Hollow

by submission | Jul 22, 2007 | Story

Author : Andrew D. Hudson

The night breathes quietly beneath the world. Everything glints and shimmers off the water-smooth curves of ‘tites and ‘mites, catching the half-light of pale glowing fungi in ways our eyes never evolved to expect. Who knew the earth would be so porous?—a termite-tunneled maze of twisting underground rivers and Cthulhu-carved caverns the size of small countries. Mine shafts spiral down at right-angles towards the core, crisscrossed by lava tubes and spun out into the fractal temples dream-dug by renegade swarms of nanobots. At some point the subway builders of New York and Tokyo simply forgot to stop digging and drilled down deeper and deeper into the dark depths with cult-like precision, leaving whole underworlds in their wake: a promised land for hobos and mole-people. Occasionally a train will head down the wrong track, carrying its passengers further and further into the hot night to found strange kingdoms floating in the bubbles of volcanic seas.

I’ve always loved the hidden places, those old surface places that sunk into the earth for their eternal rest, still and silent, content to finally dream away the eons in peace. Tall towers mark dead cities like headstones, as if to say “Here Lies Los Angeles,” “Here Lies London.” We try to keep these old names as best we can. I was named Manhattan to remember an island of bright lights and straight streets. Maybe one night the people come to me and say “Manhattan, tell us of your old place, and we will remake it in the New World.”

We try so hard to remember now. Some folks move slower, trying to memorize every person, every step, every story. Historians of the now obsessively scratch diaries and news stories into tunnel walls, carving whole catacombs with the details of a single night. We didn’t used to think of ourselves as archeology, didn’t think that our bones and pocket change might one night be museum treasures. Now we know better. We have accepted that we may again find catastrophe our only recourse, and this time we want to be remembered. Humanity is a cataclysmic thing.

It weighs so heavily on some people, not knowing what came before. So much has been forgotten. We don’t remember why the Movement started, or why it was abandoned when the earth was still half-unmade. Were the people mesmerized by the sparkling emerald geodes larger than most houses? Did they walk for weeks along the shores of oil-black seas, eating lichens haphazardly, entranced by the subtle soothing symphonies of gasses glub-glubbing out of the water, smelling of sulfur and sending spirals scuttling unseen across the otherwise still surface? Did they suddenly catch themselves thinking, “Couldn’t we live like this forever?”

On A Runner

by submission | Jul 21, 2007 | Story

Author : James Smith

She started hallucinating yesterday, and now the center line floats three feet above the blacktop and glows in neon rainbows. Exhaustion makes her slippery in time, and she doesn’t know if she’s remembering– or actually seeing– the sparks she left behind on her way through broken glass and car parts.

When the Kaptech people brought these legs to her, wanting to graft this chip here, these wires there, the idea of running again made her cry.

At ten years old she was doing wind sprints a day after having her appendix out. At twenty she had one pair of pumps and fifteen pair of running shoes. At thirty she joked that not having a kid meant not having to run with one on your back.

At forty she was hit by a truck.

Now, at fifty-five, she was trapped in a solar-powered alloy chassis that stopped responding to her commands five days ago, and was dragging her around the country at an un-broken fifteen miles per hour.

The HUD was static overlaid on her blurred vision, and she couldn’t steer. She learned to direct herself somewhat by leaning left or right. Going through busy areas was tricky. She cried when the shopping mall loomed up in front of her, saw herself crashing through plate glass windows and baby carriages. That was when she threw herself to the ground, leaving behind skin in the doing. She lay there, legs kicking like some giant silver cockroach while cars skidded to a halt around her. A crowd formed, curious wet shadows between her and the beautiful sun, the lazy clouds. Big, square hands under her armpits, lifting her, and she was off again, gone over the hedges, taking out a bystander and slamming her shoulder into a post on her way out of town.

She could do it again now. The desert sand on the roadside looks more forgiving than parking lot tarmac. But dying here, alone, legs kicking forever as their cells drained and recharged, drained and recharged… She couldn’t take that.

But she knows where she is now. She recognizes landmarks where people from elsewhere might see only nameless desert. Soon she will pass through the town where she grew up. It is small. She will be on the main road. And if they haven’t built up the place, she will be able to see her old home through the gap between the church and the mechanic, and then she will be four hours from the sea.

Pre-pregnant

by J.R. Blackwell | Jul 20, 2007 | Story

Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer

“Okay girls, it’s time to party!” Fran opened the door to the strip club, and held it open like a doorman while Trisha and Nancy filed in. The bouncer scanned their palms and put a glowing X-mark on the back of Nancy’s hands. The marks glowed brightly under the black lights of the club.

Fran entered last, triumphant, her eyes crinkled small as she grinned. She offered her palm for the bouncer to scan. Trisha took a picture as the big man used the little handheld scanner on Fran.

“First day being Post?” said the bouncer.

“You got it big guy.” Said Fran, beaming. That day, with a note from her doctor, Fran had successfully applied for and received a metapausal license. It only took three minutes for the bored official at the National Identification Office to reprogram the chip in her palm to scan as post metapausal.

“Three minutes after that,” Fran said “I was in a bar, drinking with a bunch of young men and old women. I threw out my supplements and smoked a cigar.” She guided Trisha and Nancy to a big empty table.

“You smoked a cigar!” Nancy had never even touched a cigar. “They are so carcinogenic! Didn’t you cough?”

“Doesn’t matter, I’m not pre-pregnant anymore.” Fran motioned to one of the shirtless waiters. “Besides, I didn’t really take the smoke in my lungs, it was mostly symbolic. I wanted to experience smoking, not have a coughing fit.” Fran ordered white wine, Trisha ordered a strawberry daiquiri and Nancy and got puréed vegetable juice, the staple drink of the pre-pregnant.

