by Sam Clough | Jun 16, 2008 | Story
Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer
Peter sat on the harbour wall, coat high around his neck in an effort to keep out the spray of water in the air. The freezing mist had a way of insinuating itself between layers of clothing. The sea roared defiance to sky, and at the horizon air and water intermingled, melting together into a gray mess.
Savannah drew her gloved finger through the patch of grey, brought it to her nose, and sniffed. Still unsure as to what was causing the mystery liquid to bubble out from underneath a drive plate. She stood up, and retrieved a nanowelder from her kit. Before she could set to disassembling the plate, the entire ship rocked, and proximity alarms started droning like a swarm of very, very angry bees.
Able carefully reassembled the hive, his confident motions fruit of long practice. Tending his father’s beehives was one of his favourite hobbies, and had been ever since he’d got over his fear of stings. He felt a slight rumble through his feet. An armoured column was in the area. The sheer mass of unwillingly moving metal always bought an earthquake with it.
Bernard kicked the seismograph: the needle abruptly ceased its shiver, and registered one slight peak. Seismic surveys of outworlds were about as dull as ditchwater: Bernard was reminded of enthralling times that he’d had watching alcohol evaporate.
Moll groaned, wishing that she could transpire alcohol. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but then it always did. She blinked, trying to clear her vision. Her head was pounding, a rhythmic thump-thump, thump-thump. The wreckage of the party was still ankle-deep. Neb was slumped over the table, and Zal was picking his way towards the door, to answer the incessant knocking.
Tac pressed a hand to his armoured helmet, a useless attempt to ease the pain of the drumming piped through his implant. The drums, the call to war. They focused you, and drove away your fears and nightmares. The drumming never stopped, it modulated — your orders were embedded in the beat. The rest of Tac’s squad took up firing positions around him. Railguns cracked the air, forming gusts which threatened to knock him over.
Nathalie felt the displaced air, and flinched. The brick shattered on a policeman’s riot shield. She had gone to the demonstration because the politics had finally touched her life, restricted her freedom. Like thousands of others, she’d turned out to voice her rejection of the government. But it had got messy. The demonstration had turned into a full-blown riot and Nathalie was just desperate to get out. She spun round, looking for a way through the press of bodies. Someone caught her arms, wrenched them up behind her back: two policemen were pinning her, a tonne of bricks keeping her stuck to the ground.
Graph gasped as the rubble settled. It sounded like his ribs were splintering. One of his legs was definitely broken, and both of his arms were at least dislocated. This was, he assured himself, the last time he followed a radio signal into an ‘abandoned’ warehouse. He coughed, and grimaced at the pain. The explosive had left a residue in the air that was playing havoc with his lungs: his mouth was full of the taste of sulphur and metal.
Indar stared out at the blackness. The effect was electrifying. His hair was standing on end, and he could taste the metal tang of a forcefield.
“This is it,” the girl said, “you’ve reached the top, just moments before the earth will stop…”
by submission | Jun 14, 2008 | Story
Author : Aaron Springer
Papa said that they had to give us gifts. I like gifts.
The big dirty man gave Papa a basket of plants and Papa smiled.
Papa promised to go back to the sky and make it rain for them. I liked watching Papa make it rain. All the colors on the machine were pretty. Papa said rain is like water falling from the sky. I wanted to see it, and Papa said I could.
I looked up, dizzy because I couldn’t see the ceiling. Papa said there wasn’t a ceiling, only sky, but I didn’t believe him. There is always a ceiling, otherwise space gets in.
I looked at the kids in the group of dirty people that had come to meet our shuttle. How they could be so dirty I didn’t know, but the smell made my eyes hurt.
When I looked back down, one of the kids had gotten very close. He looked funny, with pieces of cloth on his arms and legs, and dirt all over him.
On our way, Papa explained that they worked dirt like he worked the sky, and, together, they made all of the food. He said sometimes the “Grounders” didn’t understand how important we were, and had to be taught a lesson. He said that sometimes they would stop sending food up the elevator, and he would turn off the rain, or worse.
Papa raised his arms, and a I felt a bit of water hit my face just below my eye. I looked up, and saw puffy white things. They were dropping water. That must be rain. I liked it.
On the way back, Papa explained that the people called us Rainmakers. He said that one day I would make rain, just like him. He handed me a yellow plant. He showed me how to split it open and eat the pale meat inside.
I was reading in school about something they had a long time ago.
I wonder what the Grounders would think of snow?
by submission | Jun 12, 2008 | Story
Author : Phillip English
Deep in the centre of the replanted and repopulated Amazon jungle, it was nearing midnight. Chieftan Sral Kunk was completing the final adjustments to his tribal attire, making sure that each bloody line he had painted on his body was curved just so, lest he face the wrath of the monkey God, Jabarr. The bones of his victims bounced against each other in a wave of clicks that rushed forth whenever he adjusted a leg, or waved his arms at a servant. He was a fearsome sight, made even more fearsome by the realisation that each bone that adorned him was a result of his impressive history of violence.
An attendant informed him that the time of the great sacrifice was at hand, so the chieftan made to walk out of his hut; shrunken skull bones clack-clacked around his neck, a cape of skin behind him, towed to the ground by hardened eyeballs. Before he did so, he ushered his servants out with a lazy command, and with a quick check out his woven-hair doorflap to make sure no-one was peeking, he ducked behind his throne of vertebrae. For a few minutes, a variety of strange beeping noises issued from where he squatted before, apparently satisfied, he clapped his hands together, stood up, and strode out to face his subjects. With a grand speech of the strength and viciousness of their tribe, he issued the command to his witch doctor to begin the ceremony.
