by submission | Sep 28, 2013 | Story |
Author : Aron White
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Davidson said, staring at Earth through the viewport. “There’s nothing like seeing the real thing. Reality is the ultimate high-definition experience. Just a few more days and we’ll be heading back home.”
Anders floated across the cabin, bumped Davidson out of the way and stuck his face against the transparent material.
“It would be more interesting if we weren’t performing the same missions as our grandfathers.”
Davidson rolled his eyes. “Show a bit of respect for those ‘grandfathers.’ They broke barriers and paved the way for us.”
“My point exactly. This isn’t the 1960’s, it’s the 21st century for heck’s sake! We need something new, something adventurous! Let’s break some new barriers for a change!”
Davidson shook his head. “What a crew the three of us make. One yearning for home, another for adventure and the third…” Davidson turned away from the viewport. “And how about you, Bronson? What’s your dream?”
Across the cabin, Bronson was staring out another viewport away from Earth, towards empty space.
“Me?” Bronson said without moving. “My dream is over. Now it’s time to go home.”
Davidson chuckled. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re facing the wrong way. Earth is on this side of the room.”
“Your home,” Bronson said, slowly turning to face Davidson and Anders, “but not mine.”
In a matter of seconds, Bronson’s human appearance melted away and shrunk downwards into a humanoid alien with stumpy appendages, chubby abdomen and a large cranium with big black, lidless eyes.
“What the…” Before Davidson could finish his sentence, the Bronson-turned-alien teleported across the cabin and used a three-fingered hand to tap each astronaut on the shoulder. Both men instantly passed out.
Twenty minutes later, Davidson woke to find both he and a still-unconscious Anders bound with metallic cords, secured against one of the cabin walls. The alien floated several feet away, typing commands into the spacecraft navigation system.
“Wha…what are you?” Davidson stammered.
“Does Roswell, New Mexico ring a bell?”
“That…that was supposed to be a rumor…”
“Well, the rumor is now the reality standing before you, Davidson. How’s that for a high-definition experience?”
“But…but why are you doing this, Bronson? Is that even your real name?”
“Bronson was the name I adopted in my human form. I’m commandeering this ship to return to my own planet. I was the lone survivor of the Roswell crash and have spent the past century waiting and watching. I needed a vehicle to launch myself into space, hence the gig as an astronaut.”
“But how will you…”
“There are leapways, or wormholes, throughout space. They’re not hard to find if you know what to look for. I’ve located one and we’re moments away from entry.”
Davidson’s eyes bulged as the full weight of the situation began to sink in.
The alien turned away from the navigation system to face Davidson. “I’m sorry to take you away from Earth, but do try to relax.”
“Relax?! How do you intend for Anders and I…”
“I’m optimistic you will be able to make a home of my planet as I did yours, and Anders shouldn’t have a problem with the new situation.”
“What makes you say…”
“Anders is about to fulfill one of his biggest dreams.”
Davidson tilted his head to one side questioningly as the alien continued.
“For the human race, he and you are both about to break many new barriers in space exploration, just like your grandfathers.”
Davidson was quiet as their spacecraft reached its intended target and vanished into the leapway.
by submission | Sep 26, 2013 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
The Norwellians were the eighth interstellar race to join the Galactic Cabinet. A millennia of experience had refined their intelligence and powers of diplomacy orders above all others.
And so, an unprecedented era of peace reigned across the stars.
The Cabinet’s reliance on the Norwellians was emphasised during the Phase – a short period every year, when the Norwellians would take leave from all duties and return to their home planet. The Phase was explained as a time for reflection, where they must not be disturbed.
Immediately following their departure for the Phase, an attack commenced on the Seethe home planet of Jerrin by a race called the Lins. It was timed perfectly to maximise the duration of damage through the Phase.
The Cabinet failed to resolve the conflict and watched in despair as Jerrin’s lush green surface became bruised and torn. In desperation, they reached out and demanded the Norwellians perform their Cabinet duties. The reaction was unexpected.
Like dragonflies over a pond, Lin battleships hovered over Jerrin. Warping beside each battleship appeared Kray stars, devices long outlawed by the Cabinet. Instantly each battleship folded inward, forming a white hot sphere. Each sphere then accelerated away from Jerrin towards the Lin home planet of Hy. Nearing the speed of light, they impacted, pushing the planet’s core to its surface. Lin became unmade.
Across galactic space, a silent assassin pulse decelled the biology of every remaining Lin.
The esteem held for the Norwellian’s, gave weight to their response. However, this was not enough to silence the roar of the public voice that demanded reasoning.
The Norwellians remained silent.
Patiently, the Cabinet waited for Phase End. Too fearful to disturb the Norwellians again. Too self conscious of their own inability to understand.
At the end of the Phase, a cruiser launched from the Norwellian home world and arrived carrying a sole passenger, the Norwellian Chief.
Through live galactic cast, the Norwellian Chief stood as expressionless as the stone plinth below him.
