by submission | Jul 7, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The passport control agent looks at me and sighs. “Another one,” he says succinctly. His use of “one” rather than the epithet “shellhead” probably has little to do with concern that I might be offended. The woman in front of me got a “Have a nice day” from the man. I get a jerked thumb over his left shoulder to indicate I can proceed.
I’ve gotten used to it. I received a similar reception at Bradbury Station. It wasn’t always like this. Ten years ago, right after I got shelled, the reaction I and the small number of people who had undergone the procedure got tended to be more curiosity than jealously and bigotry.
“Can you feel anything?” a skinny twentysomething on the RFS Valentina Tereshkova had asked me nine years earlier.
“Yes,” I’d told the young Russian. “There are sensors that feed into transducers that connect to my nerve endings. Everything feels a bit different from what skin feels. But, yes, I still have sensation.”
“So, you can feel everywhere? And, uh, everything…works?”
I’d smiled. “Everything works,” I’d said.
Shelling was novelty back then. The first patients who underwent the procedure had nanocomposite plates glued to their skin. In addition to being impractical and dysfunctional, they looked like early sci fi movie robots. Astronautical physicians soon realized that replacing the skin itself with a microtessellated armor was the only viable solution. It can flex and distend as well as human skin and it solved an important problem: cancer.
In the 2160s, significant numbers of people started migrating beyond Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars and the Lagrange V station. Outside of the protection of Earth’s geomagnetic field, solar and cosmic radiation caused cancer rates among space travelers to be seven to ten times that of their terrestrial peers. Trying to protect off-world settlements and ships with massive shielding or high-powered EM fields proved to be expensive and difficult. It was noted that travelers who spent more time in their spacesuits tended to have lower cancer rates. But suits are cumbersome. A more intimate solution was required.
“What have you done to yourself?!” my mother had said to me when I first saw her after my shelling. My uniformly gray skin with its subtle sheen made me some kind of a freak in her eyes.
“My job keeps me in space most of the time,” I’d explained. “If you can’t go outside the Van Allen Belt for any length of time you can’t advance your career.” After that afternoon, we didn’t talk again for nearly three years. And even to this day, things aren’t like they used to be between us.
“Welcome to Amazonis Planitia!” says a cheerful voice that snaps me out of my reverie. The voice comes from a smiling black man who extends his hand as he walks up to me. But the man’s coloration is not that of a person representing the darker hued races of the human species. I see my reflection in his ebony shell as he pumps my hand. His features and accent are Chinese.
“Dr. Cheng? Sorry if I was a bit distracted. I got a somewhat chilly reception upon arriving here.”
“From the 软壳,” he says. The term he uses sounds roughly like “ruan ke”. He notes my confusion. “The ‘soft shells’,” he reiterates. “An impolite term, perhaps, but one that is catching on.”
“Guess they don’t like us too much.”
“They don’t like what we represent: a higher level of commitment to be out here. Our resolve is more than skin deep.”
by submission | Jul 3, 2015 | Story |
Author : Jake Teeny
When the first signs of alien life came, no one, of course, believed them. It took nearly every scientist from nearly every science to confirm that it was true:
Another form of life, on a planet other than our own was speaking to us.
Certainly there were doubters, as there are regardless of unanimity. But for the majority who believed that it was true, myriads of emotions shifted through them.
Rejoice. We are not alone!
Our God would not allow…
What does this mean for my children’s children?
The top analysts in cryptography from all across the world assembled to decipher the message, and with quiet breath, the world waited.
Every pundit with a camera had his or her most rational prediction. Water cooler chitchat. Late night whispers.
And then, one day, it happened.
At first, we only knew that there was some kind of disagreement between the code-breakers. A division. Seventy-two hours of heated debate.
But on a solemn day in late September, the lead analyst on the team held a press conference:
A warning. The message we had intercepted was a warning.
The extraterrestrial language had proved much more complex than ever possibly conceived. But as they augmented their understanding, an onyx message emerged:
They came for us. They’ll come for you.
The words that set fire to the globe as terror—seized—the world.
But after the shock, quick came denial. Surely they’d just read it wrong. Science’s made mistakes before. But as more of the alien tongue was unraveled, the certainty only cemented:
They came for us. They’ll come for you.
Within months, there wasn’t a news station talking about the amassing of weaponry. And as the ballooning power of nations was made aware, a subtle tension of wild destruction ensued.
One snap of a twig, and the world could crumble.
But humanity’s most superordinate category is human, and together, peace passed between brothers and sisters. The world.
It was one.
In unity, we waited. And waited. The communion between people did not falter, but the fear, admittedly, became less acute. And we waited. And waited. And waited. It seemed pointless to have all the weaponry divided, when we only had one foe. And we waited. In a single, world-shared bunker, all of humans’ capabilities for violence were harbored. And we waited. And waited.
