by submission | Apr 5, 2014 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The Agent established contact with the High Command and prepared to deliver his latest report. Nothing about his outward appearance betrayed what he was doing. The entire procedure was telepathic. There were hidden machines in the vicinity that were able to transduce his thoughts and then send them rippling across the quantum superfluid at many times the speed of light, arriving all but instantaneously at the High Command’s base of operations on the fifth planet of the Nu Phoenicis star system 49 light-years from Earth.
“There are indications that the Enemy is preparing to establish one or more bases in this solar system,” the agent said in his head.
“They’ve made no move to reveal themselves to the human race?” asked a silent voice.
“They haven’t,” said the agent with equal silence. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if half a dozen of their ships jumped out of hyperspace and into Earth orbit any day now. Perhaps the time has come to reveal ourselves to the human race.”
“Your assignment is to observe and report, Agent.”
“I meant no disrespect, Command. But the Enemy’s mission is the same as ours: To win hearts and minds. And they’ve made quite a bit of progress.”
As the Agent was issuing his report, one of the Enemy entered the room and sat down a few feet away. The Agent and his Enemy pretended not to notice one another. Amazing, thought the Agent, that this subtle game of spy versus spy had been going on for thousands of Earth years. Over the millennia, relations between the two sides had taken many forms, ranging from open hostility to detente to peaceful and even amicable coexistence. And during all these centuries, two great and terrible empires battled each other among the stars. The tide of battle had once brought the conflict as close as the Alpha Centauri system. Now, Earth itself was probably going to be the next killing field.
“Is the Enemy’s position on Earth strong enough to recruit the human race to their side?” asked the voice of the High Command.
“I suspect mankind would be divided as to which side to support. A majority of the humans would doubtless side with us. But the enemy has made significant inroads.”
For long seconds the High Command said nothing. Finally, a voice in the Agent’s head said, “Perhaps you’re right after all. If what you say is true, the longer we delay the weaker our position. We have ten capital ships holding at their fail safe positions in the Oort Cloud at the periphery of the star system. We will order them to prepare to jump into Earth orbit. Review the open contact protocols. We will be sending the signal to all of our operatives on Earth to reveal themselves simultaneously within the hour. The Enemy will doubtless follow suit.”
“There will be global pandemonium,” thought the Agent.
“We know. It will be up to Agents like yourself to manage humanity’s initial shock.”
“Understood.”
The Agent looked over at the Enemy who was trying to act bored and nonchalant. Probably in contact with his own superiors right now. The Agent then looked at the human to whom he’d been assigned, picked up a ball in his mouth, and dropped it at the human’s feet. One last game of fetch before you find out the truth, the Agent thought with some nostalgia. The Enemy abruptly stopped licking his paw, glared at his rival, and purred with contempt.
by submission | Apr 4, 2014 | Story |
Author : Jay Haytch
“So I walk into the warehouse, right? Was just looking for a quiet place to have a smoke – and it’s full of the damned things!”
“Wait, full of what things?”
“Of them. Of… robots. Must’ve been thirty-five or forty of ’em in there. Dead quiet, just liftin’ boxes and moving them and putting them back down again. Was like a, a, hive of insects. I tell ya, Mitch, it was creepy as hell. Creepy as hell. Hey Barman!”
“They were probably sorting the supplies that just came in on the Corsica. That’s their job.”
“Well I just stood there for a minute – hell, I didn’t have half a clue what I’d just wandered into. Then one of them – get this – the one right up by the door, where I was standing, turns and talks to me. Just like that. Barman! Two more beers over here.”
“(Sigh.) What did he say?”
“He said… Hello Jason.”
“Hello Jason?”
“Yeah, but just – completely deadpan. He didn’t even try to put some emotion into it. The rest of them just kept on doing what they were already doing, like I wasn’t even there.”
“Well I wasn’t exactly gushing with enthusiasm when you came in here, either, but here we are.”
“Mitch, I swear, it was Commander Hendrickson’s voice comin’ outta that tin box. Why did he sound like the Commander?”
“That’s “male voice #73”. A bunch of them are going around using it. Mostly to annoy him.”
“Ah, here’s our beers. Look, you know what I think?”
“Yes, but you’re going to tell me anyway aren’t you?”
“I think the Commander’s gone and up-loaded his brain into the robot network. Hell, he’s probably that central mainframe thing that they all talk to with their wireless gear. And he’s slowly workin’ to make all of us into his own robot platoon.”
“Hendrickson gave the briefing yesterday morning! If you hadn’t been so plastered Thursday night you would’ve been there to see him with your own eyes.”
