by featured writer | May 7, 2015 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix, Featured Writer [ bio ]
“I remember when there were forests and farms right up to the border. I’d shout hello from my dad’s tractor and Americans would shout back. We crossed the border to shop. Before the DPA.”
“There you go again, old man. You could have retired years ago,” meaning he should have. “Why keep working?”
“Who can live on a pension nowadays?”
“Hey, pay attention, look at your display.” Pointing, “Right there.”
Only an expert controller could glance at another’s screen and make out two indistinct thermal signatures against rocks still warm from the Sun. The kid was good.
Below, having rested as long as they dared, two intruders put on hoods and walked by starlight on the dry bed of Belly River, now a trail, an escape route for desperate refugees from a parched, hungry, violent homeland. Even if they had heard the quadcopter buzzing above, these two wouldn’t be worried, having paid thousands to make themselves undetectable.
The older pilot activated his mike, “Four-zed, crank up your sensitivity and look for two partially cloaked illegals to come around the bend in few minutes.”
From a truck on the bank, looking upriver through his thermal scope, “Will do.”
Mutual Assured Destruction kept the US from invading. As the situation in the states had deteriorated, the Canadians had secretly positioned nuclear tipped missiles. When they had enough to obliterate their neighbor to the south, Parliament simultaneously passed the Dominion Preservation Act, sealed the border, and offered a non-aggression treaty.
“That’s it,” she said, pointing to a stack of rocks. The two figures, their cloaking gear looking like bulky hazmat outfits, headed up the creek.
“Four-zed, do you see them yet?”
“Nope. Are you sure of what you think you saw, old man?” He laughed and nudged the other officer. “Better crank up the sensitivity on your bifocals.”
“They must have deked up a creek, four-zed, heading for the campground or Highway 6. Check it out.”
Neither officer moved. They had hoped to sit in the dark until sunup, when they would be safe from the triangles. Drawn to lights like huge moths, the craft had been seen sucking out the contents of homes and swallowing up vehicles whole.
“Four-zed?”
Finally, a reluctant, “OK.”
The heat and moisture inside the cloaking gear was becoming unbearable.
Checking his watch, “They’re supposed to pick us up in about 15 minutes.”
They removed headgear and sat on a picnic table. Hearing what sounded like the buzz of an insect, she swatted the air, nearly slapping him. He laughed and playfully swatted back.
Zooming the drone’s camera, “Four-zed, they’re in the campground, end of the road.”
The driver flicked headlights on, and the Americans froze.
Watching his display, “We’ve got ’em,” said the old man. But he cringed, knowing the two intruders faced death sentences.
A shaft of light fell towards the truck, engulfing it. The old man later described it as “a bright waterfall.” He pushed the video record button.
All four at the scene fought to make sense of what was happening, but their mental processes were labored, as if they had been drugged.
Suddenly, the man behind the wheel slammed the shift into reverse. The truck spun its rear wheels but didn’t move an inch before the light fell upward, taking the vehicle and occupants with it. A dark triangle silently floated away.
The video’s sale funded retirement on a New Zealand hobby farm, where the old man spent endless hours driving his tractor and chatting up neighbors. His new island home was like a lifeboat in a worldwide sea of misery. Until the triangles arrived.
by submission | May 6, 2015 | Story |
Author : A. Katherine Black
Green paint peeled uniformly across the surface of the only door in the dark hallway, revealing a dirty brown history. Bastian slowed as he neared it. His partner walked around him and opened the door, entering the room without hesitation.
Bastian held back, scanning the hallway, wondering where the medics hid after prepping the space. Then he stepped into the small room, stopping when he saw the figure lying on the table.
“Jesus, Stewart.” He closed his eyes for a long blink. “This is a kid.”
Scents of salt and burnt rubber filled the room and made him nauseous.
“Oh, come on, Bas. You know what this is.” Stewart’s head craned forward in exasperation. “Unofficial. Under the goddam table. We can’t use a regular for this.” He reached behind Bastian to shut the door and turn the lock.
Bastian exhaled deeply as he sat in one of the two chairs at the head of the table. “Have you ever seen one this young before? What, is he six or something? Is it safe at that age?” He silently thanked his bad luck he wasn’t a parent himself. He couldn’t stand the weight of this if he was.
