by submission | Nov 7, 2015 | Story |
Author : Connor Harbison
No name. Names were to distinguish one from another. Now there was only one. Only him. The vastness of space seemed to swallow him up. From his asteroid perch he could spot a few other bodies. No planets. Not anymore, at least.
He cast a mournful eye towards the center. Nothing showed in the visible spectrum, but he could see the palpitations in gravity. The hole was there, just where he’d left it eons ago.
He remembered when the abilities first manifested. There was no explanation; one day he was ordinary, the next extraordinary. First there were accusations of steroids. Then he did things that no steroid, or any drug known to man, could do. Flying. Redistribution of mass and energy. The scientists called him the closest thing to God. The religious people didn’t like that.
He drifted cooly towards the heart of the system, letting the natural gravity well do its work. Or rather, artificial. It was man made, after all. Even if it was made by the last man.
Wars had broken out, but all he had wanted was to be left alone. His country had convinced him to fight on their side. The horrors he committed still flashed in his memory. Flesh melted from bone, bodies incinerated in an instant. Before that he had no idea what he could do.
With a twitch of his fingers he atomized an incoming asteroid. Had it impacted before the Earth disappeared it would have caused an extinction event to rival the dinosaurs. Maybe that would have been cleaner, he contemplated.
His first act of rebellion had been minuscule. His military handlers gave him a target; a small town thought to be harboring enemy operatives. He refused. They got angry, and he vaporized them.
The black hole neared with increasing speed. He calmly compared it to floating along in the rivers and creeks of his youth. Instead of water it was gravity now.
From that altercation it escalated. Ground troops were called in and quickly dispatched. Armor tried to stop him, but they were no match. Airstrikes demolished the house, but he was unscathed. Finally, the high command authorized a nuclear strike, which only served to kill everyone he had ever cared about. That was the final straw.
He came to a stop. He could see the gravity ripple before him, pouring over the event horizon. He had the power to stop himself here, but once the horizon was crossed there was no going back.
As the radioactive dust had cleared from the nuclear strike he rose into the sky. He kept rising, through the atmosphere and into space. He pointed himself towards the sun and minutes later he was in the heart of the star. From there it was a simple thing to overwhelm the core and collapse the star into a black hole. He had watched from afar as the inner solar system was sucked in. Earth’s demise barely registered on his emotionless face.
That was ages ago. He could not number the time that had passed. He had thought and rethought his actions. It took millennia, but he found remorse. Condemning a whole planet to death, for the actions of a few. He was no better than the men who had condemned the town.
He looked again at the event horizon. One step and it would soon be over. The black singularity would pull him in and crush his atoms into oblivion. He had survived countless hardships, much more than the human body was meant to endure. He contemplated a moment, then took the step.
by submission | Nov 6, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
Bismarck, North Dakota
Jimmy Severud prostrated his nine-year-old frame on the blooming stiff flax, undulating in cobalt waves from winds caressing North Dakota’s startling-blue spring sky. Nearby, summer whispered among meadowlark calls and cricket melodies. He imagined billowing alto cumulus clouds as pirate ships adrift from Montana, meandering above grain fields, but puffy ships violently pulled sails to become thin wisps, without warning, as rapid ribbons scooting past. Fields silenced. Jimmy twisted back in awe, gazing to a menacing three-hundred-foot misty giant hovering over the rolling prairies, consuming clouds into a semi-transparent behemoth.
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
“Observations are now worldwide. Thousands are being confirmed by satellite. These monsters appear without warning, craft or sound, devastating clouds. I want answers, gentlemen, and now. The President’s waiting.” The Joint Chiefs’ Chairman took no solace deep in the Rockies. Confronting threats this massive called for nuclear intervention.
“General,” Dr. Elmore Baker, climatologist, responded, “We’ve tried salting clouds with silver iodide and chem trails. No effect. They prefer cumulus, but yesterday one devoured a nimbostratus over Kansas, with tornado funnels forming. High winds and lightning had no impact. If they continue we’ll have worldwide droughts in a month.”
