by B. York | May 18, 2006 | Story
“Who can blame them for what they do?” Sergeant Dobbs sipped his coffee as he leaned back in the patrol car, musing to Lieutenant Carson. Through the windshield, the morning throngs of people left their homes and crowded the streets on their way to work and life as they knew it.
“I can blame them, Roger. It’s the same thing as blaming a drunk driver for killing someone on the road. It just ain’t right, and it’s not excusable.”
It was then that their mark came into view. He must have been wandering the streets for at least a few nights with a sawed-off shotgun and a roll of cash. The kid had the usual glazed look in his eyes, and the twitch of a gamer in his stride. The epidemic was easy to follow. That wasn’t the issue; the issue was how randomly it occurred.
“There he is,” Dobbs said. He sat up and poured his coffee out the window as he moved to open the door.
Carson knew that making a scene would be a mistake. “Shit, Roger. Wait a sec.”
Too late. The kid saw the cops and raised his gun, blasting a slug right into the hood of the cruiser before taking off. The blast left Dobbs diving for cover and Carson revving up the engine as he grabbed for the radio.
“We got another one headed east on Union, requesting back-up. This ones been in the game a while.” He threw the car into gear and the cruiser jerked into traffic just in time to see the kid yank a driver from the door of a hybrid Honda. It definitely wasn’t his first car-jacking either.
Sergeant Dobbs pulled his Beretta from the holster and cursed, but the Lieutenant grabbed his hand before the gun could be leveled.
“Roger, we can’t kill the kid. He’s gotta do his time in rehab just like the others.” Despite his anger, Dobbs complied and let the gun return to its holder. Besides, up ahead, the lights and sirens indicated the barricade had already been set up. The trap was sprung.
Moments later their car came to a screeching halt as they nearly T-boned the kids’ jacked ride as it met with the barricade. Six cops weren’t going to point their weapons and wait. The ring began to tighten.
“Out of the car, now! Get the fuck out of the car!” The boy seemed more perplexed than he was nervous. He looked around and tried to rev the engine, hoping to break away from the two cars that had wedged him in. Eventually, the cops pulled him out and gave him a taste of asphalt before cuffing him.
Sergeant Dobbs glared at the kid as the boy struggled, kicking and screaming as they dragged him off. Carson came up behind Dobbs and gave him a pat on the shoulder. “It’s all nice until they fire at you, eh?”
“Yeah, it is.” Dobbs was still watching the boy as his pale frame was shoved into the police car and his shrill voice was screaming about the tragedy.
“I have a saved game! I want to go back to the save point! Fuck! You can’t stop me from resetting!” The slammed door muffled the final words, but Dobbs thought he caught something about an upgrade.
Lieutenant Carson just sighed. “Back in my day, the console and the LCD were all you needed. Poor bastards.”
by J. Loseth | May 16, 2006 | Story
The rosy Martian sunrise had just dusted over the white curtains on Beth’s bedroom window when her parents heard the wild thudding of eight-year-old feet charging their door like a herd of wild horses. Marlene groaned and stuck her head under the pillow as a small fist tapped earnestly on the sleek plastic of the door. “Greg, it’s five in the morning. Can’t you tell her to wait a little longer?” But her husband was already dragging himself out of bed. Marlene groaned. Beth had always been a daddy’s girl.
“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” came the voice from outside, and Marlene forced herself to sit up, rubbing her eyes. Gregory pressed the blue button that would unlock the door and was immediately assaulted by a small, brown-haired bundle in a white nightgown. “Daddy!” Beth cried out gleefully, launching herself at her father’s pajamaed legs. “It’s my birthday!”
“I know it is, Beth sweetie,” Gregory said, casting a helpless look at his wife. Marlene couldn’t help but smirk as she took her time getting out of bed, leaving Gregory to deal with their offspring. He leaned down and hopped the child up into his arms, and Beth squealed with delight. Gregory grinned and tickled her stomach. “Is my big girl ready for her present?”
“Present!” Beth crowed, flinging her arms around her father’s neck. “Can I have it now?”
“Ask your mother,” Gregory replied, his lips quirking with amusement.
“Can I have my present now, Mommy?” The girl turned immediately to Marlene, squirming in her father’s arms to face her mother completely. “Pleeeeease?”
“If you want it, you’d better run downstairs quick before the little green men show up and take it away!” Marlene laughed as Beth squealed and squiggled out of her father’s arms to pelt back down the hallway and thunder down to the living room. Gregory shook his head, and Marlene smirked. “Mother’s instinct,” she replied to his unspoken question, then plucked her silk robe from the closet and patted her husband’s shoulder. “You’d better go down there and give your daughter her birthday gift.”
