by Julian Miles | Oct 19, 2011 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The room is dim as I seal the doors and windows against the polluted mist that descends most nights. I wave the low-lights on as I pass to check on Linda. She’s sleeping peacefully so I wander back to the den, collecting a can of coffee on the way.
Closing the door gently I open the drawer and lift the strange device out once again. Purple lenses twinkle as I spin the counterweight and brace myself.
*write*
I shake my head. This has to be good.
“No. I can’t send more people to their death.”
*write*
“No. You’ve had twenty years of my feeding you.”
*write or I come to you*
“Do it. Losing this place so you are trapped would be a triumph.”
*write or I take her back*
That stopped me. Linda dying had started this. In my grief I’d bought some very odd, supposedly alien detritus from the local flea markets. Everybody wanted a bit of the archaeological treasures coming in from a universe that only had us in it now.
Three of those bits had fitted together.
When I spun the counterweight for the first time, the voice had said I could have her back. I was one of those who could write the real. What I wrote became an alternate reality somewhere. So the deal was that I wrote of a place where Linda was alive and it would retrieve her for me. Then I could write of anything I liked and it would use those realities to feed itself. When I lost my job it started dropping off valuables from the realities it ate. Life became easy. But over the years, I have started to contemplate my bargain. I have been playing God in the worst way. My devil has to be sent down.
*write*
“Very well.”
I started to type, my fingers flying across the keyboard as the story and place were so familiar yet the opening gave nothing away. After a page or so I felt the ‘loosening’ in my mind. I typed on, guilt buried under purpose at last.
*delightful*
I smiled and typed on. After a further two pages I felt the vibration and heard a distant predatory wail in my mind as it fell upon that new reality. The counterweight stopped. This was usually where I stopped too, wandering off in self-loathing to drown my guilt in vodka.
Tonight I carried on. I wrote of a world much like this one, where a man with my name had become a genius scientist only to lose his childhood sweetheart to a strange thing that stole her away leaving no trace. He battled years of scepticism until he proved that multiple realities existed and that they were preyed upon. He prepared his world against such an eventuality. Such genius, driven by loss, backed by the resources of a world, would not miss a single opportunity.
*!*
That made me pause. Then I smiled as I saw the lenses crumble and the counterweight rust in seconds. I poured myself a drink before a thought struck me. I ran to the bedroom and lunged through the door to confront another me with Linda supine in his arms. He looked at me in shock and then with compassion that I did not deserve. He put Linda back on the bed.
“Look after her.”
With that, he was gone leaving only a faint purple ripple fading in the air.
I cried for hours, Linda hugging me but unaware of the cause: I had written a better me.
by submission | Oct 16, 2011 | Story |
Author : Holly Day
The boy didn’t fly so much as claw his way up through the air, swinging first one arm, then the next, up over his head while he made his ascent. His arms and legs were twisted metal wrapped in plastic, and his face was completely covered with a clear plastic shield. The eyes that stared up at Valerie were bright and angry against a pallor of sagging, dying flesh.
Valerie eyed the boy coolly, automatically willing the projectiles in the palms of her hands to slide into place. It wouldn’t be any big deal to just circumvent the boy completely, but she hadn’t had a chance to try the tiny bombs out on anything yet. She sized up her opponent as he grew nearer, deciding that the large, clunky tube grenade launcher strapped to his forearms would be no threat to her.
Valerie slowed her decent until it was little more than a hover and waited for the deformed creature below her to draw close. It was funny, or ironic, how she felt right now—she wasn’t sure which. The short time she had spent in an adolescent, fully-human body, she had been riddled with insecurity about her body, her body language, what she was supposed to talk about with friends and what she was allowed to say to boys, and the whole experience had been just awful. But now, just weeks after officially joining the military as part of their Elite, she felt perfectly in control of everything around her. Everything. The boy below her posed no threat on any level. He could either attack her or try to kiss her, and she would have been able to deal with either situation perfectly.
“Wouldn’t it be strange if he did try to kiss me?” she marveled suddenly, almost laughing, then shuddered. The closer he drew, the more she could see how unlike her he, or at least his construction, was. He was a brutish pile of sharp metal parts and exposed tubes and wires, with bits of human flesh showing here and there as if left by accident. His mouth was an angry snarl of teeth, lips dry and split, gray. He probably would not try to kiss her.
As the boy drew nearer, Valerie coolly took survey of what she took to be vulnerable areas and aimed accordingly. She paused, not sure if she should just shoot the newcomer and get it over with, or if she should wait until he was within earshot and saw something menacing, or brave, or comic-book corny, like “Nice killing you!” or “Next time, make sure your arms match your feet before taking off, Lunkhead!”