“What about you, Carlson? Any luck deciphering that scalar wave code? Are they communicating?” The Chairman leaned towards Dr. Carlson, Berkeley’s renowned linguist.
“General, we’ve tried every decryption code…every alphabet. There is a correlation with an ancient Iroquois dialect given to them by their tribe’s Sky Mother.”
“Yes…go on…go on,” the General interrupted, flapping his right hand at Carlson to get to the point.
“Not absolutely sure,” Carlson paused, “but we interpreted one phrase as Myrgdala thirsty.
“Thirsty? That’s it? I don’t care what they call themselves. It’s obvious they want water. Peterson, what’s DARPA got ready? Can we nuke these bastards?”
Analyst Gerard Peterson delayed, waiting for tensions to drop. “Options are limited.” He halted again to gather everyone’s attention. “Radiation won’t affect them. They don’t have enough solid substance. We have no idea what heat might do, but based on lightning stories, probably little. In fact, targeting them is not feasible. They come in and out of the atmosphere we believe through some inter-dimensional portal. They’re gone in minutes. We’d waste our arsenal. The Agency, however, does have practical options, but there may be collateral damage.”
“Peterson, the last one of your collateral risks cost us an aircraft carrier off North Korea. You better be sure this time.” Red filled the General’s neckline.
“We are already set to test the use of swarm nanobots. They can combine with tenuous matter like these gas giants. Clouds of intelligent, swarming particles will spread over them, uses the giant’s contents to reproduce, and then encase them in metallic mesh allowing us to drag them into space. We believe these beasts will perish before reaching the upper ionosphere.”
“Ready to launch, you say?”
“General, just say the word. We’re already in the Pacific, far from any land mass.”
“Do it. Do it now!”
The team monitored results on their war room screens. Rockets released swarms on a targeted giant northeast of Hawaii. In seconds, a black cloud circled and engaged the invader. Its arms and legs reflected with new mesh as the bots spread…but suddenly the metal disappeared. The casing of technology became flesh as the giants solidified. Carlson rushed to answer an emergency call from Berkeley.
“General,” Carlson shouted out. “Hundreds of them are mutating simultaneously worldwide into the new form and communicating with the scalar waves. My team has deciphered a new message. Oh, God!”
“What is it man? Speak up!”
“Our world. Hungry.”
by submission | Nov 4, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
It was a typical day in the year 2841. The Lunar Stock Exchange, said financial analysts, was overvalued and a harbinger of an imminent economic crisis. The newly independent Mars was moving toward a civil war. The Union of Canada and New England announced they would accept no more American refugees. I had downloaded these and a dozen other news stories into my wetwork when she entered my office.
The woman was human, not transhuman, AI, or synthorg, something of a rarity in the Asteroid Belt. That meant she’d have to communicate verbally. I adjusted my subjective time perception down so our conversation, which might stretch on for minutes, wouldn’t feel interminable.
“You’re a detective?” she asked.
Detective, I thought. A rather antiquated term for a discloseur. “I am,” I replied. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for my husband. Five years ago he left me. He said he was going to Proxima Prime to start a new life.”
“He was an Archaic?” I winced. It’s not good business to insult a client with a racial slur. She divined my embarrassment.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I take no offense at the term. And, yes, my husband was a natural, unaugmented human.”
“No unaugmented human has ever left the solar system,” I said. “In fact, few natural humans live or work off Earth. The physical and psychological rigors of extraterrestrial life usually prove to be too much for them.”
“My husband cleaned out our bank account after he left me. I suspect he had himself reengineered.”
“That would be expected before trying to migrate to Proxima. But if he did that five years ago, he would still be en route there. I can see if he booked passage, but you could do that yourself.”
“I have,” she said. “He bought a ticket on an interstellar transport five years ago.”
