by submission | Oct 14, 2013 | Story |
Author : Mordecai J Banda
Michael had come back from his daily walk. He had eaten his breakfast and attended to various things to keep himself healthy. Now it was gaming time.
This past month the Future Warfare 3 had had a special event that called on worldwide cooperative multiplayer event. Michael personally didn’t like this but the reward was amazing: 100 dollars per kill.
His parents sent him enough money, but in the past week he had gained a small fortune in this event and he didn’t intend to stop.
It was no lie to say that at that moment he was the number one gamer on the planet.
And the military loved him for this.
“He’s a pretty knowledgeable kid… Are you sure he won’t figure out what’s happening? This could be a big scandal.” The Head Technician spoke to The Director of Future War’s company, Octagon. They were in a decommissioned space station control room.
“Michael Black will not know for at least some weeks, and by then the third world war would have been won.”
“Really? One boy?”
“Are you seeing what he’s doing on the field? The soldiers are even starting pray to their bots ‘for his soul to descend.'”
“Amazing.” The technician shook his head in surprise. He was both commenting on what The Director had said and on a particularly skillful headshot that Michael had executed.
The heads up display was as Michael saw it from his rig. The techs on this side were the ones who saw the important stuff: Core temperature, power supply and so on.
There were three teams. One of them overlooked the particular bot that Michael was using, the other two divided labor into running basic diagnostics on the other bots that had lower level players using them.
The Director was pleased with himself. Rarely did plans ever go so perfectly. Disregarding the actual commanders of the field, his side had gone swimmingly.
As an alternative to nukes robots were visited as an option to mass destruction on a manageable scale. World War Three, though not widely known, had begun. The robots were miraculously finished, but the biggest obstacle was Artificial Intelligence. It was beyond the minds, abilities and funding of this generation. However, there was a wealthy resource that they could tap into if they wanted killer machines: the online gaming world.
It was crazy but they tried it out. Soon enough they had the gamers fighting for their country and they didn’t even know it.
Future War 3 was chosen as the bearer of this project. It was far from the ideal where all the soldiers on the field were robots, but it was good enough for now.
The Director smiled sympathetically as Michael was shot and ‘killed’. On the console it showed an apparently random countdown that in actuality was showing the download time for Michael to access another bot. This time it took two minutes and Michael was back at it again. He approached the camp that had exterminated him, vaulting over a trench and raining death upon the soldiers with godly skill.
It was a pity, but Michael was killing real humans. The Director had lied to the technician. If the boy found out it would be bad. It only depended on whether he would accept it or not.
But The Director trusted Michael was someone who looked to the future, who looked forward to advancement. He had ascended from gamer to patriot after all.
“It’s Michael! It’s Michael!” Some relieved rookie soldiers cheered with awe.
The Director smiled. More like a guardian angel.
by submission | Oct 12, 2013 | Story |
Author : Aiza Mohd
Haan has found a cup of noodles from the future.
‘Mfg. 09 Jul 2036,’ reads the bottom of the cup. The year is 2013.
Haan is a penniless college student with an unbalanced diet, too much time, few friends and a cup of ramen from the future. All five of these are the reasons why he finds himself at the 7-Eleven where he gets his snacks.
But the cashier has no explanation. ‘Sorry, man,’ he says. ‘Barcode says you didn’t buy it here. It’s probably just a misprint, anyway; I wouldn’t worry about it.’
Haan has one foot out the door when the cashier exclaims. ‘Hey, wait a minute,’ he calls.
The cashier rushes over with something in his hands. ‘It’s not everyday I get a situation like this,’ he tells Haan. ‘Last week, a girl came in and gave this to me.’
It is a brown envelope.
‘To the boy asking about the ramen.’
In it is a destination.
Haan follows the directions in the letter until he reaches a house in the suburbs. The smooth white driveway is lined with daisies and the lawn is impeccable. It is the diamond to the rust of Haan’s small, wild balcony garden, ice cream tubs running amok with neglected life.
A girl opens the door when he knocks, holding a blue hardback in her hand. Haan’s shoulders tense as he takes in the bright eyes and the expectantly raised eyebrows.
He holds up the cup of noodles, but she just looks confused.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, feeling stupid. ‘I must have made a mistake.’
‘We already have noodles, thank you,’ she says. She is ever so polite.
‘I’m not selling,’ he answers, embarrassed. ‘It’s a funny story … you’d never believe it.’
She laughs. ‘I don’t know whether to close the door on you or to ask for this story.’
‘Oh, don’t close the door,’ says Haan. ‘I’ll tell you. But don’t laugh at me, okay?’
‘I won’t. I like stories.’ She looks over her shoulder, as though glancing back at something less than pleasing. ‘I never get to hear any good ones.’
Haan, after placing the cup of noodles in his bag, explains to her all the peculiar events of his day. As he tells his tale, she tilts her head and listens, letting the polite smile grow into something warmer.