Sickly yellow lights hummed above the peaceful slack face on the table. The boy’s body was thin, his legs withered. A red cap dotted with metal beads attached to his head like a giant suction cup. Multicolored wires sprouted from spaces between the beads like roots dangling from a roughly extracted plant. Bastian was glad the kid, however old he was, slept like a baby. Christ, a baby.
He turned to the equipment between the recliners, trying to refocus. Movement flashed in his peripheral vision, pulling his eyes back to the kid, who laid still as stone. He must’ve imagined it.
He rubbed sweaty palms on his jeans and reclined his chair, taking one of the headsets and strapping it on. The metal was cold on his forehead. He pulled the pad from his front pocket and prepared to take notes. Stewart was right. This damned dictator was guarded better than their own effing Minister. They’d need this space if they were going to map out a plan solid enough to take the guy down.
Stewart took the other chair and bounced on it a few times with a satisfied smile before reaching for his headset. His face soured when he regarded Bastian.
“The kid’s older than he looks,” Stewart said. “The crippled legs just make him look shorter.” He looked squarely at Bastian, daring him to disagree. “Man, you know we need this space.” He reclined his own chair. “Don’t worry, these undocumented jobs pay way better than licensed ones. We’re helping his family.” He squinted at moldy spots on the ceiling. “I mean, look at those legs. He needs the money for medical bills.”
Bastian looked toward the boy once more. From his reclined position, all he could see were wires. He almost said something else, but then Stewart pressed the button to activate the session. They both inhaled sharply.
Bastian’s mind was a cavern. So much space waiting to be filled. Suddenly everything was crisp and obvious, from the sound of air hissing through the vents to the metallic taste in his mouth. It all made sense.
They discussed assets, intel. They planned. Bastian’s hand danced over his pad as the path unfolded before them. He laughed at the simplicity, the clarity of it all.
Every now and then, he couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder. No one was there, of course, but the feeling of being watched lingered.
by Julian Miles | May 5, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Jack came down from Elevator Town with a tale to tell and a song to sing. He sung it good and told it fast, but we didn’t believe him. Who would? What could make a man flee from Orbitopia to come and grub in the dirt with us who didn’t pass the tests?
Okay, there were a lot of us dirtside: more than made it upside. But we didn’t pass the tests. We spent our days working to provide for the upsiders and pay for our training, all the schools and tuitions and folk who could help us pass the tests – for a fee. That’s all we did, back then. All the game shows only had one prize: a ticket to Orbitopia.
Next thing we knew, Jack had himself a cable channel: “Jack’s New World”.
We thought it was something about a new Orbitopia habitat. But it wasn’t. Just about Earth. Nothing interesting, we told each other over our pseudobeer.
But it was. Jack went outside the colonies and visited mountains and did something called ‘skiing’. He strolled through somewhere called ‘alpine meadows’ and went ‘skinny dipping’ from tropical beaches. We couldn’t help it. We watched. All the feeds from Orbitopia were about parks that curved over your head. Jack went places where you couldn’t see the end of the place. Just something called a ‘horizon’.
Then he started offering tours. After that, he started settlements to support the tours. Those settlements became the first Freetowns. All of us suddenly wanted to go out there, not up there.
It was almost five years to a day after Jack came down that the unthinkable happened. Orbitopians came down here to go on one of Jack’s tours! They had to come down in exoskeletons, they were so weak. They couldn’t eat the fruit from the trees outside the Freetowns; they had to have their protein drinks shipped along with ‘em in great big cooler wagons.
We looked at each other and the question Jack had asked rose on our lips. “Do you want to sentence your kids to this?”
We didn’t. No sir, thank you very much, we’ll work to supply you and save to move to a Freetown. Jack’s set up Freetowns near the cities. We can ‘commute’. It means we can go to the city to work, but come home to our town when we’re not working. We can watch our kids run in the sun and play, while the Orbitopians hum by looking tired and sad in the machines that hold ‘em up.
We didn’t believe Jack.
He didn’t mind.
He just gave us a new song and made us part of his story.
by featured writer | May 4, 2015 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix, Featured Writer [ bio ]
Richard walks the dark streets of the worst part of town, a noir figure in a fedora and trench coat, his eyes casting about for shadows that move, his ears yearning to hear a cry for help. Nothing. He can’t remember his last assignment, his last rendezvous, his last secret password, his last foreign intrigue… no memory of claptrap from a bygone era, because memory was at a premium in the old days, and they’d only issued him 16K.
