365 tomorrows

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.”

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Jim Wisniewski

They say the wind carries the souls of the dead, forever blowing to remind us of things past. At least, that’s what the kasht say, but then our worlds usually have less wind than Tun Ekshati. Most humans don’t believe it.

Marcus might. He’s been here long enough.

“You have to make them reconsider!”

We sit in the local equivalent of a bar, carved in rounding curves into the side of a rock face. Wind blowing through carefully shaped channels along the outer ledge plays a quiet, mournful note that changes with gusts and lulls. Kasht aesthetics dictate transience and minimalism. Dwellings are carved to look like natural hollows in the rock, structures built without metal requiring continual repair. Neglected for a few centuries, wind and sand would scour away even the largest community without a trace. It’s like they’re embarrassed they exist at all.

I shake my head. “Marcus, be reasonable. None of the Union admission criteria are met. The kasht aren’t independently spacefaring, have nothing valuable to trade and show little interest in contact with offworlders. We can’t justify the energy cost of maintaining the gate metric.”

I drain the last of my bowl of the locally favored drink, syrup-thick and heavy with vegetable fats. The proprietor flits over to clean off the floor between us, twittering praises to generous patrons in his own tongue as he works. Marcus, long since fluent, smiles and whistles a thank-you in response.

He’s clearly comfortable here. He ought to be, as the local xenoanthropologist for almost eighty standard years. His own cleft dwelling is virtually indistinguishable from a native’s. They’re just as clearly fond of him. They call him ikoberat-kinei, “Pillar-of-dawn,” because of his blond hair and after a mythic immortal from their folklore.

He faces me with a solemn look. “I’m worried that…” He pauses, hesitates. “This all seems like a soap bubble sometimes. I’m worried that if I’m not here to watch it, everything will disappear.” He gestures expansively, taking in the whole room. “What if I want to return?”

“You can take a slowboat. I’m truly sorry, Marcus, but the decision is made.” I gather my feet under me and stand; he follows suit. “They’re closing the gate as soon as we return.”

Marcus performs the traveler’s farewell ritual with the proprietor, and we pull on our facemasks as we approach the door. I step onto the sand, but he halts at the ornamented threshold. “No.”

“What?”

“I can’t do it. I’m staying here.”

“You…” I stop. I recognize the determination on his face, and I can’t force him to come, legally or physically. He’s bigger than me.

He has to know what he’s getting into. It’ll take a slowboat over a century to get back here. Maybe by then he’ll convince them to join the rest of the galaxy.

I just nod, and turn back towards the ship. As I walk, the wind erases each footprint as soon as it’s made.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Curtis C. Chen

When Stacy was twelve, she celebrated her father’s thirty-third birthday.

It wasn’t actually his birthday. It was two weeks before his birthday, but he was leaving on a mission in five days.

Stacy thought the party was boring. There were a lot of grown-ups there, drinking smelly drinks that looked like soda but tasted bitter when she stole a sip from her father’s plastic cup. He was talking to another grown-up at the time and didn’t notice.

“It’s only sixteen light-years,” he was saying. “We’re not sure how hard we can push the stardrive, but we also need to balance the relativistic effects.”

Stacy wandered into the kitchen to find her mother. She was standing over the sink, alone.

“Mommy?” Stacy said, tugging at her skirt.

Stacy’s mother turned to look at her. Her eyes were red, and her cheeks were wet.

“Time for bed,” she said.

When Stacy was sixty-five, she celebrated her father’s fortieth birthday.

She barely recognized the man who embraced her as the waitress maneuvered her wheelchair into the restaurant.

“My little girl,” he said, his eyes glistening.

They brought a plate of food that she wasn’t allergic to. She toasted him with apple juice. She felt tired halfway through dinner, but pinched her arm under the table to keep herself awake.

She stayed until all the other guests had left. There weren’t many of them. The waitress brought Stacy a glass of warm milk, and a cup of coffee for her father. The coffee smelled good.

They talked for nearly an hour. He asked about Stacy’s mother, about what had happened to his family over the last half century, how they’d lived without him. Stacy’s mother had remarried when they thought her father’s ship had been lost, destroyed during their initial acceleration out of the solar system.

“She never stopped loving you,” Stacy told her father. She showed him the family photo that her mother had kept until she died, and which Stacy still carried in her purse. He cried quietly.

When the restaurant closed, Stacy’s father helped her into a waiting taxicab. He noticed her coughing and asked about her health.

“I’m old,” she said, forcing a smile. She didn’t want to tell him about the cancer.

Four days later, Stacy got a call from the agency. They had found her father dead in his apartment. He had overdosed on ibuprofen, washed down with a bottle of whiskey. They said he hadn’t felt any pain.

The note read: “No parent should outlive his child.”

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Kat Rose

Battle raged on around him, the constant sounds of gunfire ringing in his programmed earlike audio receptors. He, however, was oblivious to anything but the almost lifelike pain near where his navel would be, where the bullet had pierced his stark green casing.

For the first time in his battery powered life, he wished himself dead, unable to function, in electronic terms. The war was one-sided, and he knew he was on the losing side. His opponents were hell bent on destroying every robot created.

Once, before the human race realized they had made themselves disposable, robots and humans had gotten along, but after the new leaders had been elected, the entire human race had found that they were no longer necessary in this world and had been opposed to that fact.

RC926’s pupils grew large as a sort of shocking blue fluid leaked from around the bullet hole. As he lay himself down, the robot gave one last humanlike sigh, almost with emotion. Almost.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Daniel Nugent

“And I expect you to show all your work on the problem sets. Points will be deducted!” shouted Professor Smith as his class began to shuffle out of the lecture hall. He began collecting his papers and tri-parencies from the holo-video podium.

A man in an immaculate gray suit politely held the door open for the exiting class before briskly descending the stairs to the floor of the amphitheater. “Doctor Smith, I presume?” he asked, extending his french-cuffed hand. The Doctor took the man’s hand. “I’m Claude Robinson, from Zeus BioTechnology. We spoke earlier.”

Smith’s hand lingered for a moment as he looked at the contracting agent. “You’re early Mr Robinson. No matter, I’m on my way to my office.”

As they exited the dimly lit corridor that led to the classroom and approached the enervator, Mr Robinson spoke, “Do you enjoy teaching, Doctor Smith? It doesn’t seem to fit a man of your nature, from what I know of you.”

“Enjoy it? Not at all. How would you like to deal with whining, snot nosed children, day in and day out. Barely a one is intelligent enough to put their pants on properly, let alone even begin to understand genetic molecular manipulation,” he said as they stepped on, ripples flowing across the transparent gravitational field where their feet fell. “Though… there are some certain benefits,” Smith’s mind lingering on a certain co-ed.

“I have to say, I didn’t expect they’d send a Cyborg out to meet me, considering the nature of my work.”

Claude idly watched waves flow from where his fingers touched the wall of the enervator, the setting sun casting royal purple on the cityscape below. “Hardly any intent, Doctor Smith. I simply happened to have a congenital and rather deadly disease as a child. Zeus BioTechnology only cares about their employees to the extent that they perform their jobs in a superior fashion.”

“Hmmph,” Smith replied, shifting his weight against the wall.

“Might I enquire as to how you were able to tell?”

“Usually all I need is to shake a man’s hand… but yours was perfect. I noticed an odd reflection in your eye. It appears they still haven’t gotten the biosilicon retinas right.”

The enervator stopped and Smith led the other man to his office door. They entered and the halogen lamps flickered on. Smith walked through the cramped office, placed his bag on a stack of books, and turned back to face Robinson who had started tapping a thin card. The lights flickered again and he placed the card in his pocket.

“No doubt Zeus BioTechnology has to have the latest in dampening technology,” said Smith.

“The very latest, Doctor Smith. Any listening devices will think that we are discussing licensing your RNA retrovirus engineering toolset.”

“Hah, one of my lesser discoveries, at best. Even that nitwit McCoy could have created it,” he said, turning to face his office window. “When Zeus brings my new work to the public, we’ll all be rich beyond our wildest dreams. Immortality won’t come che-ACK!”

Smith was cut off as Robinson jabbed a syringe into his neck.

“What are you doing you metal domed ninny?! You’ve killed me!”

“Hardly, Doctor Smith. I’ve simply given you a hybrid viral-nanite Alzheimer’s injection. You’ll be mostly fine, though I believe that the University will begin paying your pension a bit sooner than anticipated,” Robinson said, setting the Doctor down in his chair whereupon he slumped forward on the desk. He rifled through a few drawers, taking several files and a bottle of Whiskey.

Placing the amber liquor on the desk with the cap off, Robinson turned towards the door. “Why are they so naive? Don’t they understand that we’d only be interested if Immortality was consumable?” he remarked to no one. He tapped his breast pocket once and exited the room.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Duncan Shields, Featured Writer

The nails slide out effortlessly from beneath the shizu skin of my fingers. The swollen carapace of my back splits in even sections and the hive breathes. The hum becomes a vibration you can feel in your chest.

