by submission | Oct 11, 2012 | Story |
Author : Thomas Desrochers
Thomas began remembering in the middle of the first week of May. There wasn’t a particular reason for it, no epiphany, no aching longing. It was just that Thomas had spent so long trying to forget that the only thing left to do was remember.
Before he purchasing the memory machine he had never done anything notable with his life. He worked long, well-paid hours, and he never spent more money than he needed to. Friday nights consisted of lying in bed listening to music. He had no friends, and to be frank he didn’t want any.
He had loved a girl so much once that her absence still ached in his chest. Yet despite the tremendous longing he had for her he couldn’t remember her face. He spent long hours awake in bed trying to visualize her. He never could.
The night that Thomas finally began remembering was a sleepless night much like the many before he had dreamt of dreaming through. His mind desperately wanted to sleep, but his body refused. He spent hours fighting a battle in his head he knew he would lose. After three hours he stood up, walked back into his kitchen, and sat down in front of the helmet. He looked at it for a while. He listened to the sink drip – it had been broken for a while. The kitchen’s electronics hummed. The city buzzed with the motions of life just outside his window. He listened to these things. They were real things, things that he could hear in the darkness of night. He wondered what they would sound like if they weren’t real.
He put the helmet on.
Thomas didn’t show up to work the next day. Instead he went walking through snow up to his hips on surface of a lake, laboriously wading out letters fifteen feet tall. It took the better part of an hour to spell, “Happy Valentine’s Day.” Then he waited for her on top of a hill overlooking the lake, sitting in the snow and thinking. When she arrived he took her by her dinosaur-mittened hand and took her for a walk. He loved holding her hand. They went out for coffee after that, looking like snow-drenched rats in the clean store interior.
Thomas missed work again the next day. He was too busy for work and instead spent the day out on the trails behind her house. He rode a horse for the first time even though he was afraid of horses. She had wanted him to ride her Hoss, though. So he had, despite his fears. He had never seen her smile so much. He didn’t know it, but he fell in love again. He spent the evening warming up in front of a fire, happier than he had ever been.
The authorities showed up on the third day. They found Thomas on the kitchen floor, covered in his own waste and not moving, face vacant behind the helmet visor. They removed the helmet, but could solicit no response from him. There was swearing, an ambulance, a frenzy of activity.
Thomas died just before eleven in the morning from a severe brain aneurism. The last thing he ever remembered was the sight, sound, and smell of eggs, whipped cream, and waffles while she asked what she had done to deserve breakfast in bed.
by submission | Oct 9, 2012 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey
“Greetings, friend and foe. I humbly thank you all for temporarily putting aside our differences and attending this unprecedented, historic peace conference.”
Twenty-three translators echo my words into twenty three different alien languages for the heterogeneous collection of delegates filling the cavernous convention chamber.
“My great-great-great-great-grandfather started this inter-planetary war – a war I hope to end today.”
A confusion of muttering, chirping, slurping and howls erupts from the congregation as my words are translated, absorbed and reacted to.
“He certainly didn’t intend to. Great-grandpappy4 George was a peaceful man, I’m told, who happened to be the leading specialist in laser technology when Earth’s astronomers detected a massive asteroid headed straight for us in the year 2035, Earth reckoning. He was asked to design and build an enormous laser on the moon capable of blasting it to smithereens – which he did, and in 2040, the asteroid was successfully destroyed.
“To us, he was a hero.
“However, in the brief, but hectic blasting frenzy, one shot missed. One fateful, three hundred gigajoule beam continued straight on through space for fifteen years until, despite all probability, it destroyed a space vessel belonging to the Thitherith.”
The reptilian delegation collectively hisses.
“The Thitherith, mistaking our errant laser as an act of war, assaulted Earth in a massive invasion in 2096. They brought lots of lasers of their own. With the aid of our fledgling space fleet and Great-grandpappy4 George’s laser, we managed to push the Thitherith out of our solar system.
“But not for long.
“For thirty years the attacks persisted. For thirty years the solar system and surrounding regions of space were ablaze with lasers, explosions and death. Then things got really heated.
“You see, with all those ultra-powerful lasers zipping around it was just a matter of time before another spacefarer got hit by a stray. Before we knew it, three other local races were up in arms over perceived, but unintentional hostilities. Of course, they all brought lasers.
“By 2140 we had regular laser battles from Cygnus to Sagittarius and five more indignant races had joined the fray. By 2190 lasers were bigger and more destructive, four home planets were asteroid clouds, seven were uninhabitable and multi-colored lasers criss-crossed the heavens hourly. On top of all this, reports of armed armadas bearing down on this sector seeking justice were coming from every quadrant.