Her name is Leanne.
Next morning, he awakens with the strangest sensation that something of profound importance has finally changed in his life. On his wall in blunt pencil, he writes, ‘11 July 2013. Yesterday, two things I believed impossible turned up in my life.’
Now it is 13 August, 2036, and Haan and his wife are battling once again. ‘You never loved me,’ weeps Becca, her face a canvas of smeared makeup, years of frustration painting her cheekbones. ‘It’s her. You want her.’ And although deep down Haan knows she’s got it right, Haan utters not a word. He watches and waits, the way he has his whole life.
In the room down the hall their daughter Jo should be sleeping, but she’s imagining another space in the universe right now, in which Haan is now married to Leanne, and not Becca. They have a double-storey home, three children and a puppy. Becca, in that same space in the universe, is soaring to the top of her career. Everyone is happy. Everyone’s in love.
On the floor by her feet is the blueprint of her plan. The light is dim beneath the desk, but the first step is visible still.
‘2013: Leave note at the 7-Eleven.’
by Clint Wilson | Oct 11, 2013 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
Eddy and Rico performed the mundane task of sifting through tailings. It was standard procedure. All the valuable ore had been extracted from the captured asteroids, but the leftover rubble might still contain significant matter; so it was all to be gone through carefully.
It was easy enough to get the tons of debris and dust back down from the stations. Earth’s sixteen space elevators required endless counterweight to continuously lift people and goods into orbit. Yet it was strictly mandated that any captured matter from beyond our atmosphere must be immediately run through one of the planet’s hundreds of privately owned decontamination centers situated around the elevators.
They were both roused by an alarm buzzing on the console. “What’s that?” asked Rico. He was still pretty new.
Eddy replied nonchalantly, “We used to get lots of these false alarms in the old days. It got so irritating that we detuned the sensor arrays.” He hit a plunger, stopping the entire conveyer belt. They both looked at the screen on the console. The image there showed several pebbles amongst the debris highlighted by the computer. “Hmm, this is interesting. It says they’re all identical.”
An hour later the two had managed to sift through and procure from the rubble, thirty-seven seemingly identical oblong pebbles. The tiny items sat there on the lab counter, looking ominous, as the two discoverers passed a smoking joint back and forth.
Eddy piped up, “I think they’re seeds.”
Rico laughed, “Yeah right, we just discovered an alien life form in asteroid tailings.”
“Oh yeah?” replied Eddy. “I’ll prove it.”
Suddenly the young newbie looked concerned. “I don’t think we should…”
But it was too late. Eddy had scooped up the pebbles into his shirt and had made for the rear exit.
Rico shouted after him, “Hey, I don’t think that’s a good idea!”
But the exit door clanged shut as the other exited, so Rico jumped up, squashing the joint, and followed suit. “What are you doing you crazy bastard?” He burst through the exit door.
Eddy was crouched down there giggling as he churned the soil in the flower planter with his hands. “Come on buddy, you think we’re gonna grow some alien ganja? Live a little!” He ran off and grabbed the caretaker’s garden hose, which had been coiled up on a reel nearby; and began watering the planter.
Rico shook his head, staring at the dark soil that was now getting wetter and wetter. “Eddy, you’re nuts. We should really report those things.”
Eddy grinned and squinted at him, “For what? These guys don’t give a shit. It’s all a big….”
Suddenly there was a rumble and they both felt the ground tremble beneath their feet. Eddy froze and stared up at Rico. He released the handle of the hose nozzle and the water dribbled to a halt. Then the ground shook again, so hard that they both nearly fell over. The rich soil was suddenly seething and roiling like a thing with a life of its own. Eddy turned back to see Rico running fast for the parking lot.
Just then something massive and horrible shot forth from the planter. Eddy now knew that he had made a horrible mistake and surmised right there and then that mankind was likely to pay for his idiocy. He shut his eyes tight and prayed for the first time in years, as he was sucked up into the maw of something terrible and unknown. Mercifully, he would never realize the true mayhem he had caused.
Rico managed to live for almost another two minutes.
by Duncan Shields | Oct 8, 2013 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Randolph Beaucoup of the Terran Diplomacy Wing had been selected from fifty candidates for this particular First Contact mission. Little was known about the Marenko other than they were anamorphic pseudopods without discernible features. Smooth gelatinous bags that had the ability to form as many multi-fingered tentacles as needed to build or manipulate technology. The Terrans were still trying to figure out how they saw without eyes and thought without detectable brains.
There were large ones and small ones although that seemed to have no bearing on age. There was talk of one the size of an ocean but it may have been a god myth of some kind. All was unclear at this stage other than the fact that they had space-travel capability and were, by and large, peaceful.
The math constructs had been sent and received as proof of intelligence and no weaponry was detected at the landing site.
