by submission | Nov 8, 2006 | Story |
Author : Martin Spernau
This time it hurt. Which was rather odd.
He could remember losing body parts in battle before, but never had it hurt. He clearly recalled losing most of his right leg to a direct plasma hit on his way into the bunker at 23-0-9. That had only slowed his progress in killing each and every one of the rebels holding the bunker. He finished them all off – 23 in total – before collapsing. The extraction team had pulled him from under a pile of headless bodies and body parts. Just two days later he had been ready to storm the gates to 24-2-16.
He felt real pain where his hand had been.
They had designed this new body of his to be unstoppable. Any damage done to it could be repaired. All he needed to ensure was that it was his side that sent the extraction team. If this body made it out, he couldn’t be killed.
They had also designed it to feel no pain. He had a status display instead, loss of efficiency, mobility, in percent. The loss of his right hand should not have bothered him that much. He lost his sidearm and with it, his long ranged attack advantage, but he was configured to be a deadly machine in close combat. This body packed enough punch to finish this job barehanded if need be. The damage had already been dealt with; there was no blood or anything.
But this time there was pain. The pain was new.
And the pain did not stop. It did not register in his display, but it felt all too real just the same. Disbelieving, he held up the stump where his hand had been just moments before. It was now sprouting a long combat blade to replace his hand and sidearm.
His hand was gone, but it still hurt like mad. This body did not feel pain! It was not designed to.
The pain!
Confused, he stopped in mid stride, blackness filling his vision. He never noticed the bolt of superheated plasma that took his head off.
There was no pain this time.
###
“Lucky shot Private Kern! You saved our lives! You are a hero!”
“That was no lucky shot Sarge. It was just standing there looking at its hand”
“Still, your hit enabled us to take the Mech down. It would have had us all! Don’t be so humble!”
“Really Sarge, I don’t think it was my headshot that stopped it. It just stood there and stared at it’s missing hand. As if it was in agony…”
“Oh, come on! These things don’t feel pain.”
“Sarge, I’d like to check the vids of this encounter. I have a suspicion we might have found an O.D. here.”
“You mean the soldier they downloaded into this Mech originally died by losing his hand? Come on!”
“Well, it clearly seemed to be in pain and confusion, and as you said, these things don’t register pain through damage.”
“Hmmm! So you think it was experiencing a memory of its original’s death? Hmmm! Good thinking. Any other characteristics we might use to identify on the field?”
“It seemed to act right-handed although it was configured left handed. I think it was using that sidearm in its right hand with deadly efficiency. Maybe the download was a firearms specialist or sniper or something. All its kills at range were headshots. Oh! And it seemed to take an awful lot of care to make sure opponents were actually dead before moving on. I haven’t heard of many Mechs do that.”
“Figures – a download that makes sure there is nothing left to download when it kills. Ok. This is going into the Identification Database. Let’s see if they downloaded this one into more Mechs. If we can I.D. them in the field, we’ll at least know how to hurt them now!”
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by submission | Nov 7, 2006 | Story |
Author : Steven Perez
Ix looked out the main window, sighing as she viewed the once-vibrant blue world below her, now gray and barren. She wondered if the strange fate that befell this place could have been avoided, and was embarrassed to admit that she couldn’t think of any way that it could have been.
“Still mooning over that planet?†she heard Bela say from across the bridge.
Never turning, Ix said in a terse voice, “I’m not mooning. Just sad, is all. Those beings had such potential.â€
Her partner made a snorting sound. “Yeah, potential. And how did they spend that potential? Blowing each other up. Polluting their home. Finding new and better ways to damage their own selves. The universe is better off with them gone to dust, if you ask me. A race like that would just end up causing more trouble that they’re worth.â€
Now Ix did turn around. “And all those other species – did they deserve their fates, too?â€
Bela fixed on her a level gaze and said, “That was their concern. That’s why we gave them the job, remember? That whole “fill the earth and subdue it†brief? And what did they do with their world? At every given opportunity, they pissed on the wonders we gave them and then blamed us for their own screw-ups. I’ve no sympathy at all for them. I mean, yeah, the dolphins were cute and I really liked designing that platypus, but look at it this way: we can recreate those species anywhere we choose, and without having those crazy humans around to muck it up.â€
Ix waved her hands at the dead world. “So what do we do about maintenance on the recreated Earth, then? Someone has to be around to correct issues, and if it’s not going to be us there…â€
Bela shrugged again. “HQ said that they were working on that; word is that they’ve developed a better human. I’ll be happy if they can just get us a model that won’t have a religious freak out every time we give them an order. I’m all in favor of the free will modules, but they obviously still need a lot of work.â€
She passed her hand over the controls. “If we’re done here, I’ll send the command to let the luminary here go supernova. After that, we can head home. I can use the rest.â€
Ix turned back to the dead Earth for the last time. She stared out the window for a while before finally nodding to Bela. She then turned to leave the bridge.
