by submission | Jun 7, 2009 | Story
Author : George Li
The rusted orange hue of the sky made dancing reflections on Mirna’s “skin”. Carefully, she raised the fragile watering pot.
People had thought it would be them who caused this. Sentient robots that would rebel and destroy humanity. It didn’t work out like that. Robots simply had no need to rebel, they did not have the urge for power like most humans had. It simply wasn’t needed, wasn’t in their programming. Even the ones with no directive, no programming, even they had no such urge. These “Free-Thoughts” discovered in seconds, with their huge infallible minds, what took human philosophers millenniums to figure out. The rarity of life. The need for diversity, companionship, and harmony. So it was not the robots that caused this. It was the humans themselves.
Like most things, it started slowly. A buildup of mistrust, paranoia, and hatred. People started blaming everything for their troubles, everything but themselves. Wars started, lives were lost. But it seemed humanity would survive, like it had done so many times before. Until someone went nuclear.
Mirna slowly released the valve. With robotic precision, she filled the pot.
It took several years for humanity to die out. But eventually, even the race’s legendary resourcefulness could not save them. Robots tried to help, tried to stop the impending extinction. But they were pushed away, the paranoia and suspicion of the human mind was too hard to overcome. For the first time in thousands of years, Earth was free of humans. And the Robots were alone.
Synthbot M-1RN Edition A. That was what Mirna was, that is what the label on her back still said. Her original directive was gardening, taking care of the now desolate parks. And yet, even after all her masters died, even after she learned how to override her original programming, she still enjoyed her work. Perhaps it was something about making life, and seeing it grow.
Mirna walked over to a half broken cup filled to the brim with soil. On the top was a small flower. She delicately tilted the watering pot, and watched as a few drops of this now precious liquid fell.
There were plenty of spare parts, abandoned machinery, and broken vehicles. With careful rationing, Mirna could live forever.
Lazily a colorful butterfly landed on the small flower.
Mirna smiled. Maybe she would get to see the Earth reborn.
by submission | Jun 6, 2009 | Story
Author : John C. Osborn
The sound of the spray paint can spitting neon green from its nozzle drowned out the ambient noise of the city: police sirens, echoing gunshots, and the monotonous drone of the Floating Eyes. Ty directed the colorful symphony across a giant raised billboard that read “One World, One People,” creating a large middle finger in the center of it all. When the spray paint puttered to an end, he appreciated his work like a viewer does at an art gallery.
Ty pulled down the black bandanna covering his mouth, looked at the smog-distorted cityscape stretching toward the horizon. He sat down, pulled out a protein bar, and devoured it whole.
“You again,” said a stern male voice.
“You know me,” Ty smiled and crumpled the wrapper, “I like my art.”
Ty looked up at the police officer wearing a gray uniform. Sown in to the uniform’s sleeves were American flags with one star instead of fifty. The officer looked up at the billboard, smiled.
“A middle finger,” he said. “Ah, can’t say that’s original.”
“It’s the symbolism that counts,” Ty replied.
“Either way, it’s against the law,” the cop said as he sat down beside Ty. Ty looked him over, noticed his disinterested gaze stare out across the city.
“But you’re not going to bust me are you?”
“No,” the cop smiled, “I’m not.” Radio traffic clattered from the cop’s walkie-talkie. He turned it down. “If the Governing Council can’t take a joke, screw ’em.”
Ty laughed, “You know it’s much more than a joke these days. I think you see the same problems I see, only you’re a part of it…”
“Just trying to survive like everyone else,” the cop interjected. “You think I like busting kids like you for petty vandalism and sending you off to one of the camps?” he paused. “No. I’d rather be chasing murderers and drug dealers.”
A loud humming noise startled them both. A floating metallic orb the size of a human head hovered above. A glowing red computer-like eye scanned both of them.
“Warning!” a robotic voice said. “Crime against the state detected. Vandalism, First degree. Hateful speech, first degree. Defacing corporate property, first degree…”
Ty’s eyes lit up. He felt a strong urge to run but the cop’s eyes looking at his told him to wait. Ty took an anxious breath.
“I’m in the process of apprehending the criminal,” the cop said. “I don’t need any assistance.”
The Floating Eye focused its mechanical eye on him, “Officer Grace Steward, Homeland Security Division Four. You are aiding and abetting a political criminal. You will be…”
There was a click and a thundering boom.
It happened fast. Ty didn’t see Officer Steward whip out his sidearm and blast the Floating Eye in one graceful motion. As the smoking metal heap fell, Ty asked, “Why?”
Officer Steward looked at Ty, “I think you already know the answer. Now get out of here. There are plenty more billboards that need defacing.”
by submission | Jun 5, 2009 | Story
Author : Ian Rennie
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my apartment?”
The man at the window didn’t turn to look at Lloyd’s outburst. When he spoke, his voice sounded bored.
“You know who I am, and if you have any sense, you know why I’m here.”
Finally he did turn. He pulled a card out of his pocket, and a hologram leapt out of it, a tiny three dimensional version of his face, with a stream of data running underneath it.
“Agent Moorcock, Chronology enforcement. Don’t bother introducing yourself. You’re Lloyd Fry, on placement from the archaeology department of the University of Charon, and you and I are the only people in this city from our century.”
Lloyd adopted the slightly guilty pose that comes naturally to anyone who has to deal with the police, as if running through in his mind what he could possibly have done wrong.
“Of course, how can I help you, officer?”
“Where is it?”
A chill ran through him. He tried as hard as he could not to let it show, and ended up overcompensating
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“Mr Fry, please don’t cause any problems. Your university worked hard for your visa, and I’d hate to think they wasted all that work just because you panicked when you saw a badge. Where is the recorder?”