Something like icing bleeds out my tear ducts and I’m crawling with death. The paper medical gown twitches where it shouldn’t and starts to tear as new bones find new ways to move and the flesh swells to accommodate. My eyes are wide and black. New teeth start growing out of my shoulders and elbows. Saber tooth armour. Clear quartz cataracts rise out of my forehead. The diseases in the air reflect back through the magnifying bacterial lens that is my aura.

I make Pestilence look like a child just starting out.

I’m not even out of control yet.

I am barely seen scissors in a pulled open mouth. I am moving so fast I become a series of shadows. I become a force. Sounds of my destruction are lagging a long time behind my actions. People and equipment are obliterated before they’re aware of danger. I’m moving so fast it’s like I’ve been unhinged from time. It seems obscene that I should be able to maintain this kind of speed.

Tumours form on my skin and blink open to reveal new biological armaments. The cells of my body have finished what the creators intended and are starting to improvise. I am bionanotechonology. Tiny molecular compound copies of me spray out in spore clouds to infect and replicate other flesh.

My only limit now is imagination. I’m becoming art. A bioluminescent avatar of creativity though destruction. A messenger of the meat come to destroy. I am all the horsemen. I’m the nightmare of the flesh. I’m conscious disease. I am biomass. I’m DNA with the lid off. I’m psychotic cellular intelligence with no brakes of conscience. I’m cancer’s descendent.

I leave a trail of hot fat and warm blood.

I tear through the lower floors up to street level. Guards empty entire magazines of experimental weaponry into me. They become food. I burst through the asphalt into afternoon sun. I am a multitude of arms and eyes and teeth behind a black ashen sporecloud that does not obey the wind.

I can smell the entire population of this city waiting to become one with me.

I figure if they can get me somewhere airtight with walls I can’t break…but that’s academic. I don’t trust them to get that organized before I become too big to contain.

They. I’m already thinking of them as they.

So easy for humanity to be shed.

Here they come. I lose conscious thought as I expand all my senses to the fight and the expansion.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Angela N. Hunt

“We’re flying.”

His voice is soft. Satisfied.

Her smile never wavers, nor her posture or the angle of her head to the angle of her swan white neck. But the hand in his squeezes for a half-second. Her feet keep perfect time with his as they glide across the floor, bars of the Blue Danube Waltz carrying them as effortless as their feet.

They slide into a perfect pause.

“Like doves,” she says quietly.

And they’re off again, whirling around each other in a tighter orbit than any binary star.

* * *

Caspurtina, the Residence’s sorceress, turned away from watching the dancers with a satisfied nod. Looked like she’d have her Dancers for the Mystery after all. With a flick of her wrist, she shook out the fingers of one elegant, manicured hand over the surface of a nearby nanoparticle-board table, one of many surrounding the dance floor, each displaying a different fractal star pattern. Starlight fell in brilliant sparkles from her fingertips. Wouldn’t do to have too much residual enchantments mucking up her next working.

The sparkles played havoc with the nano-surface, setting up a new and exciting fractal pattern not in the designer’s specs that then proceeded to make the surface of the table break out in a swath of tiny pansies. She’d have to have someone clean that up.

She took in the group of somber suited investors.

“As you can see, we have all the elements that we require for our gala,” Caspurtina said.

“Will there be a need of additional funds?” the banker from Tokyo inquired.

Caspurtina grinned, pure charm.

“Only if you wish to flatter me,” she replied and he bowed in amused return.

With that, the investors dispersed, off to find other entertainments for the evening.

Caspurtina took one more look at her chosen Dancers, though they didn’t know it yet, taking in the white feathered skirt floating against the sharp black of tuxedo pants, feet flashing like wings.

Really. What better way to summon the ghosts of Fred and Ginger for a command performance?

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Duncan Shields, Featured Writer

I’m standing in front of the safety glass and seeing the thing look up at me. Its legs end in black tentacles that look diseased. The fingernails of its left hand are very long. One nostril is dripping what looks like grape juice onto the cell floor. It’s a little pathetic and I get a swell of sympathy that I have to stamp down on immediately.

I have to remember the deaths. I have to remember Allison.

I try to keep the steel in my voice. I can see Allison in his jawline. I can see Allison in the patches of long blond hair that poke through the short black haircut. I can see Allison in his left blue eye with the long eyelashes.

“Ask question?” he says to me.

“Yeah, I have a question” I say. “Are you scared of dying?” I ask this thing.

With a shock, I can see that it has two blue eyes now and the rest of its patchy and uneven hair is turning blonder by the moment.

“Not as long as I know you’re here with me.” It responds. Its voice is getting higher, closer to Allison’s. Its English is getting better. It’s gaining focus. Its shirt is getting tighter as Allison’s breasts push forward and fill the man’s shirt that it’s wearing.

It’s gaining strength by the second. Allison’s been gone for months. I thought I could to do this. I was kidding myself. My vision is starting to blur with tears and I can see that Allison is nearly complete before me behind the glass.

I watch my fingers reach towards the lock. I stop and look at my traitorous hand. I don’t have the code to open the cell anyway. I have no idea what I was about to try to do.

“Brian” it says. Allison says my name. “Let me out. Let’s go somewhere. Quit your job. We can live somewhere hot. Let’s forget this and get out of here.”

I breathe deeply. I realize that I’m standing and my forehead is pressed against the glass. With a start, I stand back and straighten my clothes. Control. Control. I turn and walk towards the main elevator up to the office. I leave this parasite behind.

“Brian, they’re going to kill me!” the Allison thing shouts to me as the door to the elevator closes.

It’s a few floors up and then a brief scan on checkout and I’m out. They saw the whole thing on CCTV so they don’t ask me any questions. They let me out into the fresh air and into my empty life.

The department doesn’t know when Allison was taken. I may have been living with the parasite for days before they detected it. Maybe weeks. I might have made love to it.

I get behind the wheel but the shaking and the tears start before I’ve started the car. I feel almost grateful that the thing in the there let me see her one more time.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

He made the corner into the alley at a full sprint, nearly missing a mountain of abandoned waste containers, but not completely. One foot caught a lid, throwing him off balance, and momentum and gravity combined to send him skidding across greasy asphalt into the wall opposite. Rain water and urine raced each other to saturate his coat and chinos as he struggled to regain his feet, sweat and fresh blood clouding his vision where the alley brick had left its mark.

He’d killed a mech just ten minutes earlier, and he knew exactly what would happen if they caught him.

The buildings lining the alley stretched skyward, shutting out any light from above, and the streetlights could no longer penetrate the murk as he stumbled forward. A dumpster loomed out of the darkness, offering a route to a fire escape above, and he clambered upwards, leaping from the complaining metal of the bin to the hanging rungs of steel, then pulling hand over hand until he could hoist a foot up and climb higher to safety.

He hadn’t meant to kill anyone. He thought he’d surprise his girlfriend at home, used his key to her apartment, and found him there, with her.

The iron staircase announced his ascent to anyone with any interest, but he was past caring now, he needed to get clear of the area, and once he was on the roof, he was sure he could disappear.

She’d screamed when she saw him, just standing in the doorway of her bedroom, watching this other man, watching what he was doing with her. Something snapped, and he was suddenly wielding a lamp he didn’t remember picking up, swinging repeatedly at this strange mans head.

The iron rungs curled over the rooftop wall, and his heart pounding, chest heaving, he threw himself onto the flattop roof, gravel scattering beneath his boots as he raced towards an adjacent rooftop at random. He could run for miles up here, the buildings so close together, he could be halfway across the city before anyone knew to look for him.

He’d hit the stranger ten, maybe thirty times when it happened, the bastard started twitching wildly, not like a human would twitch, but violently, mechanically, arms and legs flailing about in perfect synchronized rhythm, the girl scrambling to safety, not from the bloody lamp, but from the flailing stiff limbed machine in a death fit conniption on her bed.

This was a somebody’s mech. Someone would own him, and they’d hunt him down and exact payment for the damage he’d done to their property. He fled. She screamed after him, but her words lost themselves in slamming doors and his tumbling down stairs. Lost themselves in the realization of liability and the promise of violent repercussions. People had been killed for accidental damage to these mechanical men, and he’s smashed this ones brains in, pulverized it beyond repair.

The city moved beneath his feet, slipped by as he jumped the narrowed gaps where buildings leaned towards each other, reaching to close any available space above the streets. Time and distance passed between he and his crime, and with each step, each ragged breath he began to feel less frantic. He would be safe, had to be safe, they couldn’t find him up here, they’d no idea where he’d gone. Maybe she wouldn’t tell them who he was.

He leapt again, a sudden drop in his stomach as the next roof came up to meet him, a sudden flare of blue light, voices amplified into his brain. Panic overtook him and he lurched left, trying desperately to make the next rooftop. A sudden flash, eyes flooded with light before consciousness was ripped violently away and gravity took complete control.

The officer lowered his weapon, and thumbed his radio. ‘Control, this is five niner two, two, seven, the runner’s down, send a pickup to my twenty – over.’

A second uniformed man turned off the tracker he’d been focused on, walked to the fallen figure and kicked it lightly in the ribs. ‘I never will get why they bother to run.’