“I’m going to lie down for a bit. Let me know if you need anything.†Saying this, she left the bridge.
Bela shook her head. Her friend always did have a soft spot for these corporeal creatures, but she was taking this failure a little too personally. As she keyed the sequence to begin the supernova effect and set course for home, she made a mental note to recommend to her friend that they take a break before embarking on the next experiment. Maybe she’d feel better after a little time off. Ix was right about one thing, though: this lot did seem to have a great deal of potential once; they just never learned to get out of their own way. Sad, really, when one thought about it.
The great ship shuddered once and disappeared, leaving only a dead world in a little backwater part of the universe, soon to be wiped clean.
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by B. York | Nov 3, 2006 | Story |
Author : B. York, Staff Writer
The bell rang and the world became a bustling mass of eager students. Halls were like vessels pumping the mind-blood of the future through the academy to give it life. Each brain pattern that registered into the student ID banks was safely secured inside these institutions of truth. Who wrote the truth? They must have been listening that day for as the bell rang Classroom 010 pumped no further cells past its doors.
If the Academy for Truth was any indication of a well-grown biosphere then Classroom 010 must have been seen as a flake of dry skin to some that day. The more truth-oriented mind would call it “a milestone of our purposeâ€.
What Detective Bartamus knew was that there were fourteen dead students and one dead philosopher. He was beginning his third hour on the scene with more frustrated confusion. His white coat displayed his caste of Investigator upon its shoulders, but in his heart Bartamus had more in common with the deceased instructor than anyone else.
The bodies sat peacefully at their desks, each as pristine as the day of their initiation into the Academy. None had fallen to the floor, all were still upright with books open. In each holo-notebook there was something different and yet each somehow similar. The contents of the pages became more incoherent as they progressed, thoughts trickling down through sentence structures to pictures and losing apparent meaning as the pages went on. In the end, there were just letters, none of them gave any sense of pattern at all.
The school was dedicated to the study of truth in all things. They kept their discoveries behind closed doors though, and Bartamus was convinced that the doors had been surely closed tightly on this one.
He approached the professor’s desk with tired but still determined eyes. His finger drew down the holo-projection of the professor’s itinerary for the class, and the lone investigator read each line carefully for the hundredth time, trying and make sense of it all.
LATE 21st CENTURY PHILOSOPHY
-PIONEERS
-BREAKTHROUGHS
-EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY
“We’re all rats in a maze you know… looking for the truth.†The voice made Bartamus’ head snap up. He beheld a young boy standing in the doorway, holding a scholar-pad apparently waiting for his next class.
Bartamus stood straight and addressed the boy as he would anyone else, calm, collected and without much emotion. “That is a theory. What do you think they found here?â€
The boys eyes were staring into the room, taking in its fourteen deceased as he said simply, with equal lack of emotion “The end of the maze.â€
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by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 2, 2006 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Janko was living the high life, running guns along the fringe and reaping the rewards just outside regulated space. People brought their goods to him, and he delivered them to those in need, those who could afford them at least. That was until the Clef brothers started hijacking his freighters and stealing his product. The worst of it was he knew exactly where to find them, but they were holed up inside regulated space, and he wasn’t about to risk his own neck going in after them.
One of his suppliers, a small arms vendor with the dubious moniker ‘Gunner’ offered to hook him up with ‘A platoon of freelance Guerillas’ that would ‘get the job done’ for a fee. Money wasn’t an issue, neither had been the idea of hiring Guerillas, until now.
The troop ship blotted out the afternoon sun as it landed alarmingly close to his hanger doors. The dust barely had time to settle before he was being overrun by the biggest, blackest creatures he’d ever seen. They clambered down from the ship and set about helping themselves to his fuel lines and food stores, and began picking through his maintenance equipment. One hoisted an entire welding cart over his shoulder before climbing up the side of the ship to begin plasma torching a nasty looking tear below a gun turret.
Janko stood spellbound, unsure of whether to confront them, or run and hide. Instead he stood unable to move and just watched. One particularly massive of the unwelcome guests lumbered past and began popping open gun crates the way one might flip the tops of beer cans. Massive thumbs flicked, effortlessly sending metal crate tops high into the air, defying both their locks and hinges, to land noisily in crumpled heaps on the floor. The interloper grunted his displeasure at the contents of several crates before hoisting a two meter long anti tank weapon out of is packing, snapped off the bulk of it’s tripod, and stood waving it around with one hand, seemingly admiring its heft.
Janko was only peripherally aware of the warm fluid running down his leg to pool in his boot as the giant swung the mammoth weapon towards him and slowly advanced.