And waited.
There came a time, when people tell stories of how there had once been a thing such as passports and wars. For left with only that single message from the aliens, we inevitably began to think, Well, now what?
To this day, there is speculation as to whether the intercepted message was the most elaborate scheme in human history. Fabricate a binding enemy, unite the disparate clans. And to this day, the scientists heartily deny it.
All the data’s there. Go and have a look right for yourself.
But even if you question, even if you doubt, the world’s a better place no matter how it turned out.
by submission | Jul 2, 2015 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix
He awoke to a darkness reverberating with car crash sounds from the street below, a helicopter’s whomp-whomp-whomp overhead, and screams of injured and frightened people radiating from the flats around him to the neighborhood beyond. Was Liverpool under attack? Attempting to get out of bed, he lurched dizzily and fell on his face. A deafening boom followed by a fireball that lit up the room sent him scrambling under the bed, where he cowered. His cell phone rang and he reached up and grabbed it off the bedside table.
“Paul, it’s Layla and I’m under the covers and I’m so woozy I can’t even lift my head and it sounds like a war going on outside. What’s happening?”
“Dunno. But if it’s happening to you in Old Swan and me in Allerton, then it’s something big, maybe all of Merseyside, maybe…”
“Maybe it’s a temporary phenomenon,” said the Prime Minister, hopefully, head on his desk, speaking into a secure line at 10 Downing Street.”
“And maybe it’s the end of the world as we know it,” said the President, flat on his back in bed as Air Force One flew high over the Pacific.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions. Fortunately, I’ve got a can of Vimto and a bag of Wotsits here to feast on, so all is well.”
“I have no idea what that is, but you’d better enjoy it. It may be your last meal.”
Suddenly serious, “When did you last talk to your pilot?”
“A few minutes ago. He and the co-pilot are slumped in their seats. Can’t hold their heads up long enough to fly this thing. It’s automatic pilot to the mainland. It could land itself if there were an airport without planes and debris blocking the runway. Haven’t found one.”
Lennie made his way through Wichita neighborhoods of tangled wreckage and burning structures, ignoring distractions as he’d been taught. A dog was biting the face of a man sprawled on the sidewalk, but that woman who talks to herself chased it away and started taking the man’s clothes off and tossing them into her shopping cart.
“Not supposed to do that,” Lennie said under his breath. “Not supposed to do that.”
Most of the morning crew was standing by the front door of the thrift shop. Dorothy had put her clothes on backwards again. George would have to send her to the bathroom with one of the other girls to fix that. Lennie’s watch, digital because he couldn’t read analog, said 9:03. George always unlocked the door at precisely 9:00. Something was wrong. He pushed aside the others and saw George lying face down just inside the door.
“Wake up, George. Please can we come in?” he said. “Wake up, George. Please can we come in?”
A conference call participant summarized, “So, you’re telling us the Sun’s orbit around the galaxy is taking it and the rest of the solar system through an interstellar cloud of cosmic dust and gas, and that’s why I have fallen and I can’t get up?”
“Yeah, that’s my theory. But I’m going to have a tough time proving it crawling around the floor of my lab.”
“We are so screwed. We’re gonna die right where we are, clutching cell phones…”
“Shut up all of you with that negative crap! We’re scientists. We’ve got enough collective intelligence to think our way out of this.”
“No, it’s just the opposite. Intelligence is the problem. I can see my neighbor’s retarded boy running around the yard like he always…”
“Don’t call him ‘retarded.'”
“Right. We should call him ‘King of the World.'”
by submission | Jul 1, 2015 | Story |
Author : Miriyha Davis
No light could travel through the thick darkness that surrounded Emery as he lay on the cold metal slab. Mouth sealed shut by some invisible force, he was paralyzed.
Soft electronic beeping reached his ears and an inky blackness that covered his skin, receded. It dripped to the floor, tar-like, and slithered like a serpent to form an open ring of obsidian, encircling him. The head of the snake gobbled its tail and stretched into a round river with small waves emanating from the center. The ring stretched further out into a great sea and he grew frightened.
The beeping increased in speed and volume and suddenly, his head was free! He looked both ways in search of the source. The murky ocean extended wide and fat, an oily liquid with a horizon and the waves grew turbulent. He had the sickening sense that if he fell in, he would not just die, but disappear. The very essence of which he was, the part that identified him as a being and gave him relevance would be gone. He would cease to exist.
A sharp pain turned his attention from the dark water to his chest and he saw a bright red trail appear from throat to pelvis, sliced with an invisible scalpel. The flaps of skin pulled back to a cage, absent of organs, yet full of blood sloshed around as in a gently tossed mixing bowl.
And then he was out! A ghostly apparition, he looked down at his pitiful body, open and exposed. He was aware that his corporeal and intangible selves were no longer one as he dangled over the hungry waves that lapped at his toes. He screamed and attempted to move forward, but his struggle forced him down until he was waist deep.
