by submission | Nov 29, 2009 | Story
Author : Jeff McGaha
A red-haired man walks directly up to the customer service counter. He carries in his right hand a metal cage with a tiny brown hamster inside. Reaching the counter, he drops the cage thoughtlessly, jostling the small creature inside.
“Scuse me,” He says to a man in a royal blue short-sleeved collared shirt.
“Yes sir, how may I help you?”
“I’m havin’ some problems with Neo here. I thank he’s broke.”
“Ohh, that is unfortunate. What is exactly is the problem?”
“He got out de other day and attacked me cat.”
“Ohh, that is too bad. Is your cat okay?”
“Naw, he’s dead.”
“Ohh, my.”
“Yeah, hampsters ain’t suppose to attack cats. Suppose to be de other way round.”
“Ohh, yes. Most definitely. I am sorry to hear about your cat.”
“It’s okay. Been meanin’ to get a fake one anyways. I ain’t got de time to keep takin’ care of a real one anymore.”
“I completely understand, sir. I have two artificial dogs myself. I do not know why anyone would want a real animal anymore.”
“Dogs, eh? Not much fer dogs. I’m more of a cat person.”
The man in the royal blue shirt nods and reaches into the cage and grabs the hamster. The hamster growls at him.
“That is not right. Hamsters definitely do not growl. I definitely know what the problem is then.”
“So, you’ll be able to fix ‘em?”
“I believe so.”
The man in the royal blue shirt holds the hamster in his left hand and pinches the hamster’s head with his right thumb and index finger. The hamster becomes rigid and the top of his skull pops open, exposing a tiny socket. The man in the royal blue shirt pulls a small hand held device out from under the counter. There is a short cable wrapped tightly around the device. He unwinds it and plugs the end of the cable into the jack embedded in the hamster’s skull. He taps on the hand held device for a few seconds.
“Yes. It appears that the hamster has inadvertently been given canine programming rather than rodent programming. That’s an easy fix.”
He taps a few more times on the hand held device. The hamster goes limp.
“Okay, everything is fine. I have just flashed him with rodent programming. He will be up and acting normal in about 10 minutes.”
“Thank gawd. My kids woulda been real upset if anything happened to Neo.”
“Yes, sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“Yeah, ya got any calico’s in stock?”
by submission | Nov 28, 2009 | Story
Author : Erin Searles
“Cats,”said Big Fat Dave. “It was cats that started it in this reality.”
In his channel’s feed I saw Archibald, Big Fat Dave’s big fat cat, stretch as if in agreement.
He continued: “You know how cats will watch something or someone crossing a room when you can see there’s no one there. That ‘s them watching people on alternate reality channels. That’s how we figured out how to do it. Scientists did studies on cats’ brains.”
“I doubt it.” Pink Dave scoffed. Pink Dave hadn’t chosen his own nickname. The day we all first met Pink Dave had been wearing a pink shirt and tie. He didn’t like it, but nicknames stick.
Recently things hadn’t been going so well for Pink Dave. We hadn’t seen him in a shirt and tie for a while. He’d stopped shaving for so long that he was a better candidate for Bearded Dave than I was. Maybe he could be called Bearded Dave when I was gone.
“It was those scientists at CERN, right?” He looked to me and Not Dave for agreement. “You Daves have CERN in your worlds, don’t you? Back in the noughties they build a machine they thought might end the world, but instead they discovered how to view the alternate realities.”
I wasn’t keen to gang up on Big Fat Dave, who worshipped his cat slightly more than was healthy. I answered as diplomatically as I could.
“Yeah, we have a CERN here and they did build the LHC, but I don’t remember anything coming of it. I think the tech came from the American military on my channel.”
Not Dave shrugged. “It’s probably different for all the channels, that’s the point of alternate realities, right?”
Not Dave’s name was actually Andrew, we didn’t know why. Like the rest of us he was the 32 year old son of Jack and Nicola Upton, but in his reality they had called him Andrew, not Dave. It was strange for him to realise after a lifetime of being an Andrew that he was, according to probability, a Dave. He elected to be known as Not Dave, despite not needing the differentiating nickname.
Pink Dave was about to start arguing again. I headed him off:
“Guys. Do we want to spend my last night retreading the same old arguments?”
“Hell no,” said Not Dave. “ Let’s raise a glass to Bearded Dave.”
They all lifted a can, in strange unison in their respective corners of my screen. Not Dave and Pink Dave had beers; Big Fat Dave was drinking Coke.
“Bearded Dave,” they chorused.
I picked up my own drink to toast them back.