Fires were lit, and a great cacophony rose from the tribe as they danced and prrayed in their violent, exhuberant way. Punch-ups were common during prayer, encouraged in fact, and spontaneous, energetic sex was carried out on the sweat-soaked mud, even as the flames licked the canopy far above. Finally, when all the whooping and hollering and grunting and yelling and screaming grew to its thunderous crescendo, the chieftan stood up, shook his femur mace above his head and cried out to the heavens the ancient words that had been passed onto him by his ancestors, and their ancestors before them.
The onboard voice-recognition software on the computer of the cloning chamber activated, and sent the message that another unit was required. Amongst the fire and blood, the front of the plastisteel casket steamed open, and a perfect, pale man emerged naked and frightened, searching around him for friends he had lost centuries earlier. The witch doctor’s spear was sharp; death, quick. Chieftan Sral Kunk sighed and leaned his head on his hands. It just isn’t the same these days, he thought.
by Duncan Shields | Jun 9, 2008 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
My arms are long and my skin is blue. I’m thin. I can feel long-forgotten muscles flex all over my scalp as my head tentacles wave. I have four huge orange eyes on the corners of my square face. Slowly, I get used to four viewpoints of vision instead of two.
The bright orange stripe down my belly flashes red in alarm for a second while I struggle to breath through a ‘mouth’ before my body remembers my anterior gills. My body stripe settles down again to orange with yellow dots as my emotions turn to pleasure and reflection.
My secondary arms uncross while my stronger main arms stretch up and unlatch the clasps holding the mask to my face. I can feel my thick tail get ‘pins and needles’ as the blood rushes back into it after a long time asleep. My toes flex.
With a sharp intake of breath, I sit up and reflect. I lick the crusted sleep-salt from around my mouth and stare forward.
All around me, fellow sleepers are dreaming.
I was what was called an accountant. I lived in a small town called Sharecrop in a state called Texas in a country called the United States. I was born in a year called 1925. I was beaten as a child, dropped out of school, and ran away when I was eighteen to a bigger city called Austin. I came to be an accountant by getting a part time job at a bank and showing a talent with numbers.
I married a teller. She couldn’t have children. We never adopted. We were happy although loneliness and silence eventually left us distant from each other. When she died at the startling age of 43 from heart failure, I remember being quite stricken with how little I knew about this woman that she had evolved into over the years. I knew her habits, sure, but not her.
I retired at 55. I was hit by a car at 62 and died at the scene. It was agonizing.
I have been asleep for sixteen hours. I will take what I have learned and try to add it to our race conciousness and my broodfamily.
We dream of the humans. We become them. We live their lives.
I have a hard time with their loneliness. Two people to make a baby? I feel better with our race’s number of six. Two or three children? I feel better with our race’s number of forty slills to a litter.
I feel grateful after the dreaming to be what I am but I also feel like something profound is missing.
by submission | Jun 8, 2008 | Story
Author : Brian Armitage
Murray grunted, straining against the bars of the cage, willing his arm to stretch further. Finally, his fingers closed on his prize. He plucked the knight from the board and dropped it carefully into place, one move away from Hjdarrrr’s bishop.
Hjdarrrr’s single eyestalk elongated, the pink photosensory bulb blinking at the white knight. “Oooom,” the alien said, its entire furry body vibrating as it spoke, “very good move.”
Murray grunted again, this time in disgust. “About time I made one.” His cage rocked slightly as he settled against one side. He was suspended above the chessboard, the steel cage mounted to an overhead track for easy storage.
Every hair on the rabbit-sized creature turned light blue, indicating sympathy. “Do not beat yourself up, Murray. You are the best chass player I have ever played chass with.”
“It’s chess, Dar. And I just taught you to play yesterday. I’m the only person you’ve ever played chess with.”
The alien’s color shifted to a hue Murray didn’t recognize, and its eyestalk straightened, pointed at him. “…my statement is true.” Then, it turned back to the chessboard. The black queen shimmered and lifted from the board. A point above Hjdarrrr’s eyestalk was glowing. The queen drifted across the board and landed, covering the white knight from a distance and effectively cutting off its offensive. With a shift to red-orange – self-confidence, or perhaps pride – Hdjarrrr nodded its eye at Murray. “You may go.”
Murray grumbled. “I can’t believe we lost the war to you.”
Hjdarrrr’s color remained the same. “We are smaller beings, but our tactics were superior.”
“Yeah, tactics.” Murray glared at the chessboard from above. “Doesn’t hurt that you’re all telekinetic.”
“Your statement is true.” The alien stared up at the human, awaiting his next move, but Murray sat motionless. “Do not be bitter, Murray. Someday, perhaps your race will develop mind skills of its own.” A tinge of patronizing yellow.
“Maybe.” Then, Murray pointed, eyes narrowed.
The white knight shimmered, scooted across the board, and tipped over Hjdarrrr’s bishop.
The color drained from Hjdarrrr’s body. The eyestalk froze, focused on the white knight. Slowly, after a long time, it rotated up to face Murray.
“Oh, doop.”
Murray pointed at the alien, gathering his focus. “You said it.”
