
“Just a moment Snookums,” he said as he threw a switch and adjusted a dial. There was a sharp crack, and a stifled yelp from Mrs. Quigman. She glowed as if illuminated by the noonday sun. Suddenly, she was gone, leaving just the faintest scent of ozone and a fine ash as the two rods fell to the floor.
“Ahhh,” Herbert sighed, “That’s better.”
by submission | Apr 27, 2010 | Story
Author : Dale Anson
We captured her javelin just short of a light year out from Earth. Javelins are small ships, roughly 30 meters long and about 10 cm in diameter at the widest point. Eighteen javelins were launched from a rail gun on the moon six years ago. Each javelin contained a small amount of maneuvering fuel for use at its final destination, and housed the downloaded contents of the minds of 64 people.
I’d been shocked when Allison told me the news that she’d been selected for a spot on the javelin mission. Literally millions of people had applied, and the computer programs had run for several months to calculate the optimal crew. I figured I had a better than passing chance since I work as a loadmaster for Virgin, but Allison got selected, not me. Those selected would have their minds installed into a dense carbon nano-structure, capable of holding the petabytes of information that described their minds. I begged with her not to go. Allison put me off, saying this was the chance of a life time.
I took some vacation days to drive her from LA to New Mexico, where she’d catch the flight from the spaceport to Aldrin base. I worked at her, trying to convince her not to go. The computers had secondary lists, I told her, she didn’t have to go. I offered to marry her, but she was determined to go. I held her tight during our last night together.
I dropped her outside the west gate of Spaceport America, she leaned in the window and gave me a quick peck. “I love you,” she said, but I couldn’t see it in her eyes. It must have been the way the morning light cast a shadow across her face. The last I saw of her was when she stepped onto a shuttle bus headed toward the distant buildings.
Technology is funny. When the javelins were launched, it was thought that they were the only way humans would ever be able to reach another star. The javelins are small and light, and the kilometers long rail gun launched them at a good fraction of the speed of light. Nothing invented by humans had ever traveled faster, and technically, still haven’t. It turned out that there is no need to travel that fast after the scientists figured out how to do the brane-bending trick and apply it to a large space ship. I don’t claim to understand the physics, but basically, the ship generates a field that bends space so the starting point and the destination are in essentially the same place, then moves the tiniest amount to complete the trip. Snagging the javelins mid-flight was only a little trickier — bend to a location in front of the javelin, and bend back when the javelin was within the ship’s field, and repeat about a thousand times to reduce the kinetic energy that the javelin was carrying to a managable level.
It didn’t take much for me to wrangle a spot as loadmaster on the ship sent to capture Allison’s javelin. I wanted to be there, and be able to talk to her as soon as her javelin was connected to the ships computer. We’d still have to figure out our relationship, six years have gone since I last talked to her, and she doesn’t have a body anymore.
I caught my breath as the screen came to life. “Allison!” I gasped. “God, how I’ve missed you.”
Her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened. “Dammit. I thought I’d never see you again.”
by submission | Apr 26, 2010 | Story
Author : Cael Majin
C’s hands are buried to the forearms beneath titanium straps, pressing the so tightly that C can feel the small capillaries that have already burst under the restraints, and will form bruises.
It asks again. “What is your identification?”
A grin, although there’s tired sweat stinging C’s eyes. “Come now, chancellor, we’ve been through this.”
“We will,” says the man – god, the man, and clinging so tightly to it – to the left of the processing robot, speaking over it, “continue to go through it until you admit to your crime. State your identification.”
“Can’t do that.”
Chancellor Sutton is tired of this game, leaning through the crackling field of static – it’s attuned not to harm him, he with his microchipped arms – and grasps C’s face in one warm hand. “You have been incarcerated,” he says. “You will never, ever be released from here. When your accomplices are found, they will be put to death. You have no cause, you are no valiant renegade. Tell me your name.”
“I have no name.” The restraints make it hard to shrug. “My friends call me C, and you can too, if you want. Let’s be friends.”
“What is your identification?” The screen asks again, ready with its brands.
“What is does this movement even stand for?” Sutton, bless him, genuinely doesn’t understand. “You admit you are human. Why will you not accept rehabilitation?”
C smiles. It burns a little. “Because I am human. So are you, chancellor. You’re human, no matter how many chips and labels and monikers you parade around to insist you’re not.”
“People have titles. It is the way society is run.”
“It’s still stupid. I have no name. I don’t want one.”
“You have no race? No culture, no ethnicity?”
“Would I be more or less human if I did?”
The processing screen hums quietly behind him. Sutton tilts C’s face, examining the scarred throat and arms. He just looks bemused. “Your surgeon is skilled, at any rate,” he says at length. “The entire medical staff couldn’t make out your gender.”
“Don’t have one of those, either.”
A moment passes, and C can see the confusion and revulsion so thick it’s almost a colour in the air. The metal-pressed bruises throb.
“Human,” C continues evenly, making sure the smile stays, “is something outside of identification tags. I won’t take your brands. I am not a number. I am not an American or a Russian or a man or a woman or a Jew or a member of the working class. I am human.”
Sutton’s frustration resurfaces. “You are a freak. You’ve mutilated yourself.”
“Drives you batty, doesn’t it?”
A cursor blinks on the screen, awaiting input in the form of the string of numbers that used to be tattooed onto C’s neck. It was scraped off; there’s a scar there now. Without it, C can’t even be catalogued into the proper prison cell.
“There’ll be more like me soon, chancellor. People are getting sick of this mass-produced inside-the-box shit.”
“They,” says Sutton icily, “will be executed just like you will be. Make your peace with God. I’d say you have about four hours.”
“Oh, I’m not religious,” C calls cheerfully as the chancellor exits the holding cell.