“Dave, Dave, Andrew it’s been a pleasure knowing you all. I wish we could carry on being friends… I’ll always remember you.”
We all lapsed into silence. It was close to midnight, the time when my channel would block all other realities from viewing us, and, as the inter-reality laws decreed, be blocked in return – who wants someone watching you when you can’t watch them back. Despite international outrage my reality’s committee governing reality channels hadn’t backed down. People had been given a month to say goodbye to friends on other channels while the final appeal went through. It had failed and at midnight the switch would be thrown.
“It sucks, man.” said Big Fat Dave.
More silence. One minute to midnight.
“Bye Daves.”
“Bye Dave.”
“Bye mate.”
“See you Dave.”
Black screens. Channel 1353 had blocked. I sat back in my chair – an isolated Dave in an isolated world.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 27, 2009 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Harry nudged the body in the lobby with the toe of his boot, weapon unwaveringly pointed towards the head. Satisfied he was dead, Harry retrieved his knife and the man’s keys, turned and carefully locked the front doors.
The entrance secured, he stepped over the body, moved cautiously around the reception desk and slipped quiety through the doors deeper into the clinic.
From a distance, Harry could hear voices in a language he couldn’t make out.
Empty gurneys lined the hall, hospital-blue sheets cast grey in the dim after-hours lighting. At the first open door he paused, holding his gun down against his leg, two handed and ready, he peered around the doorway into the room. Empty. In the corner an LCD panel displayed the x-rays of the day’s last patient. Trans-tibial amputation. Left leg.
Continuing down the hall, the next doorway was closed off, light spilling into the passage through a plate sized portal at eye level. Harry stepped away from the door and allowed his eyes to adjust as he surveyed the room within. There was one doctor with his back to the door and two additional figures, gowned and masked passing instruments in response to barked instructions.
Harry wet his lips, then pushed open the door with his shoulder, bringing his gun to bear as he rotated into the room.
Two sets of eyes widened, then disappeared from view behind the table as his SIG Mauser barked twice, dropping the nurses where they stood.
The third figure spun about, scalpel pinched between thumb and forefinger, ready to cut.
“What are you doing? You can’t discharge a weapon in here, you’ll contaminate the merchandise.” The doctor’s English was crisp and matter of fact.
On the table behind him, Harry could make out part of a familiar phrase inked down the left arm the surgeon had been preparing to sever at the shoulder. “Fidelis”.
“You’ve made a bit of a mistake, Herr Doctor.” Harry moved away from the door, weapon leveled and steady. “That body you farmed this evening isn’t what you think.”
The doctor raised his hands slightly, the scalpel catching and reflecting the surgical lights overhead.
“Nothing more than some drunk soldier.” On the table Harry could see the body was covered in carefully drawn lines, a roadmap from which he was to be carved up like a side of beef. “Drunks are worthless alive, and this one less so if not promptly packaged. He’s losing value while you’re wasting my time. Get the hell out of my operating room, you’ve no idea who you’re messing with.”
Harry moved until he could see the supine man’s face, and the blossomed flesh of a bullet wound in the middle of his forehead.
“No, not ‘just a drunk soldier’. My drunk soldier, and my drunk soldier brought me here to see you.” Harry addressed the body on the table.
“Corporal, relieve the good doctor of his faculties.”
The doctor turned back to the table to find himself face to face with his naked cadaver, now sitting upright and eyeing him with a wolfish grin.
With lightening speed, the doctor lashed out with the scalpel, drawing it from the Corporal’s right shoulder along the line of his collarbone then upward to his throat. Where the skin peeled back, black carbon fibre mesh showed through from beneath flesh veneer. In a single motion, the Corporal grabbed the doctor by the throat, and standing, lifted him from the ground, the scalpel clattering to the floor.
“I’m afraid his parts won’t be much use to you.” Harry holstered his weapon and began rolling up his sleeves. “Your bits, however, are quite useful, and there are a few of our boys that you can rest assured will put them to good use.”
by submission | Nov 26, 2009 | Story
Author : Ilan Herman
Koy, the sky-blue alien, explained to Jeff that life on earth was really an experiment conducted by him and his associates, an anthropological study of how life evolves from the molecular to the bird, or fish, or tiger, or man. “We planted the seeds of life on earth. We did the same with other planets with various environments and used different seeds. On H12, we have an intelligent race of birds. They have language and governance much better than yours, perhaps because they use their wings instead of cars, though they have those too. We have not done well with creating life on Earth.”
Jeff listened to Koy’s explanation and then said, “No worries. We’re like germs in a Petri dish. We’re genetically engineered. I can dig that. How many other humans beside me know about your experiment?”
