365 tomorrows

Author : Pyai (aka Megan Hoffman)

Most of her thoughts were consumed in blind panic, so she wasn’t really away of what was happening until she had dug herself halfway out of the dirt. She was wearing the dress her sister had put her in to be a bridesmaid last spring, and her face felt tight and heavy. She touched it and her fingers came away with beige paint.

She panted, gasping, as she pulled herself completely out, and rested against the flat rock that sat behind her. After catching her breathe, she looked around at the night. Two figures approached. She quickly jumped up and hid on the other side of the rock.

“Judy Keaton?” one voice called out. The were close, and probably looking right at her hiding spot. “Judy Keaton, born March 23, 1983?”

Judy stood up, her knees still a little bent, from behind the rock. “Yes?” she asked warily.

“Welcome to the Second Society.”

She looked at the pair of people, confused. One was a younger blonde woman and the other was an older man, going flabby around the middle and dressed in a trench coat that was a little too small for him. “What’s the Second Society?”

The blonde woman looked at a clipboard she was holding. “As a founding contributor in March of 2000, your contribution awards you full posthumous benefits of a Second Life. Your generous donation puts you on the list for immediate member reactivation upon your death.”

Judy wrinkled her brow. “You mean that crackpot charity the wandering televangelist convinced me to donate to? Back in highschool?”

The older man coughed politely. “That ‘crackpot’ you refer to is now the world’s foremost reanimator. He also repays old debts.” He handed the dirt covered woman a manilla envelope.

“Your new home is part of our gated community about 40 miles outside of the city. Community meetings are every Tuesday and Friday, attendance mandatory unless you clear it with one of the committee heads in advance. Optional revivals are held on Saturdays, woman’s potluck Sunday afternoons, and we’re opening up a community center which will hold continuing education classes regularly. Welcome to the Second Society.”

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Author : Duncan Shields

Seven years of work here in the KT and the worst that’s happened to me is that I lost a fingertip in a time trap. It’s still there, falling to the floor in a three second loop over and over again for eternity over in Cardiff. The victim is still turning to look at me every three seconds before the trap springs. I reached out for her and my finger tip was caught in the field when it went off. She’ll stutter her half pirouette with wide astonished eyes for the rest of time. My fingertip will brush the shoulder of her coat and hang there until gravity pulls it down where it will almost touch the floor before the loop starts again.

She was Laney. We were set to be married on a summer’s day just like in the song.

Simon was killed last week after only six weeks of active duty. We’ve put him at a desk alphabetizing until we can find a way to get him back. Elaine was aged from 16 to 49 over the course of six seconds. Julie lost an arm. Ted got two more. Peter’s head got twisted the other way around but wasn’t killed.

They still don’t know what to say to me. They look at me like I got the worst of it.

All the mage science and laughterlife we know isn’t going to bring her back. The worst part is knowing that I can catch a flight to Cardiff right now and see her turning towards me over and over again with a questioning look on her face that I can never set at ease.

The trap was set for my DNA. She triggered it because she was pregnant with our child. The trigger was sensitive but not smart.

We found the bad guys. I killed them myself.

Three seconds. I go back to Cardiff less and less and I die more and more. There’s a blackness inside me that’s making me reckless on duty.

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Author : David Zhou

It started, as many such things start, with a plum.

The fruitseller first noticed the plum eater when he came by the same stall not once, not twice, not thrice, but fifteen times in the same cycle. He would always pick the juiciest plums; freshly cloned from the best Terran stock, hundred credits for a bunch.

The fruitseller didn’t know what to make of it. No one likes plums that much. Fifteen in a cycle!

And so he talked.

It was here that the groundskeeper of the Skylaunch heard from his friend the gardener of the Genetic Granaries who heard from his uncle the proprietor of Smithee’s Singular Singularities that the fruiterseller down the corridor, over in in the Eastern Dome, had a customer who ate fifteen plums in a cycle.

Fifteen!

The groundskeeper told his wife who told her friend who told her husband who told his son who told his friends and pretty soon, the entire colony was in a buzz about the man who ate the plums. They peeked from behind auto-dimming transparencies. They followed him in secret, watching him eat.

And always at the same place.