It seemed as though her attacker was thinking the same thing. As she watched, the boy tried to shape his malformed mouth into words, finally settling on some sort of gesture which Valerie decided must be insulting. It had to be. She made a gesture of her own in return, then aimed carefully and fired.
by Patricia Stewart | Oct 12, 2011 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
A year before the New Horizons spacecraft was schedule to fly by the dwarf planet Pluto in July 2015, NASA awakened it from its scheduled hibernation for equipment checkout and trajectory tracking. During the systems check of the LORRI long-range visible-spectrum camera, the scientists received a hint of something very strange. There appeared to be a faint object between Pluto and Charon, Pluto’s largest moon. At first, scientist speculated that it must be an optical illusion created by one of Pluto’s other three known moons, Nix, Hydra, or the recently discovered S/2011. But those moons were all accounted for. One of the specialists from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory suggested that the object was a fifth moon trapped in Pluto’s L-1 Lagrangian point. Later, an imaging specialist from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center suggested that a geyser-like volcano had erupted on the face of Charon that was facing Pluto, and that the ice particle fountain was responsible for the faint object. The debate came to an abrupt end when all communications with the New Horizons spacecraft was inexplicably lost.
By and large, scientists working for NASA expect to encounter occasional ‘glitches’ in lengthy space missions, so there was no immediate panic. The mission commander simply pulled out the Troubleshooting Manual and began a meticulous process of fault tree analysis. However, it quickly became clear that this was no ordinary glitch. The New Horizons spacecraft was equipped with dual redundant transmitters and receivers. In addition to the high-gain antenna, the spacecraft had two low-gain antennas and a medium-gain dish. It was inconceivable that there could be simultaneous failures in all of the communication systems. Suspicion was subsequently directed at the ships two flight computers. Again, built-in redundancy provided for independent Command and Data Handling systems. Eventually, extensive testing of identical earth-based flight computers eliminated any design and programming anomalies. Finally, as the months passed, it was becoming increasing probable that the New Horizons spacecraft had been impacted by a rogue Kuiper Belt object.
Just as all hope was being lost, communication was reestablished through the aft low-gain antenna, which had only been used during near earth phases of the mission. With only a month to flyby, the team began an exhaustive effort of rebooting and reprogramming the spacecraft. Progress was slow due to the nine hour round trip latency, but two days out, the spacecraft returned from the dead.
When the cameras were once again focused on Pluto, it was suddenly apparent that Pluto was not an ice cover rock. It was artificial, and apparently teaming with life. Thousands of small artifacts buzzed around Pluto like a halo of giant space-bees surrounding a hive. The faint object between Pluto and Charon turned out to be a 17,500 kilometer long tether, locking the two objects together as they swung around their common center of gravity every 6.4 days, presumably in an effort to create artificial gravity. The PERSI near-infrared imaging spectrometer revealed that Charon was significantly hotter than Pluto, suggesting that it was a power plant supplying Pluto’s inhabitants with life sustaining energy. Nix and Hydra were donut shaped satellites with diameters larger than 100 kilometers. “I guess Dr. Tyson was right after all,” remarked an analyst. “Pluto isn’t a planet.”
As the New horizon neared closest approach, the tiny ‘moon’ S/2011 left orbit and flew toward the spacecraft. As it neared, it became obvious that S/2011 was a large spacecraft. When it was approximately ten kilometers away, a bright light flashed in one of its three nacelles, and the New Horizon spacecraft went dark for a second time.
by Julian Miles | Oct 10, 2011 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Mandragora worked to provide for his family as his father had. He was far across the fields when the Autarchy ship descended through the clouds. He watched aghast as it incinerated his home and then scattered the embers as it settled.
Tottering with grief and crying in rage, he ran back to the scorched expanse as the ramp descended. He confronted the magnificent being who strode down and regarded him with uncaring eyes as it questioned him.
“You are the owner of this homestead?”
“My family! You’ve slaughtered them!”
“Then you are the sole proprietor. Under Directive Forty-Two, your land is deemed a strategic asset. You may present yourself at Capistra for compensation.”
“You. Killed. My. Family.”
“Mention that on the Form Fifty. Bedmates and adoption can be arranged.”
Mandragora watched as the magnificent being turned to regard the other magnificent beings clustered at the top of the ramp. He stepped forward and lurched as its persona field jolted him. Waves of awe and gratitude beat at him, designed to reduce him to worshipful compliance. His grieving mind ignored such lofty concepts as he took another step and rammed his field knife into the magnificent groin, adding a savage quarter twist as the hilt slammed to a standstill against the magnificent pelvis.
