by submission | Dec 23, 2015 | Story |
Author : Travis Gregg
She deeply inhaled the damp and humid air, savoring the coolness. The forest was ancient and the tree trunks nearly crowded out the sky. Even though the air was thick with moisture, and condensate clung to the ferns in the underbrush, finding fresh water was the first major hurdle she would have to overcome. After half the day all she’d managed to accomplish was scouting the immediate area and the construction of a rudimentary shelter for the night. There was no fire to keep her warm but a hollow filled with old leaves and brush made an adequate substitute.
On the second day, already starting to feel the effects of dehydration, she set out to find water. Heading downhill was the best bet for finding some and hopefully something to eat. She knew she could go a week or so without eating but beyond that she wasn’t sure; water was the much more pressing concern. Luckily the weather was cool and cloudy. Exposure wasn’t going to be an issue she thought to herself.
By the third day with water secured and a reasonable clearing found, it was time to see about getting a fire going. The dampness made this difficult but she managed to find some dry tinder in the hollow of a tree. Getting a fire going was much more difficult than keeping one going. Once she had the fire blazing, she stacked the damper wood close, hoping to dry it out some so it would burn more easily.
It rained on the fifth day, not the misting cool precipitation that came in the afternoons, but a downpour that soaked through the shelter and threatened to extinguish the fire. With water dripping down her face and her clothes soaked she carefully fed the fire, stoking it just right to keep it going.
The game trails were abundant near the small stream she had found a few days ago, and on day seven she managed to snare a small creature. The creature was small, about thirty centimeters in length and was covered in a soft downy fur. The creature was something she wasn’t familiar with but it smelled delicious as she cooked it over the fire, a sure sign that it was edible.
Day eleven brought the certainty that she was being watched, maybe hunted. Coming back from a foraging run down stream she found her camp ransacked, her lean-to torn to pieces. For the last few days she’d gotten the feeling that there was something else in the forest, something ominous. Several times a day the forest would get completely silent and she felt a presence. Now she had proof.
It took two days to run down the beast but on the thirteenth day she found the massive lumbering monster collapsed along the trail. The trap had mangled its leg, but she had wounded it far less grievously than she initially thought. She plunged her spear into its chest, hoping that was where the heart was.
By day seventeen the skull of the beast had been cleaned of flesh by the local insects. It was every bit the trophy she had hoped for.
From her pocket the com crackled to life.
“Sir, this is Echo Two One in route.”
“I read you Echo Two One, what is your ETA?” Her voice cracked a bit, not having been used in weeks.
“We’ll be at the rendezvous in two hours.”
“Acknowledged Echo Two One, see you then.”
She sighed, vacation was over and it was time to get back to work. Looking around she breathed deeply of the cool clean air, relishing it. It would be a while before she’d be able to get away again.
by Julian Miles | Dec 21, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“What’s this, grandma?”
“It’s honey, dear.”
“Honey tastes nice. What is it?”
“It’s what the bees made for us, Matty.”
“Real bees made this?”
“Yes, dear. A long time ago, before they flew away.”
“Where did they go, grandma?”
“We don’t know, Matty. All we know is that they said they would be back.”
“How do we know that?”
“Because the beekeepers spoke to the priests and told them what the last queen said before she went. She said that when we had meadows again, they would be back.”
“What’s a meadow?”
“It’s a special grass that we can’t grow yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because the ground isn’t clean enough.”
“Is that why the cloud machines make the yellow rain?”
“Very good, Matty. They do that to clean the dirt away.”
“Where did the dirt come from?”
“The government people made the dirt and killed the flowers.”
“That’s when the corps saved us, wasn’t it?”
“Oh you have been paying attention at school, haven’t you? Yes. The bees leaving forced the corporations to step in to help us. They made the Cees that helped the flowers come back.”
“But Cees can’t make honey?”
“That’s right. They are tiny drones.”
“When I grow up, I want to be a drone pilot. I’ll help bring the meadows back.”
“You study hard and I’m sure you will, Matty.”
“Can I have some more honey, grandma? “
“Yes, Matty. But only a little. There won’t be any more.”
“Ever? “
“Maybe one day, dear. Maybe one day.”
by submission | Dec 20, 2015 | Story |
Author : Michael Blewett
Her father glanced down at the watch on his wrist. “How long?” she asked.
“Two minutes and thirty seven seconds,” he replied, gazing out the airlock window. The curtness was for her, she knew, but it was hard for her to hear – especially now.
The girl looked to her father with tears streaming down her face. In all of her lives, he had been her rock – the constant that wove the thread between centuries and tied them all together. What would she do without him?
“I know it’s hard for you to understand,” the old man offered, “but you should know that I’ve been thinking about this for a long, long time.”
“But,” she countered, “why now?”
“How long have you been with me?” he replied, his eyes still focused out the window, “Three cycles? Remember, there were five more before that. Five whole lives – five deaths; five rebirths – before I saw your beautiful face. Five lives of searching; never once did I find purpose.”
“But then you met mother, right?” she pleaded, “And then you had me. And then you found that purpose. I was that purpose, I am your purpose!”
“My star, my darling girl, if only you knew! You might, one day. Maybe you won’t, you were always more like your mother in that way.”
“You never told me why she did it,” she inquired, knowing it wasn’t the right time, “Why she refused to take the implant.”
Her father’s eyes confirmed her suspicion. It all comes back to mother; it always has.
