by submission | Jan 21, 2012 | Story |
Author : Jeremy Herman
Did you know coal can be reduced to liquid? With enough heat and pressure it’s possible. The government discovered this once they ran out of oil but they still needed to power their war machines. Right now Coleman felt like one of those dull pieces of rock. He felt like the world around him was squeezing the life out of him. Soon he would get relief. Coleman walked past smudged faces as he entered the lab building. He worked in a coal mining town now, but the images from the war still hung with him.
He had served 4 tours overseas and he only had scars to prove he was there, no medals. The things he witnessed still haunted him. The screams. The smells. Some nights he would wake up in pools of sweat. It had been weeks since he had a good sleep. He felt like a reanimated corpse in the mines trying to operate off just a few hours.
That would all be over soon though. He was in the waiting room of the government sponsored lab that would help him with his PTSD. He had an honorable discharge after his service and decided to settle in this small mining town. Here the pay was minimal but he could still scrape by. He actually had joined the army because he thought he would be able to get ahead in life. Save some money, maybe find a wife. Little did he know the price he would pay with reoccurring nightmares each night. Now the small nest egg he had would go to help defer the cost of treating his stress disorder.
He was called into the back office and the doc looked at him with kind eyes. The doctor said he was grateful for his service to the nation. Coleman nodded slowly still feeling the effects of nights without sleep. The doctor told him he had a new way to treat soldiers that had only been tried on a few patients. It was experimental but ten times more effective then any of the current ways to treat his disorder.
“What if I could help you forget everything. What would you say to that?”
“You have my attention doc. Give me the details.”
“The process is quite complex and involves selective neural destruction. We will use dyes to map the connections in your brain associated with the war and destroy them. It will be as if you never had fought.” Coleman stared ahead dumbly trying to comprehend the magnitude of this decision.
“You don’t have to respond right now. I can understand if you need time to think it over.” Coleman turned to face the doctor and stared into both his eyes. “I can’t keep living this way. My memories are killing me. Do what you have to do and make it fast.” Hours later Coleman was discharged from the lab with a new neural map.
Weeks passed and it was work as usual. The mines churned out loads of coal to support the war effort. Coleman worked with renewed vitality but no one ever got rich from the work. As soon as the money came in it flowed out again for rent and food. What a dismal way for anyone to live! If only there was a way to get ahead. On the way to work Coleman saw a recruitment poster and paused to write down the number. Maybe they would take him?
by Duncan Shields | Jan 19, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Our breasts are sore and our balls itch.
We feel like half of our food goes towards our tumours now. The black accordion beside our bed makes our four lungs work, squeezing long and then flat, our only sense of passing time when the lights are off. All of the instruments around our bed make the room look like Christmas. They softly ping, beep, scratch, whine, record and bear witness.
We are in the grip of a sadness so total that it will last us the rest of our lives which, if the doctors and technicians are right, will be about another six days.
We raise our hand up to the button that makes more pain medication drip into the tubes and it’s exhausting. The competing muscles from two people fused together struggle and fail before flopping back down on the bed. Several medical alarms go off and then go quiet again, just like they do every time we move.
The irony is that we were in love before all this. Two cadets on a starship. Cadet Robert Jacobs and Cadet Linda Castle. Bright kids with bright futures that knew nothing about what cruel surprises fate had in store. We held hands in the corridors, had sex whenever we could, and blushed when we thought of each other.
What fools.
The transporter badly needed a resequencing, the official inquiry found. Our molecules were transposed, inverted, inverted back and then met in the middle somewhere. Normally, when this sort of thing happens, the victims die immediately or are returned to the pad intact and separate as their backup selves. In this case, not only were the safeguards dormant, we survived the melding.
The mashing of our bodies and minds together has changed us into a giant lump of flesh with arms and legs splayed out like a starfish. Our heads are mashed into one staring monstrosity. Our nervous system allows us to feel pain but we can barely move. The tumours started immediately and continue to multiply and grow. Our entwined DNA is rejecting itself but we cannot be separated.
And now we know way more about each other than we wanted to. We know that Linda did not love Robert and much as she said she did and that she had her eye on another cadet. We know that Robert had a history of sexual abuse that he never disclosed to Linda. We know that Linda was very mean to her ex-lovers. We know that Robert tortured rodents as a child. Our minds are one and the veil is down. We know so much more about each other than any human has a right do. Every insecurity, bowel movement, unfair thought, dark corner and weakness laid out like an autopsy for us both to see.
We’ve been told that our backup selves will be returned to life after we die and informed of the anomaly. This ruling is supposed to be humane. They will never be allowed to witness the abomination we’ve become. We will never be able to tell those two idiots to break up immediately. That’s the most frustrating thing about this entire experience.