“He’s making his image with the holo-projector! Next time we’re in there, just throw your jacket over it. He’ll disappear just like the briefing does.”
“You try it if you’re so worried. I’m not going on kitchen duty ’cause I listened to one of your loonie-bin ideas again.”
“I’m telling you, when the robots come to make you one of theirs you’ll wish you’d listened to me.”
“If they were making everyone into robots, don’t you think we’d have noticed by now?”
“Of course not, we’d be programmed not to!”
“But you somehow did.”
“Well they haven’t got me yet. Hey, when was the last time you saw Callie? Or John?”
“Callie went on maternity leave. And John was discharged after that helicopter incident. I was there.”
“That’s what they want you to think.”
“Heh, of course. You want a tequila Jason?”
“Nah, that stuff screws with my actuator motors.”
“Man, I know what you mean but it’s worth it.”
“Aww, I should probably go home early tonight. I’m still in hot water for missing that briefing, and I never put my other battery on the charger.”
“Well, suit yourself. I’ll tell you what: I’m going to go pump out my liquid waste accumulator, and if you’re still here when I get back we’re doing some shots.”
“Hell, Mitch, you’re a bad influence, you know that?”
by submission | Apr 3, 2014 | Story |
Author : Eric Spery
Teena Tolstarre’s Interplanetary Cultural Archeological Team (ICAT) had been onsite on Gliese 163c for over a year. A warm super-terran mesoplanet, Gliese 163c had evidence of at least one extinct sentient culture. So far, the team had discovered camps, fire-rings, the remains of cultivated plants, cliff paintings and evidence of animal husbandry. Based on available data, the team hypothesized that at least one culture was comprised of humanoid beings with an advanced agrarian society; but no physical remains of these humanoids had been discovered.
Until now.
Teena stared twenty feet down the side of a hill through a thick tent of vines ringing one of the countless giant-leafed Gliesean trees. The vines were parted like a tent flap. Beneath them, protected from the unending rains, was the mother lode of physical remains.
Teena was sure she could see at least one whole well-preserved humanoid skeleton amongst the other bones. There appeared to be non-biological artifacts as well. Overwhelmed, she took a knee in the moist dark detritus of the woodland floor.
ICAT Protocol dictated that site investigations include at least two team members to guarantee site integrity and security. But, after a year of crawling around the rain-soaked woods alone, she wasn’t calling the rest of the team until she had a closer look for herself. She had earned this.
She stood and shuffled down the loose loam of the steep bank. Stepping inside the tipi of vines, she looked down at the remains. They were even more spectacular than she originally thought. There were skulls of at least four species, maybe more. And old? How the hell had these things not decomposed in this humid atmosphere?
She knelt to pick up one of the skulls, but there was some resistance.
“What the hell,” she said.
She pulled harder and it came loose from the pile with a little pop. In astonishment, she looked more closely and realized it wasn’t a skull at all. It was skull shaped, but made of a woody material. Sap oozed from the stalk where she’d pulled it free. She picked up a few of the other bones. They too proved to be stalks of fibrous plant material.
It was uncanny.
A slight rustling in the vines around her jarred her from her reverie. She stood and turned. The tent flap was closed and the tipi of vines was closing in around her. Panicked she stepped towards the vines and attempted to push through them.
The vines were too strong. Caught, she felt herself pressed backwards against the trunk of the tree. She had little time to
scream before the vines crushed the life from her.
She was completely digested within six hours and the tree had time to grow a new skull before the arrival of the next
ICAT member.
by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 31, 2014 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Baxter stood in the atrium of Marpo One and gazed up through the greenery, through the clear observation port above and into the blackness of space.
Three years he’d called this home, he with the sixty three other lost souls that had signed up for the one way trip to the red rock. They were a motley crew, all skilled in their fields; geologists, ecologists, survivalists, mediators, physicians, and each with nothing to lose by leaving Earth and everything behind them and living out their days as pioneers.
There had already been two births on Marpo, which wasn’t supposed to happen this early, but confine men and women together and it’s a practical inevitability.
Baxter would be happy if he’d just had a partner for some recreational non-procreational activity, but nobody wanted anything to do with him.
Something about him had changed, maybe the long sleep to get here, or the time spent in a self perpetuating cycle of loneliness. The more marginalized he felt, the more people left him alone, which made him feel even more isolated, and that made for a Baxter people really didn’t want to be around.
He kept to himself, did his job, and didn’t think twice when the voices came to him, first in his dreams, then in his waking hours.
They reaffirmed the things he already knew; Janey the Botanist was a bitch, and should be run through the organics recovery mill at the earliest possible opportunity. Markus the Manslut was jeopardizing the future of the colony, and should be flushed through an airlock in his sleep, a sleep that would be blunt force trauma induced.