“She hated me,” the old man said. “She didn’t always, but after you were born she… She saw me as a freak. An experiment of my own creation for one purpose and one purpose alone: to play god.”
“But, you can’t believe that!” the daughter exclaimed. “Look at what we’ve accomplished! We’ve colonized new worlds. We’ve saved countless species of life. We’ve given humanity the reason for progress; the power to accomplish!”
“And I don’t regret it,” he interjected, “I don’t regret a single thing. But what I’ve realized – what your mother realized all those years ago – is that there is no progression without an end.
“Life is not the process of living,” he continued, ”it’s the process of dying. Time without end is infinity; infinity is nothing.”
Thirty seconds.
She tried to speak, but could only cry.
He opened the airlock and stepped inside. The door shut with a hiss.
She heard the comm-link switch on. “Can you hear me?” his voice said.
Twenty seconds.
“On my desk you’ll find a large file,” he said to her through the glass, “Right now, it’s nothing but memories and thoughts, but in twenty seconds it will be my life. The work of all my lives.”
She placed her hand on the glass. He reciprocated.
Ten seconds.
“I love you,” his voice said, “my god I love you.”
She mouthed the words back.
“It was you, my star. I never knew how important it was – how important life was – until I created it. One day, maybe you’ll know what I mean.”
Five seconds.
“I only wish I could have been there to see them.”
Three seconds.
Their eyes met; nothing more needed to be said.
Two seconds.
She saw the tears welling in his eyes.
One second.
The airlock opened, ejecting him out into the end.
His face was calm as he suffocated. And, at that last moment, she saw the implant detach itself from behind his ear. Never to be uploaded into another clone – free from time, free from infinity.
by submission | Dec 19, 2015 | Story |
Author : Steve Pool
Tess always threw the best parties; it was a fact that Lizzy was painfully aware of. Tess owned all the trendiest causes, giving her complete control over the calendars of every social climber in the city. She played the role of Alpha Queen with ruthless benevolence.
Earlier that morning, Tess mentioned to a few of her closest gossips that she had just returned from Paris and Milan; everyone, of course, understood the code. Tess dictated the absolute word on fashion; whatever anyone else wore to the party would now be “so last week”.
Lizzy considered this as she spotted Tess across the room. Predictably, Tess was the eye of a micro-storm; admirers ringed around her, touching her new gown, speaking louder and faster in the hopes of being noticed. Lizzy sauntered over to the group.
“It’s the latest fusion of taste and technology.” Tess sounded uncharacteristically excited. “They call it Hi-Lo Spectrum fashion. This gown is the color of ultraviolet.”
The women surrounding Tess gave her an envious sigh.
“It’s wonderful, Tess,” one of the women said. Lizzy thought her name might be Francine. “It goes really well with your eyes.”
Several others complimented her as well, noting qualities that seemed absent to Lizzy. Wasn’t the dress black? It was nice, but no more special than the one she herself was wearing.
“Oh, hello Lizzy,” Tess said, taking time to notice her. “Well…what do you think?”
“It’s really gorgeous, Tess,” Lizzy replied dryly. “I’m thinking, maybe though, that you might like to try an infrared dress, like the one I’m wearing. They’re remarkably slimming.”
The women surrounding Tess gave Lizzy an envious sigh.
by submission | Dec 18, 2015 | Story |
Author : Connor Harbison
“What did you just say?”
“You heard me. The sun, it’s…alive.”
“Impossible.”
“No, no, hear me out. According to my research, the sun, it’s a living, breathing thing. Being. Not life as we know it, per say, but still, life. In another sense.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Think of it this way. A mosquito lands on your arm. It can’t comprehend you, I mean really you, like your name or your job or any of that. All the mosquito knows is that you are a food source. That’s sort of like how we see the sun.”
“So how do we get in contact with it? The sun. Is it an it? Does the sun have a gender?”
“I don’t think so. As far as we know stars are created through gravity, so their reproduction would be radically different from anything we’d be familiar with. And as for contacting Sol, I’m not sure that we can. No more than a fly can have a conversation with a human. The differences in time scale are too vast, to begin with.”
“What do you mean by time scale?”
“Sol experiences time differently than we do. Again, think of the insect analogy. A mayfly has a lifespan of one day, and to that mayfly the day is everything. But to us, a day is just a passing…well, day. It’s relatively brief. I mean, we live for thirty thousand days, an eternity to a mayfly. Likewise, Sol is four and a half billion years old. The human mind can’t even comprehend that number, but to Sol it’s barely half a lifetime. Time scales, my friend.”
“You have no idea what this means, for us, for humanity. The search for life out there is over, and the answer has been literally staring us in the face forever.”
“For starters it means the Egyptians were right, in a sense. Their god Ra was a lot more accurate, scientifically speaking, than any Judeo-Christian God. Not that Sol is particularly large. There are stars out there that dwarf Sol. But our star has gathered a number of planets and other objects, more than is standard for a star of Sol’s mass, if our extrasolar astronomy is to be believed.”
“What do you mean, gathered?”
“Compared to Sol, even Jupiter is tiny. We humans probably don’t register. I doubt Sol is even aware there is life on Earth, what with our short existence. No, Sol seems to have steered itself or cast its gravity far and wide to scoop up all sorts of interstellar detritus.”
“So what you’re saying is…”
“Not only is the sun alive, but Sol has a personality. It seems our star is a hoarder.”