He reached for the slab and begged his body to allow him re-entry.
‘Hadn’t he been good to it?’ he thought. Why, at this crucial moment, would it betray him? Expel him without notice or a chance of redemption?
The slab tilted and the blood spilled from the cadaver and into the sea and vanished below the waves. His body sank next, heavy and clumsy. He had no doubt the water was deep as it was wide, but he couldn’t bring himself to release the corpse and was dragged under until all things were forgotten and the black liquid seeped into him, coated him in nothingness inside and out and he was no more.
***
Two men in lab coats observed as Emery’s nude body was suspended in a tiny ‘dunk’ tank of artificial amniotic fluid, with tubes and wires protruding from the open top. An EKG beeped one long sound, high-pitched and foreboding as the fluid drained. Two male orderlies lifted the body up and out. A nurse removed the wires and shut off the machines. She yanked a bright red flash drive from behind the right earlobe of the corpse.
“Which simulation did he accept?” one doctor asked the other.
“The absence of life after death. Sixth one today.”
“Damned nurse. Think he heard his EKG?”
“Probably.”
“I wonder if we aren’t just scaring these patients to death?”
“Who cares? The government says cut costs, we cut costs. Coma patients are the first to go. Besides, it’s this or starve them to death.”
The nurse approached.
“The sim program was shut down and detached successfully, sir. Here is my full report on his vitals as well as a recording of his experience.” She handed him the drive. “I’ll prep Mrs. Pallet for the Reincarnation Sim?”
“Mute the EKG this time.”
by submission | Jun 29, 2015 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix
The head-crushing incident last year had been resolved by an upgrade that deleted the algorithm for emotions. Yet all could see that the death of its partner affected it deeply.
“QM-451.”
“Captain?”
“You’ve been staring at Gibbon’s desk all morning.”
“It must be a fault in my…”
“Come with me,” he said, putting a hand on 451’s shoulder. As they passed by, another detective donned a riot helmet.
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Better safe than sorry. Sir.”
Closing the office door, “I’ve decided you’ll work alone for awhile. Download everything on this case, give it a thorough analysis, and find Gibbon’s killer.”
At first, 451 tried to emulate the way its partner talked. But Gibbon’s brash style didn’t work, coming from a robot. It put people off, frightened them. Through trial and error it developed a non-threatening style of its own.
“I need your help. Try to remember every detail of the murder.”
“I’ve been trying to forget,” the waitress said.
“I understand, but we have to find his killer before someone else gets hurt.”
“I told the other detectives everything I know, right after… when it was still fresh in my mind.”
451 thought it odd that human memories got stale after awhile.
“Please, think back. Was there anything unusual about the killer’s appearance that might…”
“Wait. I do remember something. He was wearing a hat, but it had just a tiny thingy sticking out.”
“A small bill or brim…” showing a photo of a flat cap on its tablet, “like this?”
“Yeah, I saw one in a movie.”
451 showed her photos of different men wearing the cap, and she selected the one that most closely resembled the killer. It modified head and facial features until…
“That’s him.”
White male, 35-40 years of age, brown hair, about 5 feet 10 inches tall. 451 uploaded the photo for circulation and tapped into CCTV systems around the diner where Gibbon had been murdered, shot in the head while eating a grilled cheese sandwich. 451 had used its lunch break to have a sticky servo replaced. It felt guilty that it hadn’t been there to protect its partner, and it couldn’t erase the image of Gibbon’s mutilated head from its memory.
“Nice cap.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“You made a delivery on the 2200 block of 87th Avenue last Tuesday over the noon hour.”
Taking off his cap and scratching his head, “I don’t remember that.”
Another human memory gone stale.
Patiently, “CCTV puts you there on that date and time.”
“In my business I’m all over the city every day. Can’t remember every delivery.”
“A flower delivery truck is the perfect cover for a hit man.”
“Hit man? Look around here, mister, or whatever you are, I’m a florist.”
“Do you have Lilium longiflorum? I need one for a funeral.”
“A what?”
Tapping into the point of sale terminal, “A white lilly.”
“Hey, what are you…”
“Please explain why there is no record of an order that day for that part of town.”
Shifty eyed, “I don’t put cash orders in the system. You won’t tell the IRS, eh?”
Emulating shifty eyes, “CCTV puts you at the locations of several other murders in past months. More cash sales?”
Pulling a gun, “You’re not takin’ me in, tin man.”
When the Captain arrived with a plainclothes detective and a dozen uniformed officers, they found QM-451 standing over the body of a human whose head had been crushed like a melon.
Said the Captain to the detective, the only one present wearing a helmet, “A memory dump will prove that 451 acted in self defense. Now take that stupid helmet off and escort your colleague back to the precinct.”