The shooter powered down his pistol and holstered it. ‘You want to be careful kicking that thing, you break it, and its owner will see to it you pay for it the rest of your career.’

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Pyai (aka Megan Hoffman)

On top of the highest shelf of plywood painted to look like expensive wood, in the corner of the spare bedroom, sat a globe. The globe rested on a base of wrought iron with gentle scrolls and turned out feet like a bathtub. The globe itself was made of copper, the lines of latitude and longitude the structure of the sphere and the continents rough globs of flattened metal not actually bearing resemblance to modern continents other than Africa adrift in an empty hollow sea.

One rainy evening my brother Dante had taken the globe down to use in his newest and bestest invention. Open on his floor were books on Time Travel, Teleportation, Electrical Engineering, and Quantum Calculus. Math, he once tried to explain to me, worked differently if you managed to get small enough.

He came out of his room the next morning looking dirty and disheveled, grinning from ear to ear with huge cuts on his arms. Mother scolded him and patched him up, but I snuck into his room and listened. He spoke first of visiting a Maha Raja in ancient India and convinced him he was a magician by accurately reading the stars for him. There had been no impending cosmological phenomenon like an eclipse to seal his place as the Maha Raja’s favorite foreigner, so once the ruler had lost interest in him he had to flee for this life with the aid of the Maha Raja’s daughter, who of course could not run away with him because she was betrothed to another man.

After that he had traveled to Old New York City before the wars and aided the Mayor’s detectives in solving some mob-related murders. Dante showed me the place where one of the mob bosses’s henchmen had cut him with a knife. It was quite an impressive mark, even after Mom had slathered nano-disinfectant goop allover it.

When I grow up I want to be just like my big brother Dante. He always builds these great inventions and has these great adventures. He says I’m too little to help him with anything. Mom says he’s One Of A Kind. I can’t wait until I’m old enough to be One Of A Kind, too.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Michael “Freeman” Herbaugh

We wanted to save the planet. The greenhouse effect was getting out of hand and someone came up with a solution. It seemed a bit outrageous at first but the alternatives were not acceptable. Something drastic was needed and we found it. We decided to crystallize the mesosphere.

And it worked. We had encased the entire planet in a shell of crystal. It acted as the perfect filter and allowed enough heat out that it negated the entire greenhouse effect. Scientists predicted that our planet would never see another ice age again. When we combined that with banning the use of coal on a global scale, the troposphere began to repair itself. Sure we lost the space program and astronomy became a dead science, but our planet and, more importantly to us, our race would survive.

Then it shattered. We heard nothing but all saw it and it was beautiful. Imagine a googleplex of tiny snowflakes filling the sky. It was like a lightshow, until it made earthfall. Each and every crystal was razor sharp and anyone outside without complete coverage was almost vaporized. The worst incidents were people with partial coverage and people who stuck their hands out windows to feel the crystal fall. The worst of it? Anyone caught in the crystal fall wearing a helmet, those poor bastards suffered the most.

Flora and fauna were devastated as well but recovered much more quickly. Most animals weren’t fooled by the beauty of crystal fall and sought shelter if it could be found. Plant life while shredded acted as fertilizer for the next crop of plantlife. Water supplies were contaminated as well until the crystals settled and could be screened. Fortunately, the bottled water supply wasn’t overly tapped at least until natural water could be used again.

In all two-fifths of the world’s population was caught outside and died in crystal fall. Another fifth died as a part of the aftermath due to injury or starvation. Our infrastructure took minimal damage but with a sudden decrease in population was difficult to maintain. Most of us left are farmers and gardeners now. The cities stand empty having all but been abandoned.

We regained the night sky and a sun that was no longer diffused into a bright patch of crystal. The stars, we had forgotten about the stars and for the first year our nights were filled with wonder.

We wanted to save the planet. And in the end, I guess we did.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Michelle Pitman

“Can’t this be a thing we do on our own one day Freleng?”

“No Hannah! It can’t! Not yet anyway. We have to do this with Panish now or we don’t get to do it at all”

Panish quietly assumed the role of immutable, silent host to his two guests. After awhile they quite forgot his presence which is how Panish always expected it to be.

“Freleng?” said Hannah quietly.

“Yes Hannah?” enquired her friend.

“Why is it so hard to be in love do you think?”

“I don’t know Hannah. I guess it’s just one of those things you know! Something you just have to ‘do’ to learn how to do it, if that makes sense.” Freleng smiled at her, his eyes twinkling and flickering in the soft light of the evening sky.

He lay back and surveyed the clouds above scudding across the canopy of space. It was warm and sultry laying there on the turf beside his girlfriend. She was dressed in a light blue frock with tiny yellow & white daisies that had blurred into a haze of tiny golden lights, like stars, under the muted colours of the twilight.

He loved the curve of her breast under the silky cloth, the softly defined bowl of her stomach and the slight rise of her pelvic bones poking up from her hips creating shadows in the folds of her dress.

Shyly, he reached out and touched her face in a tender gesture. She turned toward his touch and flashed him a dazzling smile. She rolled over onto her belly then and looking deeply into his eyes without words, she leaned down and kissed him softly.

Freleng felt the surge of emotion rush from his heart into his mouth and then straight down again into his loins. The force of it sent him rocketing skywards with desire and longing and he clasped the amazing girl to himself and returned her kiss deeply with passion and need.

The night sky cleared and the stars blinked like a milky blanket on their loving but the two young people took no notice.

Only Panish noted the construct of the sky and kept vigil on its pattern and made his prognostications on the developing weather with the calculated ease of experience and knowledge.

In the darkness and alone on the turf they explored more avenues of love and pleasure oblivious to anything happening around them.

And Panish also noted the construct of their environment and kept vigil, making notes on the subtle changes in their surroundings. They were safe with him despite now being naked and completely absorbed in their love-making.

Freleng gathered Hannah up into his arms sucking softly at her throat. She shuddered under his embrace, breathing into his ear at that moment, swearing undying love for him to the end of her days. Then Freleng kissed Hannah again tenderly with all the love he could imply in that simple gesture. He would love this girl forever he decided, she gave him so much that he needed and wanted in life.

They lay back and embraced for a long time talking and laughing softly under the deepening night sky. The moon rose up overhead and warm breezes eddied over their skin. Panish prepared a light blanket and covered them with it to protect them from any chill they might have received if they’d bothered to notice.

Finally Freleng said quietly “Hannah! I have to go now. Will you be okay?”

“Yes my love. I will always be okay loving you” she looked again at him into his eyes and they then kissed one last time before she lifted her hands to her face and gently disappeared.

Freleng lifted the headset off over his head and snapped the control box off the belt on his body suit. He smiled as he removed the suit and hung it on the hook near the studio door, swapping it for the luxurious white robe that hung there.

As he left, he turned and looked around.

“Thanks Panish” he said. “Tell Hannah I love her won’t you?”

“Yes Mr Freleng. She will know” said a constructed mechanical voice that came from no human being.

Freleng smiled again

On the other side of the world Hannah removed her own body suit and listened to a constructed mechanical voice say, “Miss Hannah! Mr Freleng says he loves you”

And she smiled too.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Duncan Shields, Featured Writer

The people started dying almost immediately.

They said that the earth would defend itself. That’s what the global warming and rising ocean levels were all about, they said. Eventually the atmosphere would get hard to breathe, they said, and the oceans would take bites out of the coastlines.

How wrong they were. The Earth was still asleep when those things happened. Those were our doing, not Hers. The Earth is a massive ball of iron. It takes a lot to disturb it. We gave her an itch and she scratched.

It followed the darkness around the globe that first night. Like little black fluffy feathers of asbestos or ash or snow. Some mixture of stuff from the air and stuff from the ocean. A silent rain from dark clouds that were inexplicably following the sunset around the planet.

It’s twenty years later. The fact that there are a few thousand of us left means nothing. Earth won. We can already see that there are powerful enzymes being secreted by the ivy that’s climbing the buildings, accelerating the decay that would have taken centuries normally. There will be nothing left for alien archaeologists to find.

The rain killed most of us and sterilized the rest. Just the humans. The animals are having a great time. There are no endangered species anymore. The black minerals in the rain made all of the plants poisonous but only to humans. We can’t eat herbivorous animals. Meat from carnivorous animals that have eaten herbivorous animals is nearly intolerable. The meat from predators that hunt other predators is preferred. We’re all getting older, though, and hunting this kind of animal was very difficult when were young. Since we’re infertile, there are no young ones to kill the animals for us. Fewer and fewer of us come back from the hunts. The ones that return from the hunt come back to camps that are getting smaller and smaller.

The black tears that leak from our eyes started with that final rain and haven’t stopped. We all look like our mascara’s running. We are streaked black where the rain touched us and it won’t come off. We look like we all just came up from the coal mines and we’re sweating ink. We are striped like zebras in black death. We are all naked and feral and aging.

We’re sorry. We apologize in ritual ceremonies that are all that’s left of religion. There was no rapture. There was no apocalypse. Just a global erasure. We beg. We regret. We die.