Not right now, however, for right now Baxter was on route to the atmosphere chamber for what had become the de-facto nursery wing to blow it the hell up.
He bypassed the alarm and wedged the door on the atrium end of the tunnel, shouldered his welding rig and marched towards his grim obligation.
“Alright Baxter, stand down.”
The voice in his head was familiar, but the message was new.
“I’m going to do what we agreed needed to get done, this is important for the safety of the mission.” Baxter shook his head as he spoke out loud, confused at the sudden inner conflicting instructions.
“When you’re ready, lockdown corridor three, opaque and disable.”
Baxter felt a new height of anxiety; the voices were still in his head, no longer speaking to him, now clearly speaking about him. Dropping his rig he took off for the door he’d come in through. Half way there the lights went out, then the tube filled with electric blue lightning and Baxter travelled his last few feet in searing pain into a heap on the floor.
“It’s always the isolated male that cracks. We need more women with lower expectations.”
Behind him, a section of the observatory ceiling opened, and a pair of black suited figures dropped into the hallway.
“Do we bring him out?” One of the figures looked up through the opening, awaiting instructions.
“No, everyone thinks he’s on Mars, so we can’t really have him walking around here, and the rest of Marpo Nine thinks they’re a hundred million kilometers from home, so we can’t really have him just disappear, can we?” The voice was clinical, matter of fact. “Load his welding rig up, open the gas and light him up when you’re clear. Un-wedge the door so the fire seal holds, he’s not using hot enough fuel to breach.”
The figures worked quickly, stripping the bypass and closing the atrium hatch, then dragging Baxter back to the middle of the tunnel before strapping him into his welding rig. One of them pressed a nicotube into Baxter’s mouth to moisten it, then rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. He waiting until his partner had climbed the rope ladder back through the ceiling before pressing the igniter and tossing the tube down the hallway. He opened Baxter’s tanks wide and then pulled himself clear and sealed the hatch behind him.
Baxter came to on his back with the stars flickering overhead.
He used to find peace in the stars, as a boy, then as a pioneer before the voices came.
The voices were gone now, and Baxter felt a old familiar calm.
In a flash, both were gone.
by submission | Mar 30, 2014 | Story |
Author : Thomas Fay
‘Some cereal as well, thanks,’ I said to the checkout operator. I didn’t specify what kind as there was no need. There was only one kind of cereal. It was nutritious, filled with all sorts of grains, nuts and dried fruits. Shame it had no taste. Not like Froot Loops.
I miss Froot Loops.
‘Will there be anything else, sir?’ the checkout operator asked. She looked to be about sixteen with long hair, an acne ridden complexion and a vapid look in her eyes. I guess some things never change.
It’s a shame everything else had.
‘No, that’s it.’
I handed over my credit card and watched as she deftly swiped it through the wafer thin reader. Seeing a satisfactory green light flash up, she handed the card back to me.
‘Thank you for shopping at Food Land. Have a nice day, sir.’
I smiled despite myself. This wasn’t shopping. Shopping involved selection, a choice made on mood, appetite, financial capacity and personal taste. The elimination of brands had removed choice. There was no more orange juice, apple juice or pineapple juice. Now there was simply juice. It kind of tasted like all the other flavors combined.
Looked like it too.
Most of the time I didn’t mind the lack of variety, the single words describing items as ‘butter’, ‘bread’, ‘coffee’ without any colorful packaging or creative names. It certainly made shopping easier.
And it had staved off inevitable disaster.
It was amazing that it took people so long to figure out just how much energy and materials were wasted on packaging, branding and oversupply. Companies had attempted to diversify their products to the point where almost every single individual was being catered for. A chocolate bar which had at some distant point in time been conceived as simply ‘chocolate’ flavor had evolved into about fifty different flavors; dark, white, fruit, nut, fruit & nut, dark fruit & nut.
The list went on and on.
Now that was all a thing of the past. Landfills were no longer overflowing with colorful packaging and expired groceries. The world’s population of ten billion was adequately fed and able to focus on more pressing matters.
Like saving what little flora and fauna we had left.
I didn’t mind the lack of choice. I understood why it was necessary and how it had saved humanity. It kind of reminded me of my childhood, growing up under a Communism regime in Eastern Europe. In those days grocery store shelves had been empty and people queued for hours just to get their hands on exotic fruits such as oranges and watermelons.
I guess that’s probably why I can live without the variety better than others. But there are still times that I think back to the days when grocery store isles had been filled with multitudes of colorful boxes, cans and packets. Some part of me missed those days.
And Froot Loops. I still miss Froot Loops.