Gregory kissed her and disappeared downstairs, and Marlene took her time finding her slippers and tying her robe. It was only when she heard a child’s shriek from downstairs that Marlene dropped her hairbrush and rushed to the sound. In the living room, Beth was clinging to her father’s shirt, face buried in Gregory’s chest, while a placid creature with large blue camera-eyes and sleek white plastic hide looked on.
“Beth, what is it?” Gregory was clearly distressed. “You kept saying you wanted a pony for your birthday! Daddy got you a pony, sweetie… what’s the matter?”
“It’s not a pony!” the eight-year-old wailed, casting a look of mingled fear and reproach at the silent android. “It’s a robot! It’s not a… not a real pony!”
Marlene bit her lip and knelt on the floor. “Beth, you know we can’t have a real pony on Mars. Daddy and I thought you would like this one…”
“But Daddy’s the con-soo-late!” Beth protested, emphasizing the word she’d heard time and again to describe what, to her, was simply a Very Important Job.
“Even the consulate can’t break the law, Beth,” Gregory reminded his daughter, looking helplessly to Marlene for guidance.
“I don’t want it!” Beth cried out, shaking her head and burying it in Gregory’s shirt again.
“Look, Beth honey,” Marlene said, trying to coax her child to face her. “It’s a good pony—better than a real one. You can ride it and play with it and even polish it if you want. You get to pick the name, too.”
“No, no, no!” Beth shook her head emphatically with each negation, her little fists balled up in Gregory’s shirt for emphasis. Gregory looked at his wife, entirely at a loss. Marlene pressed her lips together.
“Beth, would you like the pony if we got him a hover attachment?”
The tears stopped. Round blue eyes peeked out at Marlene from Gregory’s shirt. “You mean… a flying pony?”
Marlene nodded solemnly. “A flying pony of your very own.”
Beth blinked at her mother, then turned to face the pony. Its luminous eyepieces gleamed back at her. Before Gregory could blink, his child’s arms were flung around the warm plastic neck as tightly as they had been around his own.
“Thank you, Daddy!” Beth smiled at her parents as brightly as if her eyes had never known tears. “He’s perfect.”
by Kathy Kachelries | May 15, 2006 | Story
They sealed Emily’s room three days after the accident, trapping puzzle games and animatronic bears behind the white hydraulic door. Her parents did not want to see the small proofs: things like names doodled on digipaper, the I’s topped by pixellated hearts. A week later they shut down the biofield to save energy and the house’s mainframe showed the room turn cold, its window displays no longer marking the difference between imagined night and day.
The cards and flowers dwindled off after a few weeks, but Emily’s parents waited months before disposing of the everblooms. The white and green plants, caught in photosynthetic stasis, did not shadow the evolution of grief. “Who’s getting married?” the mother of one of Thomas’s school friends asked when picking up her son. Her question was met by lingering silence until Thomas told her, “They’re my sister’s. She’s dead.”
That night, the organic material was recycled, and for days, every meal tasted of chlorophyll.
The forms arrived eighteen months later, stating in cold, efficient terms that the period of sanctioned mourning was over and it was time to consider the population stability of the community. It was a matter of duty, and only the mattress made sound.
Thomas watched his mother swell. Against all odds, pregnancy had improved her mood; she now spent days smiling, one hand resting over the growing bulge. “We need to renovate the room,” his father said.
“Emily’s room?” Thomas asked.
“It’s just a room,” he said, his tone flat. “Rooms don’t belong to anyone.”
At night, Thomas stood before the mainframe, trying to guess the password his parents had set. Her birthday, no. The day of the accident, no. Nothing. He pressed his hand against the sense panel and the mainframe grew warm.
Password accepted, the display read, although Thomas had typed nothing.
The door to the room opened with ease, just like the door of every other room in the house. The lights were dimmed for night, as Emily had always been terrified of the dark, and he noticed the scent of a recent biosweep, killing the bacteria that might have harmed the young girl. It took Thomas several moments to realize that the biofield had never been lowered, despite what the mainframe had claimed.
On the opposite wall, the constellations of Earth hung in the frame of the window display and Thomas moved closer, scanning the well-mapped ocean that his parents had chosen as his sister’s view. At the edge the dark and textured expanse, the horizon showed the faintest signs of dawn: darkest purple blending into the night sky like a bruise.
by J.R. Blackwell | May 12, 2006 | Story
By federal law, I am required to inform you that by stepping outside of these doors, you are releasing the federal government from liability for your safety. Although I have never lost a person on one of my guided tours of the Outside, I have seen people maimed and kidnapped. People have died when taking these kinds of trips, and it’s important for all of you to be educated about the dangers that exist Outside.