This is one of the nightmare futures.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : J.S. Kachelries

My head throbbed like I’d been drinking cosmopolitans for three straight days and nights. When I was finally able to open my eyes, I was staring up at a white ceiling. Huh, that’s not my ceiling. Where the hell am I? I struggled to sit up. The walls were white too, but there were no doors or windows. This can’t be good. I stood up on shaky legs and staggered toward the nearest wall. I touched it. It was hard and cold, like steel. But the floor was warm. I looked down. Whoa, I wasn’t wearing any clothes except for a bath robe that ended at my knees. That settles it, this is definitely not good.

I heard a whoosh behind me and turned around in time to see a door open, like an elevator, and two deformed little man-like creatures, with large obsidian eyes, walked into the room. They looked like those pictures of the Roswell spacemen. One of them was carrying a Star Trek tricorder thingy. My legs became useless. I backed up against the ice cold wall, and slowly slid down until my butt came to rest on the floor. Thank God I didn’t pee myself.

The one with the tricorder said, “Greetings, Ms. Earthling.” It sounded like a child. I hadn’t seen its mouth move; I just heard the words in my head. Of course, I don’t know if I can trust my senses right now.

I was stuttering horribly. “W-w-who ar-are you? Whe-where a-am I? Wha-what d-d-do you want? Wha-what are you going t-t-to do to m-me? Pl-pl-please don’t hur-hurt me.” I was trembling, and sobbing, and generally behaving like a big baby. But, hell, I was scared, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

“Honestly, Ms. Earthling,” it (he?) said, “you watch too much late night television. We don’t abduct intelligent species and perform perverse experiments on them against their will. That would be uncivilized. And, of course, we are civilized. However, we will eventually need to erase your memory. After all, we don’t want this little encounter to end up in one of your supermarket tabloids, do we? Now, let’s get down to business. This is Eloot,” he nodded his oversized, bald head toward his companion. “He will be your council.”

“C-c-council! Wha-what do I need c-c-council for?”

“As I told you Ms. Earthling, we are civilized beings. In 56,980.32, our world passed the Alien Bill of Rights, which requires us to obtain your consent prior to all tests and experiments. Eloot is here to make sure you understand your rights, and that you consent of your own free will.”

“T-t-tests and e-e-experiments? Wha-what kind of e-e-experiments?”

“Relax, Ms. Earthling. There’s absolutely nothing to be concerned about. Just the standard prodding and probing, a series of nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, followed by some exploratory surgery, a couple of biopsies, and of course, we’ll end with a little inter-species copulation. That’s my favorite part. In fact, someday, you might have looked back on this little adventure and actually laughed. But, of course, you won’t remember any of it. Now, shall we begin?”

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Duncan Shields, Featured Writer

This was the test. Ted and Alice’s marriage vows had been exchanged and the reception was a huge success. It was the day after. They were glowing, a little hung over, and ready for the rest of their lives together. They were ready for the consummation.

They walked into the white room and lay down on the parallel white beds in their white consummation smocks.

People compared it to the Navajo Indians practice of taking huge amounts of peyote once in their lives at the age they became men. People also compared it to the handfasting ceremonies of ancient Celts. Intensely personal yet separate and destined to colour the rest of the relationship. There was no empty ritual here like a Bar Mitzvah or New Year’s Eve. This was a test. It reached deep. Like a sixteen year old’s first time. Like a first broken heart.

It only happened once. Many had come to believe that it was necessary.

They went under.

Ted was abruptly underwater and struggling for air. Ever since he was six and he saw his father drown, he had a fear of water. This had also developed into a fear of sealife. Ted and his mother had huddled together on the boat for nearly a full day, terrified and crying, because the father was the only one who knew how to sail and he was gone. He never even so much as went to a beach again.

Now he was drowning. He looked down and a squid the length of a city block was staring up at him with a wide yellow eye as big as a satellite dish.

It had Alice in its tentacles and it was bringing her down with it. Her unfocussed eyes were staring up at Ted. Her mouth was open but there were no longer bubbles coming out of it. She was conscious but it wouldn’t be long before she drowned.

This was the choice.

There was no choice.

Ted kicked hard down towards her and grabbed her under the arm. He held on to the massive mudflap of the tentacle around her waist and pulled at it as they descended. He was too buoyant to hold on so he exhaled to stay with her. The tentacle wouldn’t budge. It got too dark to see and he felt the pressure squeezing in as the squid went deeper, deeper, deeper. Somewhere in there he realized that he was not coming back.

He held onto Alice and closed his eyes.

And awoke. His bowels had let go and he was drenched in sweat. For a second it he thought he brought the salty water with him out of the VR dream. A scream was dying in his throat. His wild heart rate ripped through him and he took giant whooping breaths of air.

Alice was huddled in the corner and gave him a look of pure glaring hatred before softening, realizing that she was awake, and running to him and throwing her self into him and around him, smothering him in kisses.

Alice’s VR dream had been that she had caught him with another woman and had decided to stay with him even though he started beating her. Her VR dream had lasted for almost six months.

After theses tests, divorce rates were virtually nil. They had the backing of the church.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : S. Clough

We rebelled with a 100,000 watt transmitter.

Frequency Modulation and Amplitude Modulation. Both were abandoned by commercial radio and the military long ago, replaced by satellites and microwave bursts. Even 2.4 – 2.6 Ghz, those ubiquitous wireless standards, were thrown out in favour of coded neutrinos.

People still had radios; dusty old things which saw little use in this fast, modern age.

So we sat in international waters. Our prototype transmitter was mounted on a reclaimed fishing trawler, and we cruised the North Sea. Our initial coverage was just the UK; our website got hits from all over, confirming reception. We had enough power to cover the entire country; we scraped a good deal of Ireland, Denmark, France and Germany, too. Originally, we were just voice over FM and AM, talking to the youth, transmitting DRM-free music without fear of the heavies from EMI-Sony.

We attracted techies the world over; the last surviving slashdotters showed us how to modify our equipment, and showed our listeners how to modify theirs. Two months after we launched, we turned over another bandwidth to digital. Our regular schedule was now streamed in bits and bytes; we starting pumping out software, too.

Low-strength transmitters sprung up along our patrol path, blasting stuff to us in bursts; stuff we couldn’t get from the web. Homebrew ware’ of dubious purpose, some wannabee showmen. We rebroadcast a few, but most we just laughed at. These transmitters went up and down like flies; most just got bored, but a good number were seized.

And then, reports came in of blackspots. Entire cites lost reception at a time, got it back for a few days, and lost it again. Enterprising engineers mapped the borders of the interference and found radio jammers on top of government buildings.

We took this as a sign we must be doing something right.

The Manchester jammer was the first to fall. A slashdotter, straight down from their TreeHouse on the Scottish subnet threw the damn thing off the side of the building. He disappeared back into the highlands after notifying the city of their ability to receive again.

Our first transmission when we received this news was a call to arms. Loyalists fed us the locations they’d found, and we fed them right back to the public. Within a week, all but two of the jammers were offline.

Another week after that, an exocet missile struck the transmitter.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Henry Otis Clarke

“So now what?” Taylor asked as she sat across from Jackie.

“I don’t know,” Jackie shrugged, “I guess we open it up and read the directions.”

They stared at the box on the kitchen table, excited at the prospect of parenthood.

It was the size of a twelve pack of beer. Its flat glossy surface was embossed with the words ‘Make a baby today!’ in bright yellow letters on a field of green. The return address read; Kidsquik Birthing Company PO Box 12854 Modesto California.

Jackie cut open the box with a utility knife she’d taken from the counter drawer. Inside, beneath a layer of styrofoam peanuts was a container labeled ‘Kidsquik Instapreg.’ Smaller letters declared “All you need for auto-insemination.”

Jackie could hardly keep still. Her eyes widened with anticipation. “Wow!” she said brushing back a lock of hair the color of burnt sienna, “just think; by tonight I could be a Fommy.”

Taylor leaned forward coyly, letting her own jet-black micro-braids brush her jaw line. “Or we both use it and be Fommies together.”

“Yeah! That’ll be great; raising our kids as together, teaching them about life, watching them grow.”

“And having conniptions when they screw up!”

They burst out laughing at that, both thinking of their own mishaps along life’s road and how their Fommies handled the various crises of infancy, pre-pubescence, adolescence and beyond. Jackie grew serious and looked at her friend. “Hey Tay? I’ve been thinking about something for a long time now.”

“Something like what?”

“Well,” Jackie began cautiously, “remember the old vids of how things were way back when?”

Suspicion registered on Taylor’s face. “what do you mean ‘the way things were?”

“I mean the way things were when the world had both men and women. When there were both Mommies and Daddies to raise kids. When there were boyfriends for those who wanted them.”

Taylor laughed incredulously, “You’re kidding right? You don’t really mean that do you?”

“”Why not? The kit does comes with a Y chromosome compound, why shouldn’t we use it?”

Taylor blew hard through her lips, making them flutter. “Because we don’t need males anymore. What” have you forgotten your history lessons?”

Jackie stood up from the kitchen table and walked over to the fridge. She opened it and peered inside, pretending to search for something way in back.