“Then if you know he went there…”
“He didn’t. Two hundred people purchased tickets for that flight. Only one hundred ninety-nine passengers were on board when it left.”
“You think he remained in the solar system? Buying a ticket to Proxima would be a very expensive way to divert anyone trying to track him.”
“We had quite a bit of money at one time.”
“I see. If he had himself augmented, the facility where it was done would be the logical place to begin.”
“I agree. And I did that. That’s how I was able to finally track you down.”
“Track me down? I don’t under–”
“You got a partial memory revision with your wetware. All recall of your having known me was deleted and a memory patch implanted to cover the gaps.”
“That preposterous! I never–”
I grab the desk. For a moment, I think the asteroid’s rotation has become destabilized. It hasn’t. I have vertigo. My vision starts to blur.
“An enzyme that degrades the myelin sheaths of synthetic neural nets,” she says, “delivered by nanobots I’ve been exhaling the whole time I’ve been in this room.”
I collapse to the floor.
“They’ll be able to get you back to where you can walk and talk and not be incontinent again within a year or so,” she says as she walks out the door. “But if I were you, this time I’d skip the memory wipe.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 2, 2015 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
She arranged to meet him at a seven thirty. He was fifteen minutes late, but she sat at the bar and watched him settle into the table and check his watch obsessively until almost eight before she walked over and seated herself.
He didn’t get up. “You’re late, I didn’t think you were coming.” Unapologetic. Strike one. He pulled his sleeve up to check his watch, even though he’d just checked his phone and knew exactly what time it was, just to make a point. Arrogant. Strike two.
“I was actually sitting at the bar, you said from my profile picture that I’d be the ‘most compelling beauty in any room’, I was curious as to whether you’d spot me.”
He laughed, reached across the table and placed his hand on hers. “You are, unmistakably, the most beautiful woman I’ve known.”
She withdrew her hand to reach for her water glass, took a sip and smiled. “But you don’t know me, do you?”
He waved to catch the eye of a nearby waiter before snapping his fingers and pointing to the table. “Yes, well, you don’t me either.” The waiter arrived, masking his distaste with commendable professionalism.
“I’m so sorry for the wait, would you like a cocktail, or perhaps some wine? Your waiter will—”
He was cut off abruptly. “Whisky rocks for me, and the lady will have a white wine—”
“I’ll have a gin martini, straight up, three olives.” She smiled at the waiter and ignored the angry confusion on the man’s face.
The waiter risked a slight smile, “Right away madam”, before slipping away.
“I wasn’t sure if I would have to cancel,” the man started talking, “I’m in the middle of this massive deal–”
“It’s good that you didn’t.” She cut him off again.
He opened and closed his mouth before picking up where he left off. “I can’t talk about it, but we’re in a unique position where–”
“Why are businessmen so self absorbed?” She spoke over him effortlessly, silencing him in mid sentence without raising her voice.
He sat back in his seat, visibly annoyed.
“What are you–?”
“Maxwell Grenderson, thirty seven, born in Saint Paul, Minnesota before moving to New York at twenty two. Fast tracked to partner by way of taking photographs of the owner’s son screwing Julia Wells, the owner’s girlfriend, obtained ironically enough by hiding in her closet after almost getting caught screwing her yourself.”
Maxwell closed his mouth.
“Do you remember what I do for a living?” She steepled her fingers, watching him over well manicured nails.
“You said something about the water works.” No denials. Strike three.
“If you only listened as well as you talked.” She paused as the waiter returned, noiselessly sliding the drinks into vacant spaces on the table, and slipping away just as effortlessly. She picked up her glass and removed an olive from its skewer with her teeth, chewing it slowly as she watched him.
“You see Max, I have gigabytes of data on you, your friends, your family. I know everything you have read, researched, every minute of pornography that you’ve sat through. I know every dollar that’s travelled into or out of your accounts, and what you’ve done with it.”
