by Duncan Shields | Jun 24, 2010 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
To be a CEO of a company that’s grown as large and as fast as this one has, a person needs a mind that deals quickly with high pressure situations and possesses a natural talent for leadership. One needs to be charming, ruthless, and efficient. There’s a reason I have no wife or children. I am all of these things. People will follow me into corporate battle on the slimmest of reasons. I have resolved conflicts between bitter rivals and competitive holdouts with one personal meeting. People trust me and want to follow me.
It’s standard practice to have oneself cloned when one is the CEO of such an important company. Last year, the old me was kidnapped by Red Tears Terrorists. The kidnapping itself was kept quiet. We didn’t respond to their demands. They threatened to kill the hostage.
We said, “Go ahead.” and woke up one of the clones. That clone is me. Maybe a day of memory missing but other than that, there was no lull in business.
That was a year ago to the day.
He’s sitting in the center of my living room when I get home. My security is disabled. He has a gun. One of his eyes has been replaced and there’s a scar across the cruel smile underneath the tattooed red tear on his cheek. One. That marks him out as one of the terrorists responsible for the kidnapping and it means that he’s been with the organization for a year.
I have no doubt that he must have had a difficult and interesting time talking them out of executing him and taking control during the last twelve months.
It’s the old me.
“Hello, Nathan.” My clone says to me. “How’s life?”
He looks at me with the tube-grown eye that’s a mismatched brilliant green and a little too large. It takes effort to stretch the eyelid over it to blink. It must be tricked out because it flashes red for a second and I find that I have trouble breathing. Some sort of neural disruptor. My knees go weak and I kneel. My vision starts to swim.
He walks over and kneels beside me, cradling my chin in his hands.
When he nudges the tip of the knife up against my eye and looks at me, I realize what’s going to happen. He’s going to take one of my eyes to replace the one he lost and then he’s going to take my place. He’s also going to keep me alive here for as long as he can to show me what real pain is. He’s going to show me what he’s learned over the last year with those soulless men. He’s going to show me what he has become used to.
I realize that in his eyes, I’m the copy. I realize that to him, I’m the betrayer.
I think of what I would become capable of if pushed in that direction and I feel my bladder let go, staining the expensive rug like an untrained puppy.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 22, 2010 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Another Saturday night wound down as the cargo loader deposited the last of the shipping containers in the hold of the space elevator. It was just a few hours before midnight as he parked and shut his rig down for the night. Despite the delays clearing that last crate, the lift would go up to Ver Punt Station on schedule.
Inside, the doors had no sooner sealed than the lock on that last container released, and a handful of light balls were thrown out onto what little floor space remained.
“Move, move, move. Liftoff in less than five.”
A dozen suited figures clambered out of the container carrying helmets, air tanks and molded launch cushions.
They spread out evenly along the clear aisle, maglocked the cushions to the floor and then donned their helmets. They punched into their air supplies and strapped themselves into the forms on the floor, their helmets crackling with encrypted short wave signals as each of them sounded off their readiness.
There was a rumble, then a deafening roar and they were pushed hard into the floor. As the car raced up the tether, the crushing force began to ease, until after what seemed an age, the car slowed and shuddered to a stop, cradled as it was now in the arms of the orbiting station.
“Ok. Jasper, get the doors. Jupiter and Jade, lock and load and make sure nobody’s putting in overtime. Marcus, get a loader and run our kit up to the OEM.” David, the leader, barked out instructions.
As he spoke, each of the crew was already moving to the carefully choreographed plan. Jasper patched into the door panel on the run, overriding and opening the bay doors without slowing down and unlocking and firing the engines on the loader as Marcus was climbing into its driver’s seat.
As the heavy machine trundled into the cargo area, the lithe point guards slipped past on either side to sprint across the docks. By the time they reached the elevator that would haul the crew and their supplies up into the Orbital Escape Module, Jasper had opened its doors as well. They confirmed the car was empty before continuing up the neighboring stairwell, snub nosed weapons at the ready.
Marcus scooped their cargo container and began hauling it across the loading dock. As he rolled, the remaining crew jumped and mag locked a boot and glove to the side, catching a ride. Marcus ran the loader flat out, slowing only to avoid crashing through the back wall of elevator.
David dropped to the ground as the vehicle slowed, and was joined by Jasper, still gesturing with wild purpose at the suspended display only she could see. The cargo lift shuddered into motion, beginning the slow and less dramatic ascent to their next destination.