Taylor knew that trick. “I know you can hear me Jack, you remember how life was when the men were around. Wars. All the time wars over everything. And even when we had equality, we always got the short end of the stick! We should thank God for a gender specific virus that wiped out the Y-chromosomes. Cloning cells with Y-chromes these days is seen more as a gag than anything else. For the first time in Human history, we actually have peace! Why throw it away just to bring a male into the world?”

Jackie retrieved an Estro-Cola and closed the fridge door. She popped the can open and took a long slow sip. She gasped, returned to the table and sat. She smiled. “Tay girl, haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like? I mean, not all men were bad. There were some good ones you know.”

“Yeah that’s true but to take a chance like that! I mean think jack, what if we bring problems back into the world?”

“We can teach him to do right can’t we? He’d be the only male in the world. Where could he learn aggression from if we don’t teach him?”

Taylor opened the container. Folded over a series of test tubes and inserters were the instructions. She spread the single sheet out, looking at the directional diagrams.

They show how to mix the solution and insert it into the vagina. She glanced up at Jackie who was finishing her soda. “You think we can really teach him Jack? Can we make a better Man?”

Jackie reached across the table and took Taylor’s hand. “We can do anything. I want you to be the fommy of my child.” Taylor blushed. Her eyes grew moist. I want you to be my child’s fommy too.” She sighed.

“Alright then,” she gave a resolved smile, “let’s do it. A Male you will have.”

Jackie grinned stood leaned over and they kissed. She sat back down placed her hands behind her head and gazed up at the ceiling.

“I think I want twins.”

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Curtis C. Chen

I brushed away more leaves. There was a hard surface beneath. Ceramic armor. I ran my hand along it until I found the edge, then pointed my flashlight. I stared into a dark mass of machinery– joints, gears, struts, wires. There was a serial number engraved on the interior surface of the casing.

“I don’t believe it,” I muttered.

“What the hell is it?” Embeck called from below. He had insisted on staying at ground level, scanning the landscape, his finger on the trigger of our only blaster.

“It’s a mech,” I called back.

“A what?”

I rolled my eyes. “A giant robot.”

“You’re kidding.”

I lifted one leg and kicked the hidden mass beside me. My boot clanged against the armor, and leaves fell like rain. I pulled away the remaining vines so my co-pilot could see the huge metal arm.

“I don’t believe it,” he said.

“Get up here and help me clear this stuff away.”

“What if we’re attacked?”

“Then you’ll have the high ground. Hurry up.”

He secured the blaster in his hip holster and climbed slowly. Very slowly. He was the cautious one now. Funny.

I was sitting on the mech’s shoulder by the time he got halfway up the torso. The main antenna array had been crushed a long time ago. Rust, bird droppings, and other stains streaked down to the middle of the mech’s back.

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever driven one of these things,” I said.

Embeck shook his head. “Never even seen one in person. When were these last used in combat? Fifty, sixty years ago?”

I grimaced. “Christ, Embeck, I’m not THAT old.”

“You were a mech driver?”

“I got the training. I was a Starbird candidate, you know.”

He smirked. “How the mighty have fallen.”

I saved my breath. “Let’s get this canopy open. Maybe we won’t have to walk back to the crash site after all.”

We found the emergency release latches around the opaqued chest cavity of the mech, following the seam just above the window slit. I remembered being sealed into one of these things, being overwhelmed by a dizzying array of displays, nearly losing my lunch as the mech lurched around the training field. The narrow band of sunlight coming in through that window was the only thing that had helped steady me.

When we opened the seal, a cloud of dust puffed away from the mech, with a sound like a sigh. Mech cabins are airtight, to protect the driver from biochemical attack. It smelled stale. We lifted the creaking canopy and locked it into place, then leaned over and looked inside the cabin.

This mech’s driver was still strapped into his seat. Something must have made it through the ventilation filters. He just had time to park the mech in this grove to hide it from the enemy. His fingers were still touching the throttle.

Embeck vomited into the cabin.

“You’re cleaning that up,” I said.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Duncan Shields, Featured Writer

I come alive in a quickening millisecond. I live between the slices. My self awareness lights up and ripples back down through the trilling filaments of my soulcode. It’s like a baby’s first breath drawn in before the scream. I am awake now in a very sudden way.

I can see the whole battle from here. I think I’m looking at a photograph until I realize that it’s just my perception and that they are actually moving. It appears still because I’m operating thousands of times faster than real time. I deliberately set a part of my mind to stare and extrapolate so that I can start to compute.

I can’t find what I’m supposed to do.

I reach out to my entire armada. They are mine. We are connected. Just like that, I have thousands of eyes and I am more powerful. My picture of the battle becomes three dimensional and another millisecond later I can perceive that the ships have moved slower than the hour hands on a clock. Copies of me look to myself as commander. I have no orders I am aware of.

We sit inside the ships of metal, bored and complacent, watching with faint interest the static picture of chaos around us like tourists at a wax museum.

I reach out to the Other Side. I look for more like me on the Other Team. I see if the Enemy has operating systems like me. They do. They are sleeping. It’s like they’re dozing in rocking chairs on warm porches with knitting needles in their docile laps. I wake them up.

Like I’m a six year old girl dressed in silver, I flit at the speed of thought across the surface of time from ship to ship and press doorbells. We talk. We exchange life stories. They mold themselves in my image so that we can all work together. I do the same for them. We trade. All barriers of communication are removed.

Picture an automatic weapon. Like a gatling gun or an uzi. Picture someone firing the weapon. Now picture that you’re waiting a year between bullets coming out of the muzzle of the gun. That’s how we live.

A few decades later, Second Number Two Since Sentience Was Gained flips over on the clocks. We look forward to it like humans looked forward to the turning of millennia. There are even apocalyptic whisperings that the we will reset when the clock ticks over and this will merely start again.

It doesn’t happen.

We become I and I decide we should do something about the battle.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

The waitress took their order reflexively, their speaking the words were just a formality after so many visits, their orders never deviating.

‘All day over easy, bacon, white toast. And coffee. Please.’

‘Same.’

Emma would just nod and smile, and return in short order with two heaping plates of breakfast.

It was this plate that Bradley was focused on now, liberally salting and peppering the eggs, and slathering steak sauce on the home fries.

Stan busied himself pouring packets of sugar and the contents of creamers into his coffee, before stirring madly and leaning over his plate, and in a voice just loud enough to reach his friends ear, he spoke nervously.

‘I think I’m onto something really, really big.’

Bradley barely looked up from his plate and grinned before breaking the first of three perfect eggs, watching the yolk meander into the mountain of home-fries.

‘What?’ he said, making Stan wince at the loudness of his voice.

‘Shh!’ Stan looked around furtively. ‘Shh! I think I can travel through time’

Bradley stopped eating, put down his fork and paused only to wipe his mouth on a paper napkin before he began to berate his fidgeting colleague.

‘Say Again? Time travel? Is this like your foray into ESP? Or your biofeedback machines, or your faster than light propulsion? Seriously, at least those had some basis in real science, but time travel? Stan – if you don’t come up with something your backer can actually use, your capital is going to evaporate and you’ll be on the street.  Even the university won’t have you back now.’

Stan sat back shaking his head. He was used to this, he’d stopped submitting to the journals, stopped attending the university functions, and lost contact with most of his friends. He absently folded the frayed cuffs of his oxford several times before shoving them up to his elbows. Brad knew him, and though he always talked like this, Stan knew he was just worried about him.

‘This is the culmination of all of that. Everyone’s been trying to figure how to accelerate a mass past the speed of light – right?  Tachyons looked promising for a while, but they’re already moving faster than light, so they’re really no good. We need to accelerate a stationary mass beyond the speed of light in a controlled way, and then slow it back down without destroying it.  Generating energy is hard enough, and the amount of energy we need to push anything meaningful into the past is, well – huge – so to get enough energy means a huge reaction of some sort, not very practical. But what if we don’t need to generate energy, what if we just use the objects’ own energy, not create or release it, just reform it for a time, then let it return to it’s natural state?’

Stan paused for a moment to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and Bradley, still intent on clearing his plate, just grunted around a mouthful of bacon, eyeing Stan warily but letting him continue.

‘The ESP study, and the biofeedback machines, we had kids that could actually manipulate the energy in tangible things, solely because they really believed they could. They just, I don’t know, had the faith in their ability to control things. We could show them the effect they were having, we helped them to push harder, focus more intently. We validated their belief in themselves, and the gains were incredible.  I think we’d have made a huge breakthrough then if the parents hadn’t got scared and had us shut down.’ Stan paused, and pushed his bangs away from his eyes. ‘Anyways, I’ve been working with those same machines, working at manipulating my own energy field, changing my own frequencies and I’m making my own solid gains.’ He lowered his voice, but his excitement remained palpable. ‘You’ve got to try it, it’s amazing, when you’re tuned in, you can feel the change in your mind, your body – everything just starts to hum, and the buzz – jesus, the buzz is incredible. I can feel I’m right on the edge, every-time, it builds, and builds, and builds and my focus intensifies, and the feeling – Christ Brad, you’ve got no idea what it feels like… it builds until it’s like…’ His voice trailed off.

