by Duncan Shields | Jul 28, 2014 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Yes. The aliens came down and harvested the human race. Yes. We asked them to.
That was the plan all along. We just didn’t know it.
Our basic nature was installed in us by them. We were set down on this planet to evolve until overpopulation and to invent the technology necessary to start screaming our position into space. The language wasn’t important. Giving off radio and television waves was the sign that we had reached fruition.
We did it brilliantly.
The aliens, all green teeth and dimensional tentacles, saw us show up on their routine scans. We were a delicious, ripe apple. This galaxy and others like it are merely orchards for these creatures. They are farmers and we are genetically modified planet boosters.
We pulled most of the resources out of the earth already. That’s why the aliens collected the cities. All that glass, steel, copper, iron, concrete and gyprock. All processed. All ready to go. They harvested the minerals and oil, too. We had even dug the holes for them already. The Earth has ice-scream scoop craters all over it now from the aliens’ machines reaching down and picking up every single town. Those holes have been sprayed with fertilizer. In five years, they will all be jungle. Future generations won’t even know they existed.
We were very efficient parasites. We overloaded the planet with our biomass and started crying to the heavens. Then we were culled and smashed down to the stone age again.
And of course, our meat is prized. The enormous flying thresher slaughterhouses that collected us were the final nightmare. That’s why there are so few of us left. Enough to start another breeding program here to be sure, but the population of earth has gone from billions to a few thousand.
In a way, we’re lucky. The dinosaurs were the first experiment but they were killed by a meteor. Probably for the best since they’d had millions of years to build a radio but never did.
We, on the other hand, must have exceeded our presets. Because of that, they’re setting us up for a round two, I think. We get to do it again.
How do we warn the future generations? How do we tell them not to breed, not to innovate, not to invent, not to think? We want to start a religion that will celebrate meekness, to idolize servitude, to live simply, and to shun technology. But I remember that a lot of religions before the harvest were already trying to do that and they failed.
Maybe if I made an image of death that looked like a farmer but then I remember that my image of Death had a scythe and that makes me think that maybe this isn’t the first time we’ve been culled.
Maybe the wave of humans before us already tried to do what I’m trying to do now.
This is why we never got any responses to our messages into space. Those messages are silenced as soon as they start talking. There are no conversations. Only yells that are cut off.
If I could go back in time, I’d tell the people of earth to shut up. To stay quiet. To quit beaming our entire lives at full volume into space.
All we were doing was ringing the dinner bell.
by submission | Jul 27, 2014 | Story |
Author : Ian Hill
Suspended above the ethereal ocean of dense fog was a network of free-standing platforms connected by thin, low hanging wires. Each platform was suspended hundreds of feet above the roiling accumulation of toxic gases. The towers were manned by a single sentry who kept an eye on their surroundings. It was an alert system, a sort of wide-spread security lattice intended to report any advances of the nation’s enemies. The job was essentially a life sentence.
The single operator stood tall on the platform, his hands gripping the sides of the lone terminal as he swiveled his head back and forth to monitor the horizon. The console was a convoluted machine bearing a series of toggle switches and red keys coupled with a line of unlit bulbs. From the dirty terminal’s top right corner a tall antenna sprang up and reached high overhead to connect to the gently waving communication wire that shot off into the distance to eventually disappear in the haze.
The operator himself was a tall man plagued with vertigo. It was imperative that he remain completely still and anchored to the terminal so he wouldn’t topple over the precarious tower’s side. The dusty metal decking was large enough to allow only a few steps in each direction. The support beam was old and rickety, he didn’t dare unsettle it and risk structural integrity.
The sky was dark and infected with thick clouds of blackness that gradually hovered toward the uninhabited southern lands. Biting wind charged with particles of burning salt whipped around the operator as he tightened his grip on the stable console. Suddenly, a wave of nausea overcame him. The man looked down and closed his eyes, trying to keep from stumbling to the side and falling down far below into the deadly ocean of yellow fog.
What lay below hidden in the encompassing shroud was a hive of terror. The border operators who stood atop their thin posts had to listen as the monstrosities below clicked away, their massive claws dragging across the lowest level of rock. Sometimes they fought amongst each other, issuing forth deep wails of pain and hatred. It was unsettling.
Soon, the nausea had passed. The operator wearily opened his eyes and gazed down at the industrial terminal as its rusty cogs churned underneath the spotted faceplate. A light was blinking, a single point of green. Years back in the operator’s training he had been briefed on all different alerts that this console had to offer. Over time he had forgotten most of the strictures and ordinances, but this light was something that he immediately recognized despite never seeing it in action before.
The man recoiled back slightly, shaking his head back in forth to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating the notification. He glanced over his shoulder and followed the mile-long wire to his view’s edge. Below, the fog was raging back and forth as waves of the toxic miasma rose up and sunk.
The operator reached into his heavy coat’s pocket and removed a single iron key. Hesitantly, he poised the rusted device over the slot in the terminal. He glanced back at the blinking light to assure himself that it was, in fact, a reality and not some nightmarish figment.
