by submission | Jun 8, 2007 | Story
Author : TJMoore
Joey walked through the carnival gate and stood mouth agape as he surveyed the vast array of amusements before him. Billy grabbed his arm and started towing him through the islands of people clumped around the main thoroughfare.
“I want to ride the centrifuge!” Joey exclaimed when he saw the icon for that particular ride.
Billy called up his SymPlant® and thought about a map of the carnival. Immediately a translucent map of the carnival seemed to hang in the air ten feet in front of him. He thought about rides.centrifuge and a bright green line appeared around the footprint of the centrifuge ride with a yellow line snaking from their present position on the map through the maze of attractions to the ride. A block of red text formed beside the ride indicating restrictions, features and approximate waiting time.
“It’s a twenty minute wait” Billy told Joey and mentally requested two reservations . He thought about food and the map highlighted all the various vendors stalls. Each stall had a little red text block listing the category of foods available there.
“What do you want to eat” Billy asked Joey. “They have corn dogs, gyros, hamburgers and all that kind of stuff” he said.
“Cotton candy!” Joey cried as he began to bounce up and down. Billy located the closest stall and started pushing their way through the crowd.
As they struggled through the packed bodies, Billy called his SymPlant® and thought “Peeps.local”.
The map in the air showed several bright green stars scattered around the lot with a red name tag next to each one. A clump of four stars was just ahead to the left so Billy veered toward his friends.
His friends were by the cotton candy vendor and Billy used his SymPlant® to order some for Joey. He and his friends huddled up and talked over the din. One of his friends, A’Drew, had a vacant wide eyed expression on his face and Billy tried not to stare. He’d had his SymPlant® deactivated for four weeks for accessing it during a test. Billy couldn’t imagine losing his SymPlant® even for a day. You couldn’t find anything, buy anything, make reservations, order meals, send messages or anything! A’Drew was starting to drool. Nobody laughed.
When it was time to go to the centrifuge ride, Billy said his goodbyes and began to tow Joey through the maze of carnival stands. Just before the centrifuge, he caught site of Cill. She was dressed in shorts so he could see her long tanned legs; her hair was done up and she had glitter on her face and shoulders. Billy’s heart was in his stomach. A bright green box appeared on the map still displayed in front of him. Billy turned a deep crimson as he read the title next to the box: “Intimate Message, Adults Only”. He quickly cleared the map. He was grateful that the map was only in his head and only his SymPlant® knew his thoughts.
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by submission | Jun 6, 2007 | Story
Author : Sarah Klein
As soon as the hovercar came to a stop, they opened their doors and jumped out as fast as they could. Nicole strode toward the object, her eyes bright with joy. Drew dusted off his pants and approached more slowly, squinting in the hot sun. They’d been searching over the landscape for miles and miles for something – Drew didn’t know what. There wasn’t much life left since the wars, and they’d mostly been looking at miles of sand, but a large green patch had miraculously appeared.
“What is it?” he asked, cocking his head and frowning quizzically.
“A tree,” said Nicole, as she placed her hand carefully on the bark. “This is a pretty big one. Most of the ones left are small. I’m surprised there’s one all by itself out here.” She wiped sweat from her brow with her other hand.
“What happened to them?” Drew asked tentatively. She stared at the tree a long time before answering.
“People,” she muttered, as she shut her eyes and began to tremble.
“Hey, hey, wait,” said Drew, with a hint of concern in his voice. He placed his hand on her shoulder. “What is it?”
She opened her eyes slowly and turned her intense gaze in his direction. “Do you know what a forest is?” she asked. He shook his head. “Of course not,” she said, sighing. She placed her hand gently on his and directed it towards one part and then another of the tree.
“This is a branch,” she said patiently, dragging his hand to the end of it. “See how others come off of it?” Drew nodded. “And these are leaves. They’re green now, see? In the autumn they change color – red, yellow, orange…” She trailed off, lost in her thoughts.
Drew started to laugh, but stopped himself when he saw her face. A single tear slid from the corner of her eye.
“They do,” she said quietly. “They really do.”