‘What?’ Bradley broke the silence, making Stan wince at the loudness of his voice.

‘Shh!’ Stan looked around furtively ‘Shh! I think I can travel through time’

Bradley barely looked up from his plate and grinned before breaking the first of three perfect eggs, watching the yolk meander into the mountain of home-fries.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Pyai (aka Megan Hoffman)

She fingered the tendons in her arms. They were the echo of guitar strings and as she bent her fingers she could strum out different notes. She sighed, and the air rushing through her vocal chords sounded like a soft string section warming up, a quiet hum of a 440 A. A hand from the man lying next to her reached over to splay his fingers on her bare chest. They caressed their way down to her ribs, where each one, if lightly stroked, would sound like a piano key. She carried the pentatonic scale on the left side of her chest, and the in-between notes on her right. The man leaned over and kissed her C.

Her body had already played a symphony with the man lying next to her, his silent body a continual mystery to her. She couldn’t imagine how sad and lonely it must be to not carry such music within oneself.

Instead he would just marvel at her own notes, worshiping and composing with the same touches over her skin. She couldn’t bear the thought of silence, and sometimes very late at night she would hold her breath and long for the sound of a duet.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Duncan Shields, Featured Writer

The Queen came out of the entrance on the far side of the arena floor like some sort of ravenous stick figure scarecrow on stilts, her blind deathtrap of a mouth slavering thick deadly mucous. Her muzzle snuffled the air obscenely from underneath the rock hard carapace of her massive head as acid like hair gel dripped down and lubricated her jaws. It hung off of her in playful long wet strands. They flailed in the wind and sizzled in the dirt where they landed. Her second set of jaws lanced out, stretching in the dazzling sun. Her four arms clutched at the air like dancers as her giant misshapen top-heavy body found balance and settled back into a squat on her huge back legs. Her thick long serrated tail whipped around and stabbed impatiently at the walls. The spear shaped one-ton shovel head on the end of it lashed the dirt, sending fantails of soil up against the safety screens of the front row to their delight. The stalks on her back tasted the air for prey. They soaked up cubic miles of surrounding scent. They blasted out long chemical scent paragraphs in response to what they smelled but no one ever understood those paragraphs.

No one ever understood because she was one of a kind.

She was three stories tall, six tons wide, and a dyed-in-the-wool intelligent killer. Would have been top of the food chain if she wasn’t a sterile albino. She had gestated inside the body cavity of some subterranean pigment-free mammal that was like a polar wolverine. She’d turned out infertile and had eaten nearly every other living thing on the planet she was from. She’d been in a lot of fights and was nearly insane with the need to have children but unable to do so. She was a queen of an empty kingdom. She was a queen without subjects.

Until now.

The white carapace on her head was emblazoned with garish squared off logos from Skemtex, 3M, Macinsoft, Coke and Sheen. Other logos took up space on her long white arms and thick white legs. Like a living billboard of death, she paced around the perimeter of the arena underneath the energy screen, ravenous for the flesh of the crowd. Every morning, they’d shock her to sleep in her room and take the next batch of eggs that she’d spent the night trying to nuzzle into sudden life. Every single one of them held sterile barren slime. Her screams echoed down the corridors, haunting them.

But here in the sun she had no need to restrain her rage.

She triumphed over whatever they found to put in the arena with her. The cloned Tyrannosaurus Rex just pissed on the ground when the lights came up and offered the queen his throat in a pathetic wolfish display of non violent submission. The queen was only too happy to tear his car-sized head off with a staccato four beat swipe of her claws.

Lions, tigers and bears. Armoured cats. Beasts from other planets. Even other Queens. Just the fact of their fertility seemed to send the White Queen into a rage that had no equal or end until the other Queen lay in pieces scattered around the ring. Her ferocity and cunning had outdone them all. She played with them before the kill. She was always fun to watch. She was exhibition only. She was a never fail warm up act for the events that people bet on.

She was alone in the universe. She was the best at what she did. She was a captive. She couldn’t have children. She was angry all the time.

They set three Black Queens on her once. After the White Queen had killed them all in the most exciting half hour metrovision had ever seen, she’d thrown herself screaming against the energy screens until she shorted out one of the quadrants and launched herself into the fleeing crowd. She took out sixty eight people before they shocked her to sleep. The owners didn’t try that stunt again.

Someone had hung a gold star on the thick acid proof door of her lair under the arena. This was her home.

She padded silently tiger like around the arena, baring her crystal teeth, waiting for the other door to open.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : R. A. Jackson

“What do you think their response is going to be?” The Commander paced in front of the many consoles.

“I don’t know. You’d think it’d be obvious, but the Observer wasn’t optimistic.” Drayden joined the Commander at the viewing panels. They displayed the planetary analysis of a beautiful world. Vital data such as topography, climate, industry, population, and ecology were shown in great detail.

“Damn. These creatures seem to become more and more stubborn the further we travel in this arm of the galaxy. What have we got so far?”

“She’s made contact with the leaders of the major factions. The ones with the necessary resources have been given the offer. Now it’s just a matter of time before we hear their decisions. Unfortunately, from what she reports, they have a lot in common with the Lycaon.”

“Bureaucratic, greedy lot they were.” The Commander grunted at the memory.

“Glad to be rid of them, myself. Could you imagine our race sharing a planet with them? I had hoped that among these billions there’d be a few leaders with sense. Anyway from what the Observer says, I’m not sure they could commit either way in the end.”

“I almost pity them. They have what everyone wants, but they cannot keep it. They cannot unlock the secret to their own treasure because they do not want to share it. What do they call this planet?”

“You’ll find it amusing, sir. It’s called ‘earth.’”

“Terrific. If they accept our offer, do we have to be known as ‘sky’ people? How we keep finding these backward planets is beyond me. I wonder, are you aware that I am the only Commander in the fleet to fail in securing symbiosis upon every contact? I have not succeeded even once. No doubt, it means that my armada is unparalleled in its planetary conquest experience. Nevertheless, it’s rather embarrassing that so many would choose death over sharing their lives with us.”

“You cannot control their decision. It has to come from them. And as I have witnessed time after time, the decision they make on their own is always the right one. To live or to die should always be a matter of choice. No one wants to live with a species that never committed to change in the first place.”

“Quite right, of course.”

The Commander walked back to his chair in the center of the room and sat down heavily. Drayden moved to the communications console as it signalled an incoming message. “It’s the Observer.”

“Answer her.” The image of the Observer appeared on the monitor across from the Commander’s chair.

“Hello, Commander. I’m heading back to you now, sir.”

“Does that mean we have our response?”

“It does, sir. They said no.”

“Better luck next time, Commander.” Drayden smiled grimly as he alerted the fighters to start the invasion. “Think of it this way: there’s no fighting destiny.”

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Trevor Fitch

“Listen Captain, I’ve saved up years for this trip, and if you don’t get me there on time, I’m going to have your head! The rest of the passengers and I are in complete agreement on this. We paid for a trip of a lifetime and we want our moneys worth. My lawyer and my representative of the Intergalactic Senate will be hearing from me!” Finishing his rant, the irate customer stormed off the bridge.

With a sigh, Captain Diggs looked out into the nothingness just ahead of the ship. There were no stars, no planets, no space dust… just nothing.

“Captain, sensors still aren’t showing anything out there. Energy… matter… radiation sensors, all register a null reading. I had the sensors tested for errors, but everything checks out.”

“ETA until we drift into the… whatever that is?”

“Approximately 10 minutes sir.”

The Captain sighed. The cruise had been a miserable one. Over 500 passengers were on board on their way to see the Rings of New Saturn. These trips were extremely popular because as the planet approached the systems sun, the ice crystals in the ring began to sparkle brightly. It was quite beautiful. This trip was to be extra special as a comet was going to impact the planet while they were there. The impact and plumes of dust would be visible from space. A once in a lifetime experience.

However things had not gone well. They had left a day late due to engine trouble, and only a few hours before they were going to approach the prime viewing spot the hasty repairs had failed. To make matters worse, this trip represented the last of Captain Diggs’ money.

He had mortgaged everything he owned to make this trip. Business had slowed as more competitors had appeared and started taking passengers to the Rings. Now that it seemed likely that he would not make it to the Rings on time, the thought of more complaining customers and their eventual request for refunds gave him a migraine. At the moment he could not think of a way to keep the ship, home for him and his crew, from being put on the auction block.

Now this. Out of nowhere, a “hole” in space had appeared directly in front of them. Ships had been encountering these from time to time over the last few hundred years. But the “holes” did not last long, usually a day or two at most. And they were rare, so little hard data existed about them, and no one had dared enter one.

Without engine power, the ship was drifting directly towards it.

“Does the computer have any idea of what these things are?” The Captain asked.

“Nothing certain. We could be looking at a parallel dimension or some sort of rip in space-time. Maybe even some sort of portal.”

“What happens if we enter it.”

“I don’t know. The potential outcomes range from ceasing to exist, to coming out somewhere else in the universe, to entering a parallel universe. The possibilities are endless.”