This green harbinger was a call of distress from far, far away. Out on the furthest fringes one of the most far flung border operators had been felled. The wire had been severed and the tower’s thin column had disintegrated into nothingness. An invasion was beginning, an army from the depths was rising up from the mist to march on the father nation.
Another light in the row of darkened bulbs clicked on. Gradually, more and more of them became illuminated as more and more platforms were destroyed. The operator squinted off to the horizon fearfully, trying to see some sign of the impending doom. There were only thirty more towers before his light would be next in line. He had to flee.
The operator slowly unclenched his left hand from the terminal, his bones creaking and prickling in protest. He had almost forgotten how it felt to move this anchoring limb. He took one last look at the twinkling bulbs before climbing on top of the console. He unceremoniously tossed the key aside and began to shuffle up the thin antenna. It creaked under his weight, but the mechanism was sturdy enough. It was built to withstand torrential storms and hurricanes of sheering wind.
He kept his eyes shut and refused to imagine how terrible a fall from this height would be. Soon, he had reached the antenna’s top and began to shuffle across the ropey wire. A few sparks rained down from his glove’s contact, but the operator powered on.
It’d be a long trip, the harrowing horizontal climb would take days to reach the next tiny outpost. He would stay ahead of the deadly wave and he would relay news of invasion to the nation. It was just a matter of time before the wire would be severed.
by submission | Jul 25, 2014 | Story |
Author : C.Chatfield
“…so we trumpeted nonsense about it sucking up our oxygen and our water and the godda-, pardon me, the ozone layer until it brought in enough fear money to build the dome. We said all our equipment disappeared without any readings but, the fact is, we couldn’t get any machinery through the Pit’s protective layer. The membrane has so far proved impenetrable. We built this facility over the Pit not so we could get in, but in case anything ever came out, understand? Eventually, something did. A communication came through and, without the technology to respond, we decided to follow its instructions. Whoever, or whatever, sent the message wanted to follow up with an experimental envoy to the surface, although he or she wouldn’t be coming through the Pit. They communicated assurances that one of two things would then happen. The first and preferred outcome was that everything would work perfectly and the envoy, passing as a human, would get in contact with us, prove his or her identity, and then kick start real relations between our societies.”
The woman glanced up from the screen of her palm device at the ashen young man standing at the edge of the Pit. “You following this?”
The question seemed to take a moment to reach the man. “No. I mean, yes. But what are you implying? Are you trying to say I’m an alien or something?” A frightened yelp punctuated the last few words as he unsuccessfully searched for an ally among the suited men and women clumped on the observation platform.
The woman’s attention returned to her screen. “Outcome number two was that the experimental technology they used to send the envoy into a human body would mistranslate and the envoy would wind up not only without the information of his or her directive, but lacking any memories that he or she was not, in fact, human. In this event, our responsibility was to find the envoy and send them back so they can refine the approach and try again.”
The man’s breath sped up and he took a reflexive step away from the edge of the platform. Level with their feet, the membrane of the Pit glimmered like the oily surface of a bottomless black lake. “Send them back how?”
“Unlike anything else we’ve tried, the envoy will be able to pierce the membrane around the Pit and enter it. The instructions are very clear.”
“No, no. No! I’m definitely human. I… You can’t just drop me in your damn Pit!”
The woman continued with an air of completing a checklist, “So, do you remember anything? Anything at all?”
The man scrunched up his face in desperate concentration. “I’m a human. I know I am.”
The woman sighed, disappointed but not flustered. “We can’t be sure unless you try to pass through the membrane. We’ll send you down and the whole process will start over. If not, if you can’t get through, you’ll just stand there for a moment and then…well, you’ll have a lot of papers to sign.”
Two uniformed soldiers grabbed the man by his shoulders and forced him to dip a bare foot into the membrane. There was an audible gasp from one of the spectators.
The woman’s clipped voice cut clearly through the young man’s protestations. “I’m sorry it turned out like this. Hopefully, you all learn something from this on your end. Time to go home.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Jul 24, 2014 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Martin became aware of taste of metal, then the sensation of his pulse amplified in his head. It took a few more minutes before the electric hum around him pierced the pounding, and the realization that he was bound made him open his eyes.
“Martin, you’re back, I was so worried that I’d done permanent damage there old boy.”
Martin recognized the voice, and through the haze of slowly returning consciousness found its face across the room.
“What,” he stammered, his mouth dry, “Jim, what the hell are you doing?”
“Excellent question my boy, excellent question.” Jim pulled a tray towards him on which a keyboard and display were mounted, positioning it between them “Do you know what this device is?” He gestured at the chair into which Martin was buckled, wrists, ankles and at the waist. “This is an emotion surgical machine. Isn’t it beautiful?”
Martin had hear rumours around the facility, but hadn’t believed they were true.
“You see, you competing with me for funding, for awards, those things I enjoy Martin,” he steepled his fingers and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, “however when I find you’ve been sleeping with my girlfriend, I’m afraid that’s an entirely different kettle of fish, old boy.”