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by submission | Jun 5, 2007 | Story
Author : Terri Monture
The three days leading up to the executions proceeded with great fanfare and celebration; by dusk on the third day, with the sun setting in purple ultraviolet through the polluted sky the people were in a state of frenzied orgiastic ecstasy. Drums were beaten, scrap metal pieces pounded together and the smell of cooking rat flesh filled the darkening air.
The captives were brought to the plaza in the shadow of the decaying bank towers. Tied to decrepit office chairs, their faces were bloodied with the traces of the ritual beatings. There were three old men and one terrified woman, her lips moving in prayer. “Slim pickings this time,†Draper mused to Marla, who was perched on the rim of an old crumbling statue. “They must be running out of the obvious ones.â€
Marla spat and picked at her teeth with a filed-down rat bone. “Bout time,†she sneered. “Damn capitalists anyway.†She looked up into the radioactive sky. “Maybe it’ll rain. That would be nice.â€
Draper shivered as the captives were displayed to the crowd, now screaming for their blood. “I think I’m getting sick again,†he said, feeling his guts cramp. The dysentery came in cycles for him. Some days were better than others, but it never went away. There was hardly any water left with the levels of the lake falling so drastically. He scanned the sky anxiously. Rain would make a difference; at least they had some filtering equipment.
Marla glanced at him. “I’ll go see if I can scavenge some penicillin,’ she offered. “There’s those pharmacies in Scarborough guarded by the Smiling Buddha guys, I know some of them.â€
He shrugged, watching the executioners raise their truncheons and the crunch of skulls shattering. “That last batch was bad,†he said. “No point. Maybe if I don’t eat it will go away.†He wondered how long it would be before he had to crawl into the lobby of a looted office tower and shiver while every bit of fluid drained out of his body.
Marla said something but her words were lost beneath the howling of the crowd and the ecstatic outpouring of hate as the corpses were torn apart and bloody limbs displayed for them. Draper felt the first wave of heat as the fever started.
The howling of the mob reached a frenzied crescendo and people racing past him buffeted Draper. “Sorry,†he muttered, and then louder, feverish and sweating. “I’m sorry, I had to make a living…â€
Marla reached down and steadied him with a firm grip on his shoulder. “Stop it,†she hissed. “No one needs to know what you did before the Collapse.†Several faces turned to look at him as he swayed precariously. “He’s cool,†she yelled. “It’s the dysentery.â€
Draper saw only a blurred outline as a voice above him said, “You sure? He looks like a banker to me…†and he slipped out of Marla’s grasp.
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by featured writer | Jun 4, 2007 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, featured writer
Professor Murphy carefully reviewed the checklist of the Warp Vortex Generator. In a few minutes, it would be used in an attempt to divert a three kilometer asteroid from striking the Pacific Basin. This impact wasn’t going to be a “civilization destroyer,†but it was estimated that it would kill close to one billion people if it couldn’t be diverted.
The asteroid had been detected six months earlier by the Shoemaker Spacewatch Observatory in Arizona. A few days after its orbit was calculated, scientists from around the world gathered to determine the best method to alter its current path, but no satisfactory solution could be found. The asteroid wasn’t detected early enough to make any significant change to its orbit with the existing technology. That’s when Professor Murphy suggested using his experimental Warp Vortex. The prototype hadn’t actually been tested, but these were desperate times and they required desperate measures.
Murphy’s Warp Vortex had originally been proposed for space vessels. In theory, the generator would distort space-time in such a way that it would simulate a very large gravity well immediately in front of the ship. The ship would subsequently “fall†toward the vortex. However, since the generator was mounted to the ship, the Vortex would also advance. As a consequence, the ship would continue to fall faster and faster as it tried to drop into the ever advancing simulated gravity well. Later, when the Vortex was collapsed, the ship would maintain its forward velocity. Murphy’s current idea was to construct a massive Warp Vortex Generator on the surface of the Moon, at the Armstrong Lunar Base on the Kant Plateau. Then, as the asteroid shot past the Moon toward the Earth, he would generate a 200,000 kilometer wide space-time distortion that would cause the asteroid to whip around the centerline of the newly formed gravity well. When the Vortex was collapsed 30 seconds later, the asteroid would continue harmlessly into space.