Randolph stood on the plateau a few steps away from the Terran landing plank beneath his ship, clad in a fishbowl helmet to clearly display his face and wearing a tight spacesuit that showed his musculature to curious species. It was known as the ‘nothing-to-hide’ approach. The stars twinkled above him. The Marenko balanced in front of him like a transparent slug rearing to impersonate a capital S. Unlike slugs, however, the Marenko were unnervingly quick and this one was the size of an elephant seal.
The Marenko extended a glittering flower-tipped pseudopod towards Randoplh and paused. Randolph extended his own hand and grasped the pod tip in what, in his experience, was a universal sign of greeting. A sharp pinprick zeroed in on his palm. His suit easily patched the tiny rupture as Randolph withdrew his stinging hand with an involuntary hiss of shock.
Before he could move, the Marenko extended another tentacled pad that slapped wetly up against Randolph’s helmet and stuck there.
“Hello Randolph. The earth-name I have chosen for myself is Mary.” said a pleasantly-modulated voice. The tentacle was vibrating against Randolph’s helmet to produce the sound. “It is a pleasure to meet you. This has been a delightful first contact and I am honored to be the first to produce our communication.”
Randolph thought that was an odd choice of words.
“The pleasure is mine, Mary.” he replied. “I’m happy to meet you too. I’m curious, what was the purpose of poking me like that?” he asked, tentatively hopeful that the answer would be benign.
“I needed a small tissue sample to produce our communication. You are in me now, growing. Soon you will be large enough to leave yourself here and then we can talk after you leave.”
Randolph couldn’t understand the words. The sentence must been parsed wrong in the alien’s nascent attempt at translation. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mary.” he said.
“Look closely at my center, Randolph.” said Mary.
Randolph looked closer at the core of the huge alien’s wavering, smooth body. There, in the center, curled up and twitching, was what looked like a tiny human baby.
A tiny baby with transparent skin and gelatinous bones. A tiny baby with dark hair and dark eyes, just like Randolph. It grew as he looked at it. A Meranko-Human hybrid of some kind.
“This version of you will stay here. We will converse. It will have your memories but it will be of my race as well. After a short amount of time, you may come to collect him and talk to him as well to gather your own information.”
“Uh…..what?”responded Randolph eloquently.
“I am, as you say, pregnant.” said Mary.
by submission | Oct 7, 2013 | Story |
Author : Andrew Bale
I see the truck drift across the median. In my mind, seconds become hours, but to my body, they flash by like lightning – I am paralyzed, watching my own doom in slow motion, unable to stop it. The impact is a blessing, a return to real time where the agony of my death passes like the beat of a hummingbird’s wing.
Somehow, I dream. I dream of something like a man, but not quite – he is too tall, too thin, and far, far too old. I see his life laid out before me, see his wives, his children, his vocation. It passes too fast for details, but I see joy turn into sorrow, see abject grief turn into steely resolve. Suddenly, his face is replaced by another, a real man, who ages from baby to senility in an instant. The unman appears again for the briefest moment, like a single frame inserted in a movie reel, before another baby takes his place. The cycle continues, a parade of lives interspersed with that one, sad, unchanging countenance.
And then I wake. Gasping, panicked, it takes my mind a little while to adjust, to relearn this body, to reconcile the old with the older. I am in something more than a bed, and sitting near my feet is another unman. He smiles at me, and I feel my heart slow, my mind calm.
“Welcome back. How do you feel?”
It isn’t English, it is a language I learned long before the idea of English existed. I cannot respond at first – awareness brings new sorrow, new joy. When I can, I tell him. Honesty is of the utmost importance.
“Sad, that they grieve. Happy, that someday they will wake.”
I glance around the room, picturing the profusion of waking rooms surrounding me, and behind, the great mass where the bodies of the dreamers lie dormant.
“Let me see it.”
He smiles again. Everyone asks. He waves a hand, and the wall before me clears.
I cannot help but cry at the beauty of Earth laid out before me, just six inches of transparent wall and half a million miles of empty space away. So small, so perfect. I glance up, wondering where Jack’s body lays sleeping, waiting for his return. I will probably never see him again – he was healthy, he will not wake until I am again gone.
“Are we close?” I ask the unman.
“Yes, and no.” He gestures toward the window. “The model is near the point where we broke. Nothing past that has meaning, so we will end in a few generations regardless. But the answer still eludes us.”
He leans close, full of quiet, desperate hope. “Do you have the answer?”
I think back on my life, on everything I learned, everyone I knew. It seemed then so full of worry, now it seems so full of hope. I shake my head.
“No. I will return and try again.”
He nods sadly as I rise, walk to the window on the world. I look at my reflection. So tall, so thin, so old, I barely recognize it.
“We will start the formal debrief soon. I will find you a new host. Any requests?”
I glance at my reflection again.
“Yes. I would like to be a woman again. I need that perspective some more, I think.”
“Just that? There are two and a half million returns a week now, requesting female is trivial.”
“It is enough. “
I glance at the window, at the Great Experiment. We lost something. We must get it back.