“OEM is fired, cargo bays are open, Jay and Jay are onboard and the coast is clear.”
Marcus pushed the throttle forward as the elevator leveled off with the upper deck, and steered without hesitation towards the gaping maw of the craft at the end of the corridor.
Seven figures peeled off and made for the crew cabin as their supply cache was rolled into the hold. David walked patiently beside Jasper as she cracked the station’s systems and authorized a launch, then headed for the cockpit as Marcus locked down the container, abandoned the loader on the dock behind them and secured the cargo bay doors.
From the cockpit David patched into the ship’s intercom.
“Class, I think you’ve earned a passing grade today, with honors.”
There was a rumble as the OEM’s engines came to life and the craft unmoored, beginning its slow ascent from the station.
“It was once written ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth’, but I say,” David paused as the craft cleared the superstructure and the expanse of space spread out unbroken before him, “I say the meek can have the earth, we’ll take our place in the stars.”
by submission | Jun 20, 2010 | Story
Author : Liz Lafferty
I squatted to examine the crime scene. The woman was obviously dead. The alien? Well, there was a wet spot, a round sort of blobbish something lying next to the girl’s body.
“What happened here?”
“Doc says the girl was suffocated.”
“Not drowned?”
“No.”
“What about family?”
“The parents are waiting.”
“His or hers?”
“I guess his. They aren’t human.”
“Do we need a translator?”
My partner shrugged. The parents, such as they were, hovered a few inches off the floor. Thankfully, the department had sent over an United Galazies Interacter. Not exactly a translator, but someone familiar with customs and protocol.
The Interacter started the conversation with introductions and turned to me to start the questioning.
I shot him a blank stare.
“You touch them. Don’t you know anything?”
“No, I don’t.” U.G. spuds were all alike. Superior in their knowledge, condescending to their own race while basking in the knowledge they could communicate with hundreds of species in the galaxy.
The larger one was two foot from me. I liked the other one better. Not so fierce looking and with a shimmery silver color. This one was all black and murky. You know what they say, still waters and all that.
“What do I say?”
The Interacter rolled his eyes. “It’s all by touch. If you let your mind wander, it will know what you had for lunch yesterday. Think about the questions as you want them asked and the Aqua et Vita will answer in your mind.”
I reached for the water. It shaped and morphed as my hand touched the cool surface.
I felt the panic immediately. “Is it my son?”
My mind focused perfectly. “We don’t know. Do you know the girl?”
“Yes. We told him this was a bad idea. He wouldn’t listen. We’re only his parents after all. He said he loved her.”
“The girl died by suffocation. How would your son do that?”
“He did not kill her. He loved her.”
“But if he did, how would he kill her? Could he do it with his mind?”
“Yes, of course.”
“What about your son? What could kill him?” Call me ignorant, but how did one kill water?
“We are NOT water and you’re showing your ignorance by thinking it.”
“Sorry. Getting back to my question, what can kill your species?”
“Hungry, cold. Lack of will.”
“Thank you,” I said as I pulled my hand away.
Three days later, my partner burst into my office.
“We hacked her video logs. Want to watch some alien porn?”
“What do you have?”
“Our love birds in the act. Apparently, the first time for both to do the alien tango.”
The alien, Chrislos was his name, had taken a nearly human shape for the festivities.
The tragedy unfolded before our eyes. The alien lost his shape as the encounter progressed. Its water-like form had engulfed her, covering her face. Soon she stopped moving.
When the alien realized what it had done, it went insane. The normally spherical shape contracted and expanded in wild, grotesque agony. I wasn’t there, but I could feel the torture of realization. He’d killed the being he loved.
More research revealed that during the mating ritual, the life form loses its ability to mind connect. He didn’t know he was killing her.
An accidental death and a suicide. Not murder after all. I closed my file. I’d let the U.G. spud contact the family. I didn’t want the aliens to read my heartless thoughts on intergalactic race relationships.
A senseless waste. Worse, we’d have another case before you could say evaporation.
by Patricia Stewart | Jun 18, 2010 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
The debate was over; it was time for action. Peter Scott grasped the thruster controls and pushed them to their stops. The massive cargo vessel started its slow, terminal, decent toward its target in the southwest quadrant of the moon. As the SS Clymer descended toward the newly constructed Rodenberry Teleportation Facility in Mare Nubiun, Peter manned the navigation console in case he needed to make any last minute course corrections to keep the ship on its collision course.