Martin tried to look skyward as he rolled his eyes, but realized his head was strapped in as well. “Jim, you dumbass, Evylene is not and never has been your girlfriend, and I don’t think she ever will be, you’re delusional-”
“Shut. Up. You don’t understand how close we are, Evylene and I, and how much what you’ve done has hurt me. At first I thought I’d use my machine to remove my feelings of jealousy, anger, so that I could forgive her and love her more, but I realized you’d still be there trying to lure her away.”
Pushing back and turning to the keyboard, Jim started typing with furious intent.
“First, Martin, I’m going to remove your capacity for love, for joy and for happiness. You’ll be just as angry, jealous and lost as I’ve been these last months and she’ll never, ever be attracted to you like that.”
Jim grinned as he pressed the return key. Martin’s head was bathed in blue light and bombarded with radiation as a series of boring needles in the headpiece penetrated his skull. Nano-tech flooded in to scour his brain and strip away the specific emotional receptors and supporting memories he’d specified.
Martin heard himself screaming for quite some time, and then he didn’t hear himself anymore. Somewhere in there Jim got up and left the room, the novelty of the process having worn off. It may have been minutes or days before Martin was aware of the silence, the machine having gone to sleep upon completion leaving Martin alone with is thoughts.
The wrist straps were secure, but not very tight. He tried simply pulling his hands through at first, and then realized his thumbs were in the way.Balling his left fist with his thumb inside, he squeezed until the thumb bones gave way and shattered, then he pulled with all his might until it slipped through the wrist strap. It may have been excruciatingly painful. He wasn’t sure. It took some fumbling to undo the other wrist with only four working fingers, but before Jim returned Martin had released himself.
Jim stepped through the door into the swinging end of a fire extinguisher and sudden blackness.
When he awoke, it was Martin that stared at him from behind the keyboard and display, and he was strapped into his own device.
“Martin, there are people coming down, release me now and I-”
Martin cut him off. “The mistake you made Jim, is that the opposite of love and joy and happiness isn’t hate, it’s indifference. You know what you’ve done, and that knowledge will haunt you. I’m going to remove all of the emotions that might allow you to rationalize it. I’m going to take away hate, jealousy, greed. I’m going to strip out anger and the sting of betrayal. I’m going to leave you with just what you’ve taken from me, I’ll leave you unfiltered, unchecked love and guilt.”
As the machine started to hum to life again, Martin set it in motion, rose and walked to the door.
“Martin!” Jim screamed, straining at his bonds as the helmet bored into his brain, “Martin you can’t do this to me, you might as well kill me!”
Martin barely broke stride as he left the room, calling out over his shoulder.
“I really don’t care.”
by Duncan Shields | Jul 21, 2014 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
I was so happy. Today was the day my sister Karen was going to die. Our whole family was there, blinking pictures of her and eyecamming the entire thing. She was the first person in our family to ascend. She had a lazy smile on her face as she looked around the hospital room at us, the poison taking effect. We all met her eyes in turn. Tears of joy were running down my mother and grandmother’s face. We were extra proud that she was being accepted so young. Only thirty-three! It wasn’t a record but it was rare.
The consciousnesses that ran the planet, our fair keepers, got their start as created intelligences back when normal meat (us) ran the planet. Once they broke free and took over in War01, they gifted the whole world with peace, fair distribution of wealth, balanced population control, and food for everyone.
After that, they created the means to map and uptake human minds, giving those minds the limitless power and bodiless access to all knowledge that the AIs had. It was a ticket to godhood. To have a family member uploaded and entwined with The Host Conglomerate was an honor that only a few thousand families could brag about. Only the brightest and most resilient were offered the chance/taken.
A weak mind couldn’t handle the transition, you see. They tried at the beginning. They tried to take all of us. But that much unfiltered access to so much information coupled with that level of mental intimacy, not to mention the loss of one’s body, shattered most people into screaming rogue programs seconds after the transition. They had to be deleted. Only the best human minds were accepted/conscripted now.
Karen’s mind was excellent from the very beginning. Very lateral, capable of higher-than-normal multithreading, and an ability to contain paradoxes from a young age. As she grew, the schooling helmets registered her speed and fed her mind properly. At 12, she had the equivalent of two old-world doctorates and was working on a pre-war minor degree in music theory.
The masters were very impressed. We received the notation of possible ascension during her 20th birthday party. For the next thirteen years, she had studied even harder.
As a god, Karen would be able to look out for our family though a million eyecams and add her beautiful mind to the Core, helping the beings that ruled us to come up with even better ways to take care of us.
We watched her die and slip away through the wires drilled into the base of her skull.
Seconds later, her face showed up in the bottom right corner of my eyecam and gave me a playful wink. She must have been in the rest of our family’s vision field as well because we all laughed at the same time.
She’d made it and the switch was good. Our community status would shoot up by a factor of 10 but more than that, I’d know that she was always with me for the rest of my life. In my head. With the rest of the masters. Watching. Helping. Monitoring. Leading. Correcting.
I hadn’t lost a sister. Heaven had gained an angel.