We have a unity two humans have never before achieved.
We cannot wait to die.
by Patricia Stewart | Jan 18, 2012 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Day 1. Our transport ship just crash landed on Piscium III. It was a miracle that twenty-four of us survived. The subspace transceiver still works, but C&C said it would probably be eight months before a rescue ship could get this deep behind enemy lines.
Day 2. We buried the dead today, and inventoried our supplies. Food and water don’t appear to be a problem. We have enough ammo to defend ourselves against a modest ground force, but if they come at us from above, we’re toast. Starting tomorrow, we’ll begin dismantling the ship to build a more defendable base.
Day 7. The days are getting hotter. According to the ship’s database, Piscium III has a highly elliptical, orbit. For the two months near perihelion, the average temperature will be over 60C, and for the four months near aphelion, it drops down to 40 below. Apparently, we arrived near late spring. Good thing we packed sunscreen.
Day 12. We thought this planet only had plant life, but we saw a three foot tall spider-like creature digging out its borough this morning. Sarge figures they must have been in hibernation during the Piscium winter. We’re hoping that they might be good enough to eat so we can supplement our food supply. We’ve been living off rations since the perishables spoiled when the freezer crapped out.
Day 20. We’re starting to get concerned. There are thousands of those giant spiders running around, and they are getting more brazen. They started probing the perimeter yesterday. Dickerson blasted one to pieces, and it seemed to scare the rest of them away. As a precaution, Sarge doubled the number of sentries.
Day 21. Dickerson’s screams woke us up at 0200. By the time we reached his post, he was gone. It looks like he scuffled with the spiders. We followed the tracks, but they disappeared into a hole. Looks like we’re at war with these demons too.
Day 37. It’s over 60C all the time now, and the damn spiders are attacking us day and night. We’ve been forced to pull back to a smaller, more defendable position. We lost another three men last week. We’re down to twelve now, barely enough to rotate guard duty.
Day 65. Our prayers are being answered. It’s finally starting to cool off, and the spiders are getting sluggish. We hope they go into hibernation soon. Eight of us are still hanging on, popping stims every few hours so we can stay awake. If we get off this God forsaken rock, we’ll probably need to spend months in detox. C&C says evac is five months minimum. Winter, please hurry.
Day 91. By the grace of God, I think we’re going to make it. We haven’t seen a spider in three weeks. We’re able to get four hours of sleep for the first time in months. However, it’s really getting cold. We’ll have to hunker down for the winter, but that will be a cakewalk compared to the hell we just lived through. Only four months to go.
Day 115. Sanchez went missing last night. His sleeping bag was ripped to shreds. But it wasn’t the spiders. By the looks of the footprints in the snow, it was some kind of large quadruped. Damn this world. Giant spiders in the summer, carnivore bears in the winter. The bastards are howling now, nonstop. There must be hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Three more months. God, have mercy on our souls.
Personal Log: Timed out
by Stephen R. Smith | Jan 17, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Ambassador Shaylin steepled his fingers and pursed his lips in a half smile.
“Now Envoy Tsak-tuk, you must appreciate the cost of transporting your exports to other planets, we’re happy to facilitate trade, but we’re simply unable to be any more charitable than we are at present.”
Across the table, The Tsak-Tulian Envoy huffed in and out several times, expelling great gusts of pungent air as he did so. Those directly across from him shifted uncomfortably in their seats until he spoke.
“Ambassador, you speak of high costs, and yet you pay nothing for our goods and they command high prices amongst your buyers. You would appear to be taking…”, the envoy paused, waiting for the correct word to bubble up through his consciousness, “advantage of what you assume to be our ignorance.”
Shaylin raised his hands and eyebrows at the affront.
“Envoy, you insult us. We’ve opened your doors to interstellar trade, brought you cultural knowledge and business from outside your planetary boundaries and you repay us with accusations and insults?”
It was the Envoy’s turn to smile.
“Knowledge? You bring us stories, select fragments of your history, tales of your heroism in the stars, of your benevolence and grace. You feed us your stories of Matthew, John and Luke and yet your knowledge is so clearly…”, again he paused, waiting for the correct word to present itself.
“Fascinating?” Shaylin offered.
“Sanitary.” Tsak-tuk finished the thought. “Your history as you present it hides the contributions of your Napoleons, Sun Tzus and Ghengis Khans.”
Ambassador Shaylin sat straight up in his chair, listening intently to his earpiece for some explanation of this information breach and receiving only static.
Tsak-Tuk laughed, a low rolling belly laugh that Shaylin felt rumble through his ribcage.