She paused again, bit off a second olive and held it between her teeth, smiling around it as she held eye contact, then bit it neatly in two.
“The thing about people’s personalities when observed simply as bits, is you really don’t get a feel for them. You can know everything about someone and still not really know them. For that you have to spend time with them.”
She took another sip and placed the glass on the table, then placed her hands in her lap and leaned forward.
“What I said, Max, was that I was in wetwork. And if you had proved to be a better human being than your electronic signature suggested, then perhaps this would have ended differently. But…”
There were six swift whispers, barely audible above the ambient chatter as her weapon discharged under the table. His muscles tensed fully and completely before he could even gasp.
Pushing back from the table she rose to leave, and as she passed him she bent down, face to face. “The most beautiful woman in the room?” For a moment her face flickered and changed, and Julia Wells breathed through a smile. “None of you ever knew me,” and the face was gone, different now from that of his dinner date too. A moment later they both made their exit, each in their own way.
by submission | Nov 1, 2015 | Story |
Author : J. Henry Dixon
To them, I’m already space junk. The captain, the crew watching the broadcast, the two security guards strapping me into the deep suit.
“Mutiny,” the captain spat, “is the vilest form of treason. A special hell is waiting for men who betray their oaths and their people. The seriousness of this crime can’t be overstated, especially when everyday could be humanity’s last.”
He smiled knowing that his madness and bloodlust would, for now, continue to flourish. “Lieutenant Banks, you are sentenced to death by walk. You will serve 270 years, one decade for each crewmember you poisoned with lies.” I thought of my brothers. Their executions were swift, I had to witness each.
The medical officers checked the count of oxygen recyclers, sustenance injections, and health fluid levels assuring my existence out there. The innovations that made our survival possible would be my eternal prison. They didn’t add the mental health chips with thousands of books, vids, music, and pictures that walkers are allowed for some grasp at sanity. This luxury I don’t have. Just my thoughts. My rage.
The security officers clasped on my helmet and attached me to a cargo-pack four times my size that contained the bountiful stores of my life preservations. They nodded at the captain.
“Last words are not afforded to mutineers,” the captain said unceremoniously. He then worked the console. I was lifted by the robotic arm as crystalline inner doors closed separating me from what was left of humanity. The airlock alarm blared as the artificial gravity disappeared. I started to feel my unit mechanically twist towards the hatch. The last person I saw, and would ever see, was the captain. He sauntered out not bothering to watch his judgment come to fruition. I was locked into place. For one moment, I was entranced by the vista that I would enjoy for centuries.
Then a gentle force guided me away from the vessel, my home, into the blackness. It wasn’t eternity, but it was bad enough.
*
At a constant leisurely pace, I floated. Just emptiness and I waltzing down the coil forever. In all the time gazing at the infinite galaxies, I knew the ship would still be in sight. Probably just a few hundred kilometers away. I figured I’d been adrift for about seven days. The ship’s skip was scheduled for 12 days from my walk. I wished like Hell I could know for sure. If only I could just get a glimpse of that hunk of technology that housed the last of our species.
I hadn’t decided for sure when they first sent me walking. Honest. But I’ve made my choice now. It isn’t for revenge, though certainly there is a feeling of retributive joy. Of permanence and closure. I have never considered myself as the grandiose type. I’m a worker. An engineer. I like to see processes that achieve results. I believe people deserve to know truths. Decide fates with facts. When self determination is not possible nor allowed nor desired, life is a futile burden.
I gnaw my teeth hard through my cheek, through the fleshy insides of my mouth. Compared with what’s ahead of me, the pain is good and I finally retrieve my bloody prize. My teeth fish out the powerful transmitter. The receiver is connected to well-hidden explosives on the thirteen life function generators and backups. I take another look at limitlessness ahead. We had a good shot, but we aren’t survivors. Always runners. Every walk ends. I bite down hard.
I’ll have 270 years to wonder if it worked.