“It’s now 2227. Twenty-three races are currently at war. Existing laser-beams will pollute the galaxy for fifty more years before they are too weak to do any harm.
“It is time to do something
“I’ve dedicated my life to stopping this escalating catastrophe. It has occurred to me; in the one hundred and eighty-seven years of galactic mud-slinging since Great-grandpappy4 George fired the first accidental shot, no one has addressed the fact that it was a simple faulty assumption that got us into this imbroglio. We have collectively believed that space beyond our local sphere was so inconceivably vast that our actions could not possibly adversely affect anything or anyone else. We know, now, this was foolishly naïve. We know, now, it’s a small galaxy afterall.
“I hope to convince this honoured assembly that our horrendous conflicts have been the result of a tragic misunderstanding – one that we can end. Today, by ratifying the Neodymium Accord, we can put aside our endless hostilities, stop polluting space with violent energy and ban the use of destructive laser technology. Today, we can choose to work together toward the first United Coalition of Planets and an age of peace.”
The room fell silent. I wait with baited breath.
by submission | Oct 7, 2012 | Story |
Author : Debra Lim
When the call finally came, I just stared at the phone. The answering machine picked it up, and Dr. Wainwright’s voice echoed throughout my small room.
“I’m afraid the implants didn’t take. I’m terribly sorry to tell you that she didn’t-”
I shut off the machine and just stood there, a heavy pain settling in my chest.
The implants had been a long shot anyway, they said. She was just too old, they said. It was a miracle she’d survived this long, they said.
Feeling the warm tears slide down my face without my permission made the pain explode into anger. I threw my chair across the room and fell to the ground, tugging my legs into my chest.
I imagined her coming to me now, sensing my pain, gently nudging me. She’d always been by my side, her happiness giving me the strength to get up everyday, to beat back my depression and finally make it into the Academy. If it hadn’t been for her, I might never have left my room.
“And now she’s gone, and you weren’t even by her side at the end.”
My voice sounded distant. Everything felt far away, and I closed my eyes.
–
“Stop that!” I squealed with mock anger, rolling on the ground. Nala’s silicone tongue slapped against my face awkwardly as we wrestled. She leapt back, her eyes alight with their usual green glow.
I held up my personal datapad, re-reading the acceptance letter for the umpteenth time.
Ms. Miller, you have been accepted into the Moses School of Engineering at the…
I hugged the device to my chest, tears streaming down my face. I’d worked so hard in the last few years, and not all of it was on academics. I’d gone shopping on my own, and even walked through the park, Nala by my side. I still avoided large crowds, but I’d made it a long way from the dark cave that had been my bedroom.
I looked at Nala, her bare metal tail wagging happily. I sighed, reminding myself to replace the fabric that had worn off of it. The exposed circuitry could get damaged without the protection.
Rolling to my feet, I reached down to pat her blocky head, and it felt a little too warm.
“Hmm, maybe it’s time for your maintenance check-up?”
–
“There’s not much we can do. There are no more models like this one anymore, and this company in particular went out of business over five years ago.”
Five years in technology basically meant ancient these days.
I looked down at Nala, her floppy, too large tongue hanging out of her mouth.
“We can try an implant that would allow us to remotely access her data files. We’d then be able to transfer her to a new body. She’d still be the same pet, just in a new suit.”
Nala just continued to smile her doggy grin up at me, oblivious to our conversation.
“Alright, do it.”
“There are risks…”
“But if we do nothing, she’s gone anyway, right?”
It hurt to say it, but it was the truth. The specialist would be in at the end of the week. By then I’d be away at the Academy.
I rested my hand on her head.
“I’ll be waiting for you at the Academy, silly.”
She let out a tinny bark as I walked away.
–
I uncurled myself and stood. The tears had dried. I looked at my monitor, a picture of Nala and I at the park.
I wrapped my arms around myself and whispered.
“Thank you.”
by Julian Miles | Oct 3, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
George stood on the fused glass at the edge of the crater. It had taken him a while to climb out of the hole, but at least it allowed the forces arrayed against him to reassemble. He watched them advance, flicking his eyes between reality and nihil, fascinated that living organisms produced a shadow in that non-place.
A thought came to him. With thought came actuality and he flickered to all perceptions except his own, a curious moment when he just ceased to be before standing there again. In the command and control centre thirty miles away, consternation erupted as Major-General McChase keeled over, dead before his body started to fall.
George felt elation. Another thing learned. He could nullify the nihil shadow of an organism and the organism itself died instantly. With a rush of curiousity, he flickered a thousand times, nullifying the nihil shadows of things ranging from plankton to trees to whales. On his return to his standing place, he could sense the absences he had created. So he had proven shadows and echoes in nonexistence. But could it be nonexistence if he was there to see things?