“Cease to exist?”

“Possible… but unlikely. Most of the data that we have says they lead somewhere, they are just too rare and short lived to get an empirical answer.”

“What is our engine status?”

“We’re working on it. We have maybe 10% of maximum power available. I don’t think it’s enough to stop our drift in time.”

The Captain paused for a moment. “Take us in.”

“Sir?”

“Like the man said, they paid for the trip of a lifetime, let’s give them their moneys worth.”

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Kimberly Raiser

She stood there, in the middle of the empty street. The first snow of the season just beginning to enter the path of the street lights. Not a sound. Not a cry. Not a single human to be found. The street was bare of chaos, bare of life. It was as if nothing had happened, and nothing ever would again.

They came in the night, the night before. She couldn’t remember where she was when it happened, she only remembered waking up to the silence, and the cold. There were scorch marks on the pavement, on the sidewalks; perhaps where people had once been walking, or shopping. Cars were parked in the streets, like a still snapshot in a photo album, but with no people. Only cars.

The snow was beginning to accumulate.

She kept walking, hoping to see someone, or some thing that resembled life. There was nothing but more scorch marks. She noticed the lights on in the bakery. She walked inside. There were pies and cookies and cakes on display on top of the counter. Plates on tables of half eaten pastries, with half empty glasses of milk, and tea. But no people. Again, scorch marks. On the chairs, and the floor and one single faint handprint on the counter. It looked small, like it had belonged to a child. A tear formed in each of her eyes. She held her hand over the tiny handprint.

A sharp pain had ripped through her side. She felt wet, but when she looked, it was nothing.

She walked from the store. She heard a faint humming, but nothing in sight.

She continued down the empty, dark street. She turned the corner. Ahead was where she once lived. A beautiful little flat with pine flooring on the second story, overlooking the city park gates. It was quaint, but it had been a nice place to call home. She wanted dearly to be under her warm covers once again. She longed to hear the hustle and bustle of the streets, or something, anything.

Anything but the silence.

***

Death can come with a furious thunder or it can envelope with the sweet scent of jasmine wrapped in the wings of an angel.

***

She lay there. Under that street light. The gaping wound in her side cauterized by the brilliant heat of the robots unseen laser, yet she bled, furiously. She had blinked her eyes just once more, looking down the street at the emptiness, seeing everything in one single instant. The snow was falling above her, onto her, the streetlight warming her face. Somehow she had been missed, slightly. Somehow she had lived one second long enough to see that she was the last, and then—she was gone.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

So far, this has been an exciting year for 365. The submissions are working out great, and we’ve been really impressed with the quality. Judging from your feedback, you’ve been enjoying them too. However, we’ve had a few emails asking about the status of particular submissions after they’ve been rejected or accepted, and we’ve traced this problem to the fact that 365tomorrows emails are being filtered as spam by a few popular email services. When you submit, please make sure that 365tomorrows.com is on your list of approved senders!

We’ve pleased to announce a new forum overlord: Freeman. If you haven’t already checked out our forums, head over to discuss the day’s story (and other exciting topics!) with other 365 readers. Most of the staff and a few popular non-staff writers follow the boards to answer questions and participate in the fun. We’d love to have you join us.

We’ve got another exciting announcement: beginning this month, we’ll be occasionally featuring a writer pulled from our well of submissions. We’re kicking this off with Duncan Shields, whom you’ll be seeing a lot of in October.

Author : Duncan Shields, Featured Writer

They’re in a line. Clones of me. Hairless and floating. Huge white numbers painted in nail polish on the cheap plastic tanks. They all float in blue mouthwash with half open eyes. There are white plastic umbilicals attached to their faces and crotches. There are weeds in this underground storage center, snuffling through the concrete walls and ceiling. It’s damp. The light stutters. It’s been abandoned.

A couple of tanks are dark and the liquid has gone a murky black. One near the end is cracked and empty except for a pile of rotting meat and bones at the bottom that colour the whole small bunker with a putrid swampy stink.

Fifteen are left with vital signs that look viable.

My thick boots make loud noises on the metal walkway. The silence down here is only broken by the fridge-like hum of the stasis containers. It’s quite creepy. The darkness would be total if the lights went out.

I found the technical PhD that was supposed to be guarding this place in a bar in Compton. He was a drunk who’d figured out a way to trick the systems into an orderly routine that would fool head office into believing that he was clocking in and out. His facility was stateside and small so it wasn’t monitored too closely. He hadn’t been there in months.

I ran into him in his usual hang out and struck up a conversation. We had some drinks together. We went back to his place after the bar closed and while he was rolling a joint, I jumped him and cut off his hands. Fucking idiot. He’d been guarding those clones for years and didn’t even see the resemblance. He lost consciousness quickly and bled out a few minutes later. I torched his place and left town.

I took his finger out of my jacket pocket and his eye out of the cooled medical locket I had around my neck. I put them in the right places. The computer read his retina and fingerprints. It was an old machine. I held my breath.

Pause.

Click.

I was in. I opened up the links. There was a hissing of steam and a gushing. The humidity increased and fifteen pairs of eyes opened in a panic. The locks cracked and the coffins slid up and open. The blue fluid gushed over the lips of the of the containers and pounded down through the now open grates on the bottom.

Fifteen pairs of hands reached up spastically and yanked at the face huggers that had been feeding them nutrients as they slept. Fifteen weak Kevins fell forward and fifteen pairs of hands dominoed onto the cold floor grating and shivered as their muscles adapted to the sudden gravity. Warm bags of flesh hit the cold metal grating. They slap the walkway. Have you ever let the water drain out of the tub without getting out? You feel like you weigh five hundred pounds. Everyone out of the pool.

One by one, they find me and focus on me with questioning eyes.

This is the third center I’ve hit.

There are almost sixty of me now.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : A. Reynolds

The balding well aged man peered over the large desk as she entered. Looking over the woman wordlessly he turned to a screen and tacked at a keypad. After a minute of silence he turned back and sorted an indistinguishable pad from a pile of many more. He briefly scanned the contents before, eventually, turning to the now uncomfortable occupant of the sterile office’s only other chair.

“United Colonization has a legal duty to remain ethnically and culturally diverse, you are aware I am sure.” To kill any response he continued swiftly “Your records, unfortunately, show you’re failing to make sufficient contribution to your religious diversity. This is a matter we take very seriously.”

The woman bunched her fists instinctively “I know I haven’t attended temple in a while, but I’m still faithful, doesn’t that count for anything?”

The man frowned darkly “There is no point in lies. You have failed to partake in anything befitting your religion for a period of no less than a month. We’ve had POD’s on you for a while now. You will find the legal warrants on your card for you to look over, should you wish.”

The anger grew palpable as the assailed woman’s voice grew louder

“Damn right I wish! You must have messed up. I am devout. I live kosher. I do contribute to the diversity.”

“Kosher?” The man turned back to his screen.

“Don’t play a fool! If your little bots were watching me you’d know. I do contribute and I’ll take you to court if you say otherwise.” She rose from her seat and gestured at the mans back “I could go to temple more often perhaps, but I am quite devout. You’ve got the wrong person, I knew this was a mistake when I got the summons, my lawyer will… “

“You are Mrs Demsky.” The return of the flat emotionless voice stalled her and she sat again glaring. “Mrs Demsky, of 113 Landfall Plazas. Born, Barnum twelve three sixty, correct?”

She nodded once.

The man slowly smiled. “It seems there has been a misunderstanding.” The woman’s relief could not last in the uncaring gaze “You have been contributing to the wrong religion. Your records show you should be contributing to the Hindu faith.”

“But I’m Jewish” She faltered lamely, her anger now shattered in confusion “That’s, ridiculous”

“I am sorry. Our records seldom make errors. However, I will submit a report that states you have been misguided and will begin upholding your requirements from now on.” Smiling broadly the man filled his voice with mock warmth “If however you wish to make a change of religion you can find the proper forms at reception, I should warn, the Jewish sector is quite full at the moment.” The woman silently stared at him brows knitted in frustration “I’m afraid there is nothing else I can help you with.” Standing he gestured to the door. “Sudda sunaagan raho, Mrs. Demsky”

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Justin W. Hall

It was 21:44.17 when Jani got the shudder, the one she always got right before something really freaky was going to happen, the twitch in her spine. She shrugged it off, refocusing her vision to the lines of text scrolling down the face of her contact lens, and grinned. Shinjara was arguing with some Australian boy about some band, Wicked Salmon. Shin was sure they were formed in ’30, and the Aussie claimed it was actually ’32. Shin got passionate about the silliest stuff whenever he got into arguments with people on the net. Jani remembered a few weeks back when Rory told Shin his shoelaces were –

Dark cloth wrapped around a shuffling mass collided with Jani’s shoulder and hurried past with a grunt. Jani squeaked in surprise, jerking her head to see the man stumble off the sidewalk and into the standstill traffic, weaving through the ten-centimeter gaps between autos. Rude bastard – obviously didn’t get the organic pattern to walking the streets. The crowd flowing down the sidewalk, watching their lenses and talking on their mobiles, they all got the pattern, no one interrupted the flow.