The game was up. Lloyd reached into his back pocket, noticing as he did that the agent tensed very slightly at this. He pulled out a silver stub roughly the size of his thumb and placed it on the table. The agent walked over to it.
“A motorola HS6290 hologram recorder, best in its class at the 2053 Consumer Electronics show, as I recall. Mind telling me why you thought you should bring one back to 1996?”
“I-”
The agent cut him off before he could get himself in any deeper.
“Mr Fry, you are in pre-unity time. Any time period before 2018 is embargoed, and likely to remain so. When you received your visa, you agreed not to bring anything back with you apart from your body. Even there, your records state they removed your retinal HUD. What in god’s name made you think this little thing would be acceptable?”
“I didn’t think anyone would mind. I needed it to take recordings for my fieldwork, and…”
“And?”
Lloyd slumped into a chair, feeling around three inches tall.
“And I wanted to get a hologram of the eiffel tower before it was wrecked by the earthquake. My mother asked me to.”
Agent Moorcock’s face softened slightly. He said nothing, the man before him knew what he had done.
“So,” said Lloyd after a while, “What happens to me now?”
“Nothing happens to you now.”
Lloyd’s face creased in confusion.
“What do you m-”
Agent Moorcock touched a control on his wrist and the room vanished. Instead, he was walking through a crowded travel lobby towards a tired figure standing in front of a desk.
“Mr Lloyd Fry?”
The man turned. it was the same face Moorcock had just seen, maybe six months younger.
“I’m afraid that your visa application didn’t pass vetting. Unfortunately we cannot permit you to complete your travel plans.”
Lloyd looked disappointed but resigned. Applications were rarely successful.
“Can I ask why?”
“I’m afraid that information is classified, sir. Oh, sir?”
“Yes?”
Moorcock held something out to the man. It was, after all, for his mother.
“You dropped your recorder.”
by submission | Jun 4, 2009 | Story
Author : Clare Tong Lee
Elizabeth stared at herself in the mirror as her ladies flittered about twisting her hair into elaborate braids and adorning her with jewellery. In less than an hour they would be docking at the Rammajek spaceport and then they would be out of time. They would all be out of time.
Morana III had fallen eight months ago and her people had finally given an unconditional surrender. Not that they hadn’t tried to sue for peace before, they did after the destruction of Idona Prime and again after the Ralla Massacre. Elizabeth’s father hadn’t even objected when Arishkah Vehn had demanded her as a wife. A wife on Rammajek was nothing more than a body slave.
Still, Elizabeth had been born to serve her people as much as she had been to rule them, and she knew her duty. From the cradle to the grave her thoughts would be of her people: their protection, their happiness, their honour. Today, that meant marrying the Butcher of Fenna. Vehn was so pleased, so triumphant on the holobroadcast, a well calculated blow in demanding the Jewel of the Empire. ‘The spoils of war go to the victor’ he had said, ‘and I shall make spoils of it all.’
Elizabeth rubbed her fingers as the ship docked, and considered the poison sacs that had been implanted under her nails in the days after the surrender. Her marriage bed would be christened by blood like in the days of old, but this time it would not be that of her maidenhead.
by submission | Jun 3, 2009 | Story
Author : Ken McGrath
He woke screaming, just as he always did.
The chains held him in place, tearing into his flesh, causing his wounds to tear open and start to bleed again.
The other place was gone, all that existed now was this horrible twisted metal hole, pumped full of stale, dead air and the constant howls of other prisoners. It was much more real than the other place, the one with the clear blue skies and the endless oceans that flowed to the horizon and beyond.
He curled up, pulling his knees close to his raw, burned chest. Cables and wires of varying thickness wound their way around his body, probing into cavities both existing and new, digging into his very soul. Or were they bursting out of it? He didn’t know. All he knew was one thing and that was his throat felt like it had been set on fire, his ragged, bubbling pleas cutting through the vile sounds filling the atmosphere.
Fresh blood poured onto his hands so he scrunched his eyes closed, even tighter than before, trying to make it all go away, trying to make it become the other place, praying to escape from this horrible dream…
…and when he opened them there he was, standing in the doorway to his house, facing the beach, the gentle sound of the waves lapping against the shore adding to the laughter of the youngsters who were out on this beautiful star-filled night.
His legs went from underneath him and he reached for the doorframe to stop from falling, cutting his palm as he did. The blood brought him back to the other place. Was he still there? Was that where his body was right now, being operated on and tortured. Being used as food, as fuel for the machines. Or was it only his mind that went there? Was he safe here?
He sighed heavily and thought of the gun that lay hidden beneath the clean towels in the wardrobe upstairs. Should he free his mind now? Get it over with, but before he could stand another thought stuck him with enough force to knock him back to his knees.
What if this was the escape, what if here was where his mind went to escape the torment and pain. If he killed himself here he might never be able to come back and he might be trapped in that cursed cage with no escape, no safe haven for his mind to escape to.
But what if this was the one, this was the place where he was free and his damaged, demented mind had invented the other one, that red, overwhelming place where he lay bound, trussed and forever in pain.
He screamed and it was a sound all too familiar to him. The night sky suddenly became something more menacing, the pinpricks of light were now eyes staring out at him from the darkness of the panopticon letting him know he was being observed, waiting to see what his next move would be.
But he couldn’t move, the wires coming out of his chest held him in place, the distant laughter morphing into pained voices and he knew there was no safe haven. There was no past, no such thing as escape. Wherever his mind ran to he’d always end up back here, waiting to die on this filthy slab beneath the metal fingers of his cage.