Even though he’s a walking relic, he feels young, as if he’d joined the Service just yesterday. His girl has a lot to do with that. The girl of his dreams come to life, she has Grable’s million dollar gams, and Russell’s voluptuous bazongas, and Bacall’s sultry pillow talk. What a dame. But deep down he knows he doesn’t deserve her. He hasn’t won her for sending the bad guys to jail, or to hell.
And worst of all, he’s a kept man. Yeah, it crushes his soul to depend on her for everything, for life itself — for vacuum tubes.
Back home, Constance sits by the window, looking onto the dimly lit street below, waiting for him to return from his midnight walk. She knows he aches to get into the fight, to right wrongs, to defend his country, to earn the devotion of a dame like her. It was designed into his circuits, and she loves him for it.
He is the man of her dreams. Literally one of a kind. The shining achievement of a top secret project to make a robot agent generations ahead of its time — able to outthink Enigma, to shed bullets, to overcome evil, to go 24 hours without recharging, and most important to her personally, to pleasure women. That last feature was added in hopes of turning foreign fems into spies for America. Connie gladly role-plays Axis Fraulein to stimulate Dick’s Allied Powers.
She had come across him at a government surplus auction, standing next to the crate that had preserved him for nearly 70 years. Others had thought he was a statue or a clothes mannequin and passed by without stopping. But she immediately saw something special about him. He was a hunk of a guy — healthy mop of brown hair, laughing green eyes, kissable lips, square jaw, and the body of an Olympic athlete. Lingering to examine him carefully from head to toe, she marveled at the attention to detail. Moles, scars, hairs in nose and ears. She found his power cord and wondered what it was for. Some sort of pre-Disney animatronics? Whatever. It didn’t matter. She had to have him. Didn’t bargain. Just paid the $100 cash and had him placed in the passenger seat of her Prius. Almost forgot his user manual!
To this day, three years later, she still wakes up in a panic from the recurring nightmare of forgetting to take the user manual. But it’s always right there on her bedside table, and he’s next to her, emitting the reassuring hum of his battery charger.
He stops. A muffled cry? Over there, in the alley behind the tavern. Two figures silhouetted, a man and a woman, struggling. He runs towards them, kicking a can, alerting the man.
“This is between me and her. And I got a gun.”
He’s just twenty feet away when the bullets ricochet off of him. He slams into the man, who collapses like a broken mannequin. The girl runs away.
He dusts off his coat, picks up his fedora, and heads for home. There will be no need for role-play tonight.
by submission | May 3, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
“Two percent remaining. Warning.” A calm woman’s voice filled his helmet.
Night jasmine. There was that cloying odor. A cup of sugar poured into the nose. Drawing and repulsing. She wore it on their first date. Her ring remained, partially scorched in his melted glove.
The Baja rotated below him. There his marlin broke the leader piano wire. His brother’s face bleeding from the whiplash. Salt water on his blistered hands. Sunburn critical later.
“Two percent remaining. Warning,” she repeated.
He turned slowly, peering over the Earth’s ultraviolet horizon. Sprits and sprites rose over a storm cresting the Rockies. Free fireworks. Free to look at what few ever new.
Burning in the leg subsiding. The scorch on his back, over the destroyed jet pack and radio, cooled in the frigid vacuum. Peaceful at the ending. Pains gone long before reentry.
“One percent. One percent. Take immediate action!” The voice grew louder in the headset but dimmed in his ears. Stars twinkled in a graying mist. The gasping deepened. Frightening. Inevitable.
Midnight in Paris filled him—his Mother’s favorite perfume. He carried her burial hankie with him to the Air Force Academy. She saw him graduate. That was enough.
Flashing to the right, the Chinese spy satellite splintered from his charges. NASA did not know about the on-board laser defense system. A long space walk in 1990 was still high risk. No way to return if he failed. McCandless had just proved a Manned Maneuvering Unit could support substantial Extra Vehicular Activity without tether.
National security was at risk. China could track U.S. subs with a new blue-green laser system. He volunteered. There would be no plaque at the Manned Space Center, just a private ceremony in a closed hangar at Edwards. He wouldn’t be mentioned in the next century with the other seventeen astronauts perishing in space missions.
Albedo from Colorado’s storms reflected over him at twenty-two thousand miles above his homeland. He curled, in partial fetal position as the last gasps ended. The warning bell and red light in his helmet continued as he spun downward, months away from brightening the March night sky over a baseball in West Virginia near his grave marker.