“Cabinet members and universal life. We are a proud and peaceful race. Our position within the Cabinet has given us a stage to share our knowledge of harmony and good will. For this we are grateful”
The chief slowly bowed his head and an expression of discomfort appeared across his long face.
“As a Norwellian, we, like all races, have genetic frailties. Biological coding so intertwined with the essence of our making that it cannot be separated. Our pride shrouded this weakness and now you hear the truth”
The chief rested a shaking hand on the stone rostrum.
“The time known to you as the Phase, is not a time for reflection. It is a time where we mentally regress to a primitive and instinctual state. A being so adverse to what you have come to know, that we must lock ourselves away for fear of its escape”
He looked upward and gazed momentarily, drawing in a deep breath.
“During our last Phase, you sought help from a different Norwellian. A dark Norwellian, bound in fear and hatred with no means of expressing that terror. Our action against the Lin was a violent release. A natural expulsion of hate, expressed using weaponry we have tried to forget. In reprising our Cabinet role, we have determined the only solution for this unforgivable act is this”
The Chief pulls his hand from his robe and discharges a hand weapon into his mouth, collapsing lifeless on the podium.
The audience screamed in silence. The tension interrupted moments later by a projected image of the Norwellian home planet exploding.
by Duncan Shields | Sep 22, 2013 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Timecasting is a strange way to travel to the future. It ‘throws’ a person forward. In this case, me. I’ll be the world’s first temponaut soon. The scientists keep playfully calling me a ‘temp’ and they think it’s hilarious. If all goes well, I’ll be the first person to see the future.
By using a ‘time anchor’, they can nail a temponaut to one single here and now. It’s like putting your back against the elastic of a slingshot and walking backwards until it stretches tight. The further backward you walk, the further forward you’ll go when you relax.
The flow of time dams behind the person like putting a clamp on a hose and having the water build up behind it. After a few seconds, the time anchor turns off and the temponaut re-enters the timestream. The backed-up time behind them shoots the person forward. The longer the pause, the further into the future he or she goes.
You could also say it’s like dropping a huge weight on one side of a seesaw. Whoever’s on the other side of the seesaw will go flying upwards into the air but the seesaw itself stays where it is. The fulcrum of the seesaw is our present moment, and the temponaut is what gets catapulted.
Everything that goes up must come down, to use the seesaw metaphor further, and so the person will slow, pause and then reverse course back to our lab.
At that perihelion, that tip of the parabola in the future, the person can stay still long enough to take a picture and have a quick peek.
That person is me.
I settle in the timechair and give the thumbs up to the technician.
Time cannot stand anything going against its flow. The resistance increases exponentially. The most they’ll be able to hold me back for is five seconds. That’ll be enough power to shoot me one year into the future.
The scientist in the body condom hazmat suit off to my right throws the switch. My timechair immediately goes cold. The lab around me throws into reverse as I am held back. My vision develops a blue tint. I have the horrible sensation that my hair is reverse-growing back into my head and I hope it’s just psychosomatic. Every slows to a quivering standstill five seconds in the past and then…
SNAP I’m flying forward in time. The lab smears around me in streaks of light and pops of blinding, saturated colour like I’m watching every single frame of a year-long movie all at once. An orchestra of rattling and ambient noise builds to a rattling, banging crescendo. Just when I think I’m about to suffer from a full sensory overload…
It stops.
I’m hanging in a dark cavern. My nails, beard, and hair are a year longer. The lab has disappeared. There is a strong stench of ammonia. Stalactites dot the entrance to the cave and there is a low subterranean humming. Something glows in front of me.
It’s a tongue. The perspective flips and I can see that I’m inside a giant mouth. The glowing tongue darts out and touches my ankle. The whole interior of the mouth lights up like the ribs of a deep sea angler and I scream.
We’re not timecasting. We’re fly fishing and I’m bait. There must be giant creatures in the time stream that eat time travelers and I’m on the end of Earth’s first fishing line.
My last thought is that I hope the timechair acts as a hook and brings this beast back to the lab.
by submission | Sep 19, 2013 | Story |
Author : Glen Luke Flanagan
Pain tugged at the edge of my consciousness like a forgotten memory, bringing with it a collage of broken images and angry words. Without warning, sterile walls hemmed me in, and voices washed over me like a sea of panic, none of them intelligible.
“John.” One voice forced its way through the clamor, pulling me back to reality. “John, snap out of it.” I was daydreaming again.
Kaylee was looking at me intently, worry plain in her big brown eyes. “That’s the third time today,” she said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I shook my head yes. “I’ve had these for a while. They come and go.” I couldn’t tell her I had only begun daydreaming since I met her, or that each time it happened I found it harder to focus and remember.
She hesitated, then smiled. “Okay, if you’re sure. Let’s get you home and out of the sun. I think I’ve had enough of the beach for one day.”