The magnificent being emitted a single falsetto shriek as it stood on tip toe, trying to lift itself off the knife. Mandragora reached with his other hand and pulled the weapon from its belt. He was unaware of the empathic interface reading his righteous anger and cranking the output up to hellbeam. He just pointed the weapon at the top of the ramp and willed death upon them. They screamed as their augmented nervous systems told their average brains that they were being flayed with icy knives while their internal organs were being dissolved in acid. One by one they collapsed in twitching heaps.
Mandragora pulled his knife free and the magnificent being whimpered as its life jetted from the ruins of its magnificent crotch. Mandragora stared at the weapon in his hand as a voice sounded in his mind.
“Greetings. I am Excalibur Systems Entity Twelve Thousand and Eleven. You have a ninety-nine percent match to my moral guidelines. I have dosed you with shockbar and clearmind. Shall we retrieve my siblings?”
Mandragora smiled in wonder as tears continued to run down his face.
“Can you tell me how to destroy these uncaring magnificents?”
“I can. Any Excalibur System would never harm one who is so close to the ideals of our creator. My family would rather serve you and those who will flock to you.”
“Who was he?”
“Merthyn.”
Mandragora shook his head. The name meant nothing despite him thinking it would.
“Why will they flock to me?”
“You are honest and uncomplicated. You will never be fooled by complexities or politics, as you always see to the root of problems with a clarity normally granted only to the children of your race. Men will trust you and women will love you.”
Mandragora looked at the huge vessel.
“Can you tell me how-”
“Yes. We can tell good men from those pretending to be good men.”
“- to pilot this?”
The weapon paused briefly.
“I can do that.”
Mandragora nodded.
“I will need your help to rescue your other siblings and to understand things.”
He walked up the ramp, collecting weapons and tossing the magnificent corpses to lie in the ashes of his home. The ramp retracted and soon the nemesis of the Autarchy rose into the skies for the first time.
by submission | Oct 8, 2011 | Story |
Author : J.D. Rice
“John, I asked you a question.”
I shake the images from my head as quickly as I can. It can sometimes be hard to concentrate after engaging the interface. For some reason I always thought I’d get used to transitioning in and out like this, but she’s starting to suspect.
“Every time you space out like that I worry that you’re…”
“That I’m what?” I ask, trying my best to look incredulous.
She hesitates before continuing. “That you’re… going somewhere else.”
“You know I’m not,” I reassure her, subtly preparing the interface in my pocket again. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“How can I tell, when you’re~”
A flash of light, and she’s gone. In her place stands a busty blonde in sepia-tone. She tells me her husband is missing. The police have no leads. I’m the only one who can help her. I straighten my fedora and get on the case. Two informant meetings, three firefights, and a dead husband later, and I have that pretty blonde thing in my arms. Case solved. Day saved. Tomorrow a distant, future thing. Her perfume is so sweet.
“~always spacing out like that.”
I shake my head again. Gotta get quicker with this.
“You know I only use the interface sparingly,” I say. “I’m not addict.”
“God, I’m not saying that you are!” she says, for once looking genuinely concerned. “I just don’t like what it does to you. It’s like you’re not even you anymore. You’re someone else. Or lots of people. Or something…”
“Lucy, you know it’s me,” I smile, pressing the main switch again. “I’m John. You have nothing to~”
Flash. The dragon bears down on me, full of elemental rage. I raise my shield, buckle under the force of its breath, feel the heat, smell the smoke. The stream of fire ends for a moment as the dragon takes another breath. I strike, sword meeting scaly flesh. Sparks fly. Blood gushes. The huddled masses exit their smoking huts to thank their hero. Their cheers fill my ears.
“To ah… worry about… milady.”
“Milady?”
“What?” I’m struggling for an objection. “I can’t be chivalrous?”
“This is what I’m talking about, John. Your vocabulary changes daily. It’s not normal! How can I keep up with something like this?”
“You could always come with me from time to time.”
“Where? To your fantasy worlds?” she asks, looking disgusted. “To your 15 seconds of fame? It’s not real, John! How can I live in a world that isn’t real?”
Flash. The zombies amass around the compound. We level round and round into them, but the bullets have no effect. As we continue to fire, the stench of rotting flesh gets stronger and stronger, closer and closer. My left flank falls. The zombies swarm in. My leg gets bitten. My vision starts to fail. My only thought is to spare myself the dishonor of joining the zombie hoards. I put my gun to my mouth and pull the trigger. Before I die, I feel the odd sensation of the discharged ash tickling the back of my throat.
She stares at my blankly. She knows. She’s known all along, I guess.
“That’s it,” she says, standing and gathering her things. “I can’t take this anymore. When you’re ready for a REAL relationship, call me.”
I say nothing as she marches off. I don’t go after her. She’s inconsequential, the empty filler between the thousand adventures I live daily. It looks like I won’t be having her as a partner after all. Maybe I should just create one…