“Only four others, a woman in China, and one in Russia, a man in Peru, and another in Scotland. The rest of humanity is not ready.” Then Koy’s voice choked with cosmic tears. “We tried so hard to make a good world for you. Our best minds labored tirelessly to help humanity succeed. We failed and we are sorry. Man turned out to be toxic to the planet.”
Jeff scratched his balding scalp. The alien sounded like a frustrated five year old whose tree house had collapsed. “Why are you so upset? We’re all still an extension of God, with you as a facilitator. It’s all good.”
“I am happy to hear you say that,” Koy said, “for what you say is true. We are all one.”
“Besides,” said Jeff. “You could be someone else’s experiment.”
The alien’s sky-blue skin dimmed slightly. “I am not sure what you mean.”
Jeff held out his palms. “Duh. Like us humans are your experiment, though only five of us know that, maybe your race is also a Petri dish set up by another race.”
“But I have revealed myself to you,” Koy said, a cheer in his voice. “If what you say is true, why have I not met the race that created me?”
Jeff rolled his eyes. “Because you’re not one of the five of your race to know. Like your secret is safe with me, so is the secret safe in the hearts of a few of your people, or race, or blue blobs.”
Koy’s shimmering ripples turned pinkish-green. He shrunk to about half the size of when he’d first appeared. He hovered only two inches off the carpet.
“That is a silly theory,” he finally said.
Jeff raised his arms in surrender. “If you say so. You’re probably right. After all, you made me, so you know better.”
Koy said nothing. Then he vanished.
“Nothing new under the sun,” Jeff said and hoisted himself off the couch and walked to the fridge for a glass of milk. Pouring the milk into the glass, he chuckled and said, “And that’s not a bad thing.”
by submission | Nov 25, 2009 | Story
Author : Amanda Baker
Years ago, Christina stayed over at Emily’s house, and found herself belting out this awful pop song in the shower. Some boy band kind of thing. She didn’t remember the song; boy bands hadn’t been popular since the nineties, and she’d be hard pressed to name the band and tune, or hard pressed to admit she still had a fondness for nineties pop, even back then. To be fair, she didn’t even realize she was singing at first, and she silenced herself in embarrassed horror as soon as she did, stopping the silly “love you baby” lyrics from leaving her mouth as she rinsed the bubbly foam out of her hair. Her singing voice was pretty awful.
Of course her girlfriend heard her. Emily being Emily, she didn’t give Christina a hard time about it, but still, Christina knew Emily knew, and she felt ashamed. She had been caught doing something incredibly stupid.
Christina doesn’t think she remembered it until last Saturday—after all, she’s got better taste in music now, and she hasn’t talked to Emily since the breakup. Christina’s a loud sort of person, and she’s got a million better memories with Emily if she wants to feel nostalgic, and a dozen sillier memories that she can look back on if she wants to laugh at herself. She’s been quieter since Saturday, though. Everyone’s been quieter. When Christina turns on the news, crime is down. Of course crime is down. Even the criminals are stunned.
Everyone’s busy watching the sky, too. The talking heads on TV told them it wasn’t like that, the messages came from light years away, and there’s nothing to worry about. They couldn’t be here yet.
Peace negotiations have started. Peace negotiations, and it’s only been less than a week. It’s funny, almost. Back when the war started, Christina went out to city hall every weekend with her protest sign. She wrote letters, signed petitions, blogged rant after rant just to get people to care… pretty much everything she could do, and it took this to get peace negotiations to start? The first day, she thought this was a hoax. Probably everyone did. It’s something out of science fiction, which she used to actually like, before it was all over the news that extraterrestrials had made contact. It was better back when it wasn’t real.
It’s terrifying now. It’s like a hidden camera on the wall, like being the teenager who thought she could get away with everything, and then suddenly you’re faced with evidence that your mother knows every detail of what went on at Hannah’s birthday party. No, that she might know. No, that “Mom” exists. Christina frames it in another concept, thinks about it differently, but really… Do they know about Hiroshima? Do they know about the holocaust, or slavery, or the way humans have fought each other tooth and nail over absolutely everything ever since they’ve had the bad luck to evolve from the chimpanzees?
And they still want to talk to us. Christina hopes that maybe they don’t know us as well as they could, that we’ve got another chance to make an impression if we just behave ourselves from now on. Christina herself has gone to work on time, stopped grimacing so much, called her father back before he called her again to ask why she hadn’t called. And it’s not just her—it’s everyone. Everyone’s trying to shape up, to be better for whoever’s watching.
As Christina sees it, it’s as if humanity itself has been caught in the galactic shower, singing bad love songs off-key.