In the car, I watched as she carefully navigated the ins and outs of our little seaside town. I loved the way her brow furrowed slightly in concentration, the way her fingers lay languidly on the steering wheel. We had been dating for almost nine months now, but sometimes it seemed like I had just met her yesterday.
She caught my eye and blushed. “It ain’t polite to stare at a girl like that, Mr. Finnegan.”
I grinned and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Can’t help myself sometimes, little lady. I think it’s love at first sight every time I lay eyes on you.”
She laughed and punched my shoulder gently as we turned into the driveway. “Such a charmer. You say that to all the girls you take home?”
“Only you,” I promised, kissing her again. “Now, how about I throw our beach gear in the garage and we go to bed early?”
Cold metal bit into my side, and the panicked buzz of voices grew louder. A face hovered over mine, and gloved fingertips pried apart my eyelids, but there was no feeling. The face said words, and this time I understood a few.
“Hallucinogenic parasite.” The meaning evaded me, but I could make out the sounds. “Burrowed deep. Deadly if we can’t help him shake it off.” Then I was back in my own bathroom, sweating profusely and clutching the sink with a death grip for support. Kaylee’s voice came through the door, muffled but plainly worried.
“Baby, you alright in there?”
I sucked in a breath and looked in the mirror, wincing at my pallid, feverish reflection. “Yeah, I’m good,” I lied. “Be there in a sec.” Then the world went dark, and the walls closed around me once more.
“Not looking good,” the face murmured in a voice that sounded like angry bees. “Whatever it’s feeding him, he likes too much to let it go.” The words were starting to make sense now, and I fought against it. I didn’t like what I was hearing. Have to get back to Kaylee, I told myself. Focus on Kaylee.
The bathroom slowly came back into focus. I turned on the faucet, splashed my face. In the bedroom, she was waiting, reading. She glanced up and patted the spot beside her. I slipped under the sheet and pulled her close, looking into her eyes.
“Sometimes it feels like I just met you yesterday,” I whispered. “But I’m never going to leave you.”
by submission | Sep 18, 2013 | Story |
Author : Ian Muneshwar
Billy lost his grandmother to the portable DVD player five months after his grandfather died. It started when she discovered that, with Netflix, she had access to an almost infinite supply of B-rated romances. Before long, she started using the portable Sony so she could continue to watch them all over the house: she made it through “Gigli” while cooking a pot roast and finished “Breaking Dawn” in the bathtub.
About a week before it happened she had become obsessed with a hopelessly unoriginal vampire movie. There was one scene in particular—the final dialogue between the romantic leads—that she watched over and over, until both she and Billy had memorized every word, every caught breath, and every vapid declaration of undying love.
The night the movie took her Billy found the DVD player on the couch, looping the final scene. There was a shallow imprint on the cushion, so he knew she couldn’t have been gone for long.
“Grandma?” he called, sitting down. There was no response.
He set the Sony down in his lap and put the headphones in, one at a time.
*
“I don’t have much time,” the girl said when Billy reached the other side.
He recognized her immediately; she was Amanda, the white-blonde, quivering-lipped protagonist of the vampire movie. She was different on this side of the screen, though. There was a small but bright red pimple at the corner of her mouth that someone had unsuccessfully tried to cover with concealer and, standing this close to her, he could see the light brown roots in her hair.
“Bill, it’s your grandmother,” she said, blinking. “And I don’t think either of us has much time.”
“Time before what?” He tried to take a step forward, but instead his hand reached out and his long, unnaturally white fingers ran through the girl’s hair. “Wait, am I the vamp—”
“I tried to leave but I think we’re stuck,” she interrupted. “Stuck to acting out the last scene of this goddamn movie.”
She took his hand in her own. Billy looked down at her full lips and the poorly-concealed pimple.
“How did we get here?”
“Have you ever wanted something so badly, Billy, that you’d give everything you are just to have it?” She pulled him closer. “I couldn’t get this story out of my head. Eternal life seems so nice, you know?”
“You realize that Armando isn’t alive, right Grandma? He’s undead.”
“Dead, undead. He can spend the rest of time with Amanda. They could be happy together literally forever. That would have been nice to have.” She paused, brushing hair out of her eyes. “I’d give the world to have had that with Grandpa, undead or otherwise.”
“But that’s not how it works, Grandma. This isn’t real.”
“Who are you to say what’s real, Armando?”
“I’m not Armando—” Billy began to say, but the girl drew him in for a deep kiss.
“I loved you from the moment we met. I want to be with you, like this, forever.” She blinked coyly.
“Grandma?”
But Billy could feel it, too. His own words were being blown to the far corners of his mind. The script began to bleed into him; his language, like his actions, were no longer his own.
“We can be together, Amanda,” he said. He stared deeply into the girl’s eyes, where he saw his own terror reflected. “There’s a way.”
“Take me, Armando.” She uttered the movie’s closing line in an exaggeratedly breathy whisper.
Billy pulled his grandmother’s head back and, tenderly, plunged his teeth into her chest.