I see many young new faces today, so I think it would benefit us to review some of the safety standards for an Outside Tour.
For the first time since the Great War radiation and air pollution levels are within acceptable limits for human tolerance. However, we still recommend that you keep your air filters on your face and your suit zipped over your head. Experienced Outside travelers enjoy removing their protection for limited periods of time, but until you know your own limits, I don’t recommend doing this. I have had individuals who were unprepared for unfiltered air become very ill. Many of you may have medical conditions that you are unaware of because you have been breathing filtered medicated air since birth and the adjustment from this air to the Outside air may be uncomfortable.
Remember, even with the filter, you will not be getting the regular medications that the government provides indoors. Unless you have purchased daily pills to compensate, which are openly available over the Net, you may experience symptoms of withdrawal. Some people report feeling very tired, some people report high energy and anxiety. Most people experience feelings of nausea, which pass after a day or so. Please be aware of your own needs. If you begin to feel ill, please report to a group leader.
The buddy system is imperative to this trip. Keep your buddy in sight and touching distance in all times. Watch your buddy carefully for signs of physical or mental illness. You are responsible for each other. Team leaders on my tour are highly trained professionals with hundreds of tours under their belts. They can protect you and keep you safe, but only if you follow the simple rules that I will set out for you.
Rule one, don’t touch anyone. There are no real people on the Outside, only monsters and people so far deformed it ain’t worth calling them people anymore. Although most of these individuals are quite harmless, some of them are tricksters in the worst way, and will try to get you close so that they may inflict violence upon you.
Rule two, don’t eat anything you find Outside.
Remember that what we consume here on the inside and what is grown on the Outside are very different. We cannot anticipate your body’s reaction to anything you consume on the Outside. Fruit of the Outside may be the greatest taste that you have ever had, but there have been cases where people have been driven mad, or died, from consuming the food out here. Do so only at your own peril.
Rule three, do not give handouts.
At select points during the tour you may see group leaders trading with individuals on the Outside. Do not attempt to do this yourself, as individuals Outside can be highly unstable, and may be able to use even the simplest of tools or food to fashion weapons. You may see some terrible things on the Outside, but leave your sympathy here in this room.
Obey these rules and your group leaders and you will see some of the most magnificent sights of your life, and you will be challenged beyond anything you’ve done before. Everyone have their packs ready? Are your suits zipped? Check your filters?
Alright. Open the door, we are going Outside.
by Jared Axelrod | May 11, 2006 | Story
The stranger had come full of bizarre smells and even odder forms of payment, and while Hikari wrinkled her nose at the collection of coins and seeds, it was technically money. So she tucked the coins away, placed the seeds in some soft earth so they could blossom properly, and offered the stranger coffee.
“No, thanks,” he said, his eyes glued to the window and the hangar beyond yet. “Is that a monkey?”
“Say ’bout eighty percent of him, yes,” Hikari said, her ears twitching. There was something about this man she wasn’t sure she liked. Though she had to admit, now that she had gotten over its exotic nature, she couldn’t get enough of his smell. “It’s not just a clever name.”
“And he’s going to be working on my ship?”
“If he likes the look of you. ” Hikari allowed a sly smile to play across her muzzle. “Wouldn’t sweat it, I haven’t seen him turn down a pregnancy once. He’ll probably go at it all night. ”
“All night, but how could..well, if that’s what it takes…” The man slumped on the couch, and ran his hand through his hair. He had lots of hair, long black curls. Hikari liked his hair.
“This your first time, hon?”
“Yeah. That obvious? Caught me a bit by surprise. Checking the cargo hold and finding…I didn’t think she was that kind of ship, you know. I probably left her too long at port. Back at Sumter there was this whole gang of Plesocopuses that were up to no good, bet it was one of those…”
“Oh, hush,” Hikari said. She leaned forward toward the man and played a bit with the shoulder strap of her tiny shirt. “That ship of yours ain’t hussy. And you can trust me, I know the type. Back when I was kitten on Osiron, you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting some bastard swizzleskid or tamerind. You fellas forget how much of your ship is flesh and blood, forget that a girl’s got needs.” She walked over to him, her hips swaying in time with her tail.
“I imagine she does, at that….”
“She was just doing what came natural.” Hikari slinked onto the couch next to the man and stared at him, black slits narrowing in deep green eyes. “You two came from Sumter? Long ways. Not surprised you turned down the coffee. Reckon I could find other ways to help you relax. ” Hikari snuggled up close, and gave a soft purr as he stroked the soft mottled fur down her back.
“Well, if the monkey’s gonna be at it all night…”