“This is Lieutenant Ferguson at Rodenberry Base, modify your course immediately, or you will be destroyed.”
“You can try,” replied Peter. “I have nothing to lose. If that Teleportation Facility goes on-line, it will mean the end of my livelihood. There will be no use for transport ships once it becomes possible to beam cargo directly from the Earth to the moon.”
“Earth will always need transport ships,” interrupted Jon Franklin, the Base’s chief engineer. “My teleportor can’t reach beyond the moon. As we expand into the solar system, we’ll need you and the other pilots to replenish the bases on Mars and the asteroid belt. Your ships can be refitted.”
“That’s almost exactly what you told us when the geosynchronous teleportors were built. There had been hundreds of pilots ferrying supplies from Earth to the orbiting stations. Now, there are less than a dozen of us left running cargo from the stations to the moon. If that station goes on-line, we’re through, and you know it.”
“Mr. Scott,” interrupted Lieutenant Ferguson, “you can’t stop progress. This base will go operational. Don’t throw your life away. You can’t reach us. We will destroy you before you can get within a thousand kilometers the base. Reverse your course before it’s too late.”
There was no reply. The Clymer continued to accelerate toward the base. Apparently, Scott was willing to martyr himself for the cause. Lieutenant Ferguson turned toward the chief engineer, “I’m sorry, Dr. Franklin, you’ve had your chance to talk him out of it. He’s intent on committing suicide. I have no option, but to shoot him down.”
“Please Lieutenant, he’s distraught. He needs medical help. Give me a few more minutes.”
“No, Doctor. There isn’t enough time. The automatic defense grid will destroy his ship in thirty seconds.”
“Okay, Lieutenant. I guess I’ll have to try plan B.”
“Plan B?”
“Yes, Plan B,” Franklin replied. “I’ve never tried it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Franklin’s fingers were a blur as he entered commands into the console in front of him. Seconds after he pressed the “execute” key, the base laser cannons opened fire on the Clymer, vaporizing it in a blinding flash of ionized atoms. However, on the elevated platform a few meters in front of Lieutenant Ferguson and Doctor Franklin was Peter Scott, still crouched in a sitting position, but there was no chair to support him. His confused expression turned into anger as he fell over backwards, screaming “Noooooooo!”
“Well,” said Franklin with a satisfied grin, “at least we’ve answers the question concerning whether or not you can teleport a living person. Come Lieutenant, let’s help him up, and get him to the infirmary.”
by submission | Jun 17, 2010 | Story
Author : Frank Ruiz
“We got a call. Yates again,” said a voice from the black. Gear clicked, clanked, and rustled as someone dressed. When he hummed, I knew it was Tim because he mumbled the lyrics to Move, Bitch. He gave that old song soul. “Lights?” he asked.
“Nah.” I sighed. “You know I sleep in my gear.” Tim grunted assent.
The truck’s familiar creaking almost rocked me back to sleep as we drove. We picked up pirate stations as we bounced across the cracked roads, the radio fizzling as it scanned and found…
-We have any time travelers out there? If you’re a visitor to the blasted past, don’t be afraid to give us a call…-
-So one day I’m out playing in the rain, and my father says, ‘Dammit, will you come inside!’ and I said, ‘Dad, I’m Jesus Christ!’-
Bank Officer Yates met us at the Dusty Wood gated community, gave us the address to check for squatters, and retracted the barrier poles. “Good hunting!” A smile and a wave. He lived off our arrests.
I squinted as we went. Dusty Wood’s dark made me think of outer space and stars. Constellations of solar powered LEDs lined the gutters and roof lines, barely illuminating the abandoned middle class community. Every so often, a tower broke the foreclosed town’s skyline and the red tip of guards’ lit cigarettes paced back and forth like small clones of Mars. On major streets, tracker lights followed us until we cleared the sector, then another light would pick us up.
We opened the door of Seventeen Fifteen and threw in a S.E.I.Z.U.R.E. ball. Five minutes later, we walked through, safeties off, gun lights on. We found a father and son shaking under a red swiss cheese comforter. The father’s Rolex clattered as he shook. Tim reached down, yanked, and pocketed the watch.
“It’s a good night. There were no weapons,” said Tim. “Look, a toy.”
A few feet from the boy, a yellow construction crane reached up. I grabbed it, showed it to Tim, and squinted as his gun light hit my eyes.
“Nah. That’s the Big Dipper.” I said.