“You wonder how we know things you don’t show us? We have those among us for whom barriers and safeguards are of no consequence, you have your… John Drapers, we have ours.” He raised one worn appendage, noting how pitted and cracked the dermal plates were. Too long at work. “We have learned a great many things from you, about your ruthless subjugation of the weak, your wars, your failed societal systems, we’ve learned of your politics and insatiable lust for power.” He looked pointedly from delegate to delegate, weighing their discomfort. “Why don’t you provide us with your ships, and we’ll take our goods to the stars ourselves and broker our own deals?”
A melodic tone began sounding from outside, Shaylin recognizing it as the midday chiming of the towers in the city square.
Tsak-Tuk narrowed his eyes. “You come to us promising opportunity, your assistance and equal prosperity and yet you take advantage of us and seem intent on keeping us powerless. The time has come to renegotiate the terms of our arrangement.”
The Ambassador moved forward in his seat, reddening in the face.
“How dare you…”, he started as Tsak-Tuk cut him off.
Shaylin, focused too on the envoys cracked and pitted appendage still held aloft suddenly realized the other held a short but impressive looking handgun.
“Today’s chiming unites all of our people against all of yours.” Around them, weapons appeared, amply covering the off-world delegation.”I believe it was your Mao Tse-Tung who said ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’?”
Shaylin shrunk back into his seat in a pool of his own sweat.
“He wasn’t ours, exactly.” Was all he could think to say.
by submission | Jan 14, 2012 | Story |
Author : Ray Gregory
I could get any woman in this bar I want, but she’s the one. I mean, what a babe: blond, built, just check out those knockers! Now she’s hitting on me even harder than I’m hitting on her, like neither of us can wait.
We find a corner table. The place is packed, everybody busy with their own chatting and hooking up. So who’ll notice, right? I slide a hand under her skirt, inch my fingers up her warm, silky inner thigh.
She grabs my wrist. “Not here, big boy. Let’s blow this dive.”
“Sure, babe” — I can’t even remember her name. “My car’s right out front.”
Her eyes twinkle. “So’s my van. It’s plenty comfy too.” She drags her tongue across her gleaming teeth, then her full, ripe lips.
Next thing I know, I’m pushing through the crowd, hustling her out of the place. We stumble to her van, groping each other all the way. She yanks open the back door. “Climb in there, big boy.”
I bow, sweep my hand. “Lady’s first.” I mean, why not ogle her fine ass wriggling into that van?
She grins, swats my ass. “Forget the gentleman act. Get in there — and get ready.”
I giggle like the drunken — and excited — fool I am, then climb into the dark interior.
“That’s a good boy,” then she slams the door closed behind me!
“What the…” I spin, grope for the door handle, but there isn’t one. No windows either. I feel around in the darkness. Just the smooth, cold metal door and walls.
“Don’t be afraid.” It’s her voice from a speaker. She sounds weirdly professional now. “We’re still gonna — mate, but under controlled conditions.”
“Mate? Who the hell are you? Let me outta here.” I bang on the metal walls with my fists. It’s like I’m trapped in some black-as-hell echo chamber. Help me, somebody. Anybody?
“Don’t worry. The subjective experience should even be pleasurable. Isn’t pleasure, especially the pleasure of sex, what you care about most?”
“Stupid bitch!” I pound the door. “What the hell kinda freak are you?”
She snickers. “I seem to be smarter, and more human, than you.”
“Let — me — outta — here.”
“Just lie down now and get comfortable, then I’ll — join you.”
I bang even harder. “Let me the fuck outta here!”
“Don’t be such a baby. Didn’t I tell you there’s nothing to fear? What, are you even afraid of yourself?”
I stop banging. “What are you talking about, you crazy bitch?”
“You still don’t get it, do you? I’m you — half of you anyway. I’m your feminine side. You suppressed me years ago. That’s why you’re purely male now, and such an asshole.”
I stumble backward. “What the…”
“Remember the last time your girlfriend, Brenda Olsen, discovered you cheating on her? That was the last straw for Brenda. So one night while you were sleeping, she had a team from Psychotronic Simulations scan your brain.”
“Brenda? She what?”
“Psychotronic Simulations reverse engineered a new and enhanced version of your mind’s feminine side, namely — me. The body I used to lure you into the neurofusion chamber was just a luxury sexbot.”
My jaw drops. Suddenly I’m more scared than drunk.
“You see, Brenda arranged an intervention, or more precisely, an integration. It’ll be a wonderful merger too: you and me, a complete person again, plus monogamous and faithful too. So be a good boy now and lie down for me. It’ll be easier if you just relax, just think about — oh, maybe flowers and butterflies.”