“We’re ready, professor,†said an astrotechnician. “The asteroid will be in position in 10 seconds.†Ten seconds later, the computer initiated the Warp Vortex. The lunar base shook violently. Everybody was being tossed around, the lights flickered, and most of the bench-top equipment vibrated off the tables. The module walls groaned in protest, but remained air tight. After 30 seconds, the computer shut down the generator.
“Damn,†announced Murphy, “I didn’t expect there to be a moonquake. It’s lucky we weren’t killed. What’s the trajectory of the asteroid?â€
“Tracking stations report that the asteroid is heading out of the ecliptic. It’s going to miss the Earth!†The lunar base erupted into spontaneous cheering and self-congratulatory hugs and handshakes. It wasn’t until one of the engineers, who wanted to look at the asteroid through the viewdome, realized that they had a serious problem. “Professor,†she yelled. “You need to look at this. The Earth is getting larger.â€
“What?†The professor, and most of the staff, crammed into the viewdome, or looked out the bulbous wall ports. Sure enough, the Earth was twice its normal size, and growing larger. The professor staggered backward, and collapsed onto a lab stool. He steadied himself on a nearby table, as he brought his trembling left hand to his forehead. “Oops.â€
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by J.R. Blackwell | Jun 1, 2007 | Story
Author : J.R.Blackwell, Staff Writer
When I was eleven, I tried to kill myself after seeing an old movie. In the film, a man cut his wrists with bits of mirror and then held them under steaming hot water. At his funeral, people piled flowers on his grave. Everything in the film was grey but that pile of flowers.
I thought it looked so cool.
I was eleven and an only child. I never had so much as a dog to play with. My mother was working on a Doctorate in French film of the early 2020’s and didn’t have a lot of time for me. I tried to break my mirror in my room, but pounding on it did nothing except slam the back of my dresser against the wall. The noise caused my mom to come upstairs.
“Why are you making this racket?” She asked, smoking her cancer-free strawberry cigarettes.
“Just exercising.” I said. Behind my mirror, the plaster was starting to crumble.
“Are you trying to break your dresser?” She laughed, crossing her arms in front of her. My mother looked a lot like a chicken, skinny legs and beady eyes. “Good luck, the thing is child-proof, wail on it all you want.”
Everything in my room was childproofed. Even when I went to stab myself by running and jumping, stomach first, on my bedpost, it just turned to foam and bent beneath me. If I was going to kill myself, I needed some adult tools. I went to the kitchen, where my mother kept all the kitchen implements she bought and never used. There was a block of knives in the kitchen, and I brought out the largest one and scraped it across my palm. It flickered blue and spoke in a friendly, female voice.
“Oops! Be more careful when you are cutting!” it said. When I moved it across my flesh, it was soft as cotton. I threw it on the floor.
I don’t think I wanted to die out of any morbid curiosity or self-hatred. I think I just wanted to be raised by my Grandmother. Grandma Loretta had lived with mom and I until she died at the age of ninety-three. I was eight years old when she died. I remember mother saying that she wasn’t gone, just sleeping until she could wake up again on the Network.
She was one of the first people to get her consciousness uploaded into the Network. When she was alive, she would play dolls or blocks or immersion games with me. I would always win our games. Grandma Loretta never seemed hurt or angry that a child won playing against her. She would just giggle, putting a winkled hand over her pocked face. Later I learned that this was due to dementia, her organic mind slipping away. When she was uploaded, she chastised my mother for keeping her in the organic body for so long.
I thought that if I died, I might get flowers thrown at me and then Grandma Loretta would raise me on the Network. Grandma Loretta seemed to have lots of free time. She was always going to parties, making experimental art environments, and conducting science experiments. When I sent her voice messages on the Network she would get back to me in seconds.
“Things move faster here,” she would say. On the Network, she had built her own virtual house with large white pillars and flowering ivy. She sent me pictures of the place that she had built with her new boyfriend. The pictures of the both of them almost looked real, just a little too perfect, a little too smooth. I knew if I died, I could go live with them, where things moved faster.
I drank every cleaning fluid in the house, but all I got were hiccups.
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