‘Right then. You’d be Janko, yes?’ Heavy eyebrows raised over jet black eyes. ‘Gunner did mention we’d be coming?’ The giant tossed the weapon easily from his right hand to his left and still advancing angled it carefully so that it slid past Janko, barely a hands width from his right ear.
‘You… you’re… you…’ he struggled for words, any words with which to gain some modicum of control, but none came.
‘Gunner promised you Gorillas, yes?’ The giant simian paused a moment, then stretched upwards releasing a sound that Janko prayed was a laugh as it boomed and echoed off the hanger walls. He didn’t dare look, but he was sure all activity behind him had stopped, and imagined an entire platoon of apes now nudging each other and pointing at him.
‘I…, yes… yes I suppose he did tell me that, I just didn’t… expect…’ Janko’s voice faltered and then failed outright. He would have to have Gunner killed next, of this he was certain.
‘S’alright mate!’ The big ape grinned down at him, nostril’s flaring and black eyes shining. ‘I’m guessing these are the only real guns you’ve got then?’ He rattled the cannon beside Janko’s ear. ‘You’ll have to cut these trigger guards off, the boys hands aren’t quite as little and pretty as yours. We’ll need two score of these, and a half dozen crates of shells for each. You’ve no beef with us taking your guns, eh? I thought not.’ The simian stepped past Janko and ambled back towards his ship, still speaking over his shoulder. ‘We’ll stay here for a couple of days and rest up. The boys haven’t had shore leave in months, so they’ll be wanting to head into town and avail themselves of the facilities, be a good lad and make suitable arrangements.’ Janko’s mind boggled at the prospect.
The giant ape had almost reached the bay doors before he turned and yelled back into the hanger. ‘Consider this, you’re scared near to death of us, yes? And we’re working for you. I think your problem’s as good as solved, don’t you?’
Janko had to admit, he had a point.
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by Kathy Kachelries | Oct 31, 2006 | Story
Author : Kathy Kachelries, Staff Writer
That Halloween, the ship decided to be a ghost.
The ship itself wanted to use an oversized sheet, but Tommy laughed at the artificial intelligence and pointed out that there was no way his mother would be able to find a sheet that big. It was a small ship, the kind most kids in his middle school got when they turned twelve, but even a small ship would require at least three or four king sized sheets, and besides, where would they put the eyes? It was a terrible idea. Being a ghost was fine, Tommy said, but the ship would have to be a ghost ship. Tommy himself would have to be the ghost driver.
Tommy placated the ship by allowing it to have a ghost flag, which was a pillowcase with a ghost drawn on it with permanent marker. He hadn’t asked first, but his family had plenty of pillowcases. He only used one pillow; his sister used four. He felt justified in his decision to give the ship what it wanted.
The ghost costume itself (the ship’s, not Tommy’s) was accomplished with a lot of dark tempera paint, the kind that most kids used to paint names, sports logos, and witty comments on their ships during the school year. He smeared it over the white plastimetal surface as the ship sat contentedly on its three landing feet, humming a popular tune through its speakers. The paint didn’t go over quite as well as he hoped. Rather than looking like soot or rust from outer space, it looked like fingerpaint, like a prank gone very poorly. Tommy didn’t tell the ship, though. He didn’t want to hurt its feelings.
His own costume was slightly more involved than the sheet would have been. Tommy used the leftover paint to smear over the only white pair of pants and shirt in the house, which he’d found in his older brother’s drawer, and after they were sufficiently filthy he went at them with a wire cutter, which was the only sharp thing he could find in his father’s workshop. When he came back outside, the ship whistled contentedly.
“I think we should be zombies instead of ghosts,” Tommy said. They looked more like zombies anyways. He drew a new flag on a new pillowcase, this one with a caption declaring a lust for brains, and he rubbed the last bit from the bottom of his paint jar over his face. They made much better zombies than ghosts, though he wasn’t sure if a ship could be a zombie. Either way, he again decided not to mention it. His ship was more sensitive than most, and often took things the wrong way.
Tommy’s mother took the usual pictures, and gave her usual lecture to the ship about its responsibility for the safety of the boy. “Braaaaaains,” the ship declared, and it plotted a course through the city. The year before, they’d charted out the best towers for candy and prizes, determined not to waste their valuable time in the wrong districts. By the end of the four hour window permitted by the city, the trunk of the zombie-ship was nearly full. Because his mother’s curfew was an hour later, the ship landed on a public pad atop one of the tallest buildings and they rolled to the edge as Tommy popped the front dome to look out over the twinkling city.
“Sorry you can’t eat candy,” he told the ship as he pulled the wrapper off a piece of caramel. The ship ate nothing, not even fossil fuels, sipping its power off of a hydrogen battery.
“It’s okay,” the ship said. Its internal lights flared with contentment. “I prefer eating brains, anyways.”
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