“Why not have an orange juice?” said Trisha. “After all, it’s a special occasion for Fran.”

“Can’t,” said Nancy “Got to watch my sugars. Can’t have too many. The police do spot-checks, you know.”

Fran laughed. “I’ve never gotten a spot check.” She touched her long neck. “Must have looked too old.” Fran was lean and tall, her salt and pepper hair cut in a neat pixie cut around her head.

Trisha smacked Fran lightly in the arm. “You? Never, I can barely see a line on your face.”

“No, my face looks fine, it’s my neck that looks wrinkled.”

Trisha mimed looking at Fran’s neck though a magnifying glass. “Maybe in your mind you have wrinkles, but to the people in the real world, we’d have to scan your palm to find out your real age.”

The waiter brought them their drinks. Nancy felt like if she touched him, her finger would come away oily. Still, the sheen off his biceps was intriguing.

“I wish I was post metapausal,” said Nancy, stirring her purred tomato and cauliflower with a pink, plastic straw.

Trisha patted Nancy’s arm. “You’ll get there someday.”

Fran leaned in close to Nancy, so close that Nancy could smell her vanilla perfume. “You could hack a license.”

“What? No way, I could get put in jail for that. Eating poorly or sneaking a smoke is enough of a fine for me. I heard what they do to people who hack their own chips.”

Trisha shrugged. “How would they find out? Who would tell them?”

“I’m sure they set up stings for that kind of thing. It’s not like I could just search for “hacking federal chip” on the internet and not get spotted by the FEDs.”

“There’s more ways to find things than an internet search.” said Fran, patting the back of Nancy’s hand.

“Are you saying that you’re not really post-metapausal?” Nancy put her hands over her mouth.

Fran laughed. “No, no. I’m really post-metapausal, but not all women are that seem that way.” Fran glanced at Trisha. “I say all the more power to them. Today I had a double fudge chocolate cake. It made me a little sick, but I loved every bite.”

Nancy pulled her skirt over her knees “I can’t believe I’m sitting here at a strip club, a place where they serve alcoholic beverages.”

Fran pulled out a little compact and checked her makeup. “I used to go into strip clubs when I was young, but ever since young women were banned from drinking, it just wasn’t the same.”

Trisha winked at Nancy “You should try a daiquiri. They’re delicious.”

“What if someone finds out?”

“It’s just strawberries.” whispered Trisha “Try a sip of mine. No one has to know.”

Nancy took a sip of the fruity, frosty drink, the paper umbrella bumping her nose. “Wow. That has a kick.” She took another long sip.

Fran leaned back in her chair and raised her glass. “I’m looking forward to all kinds of kicks now that I’m not fertile.”

Nancy felt a heavy, sweaty arm on her shoulder. She looked up, and a young police officer towered over her, one hand on her shoulder, one hand on Frans. “Excuse me Miss,” said the officer. Nancy’s breath caught in her throat. Could they tell that she had a sip of Trisha’s drink? How did they know to come for her?

The cop pulled down the zipper on his coat with a flourish. “I have a warrant for the arrest of a woman named Fran – we can’t believe a lady as good looking as she is qualifies for a post pregnant license!”

Fran clapped her hands “Take it off!” she cried. The music started and the colored lights whirled, pointing towards their table.

The Steps

by submission | Jul 16, 2007 | Story

Author : R. A. Jackson

Each step came slower now. Her back hunched so that the long grey strands of her hair trailed across the stairs as she climbed. Counting the painful strides one by one was the only way she kept up hope of reaching the end, surrounded as she was by the damp shroud of mist that obscured the mountainside. The slate passage was partly impeded by tendrils of vine that would curl across her path, smelling lush and heavy, calling her to surrender. Just a few more paces now…

She reached the landing at the mid-point of the staircase and saw the twin leaden benches that sat on either side of the platform. Allowing herself a brief rest on one of them, the woman couldn’t help but notice that as the sun began to penetrate the dense clouds, she felt her energy returning. She listened to a distant bird singing, and drank deeply of the cool, clean air.

Reaching a withered hand behind her, she found that the package she had so carefully wrapped was still secured to her back. With creaking joints she stood and resumed her climb.

After an indeterminable time, the climber passed through the threshold of clouds and mist, coming into the light. Tall evergreens concealed the stairway from view on either side, but gazing upward she could see the village gate ahead.

“You’ve made it!” a young man’s voice cried out from the guard post overlooking the staircase below. Immediately the gate began to swing open. The woman smiled as she walked through it, her long labours forgotten. “Did you succeed?” the young man asked as he came to meet her. Her smile turned sardonic. “Yes, of course. Do you think I’d come all this way if I hadn’t?”

Once they were settled and she was refreshed with food and drink, she produced the item for him and for those who had gathered to see what she had brought. It was well wrapped in reddish-brown cloths, and as she revealed the contents of the package, the tension in the room became palpable. It was a metal box that glowed faintly, and when opened, a thick stack of star charts was revealed. She removed the diagrams and laid them out for all to see.

“Well done! This is the last component!” the young man said, his expression full of triumph. He gathered up the box and its contents. “Prepare yourselves, for this is the last day that we will spend in this galaxy.” Looking at the old woman he said, “Now we can transport the village back to where we came from. I’m sure you’ve been looking forward to it for a long time.”

That evening the village began to radiate a pure white light, signaling the beginning of a new journey. The old woman shuffled back to the village gate. Sitting down at the entrance, gazing at the steps that disappeared beneath the clouds, she watched the planet she had lived on for sixty years fade away.