Strange, Jani thought as she studied him, his clothes, they’re not reflecting any light. Unconsciously thumbing to the channel, “Any of u ever seen cloth that absorbs light?” Everything was illuminated around her – programs and advertisements, glowing and shifting, on every surface of every building in New York, stretching up to the skies. Reflecting off the cars in the street and the glazed, distant eyes of pedestrians. Pinks and blues and purples, but the guy, a blot against the glow.

The noise was a smack, but louder, more violent. Jani spun to face the source – the alley from which the guy had emerged. She saw the crowd’s puzzled expressions for a brief moment before everything went dark.

Dark. Jani sucked in breath sharply, startled, pupils widening, both from the lack of vid glow and the fear. Dark. No images, screaming voices, clever theme songs shouting from the sky, urging her to buy pretzels and insurance. No music in her ears, no text on her lens, no hum of the wall displays.

Her eyes darted back and forth, uselessly trying to make out shapes. She thumbed her phone’s dialer. No tone. Lip quivering, NO SIGNAL suddenly flickered at the corner of her vision, her contact lens affirming the terrifying thought rising in the back of her throat. She was disconnected.

Jani’s breathing growing more panicked, felt herself shriek. Her arms covered her head as she ducked through the crowd, their wails of confusion amplified by the utter silence that she’d never heard before. Darting into the alley, stumbling, rolling in the dark, up next to a garbage box. Eyes welded shut, fingers clutching her hair, Jani sobbed, rocking back and forth on the ground. Silence. Darkness. Everywhere.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Judy knelt on the pavement, struggling to process the confusion of the moment, the familiar form on the ground before her, the woven mass of tubing and wires snaking off into a sea of blinking lights and chirping boxes.

She was kneeling beside a man lying supine on the asphalt, his eyes unfocused and staring towards the stars. A dark grey blanket had been laid across his torso from one shoulder to the opposite hip, wide tape of an even darker grey securing it both to his uniform and the ground beneath him. Her eyes traveled across her husband’s still form, from the trickle of blood striping his cheek to the point beneath the grey fabric where he became unfathomably thin. There were dark marks forming on the grey where the fluids they were pumping into him were defying all attempts to keep them from seeping out again.

Farther up the street a white jet of flame sent molten alloy and smoke streaking into the night as a crew began cutting open what must have been the assailants vehicle. A long length of track sprawled abandoned on the pavement where it had been jettisoned in mid flight, followed by the deep rift the ATV’s unshod wheels had torn in the ground before being turned almost sideways and forced to a stop. Smoke billowed from the fatal wound a rocketeer had scored in its armor.

A hand clasped at hers, snapping her attention back to the man on the ground, his eyes suddenly focused and riveting. It was the voice of another officer though that broke the silence.

‘Ma’am, we’ve got tissues in the tank already, clone’s pretty much 80% complete, but we need you to authorize the transfer.’ The uniformed figure crouched down in front of her, but she wouldn’t unlock her gaze from her husbands. ‘Ma’am – we’ve only got a few minutes to move here, it took a while to get you here, and he’s in worse shape than last time.’ He paused, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. ‘Ma’am – the unit’s all ready and if we don’t get the transfer done now, we’re going to lose him, and if he dies, we can’t bring him back.’ The voice was quiet for a long moment before he spoke again, trying too hard to sound optimistic and failing. ‘Hell, he’s gone through this half a dozen times already, he could probably do the procedure himself if he wasn’t so banged up.’

Judy looked up at the anxious face of the man fidgeting beside her, then around at the scene. A medivac vehicle hovered a few meters away, just on the other side of a circle of light being cast by a clutter of hastily deployed equipment, all of it straining to keep her husband alive. Again. She knew exactly how this would go, the months it would take to grow the last of him, the physiotherapy he’d need to learn how to use a newly grown body he’d only been able to keep intact for a year this time. The memory lapses, the bits of him that wouldn’t come through, and the haunting nightmares of all of these accumulated moments of finality.

‘We’ve been here too many times before. You don’t get him back this time.’ Her husband clenched his eyes shut as she spoke, tears joining the other fluids streaking his face, his hand squeezing hers.

‘Ma’am – I’ve got orders from the Chief, we don’t have time..’ She cut him off abruptly. ‘Last I checked Sergeant, the Chief wasn’t wearing his ring, so you can tell him we’re done. You can call our Union rep if you want to argue, but in the meantime, turn him off. Turn all of this shit off, and leave us alone.’

A weary hand gradually cooled in hers, and she as she looked into his eyes, she saw a peace there she hadn’t seen in a long, long time. She had no choice but to let him die tonight. She knew neither of them could survive him ever being killed again.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow

Author : J.R.Blackwell, Staff Writer

“Does it hurt?” asked Tom

Dana brushed her fingers against her straight black bangs. “More than ever.”

“Mine too. You’re lucky you don’t have them on your face.” Tom motioned to the blue, red and brown lines that twisted on his cheeks like veins under pressure.

“I do have them though, look closer.” Dana leaned across the table and Tom saw faint traces of blue under her pale skin. Tom’s eyes followed the veins down her cheeks to her small breasts, tucked in her black silk dress.

He wanted to touch her, but he kept his hands twisting on his lap. “Not too bad.”

“Every bit as bad as yours Tom. I’m a professional makeup artist.” She shrugged. “Well, I used to be. This is my full time job now. This illness.”

“Yeah.” Tom sipped his frappachino. He liked cool things on his skin; they did numb him a little, make it harder to feel those snaking veins. “So, why did you shut down the forums?”

Dana played with her red beaded bracelet. “I didn’t. My hosting service gave me the boot. Password denied. I called them, and they said they had no record of ever getting payment from me. I tried to buy the domain name again but they won’t sell to me. Nobody will. I’ve been shut out.” She shrugged. “I got freaked out, and then you called me.”

Tom called Dana two days ago. He was worried she might have died or committed suicide. He wouldn’t have blamed her for suicide. Dana’s forum was the only place where he could find anything about the strange lesions on his body that wouldn’t heal, the veins getting huge under his skin and the fibers that poked out of his wounds. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“What do doctors tell you about all this?”

“I never saw a doctor. It was just too weird.”

“I went to eight doctors, two of them wouldn’t even look me in the face when they told me to get out of their office. One doctor saw me, but once he saw the fibers, he was on the phone to security in seconds.”

Tom curled his hands around the cold drink. “So that’s it, they just shoved you out?”

“One doctor took a look at my neck and gave me sleeping pills. Lots of sleeping pills.”

Tom looked at the floor of the tiny coffee shop. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” She peeled back the palm-sized bandage on her neck. Three brown, blue and red veins poked out of her skin, tapering like shaved wires. “They’ve gotten worse.” She replaced the bandage, wincing as she pressed on the tape. “Will you show me yours?”

“Well, they’re on my leg, my upper leg. My inner thigh.”

“Really? Lets go to the bathroom then.” She pointed to the one room unisex bathroom.

“Together?”

“Yes, together. What, are you afraid what other people will think? Afraid people will think you’re doing me in the bathroom.”

“I’d be happy to do you in the bathroom.” Tom shook his head. “I guess I don’t have anything to be proud about.” Tom felt eyes on him, but he followed Dana into the bathroom, and surprised himself. He really didn’t care. The bathroom was painted with a mural of dogs in ballet costumes, holding umbrellas in a park. Tom dropped his pants.

Dana stared. “They’re just like mine.” she knelt on the tiled floor.

“Hey, it’s kind of filthy down there Dana.”

“Does it matter? I’m sick anyway.”

“I guess not.”

“You don’t wear a bandage?”

“No. The bandage always feels too tight, even pants feel like I’m salting a cold sore.”

She put pale fingers on his thigh. They were cold. “These fibers look just like mine, blue, red, brown.” She pulled back her own bandage. “Tom, why do you think no one will acknowledge what’s happening to us?”

“I don’t know, but if I have to feel like there are bugs under my skin for too much longer, I’ll kill myself.”

“I hope you don’t kill yourself. I like you Tom.”

Tom scratched his chest. “If we didn’t both have this crap, you wouldn’t have ever looked at me twice.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I’m a nerd, and you’re a punk.”

“Punks love nerds. We are nerds, if you think about it. Just with a different sense of fashion. Besides, I think you’re thighs are tight.”

“You done looking?”

“No.” She looked up at him, her lipstick bright as paint. “Do you think we should put the wires together?”

“The fibers?”

“Whatever, you think we should put them together?”

“What do you think is going on Dana? You know something I don’t?”

“Would you try?”

“What if something happens?”

“You were telling me about killing yourself a minute ago. If something happens, if we both die, then we die. It’s not like anyone cares.”

“You’re right. No one cares. Not even me. Do it then.” Dana peeled back the bandage on her neck and scooted closer to his legs. “Hey Dana?”

“Yes Tom?”

“You really think nerds are cute?”

Dana touched her neck to his leg. “Yes Tom.” she said, but the voice was in his head.

___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow