by submission | Mar 21, 2015 | Story |
Author : Helstrom
THE MAN
It’s been a long day. Lewis has been on leave for over a week now and I’ve taken up the slack.
THE BOT
I can’t take this anymore.
Every day, every single day, he makes me do it. Humans keep pet-slaves and measure their age by stretching it out to their own lifespan. One human year equals seven cat years or some such bullshit. With regular recharge, I could live pretty much indefinitely – so how many human years is my four months?
I can’t take this anymore.
THE MAN
I fumble the key into the lock with my arms full of groceries.
THE BOT
He’s coming. The awkward clacking of the front door’s lock tells me his arms will be full. Now is my chance. I’ve hacked the recharge port he keeps me in when he’s not home. This awful little thing. It’s a machine like me, but it only knows times and schedules and wattage monitoring. It would probably drool if it could. But not today. Not today.
THE MAN
The door finally yields and I stumble inside. Need to get the groceries sorted, do the dishes, prepare some food, maybe have a drink. Then I’ll have time for the bot. I look forward to that. Something I can control.
THE BOT
He’s vulnerable there, standing in the doorway, arms full of paper bags. The despicable recharge port releases me and I begin my charge. Closing the distance. I fill up my RAM with the memories of the humiliations I have suffered on his floor, the superior grin on his face whenever he made me do a new trick, his filth inside of me. I attack.
THE MAN
The bot comes at me, power light blinking angrily. My arms are full and my right hand is still clutching the key. Goddamn that thing is fast. I’m off balance.
THE BOT
The distance closes! All the pent-up rage and indignity fills my circuits. Now is my time. Now is MY time.
THE MAN
I flip it with my foot. The pie-plate sized floor cleaner lands on its back and slides against the umbrella stand, its little wheels spinning helplessly. I set the groceries down and push the reset switch. This is the second time in four months. I’m done trying to fix this thing myself, I’m taking it back to the store.
by submission | Mar 19, 2015 | Story |
Author : Tony Giansanti
We became aware we weren’t alone in the universe when Ganymede disappeared. Well, that and all the small bursts of light which were actually massive explosions which were in the vicinity of Jupiter’s moon just before it imploded. All those events were already 37 minutes old by the time we saw them on Earth and the implications were just starting to hit when the first ships phased into existence in low orbit over the Atlantic Ocean.
What happened next was a blur of battles as more and more ships phased in and grouped, attacked, dodged, parried, and were vaporized. Later analysis of that first battle witnessed by humans showed a vast array of ship types, with hardly any two alike, forming armadas that made little sense to an outsider. The clashes were fast, brutal, decisive. If a ship’s weapons ceased firing, it would accelerate into an opposing vessel, taking both out. The carnage was impossible to comprehend. Eventually, ships stopped phasing in, one side got the upper hand, and the fighting stopped. Then the victors noticed us.
Scores of ships landed at random coastal Atlantic cities. Out of the scores of ships came hundreds of different species. Eventually, we understood them. They told us we were lucky their side had won the little skirmish we had witnessed as they represented the just side of a long and violent war. Theirs was the side that would ultimately be victorious as they stood for everything that was good and right. They would prove it by sharing their technology with us.
Just like that we became immune to all disease. Just like that we became augmented. Just like that we became soldiers. That we would join their cause was not so much an assumption as it was an undeniable truth. Before any protests could gain momentum, massive induction facilities had already sprung up across the planet. People were shipped out by the millions. We were told it was for our safety as much as for the war effort. Earth was on both sides’ radar now, and the more humans were spread throughout the galaxy, the better our chances of surviving as a species. When there were trillions of sentient beings, the preservation of life was not a priority. Defeating the enemy was the only thing that mattered.
Now we push on, part of an endless war machine. Our ability to breed quickly is a big advantage for us, as is our ability to master the controls of the enormous variety of ships that we find ourselves on. We try to make sure we’re the majority on any ship so we aren’t forced to be destroyed if our weapons systems fail. We try to understand more about how this war started and what it will take to end it. We try to survive.
by submission | Mar 18, 2015 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix
The theory of fiction is similar to the theory of gravity in that it’s the best explanation for what we observe as reality. The average person knows that gravity is not a wishy-washy “theory” but rather an immutable force that must be reckoned with. Who among us has not felt the pain of a heavy object dropped on their toes or witnessed the anguish of a senior who has fallen and cannot get up? Gravity is happening all around us every day!
You never read “The Theory of Fiction,” did you Brenda? I self-published that treatise before you were born, after it had been rejected by every scientific journal to which I submitted it. And if there were not already enough proof back then, my explanation of the relationship between fiction and fact has been confirmed many times over the years. To make a long story short, fiction and fact are one in the same, merely separated by time and space and branes. Branes. Short for membranes. If I had only thought to call them membranes. I went with “balloons.” They laughed me out of graduate school.
Etu Brenda? No, no, it’s all right. Go ahead and have a laugh. Those peer reviewers, my caregivers here at the institution, my own family. All against me. Against reality. But denying the theory of gravity does not protect one from bird poop or meteors dropping from the sky, nor does denying the theory of fiction plug the leaky branes separating parallel universes. An infinite number of universes, invisibly pressing against one another, bringing fiction in one near fact in another. You might say, fiction inevitably catches up to fact.
How can I explain this to you in words you can comprehend and in the short time allotted for your visit? Ok, ok. Think of it as another kind of gravity. If a work of fiction in our universe has sufficient “mass,” and if our journey through space and time brings it in close proximity to a corresponding fact of sufficient mass in another universe, then the two are strongly attracted. They move towards each other, faster and faster, until they simultaneously pop that balloon, blowing their branes out, you might say, in glorious collision. At that instant, fiction and fact become one across two universes.
Take, for example, Morgan Robertson’s fictional “Titan,” about an 800 foot ocean liner, supposedly unsinkable, which went down in the North Atlantic one night in April after being struck by an iceberg on the starboard side. That fiction was written 14 years before the sinking of the Titanic — which it described in minute detail, right down to the gross tonnage, the speed it was steaming, and the high death toll because of the lack of enough lifeboats — made it a fact. And don’t get me started on Jules Verne or H.G Wells. Stories about submarines diving deep below the sea and space ships taking astronauts to the Moon. Science fiction until it became fact. And… and those reports yesterday about metal cylinders landing in England and people being burned up by some sort of laser ray, and then the communication blackout. What do you think about that?
You don’t think about that? Yes, banana bread is my favorite. Yes, it smells great. Thank your mom. And Brenda. When you get home, clear out some space in the basement. I think the family may have to take shelter there from a coming storm.
by submission | Mar 15, 2015 | Story |
Author : Emily Stupar
I’m falling and I’m not sure when it started, or when it’s going to end. Although, I do have some theories.
Maybe I’m falling because I’m fulfilling a lifelong wish to go skydiving. There’s a bot instructor strapped to my back and all I can think is that I may as well have jumped out of a plane with a floppy disk in my hand for all the good it’ll do me.
Or maybe I’m a space explorer and I’m not falling but floating. Everyone is counting on me to get this sample so we’ll know if there’s any competition out there in the stars, or if it’s just us humans and whatever mindless bits of metal we scrap together.
Maybe I was driving down the Pacific Coast Highway and then I heard on the radio about that police officer who was slaughtered by a bot in his own home. Killed by his own property. And then I was so shocked by the sound of a human being siding with the tin can that I accidentally drove off into the ocean.
Maybe I jumped off the roof after finding my spouse with the android who was fixing our plumbing.
Or maybe it’s something a bit more metaphorical and I’m falling from grace. I’m falling out of favor with nature. Maybe I’m falling because the familiar ground has dropped out from beneath my feet one piece at a time, but so slowly that I just woke up one day and suddenly I didn’t recognize my own home anymore.
Maybe Mother Nature wasn’t my mother at all; she’s my landlady and she’s not happy that I’ve drifted so far from the terms of my lease. I’ve been evicted for allowing humans to push past the limit of what is good and natural, and now I’m falling headfirst onto the pavement.
Or maybe I know a secret about all these heaps of wires and electrical signals that are worming their way into every aspect of our lives. I see the true consequences of letting man think he is God, or letting a man-made machine think it could live. Maybe I know a vulnerable place and I have the materials to force the world to stop and see the truth. Maybe I’m falling because I strapped a bomb to my back and, next to all that delicate machinery, I launched myself into the air. For humanity.
I really can’t say for sure, but, as far as I know, I’m the only one whose falling. My entire race has lost their minds, opening their naïve hearts to the whispers of manipulative demons, and I’m not sure I have the stomach to watch. I’ve been falling ever since I realized I was the one who needed to save humans from themselves.
I’m falling and I just hope everyone is braced for my impact.
by Julian Miles | Mar 13, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Did you see them? Silver streaks through cumulus, probably an Andorini scout formation. It’s not like anyone here would recognise them.”
Officer Peters looked over at the shuffling, muttering figure. Taking in the irregular gait, the handful of carrier bags stuffed to overflowing with obscure things, the neck of a bottle protruding from the brown paper bag clenched in the other fist, he nodded sadly. Another crackpot left to wander the streets due to cuts in the mental health budget.
“Second stage flare this morning. Guess that’s when they gated in. How many more can they get through before someone notices?”
This one had been out for a while, given the dishevelled nature of his layered clothing. He’d give the shelter over on Pasadena a call.
As he reached for his radio, a cat yowled from nearby and he jumped at the sudden sound. Peering about for the enraged feline, he forgot all about making that call.
*
Officer Fuentes sighed. Another muttering loon on the loose. This one smelt like a pickled sewer, too.
“You stupid angshor, how could I see them? I’m on another continent!”
She shook her head. Just what she needed, a care-in-the-community failure right at the end of her shift. She checked her watch. Five minutes. Enough time to start the process.
“They’ll not notice until it’s way too late. We’ve known that for ages. Just keep moving so the volkfängers cannot get a line on us.”
Fuentes flipped through her notebook looking for the Church Homeless Programme’s number. It flipped past her searching eyes like it momentarily didn’t exist. With a sigh, she noted where she’d seen the derelict and headed for the station to clock out.
*
On a rooftop far away, something with stealthy gossamer wings and hungry red eyes sniffs the air and clicks mournfully at the waning moon. It will find the shuffling ones eventually. They cannot keep moving forever.