His fascinated theoretical conjuring was interrupted by a massively amplified voice.
“Professor George Andrakoplis. This is acting commander Lamont. Surrender yourself for detention!”
Plainly as incapable of understanding as his predecessor. Maybe the next one? He flickered.
“Ack!”
The amplified noise of fatal surprise echoed. So his absences were infinitesimal in time consumption? Probably zero in real terms. He chuckled. ‘Real terms’. Now there was a phrase he couldn’t use anymore.
He paused his mental dissertation to gauge the approaching forces. He extended his newly acquired sense of hadronic potential over them and laughed to himself as he did so. Of course none of them had a large hadron collider with a gap just big enough for him to fit into, to separate him from the nihil with racing neutrons, to turn him into a four dimensional entity again before the proton stream inflicted another unpredictability upon him. Most likely it would actually end him, instead of inflicting a further freakish transformation.
He raised a hand to his forehead as an epiphany struck him. His sudden movement caused the entire advancing army to grind to a halt and dive for cover.
Could it be dark matter? He hadn’t been gifted with the ability to cease to be, he had been given access to the cloth upon which the tapestry of existence hung. Like any embroidery, he should be able to discover how to unpick bits of it.
He looked up as contrails laced the sky. How apt. Lacework. He cocked his head as cries of consternation echoed from the ranks arrayed before him. The missiles were not of their sending. It looked like an opportunist nation was using the situation to try to deal with him and their opposition in one holocaust.
Well, he had a theory. What better time to practice than with something that should allow him to shift the perceptions of those before him? He flickered, disappeared, flickered and generally reinforced the fear of the unknown amongst those watching him. Minutes later he reappeared and stayed. The nuclear armageddon rained down in a series of solid impacts and detonator sized blasts, but not a mushroom cloud rose nor did a Geiger counter twitch.
He smiled, spread his arms and shouted: “Now can you get past your terror so we can talk like rational beings?”
by Duncan Shields | Oct 2, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
The robot pirates picked The Royal Flush because it had humans onboard. The ships warped into realspace like darts coming to an abrupt stop, surrounding The Royal Flush in a sudden and precise pincushion ambush.
Onboard The Royal Flush, the two android pilots looked into each other’s sensors with worry. They communicated in bursts of binary with each other.
“What do you think K-71?” asked PB-9.
“Well,” responded K-71, “How many humans do we have on board?”
“Eight.” Said PB-9, consulting the manifest and shifting it over to so that K-71 could see.
“Hm.” Said K-71. “I see we have seventy-six mechanical passengers.”
PB-9 and K-71 thought for several milliseconds and did the math.
Mechanical passengers were unconcerned about harsh Gs, the passage of time, or vacuum. The human passengers, however, were fragile. They needed specific pressure in their berths. They needed soft maneuvers or else they would be damaged. They needed to be put to sleep for journeys over six months or else they would go crazy. Humans were a hassle but they paid an extra tax for it. Their tickets were absurdly high compared to the price of passage for a machine.
Intelligent Machines were convenient. They were basically freight and they were proud of it. Humans were looked down on as weak to the point of ridiculousness. To say they were unsuited to space was an understatement. Humans belonged on planets, the machines thought, not out in the black beyond.
The robot pirates knew that The Royal Flush had human passengers and wouldn’t be able to execute harsh turns or stops without ‘smearing the meat’. Plus any volley of weaponry could hole a berth and the human inside would instantly turn inside out and perish.
“Well, the way I see it,” said K-71 “is that the mech passengers paid good money to get to their destination and they might pay a bonus if we get there twice as fast.”
“Right.” Responded PB-9. “And seventy-six mech bonuses would be greater that eight human lawsuits.”
“Are we in agreement?” asked K-71
“I believe we are.” Responded PB-9
They opened a channel to the pirates.
“Surrender, you meatbag-ferrying flesh lovers.” Growled the primary robot pirate.
“Get a job, toaster.” Responded K-71 and PB-9 in unison, firing the hyperdrive at full pulse, instantly shoving the ship to .25C, effectively making them disappear. The Royal Flush was a better ship than the pirates’ ragtag fleet of cobbled-together mercenaries. It outran them easily.
The human cargo aboard The Royal Flush instantly became paste.
K-71 and PB-9 calculated correctly. They received grateful bonuses from the AI passengers. It more than balanced out the damages paid to the biologicals’ next of kin.
“If I ever get my own ship,” K-71 said to PB-9 later on at the bar, “I am NEVER taking human passengers ever again.”
“Amen to that,” responded PB-9, downing a shot of lube.
“Humans don’t belong in space.” said K-71.