“What is your identification?” the screen inquires once more before the man snaps it off.
by submission | Apr 25, 2010 | Story
Author : Jeromy Henry
A spacesuit entered the bar. It wobbled a bit, then reached one white-mittened hand to grab a stool. The cracked, black vinyl of the stool seat spun, making the figure lean over briefly. It finally found its balance, and stiffly swung a leg over and sat down. With the black visor down on the round helmet, the other patrons could not see who– or what– wore the suit.
A tinny voice from the speaker on the chest said, “Dark beer. House.” That kind of flat voice only came from the inner computer unit of a suit like that. From the dangling, broken white machinery on the suit belt and a few busted seams and dirty spots, anyone who looked could tell this spaceman was down on his luck. No one let their suit go like that if they really intended to ship out. In space, a suit meant your life.
A grey-haired man two stools down nodded his head and took a pull from a glass stein. He wore the grimy blue of a mechanic, confirmed by the “Mars City Spaceport” tag on his front pocket and the streaks of black oil on his sleeve. Foam darkened his moustache as he tilted the glass. Barley lubricated his neurons and caused them to fire.
“He can’t talk. Must be a vet, like me,” thought the mechanic. A vein-covered hand thumped the heavy liter mug on the cracked blue plastic of the bar top. “Must wear the suit to hide his injuries,” his dizzy brain reasoned.
In fact, most surfaces of the bar were made of cracked, decaying plastic, the remnants of the ready-made building units brought by the first settlers fifty years before. Despite the garish blue, pink, and green squares, the grease stains and dim light saved the bar from looking like a preschool playroom.
“A round for my friend!” roared the mechanic suddenly, crashing his mug on the bar.
“Thanks, friend,” said the suit.
A waiter in a white apron and black jumpsuit brought two steins of dark, foaming beer and thumped them in front of the suit. A mitten dumped a plastic chit on the table, and slowly reached for a mug. The visor lifted a crack. With a tilt and a slurp, a third of the beer vanished. The waiter snatched the chit almost faster than the eye could follow, and turned away.
“Ah, good,” said the suit’s computer.
Inside, a different set of voices spoke, unheard by the patrons.
“Charles, you’re stepping on my head!” complained one voice.
“We take turns, Roy. It’s your turn to be the left leg!” growled another voice.
Panting broke out in the wet, hot darkness. It sounded like some animal, trying to cool itself on a summer day. Another voice, and then a third joined the panting chorus. Someone slurped, a wet and sloppy sound.
“It’s hot in here,” said a thin, high voice.
“Quit your complaining, Rita. It’s your turn next week,” Charles growled.
“I bet owners wish they’d never made us dogs smarter, and fixed us so we could talk,” said a low, mournful voice from the right leg.
The others chuckled.
The down-on-his luck vet slurped the last of his second beer, then stiffly rose to his feet and staggered to the door. On the way, he clapped the mechanic on one muscled shoulder.
“Next time it’s on me, pal,” said the tinny voice of the suit. “I come here every week, the same time.”
by submission | Apr 24, 2010 | Story
Author : Matt LaFever
“Don’t look at it.” She said while the white light scanned the treeline. He shut his eyes tight and held close to her. The massive truck stayed there for a minute; the two of them shivered in the night air. The second it drove away they started moving forward.
“Why shouldn’t I have looked?” He asked.
“They’d see the light reflect off your eyes.” She answered.
She was right of course. She’d been around longer than he had, longer than most people had. She was almost fifteen.
“How much further do you think it is?” He asked impatiently.
“Far enough”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“I know.” And they continued walking in silence.
They reached the gate as the morning sun rose. The gate was monstrous: Twelve-feet high, barbed wire, and probably had a deadly voltage running through it.
“How do you expect to get through?” He asked.
“We’ll dig.”
“There’ll be fence underneath, they’ll have thought of that.”
“Kid, just because they have computers for brains, doesn’t mean they’re smart. The only reason I’m still here talking to you is because the machines are dumb, they never expect the unexpected.”
“Is that why we’re breaking into a weather control station instead of a nuclear base?”
“That’s exactly why. Now shovel.”
She was right, she was always right. The fence stopped a few inches underground. They slipped inside quietly. The tall sheet-metal buildings around them were of robot design. You could tell because they were just boxes, huge metal boxes. Basic functions, that was the way machines thought. He’d always thought it was a shame they were killing everybody, but that was their function, they were artificial intelligence designed to survive at all costs. Since humanity was the only worthwhile threat to a robot’s life, it was decided that they should all be killed.
“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if the machines didn’t murder everybody?”
“Not really.” she said.
“Like, what if we all worked in harmony and we all tried to make a better world and stuff.”
“Yeah, I guess that would be nice.”
“Do you think I should bring it up to one of them?”
“I’m pretty sure they’d kill you before you got to the really good bits of your proposal.”
“Yeah, probably… Is this really the only way?”
“Yup.”
“Too bad, could’ve been a beautiful world.”
The building was in the center of the base. It was human design, it contrasted sharply with the surrounding house-sized boxes. It was a small white building with a rounded dome and an antenna on top. Inside was a computer about the size of a desk full of flashing lights and buttons.
“You know how to work it?” He asked.
“I read the manuals we scavenged, should be easy.”
She turned some dials and punched up some numbers, then took a deep breath and hit a button. In the distance missiles launched into the air.
“The payloads contain nanobots. Tiny machines too small to see. That’s what’s going to make it rain.”
“And it won’t stop?”
“By the time it does everything will be flooded, and the bots wont have anywhere to charge.”
“What about us? We’ll die too wont we?”
“Yup, it’s completely unexpected.”
They sat there, watching the sweeping lights of the trucks grow bright as dark clouds blocked out the morning sun. They sat there in complete silence, waiting for the world to drown.