The goundskeeper of the Skylaunch viewed it as his personal luck that the renowned plum eater would choose his grounds to eat his plums. Everyday, at precisely the midstrike of the demi-cycle, the plum eater would bring his plums, sit down on the grass knoll facing South, look towards the heavens and eat his plum.

“It must be a woman!” cried the goundskeeper’s wife. “Only a woman could make a man eat so many plums, and stare so forlornly into the sky!”

“How the hell would you make a man eat plums,” muttered the goundskeeper. “And he didn’t look so sad to me. He looked like he was pondering.”

And so they told each of their friends the story. The wife told the other wives that the plum eater was eating plums for his long lost love, who left him in the colony when she journeyed to the stars. The husband thought that was silly and childish.

“He’s doing some deep thinking,” the groundskeeper told his friends. “Earth is that way, you know, our home so long ago. And he must be thinking of Earth, and eating plums.”

The stories spread. Wives quarreled with husbands. Husbands quarreled with daughters. Daughters quarreled with boyfriends. And boyfriends glared sullenly back.

One day, it all came to a head.

By this time, the plum eater had gained a grand procession on his cyclical trips to the Skylaunch. The fruitseller made a fortune, as all sought to imitate the plum eater, and bought plums by the tens and dozens. Some even bought fifteen. In a cycle!

And so the procession followed him, to the Skylaunch. And the procession watched, as he sat down on the grassy knoll, plum in hand, eyes upwards.

Behind him, the crowed argued.

“It’s his love he’s looking at, in the stars!”

“No, it’s Earth, that pale blue dot in the lavender sky!”

But, quietly, without notice, a small child walked up to the plum eater.

“Mister,” the child said. “Mister, why are you eating plums?”

“Because I like them,” said the plum eater.

“But why are you sitting here?”

“Because it’s cool, with a fresh breeze from the Southern Ventilator. The grass comforts my back, and the heavens calm my mind.”

“Are you thinking about a girl?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

The wives sighed in unison behind him.

“Are you thinking about Earth?” said the child.

“No, I don’t think I ever thought about the Earth.”

The husbands behind him cursed under their breaths.

“Then what are you doing?” asked the child.

“I like eating plums. And I like looking at the sky. The grass is soft. The air is fresh. And the sky is so open and wide. The universe is a marvelous thing, don’t you think?”

And so, the crowd left the plum eater to his ways. They went back to their lives, caring for the cloned cattle, cleaning the atmosphere ventilators.

They learned a lesson that day, one not quickly forgotten. For when you see a man walking down a corridor, and he has plum in hand, it doesn’t mean he’s thinking about love, nor that he’s thinking about Earth. It doesn’t mean anything.

He was just a man who ate his plums while being fascinated with the universe. And there’s nothing wrong with eating plums.

Even fifteen!

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Author : J. R. Salling

A large ripe melon rests on an operating table. Members of the surgical team stand in the wings, preparing long serrated knives. Spotlights illuminate chunks of crushed ice that slip down the sides of the patient. My mouth becomes moist in sympathy. I take another step forward when the nurse’s hateful expression stops me. I have trespassed.

She points to the sign threatening unauthorized personnel. “Can’t you read?”

In answer to her question I retreat to the waiting area, sit down again, and pick up my book. When she fails to notice I rattle the pages. This releases a faint odor of formaldehyde, which makes me think of Kate.

Kate would have loved this book. It has such an interesting typography. Sometimes I piece letters together and make a word, but not often. There’s no need. The important thing, I tell myself, is to forget the other room.

The man sitting beside me suffers from an insatiable curiosity. I have already told him the title of the book. “Honestly,” he says, “when do you find the time?”

I shrug.

He fills the void himself. “I used to have plenty, then lost it all. Every last minute. There’s not a cure, you know.”

This information angers me. “I’m not sick,” I insist.

“Exactly,” he says and smiles, revealing black teeth. From the pocket of his sweatpants he retrieves a partially consumed strand of licorice and wrestles off another bite. The blackness oozes from his open lips as he chews.

One of the surgeons emerges and delivers hurried instructions to the nurse. There must be trouble, I decide. The nurse pops up and disappears into a long empty corridor. When the squeaking of her shoes becomes faint I make my move into the restricted area.

It appears that I am too late. The procedure has begun, the rib cage of the melon spread open to reveal its inner secrets. Wondering where the operating team has gone, I push on into the theatre.

For a brief moment I see Kate lying there in a contented if somewhat waxen pose. My head swims. I fight it off and inch closer, blocking the light, so that I can no longer tell who or what is being operated upon.

When my lips make contact, just brushing the exposed tissue, the melon reappears. Angry electronic noises rake my ears. I stagger backwards, my eyes shut.

The blindness is somehow comforting, but does not last.

“There’s no cure!” I hear the man from the waiting room scream. “There’s no cure.”

“I’m not sick!” I want to shout, but I know that it is a lie.

A curtain slides back and the nurse reappears. She picks up a bowl of moist, pink, fleshy chunks and creeps toward me, baring her teeth like a mad dog.

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Author : J. S. Kachelries

I am very, very sorry. What else can I say? If it means anything, at least I will die before you. I probably only have a few hours left…just enough time to tell you what happened, and to ask for your forgiveness.

I am (actually, was) a graduate student of the Department of Theoretical Physics at Cambridge. My Ph.D. thesis involved achieving absolute zero in the laboratory. Others scientists have gotten close. My colleges at the Helsinki University of Technology got down to 0.000000001 K. But my technique was a quantum leap beyond theirs. I could suspend all atomic motion. The electrons, protons, and neutrons would be instantly locked into place. No motion, no temperature. I had already prepared my Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

I was completely certain that my technique would work. What I wasn’t sure about was what would become of my my 1 gram target of osmium. My gut told me nothing would happen. I’d just have 1 gram of very cold metal. But, like any great scientist, I had to consider all possibilities. There was a slim chance that the electrons could collapse into the protons, giving me 1 gram of neutronium, i.e., a mini-neutron star. Since a neutron has more mass than one proton plus one electron, I’d have to supply additional energy. You know, the e=mc2 stuff. Then, when I ended my experiment, the neutronium (being unstable), would revert back to protons and electrons, and I’d have to dissipate the energy. Nothing I couldn’t handle. So, this morning, I performed the experiment.

At the critical moment in the experiment, something catastrophic happened. I had overlooked the obvious. I had not considered the effect my experiment would have on the elementary particles (quarks and leptons) and I had assumed neutrons were the ultimate termination point. When absolute zero was achieved, my osmium collapsed past neutronium into a singularity. With nothing to contain the singularity, gravity caused it to drop toward the center of the Earth. In the second it took to descended through the lab bench and the floor, sucking in everything in its path, it exposed me to a lethal dose of X-rays and gamma rays. In freefall, with nothing of consequence to slow it down, the singularity will reach the core in a few minutes. It will shoot past, stop somewhere near the upper end of the southern mantle, and return through the core again, continuing the cycle for hours. Eventually, it will settle down at the precise center of the Earth. Then, over the next few days, it will devour the core, the mantle, the crust, and the atmosphere. The Earth will shrink from its current 8,000 mile diameter to an infinitesimal speck. The astronauts in the space station may live to see it, but you won’t. The earthquakes, the tsunamis, the volcanoes, and the radiation will end your innocent lives long before the conclusion of this tragedy.

But, as I said, I am very, very sorry.

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Author : LaTosha Hall

The three children stared at the table top.

“How’s it doin’ that?” the fair haired boy whispered, reaching two fingers out towards the dull metal object floating above the center of the cracked table. The only girl of the group, tall and gangly, squatted down, peering under the table.

“It’s got to be some sort of trick… you know, like magic tricks on TV,” she muttered, touching the wood of the table top from underneath. The darkhaired boy, runt of the litter, took a step back. Visibly nervous, he shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Told you we wasn’t supposed to be here,” he said, his voice cracking into splintered tones.

A distant hum became faintly louder as the three stared at it. The fair haired boy’s fingers lightly brushed the edge of the metal, and it bobbed slightly. The hum began to sound like audible chanting, voices from far away. The children couldn’t quite make out what it said, but the dark haired boy had had enough. He bolted through the empty rotting rooms, out into the cool evening air where only the wind was heard. About 30 feet from the broken door of the abandoned house, he turned, expecting his friends behind him. Only the gaping windows followed him. He sat down in the dirt path, waiting.

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Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Zero hour is struck on an instrument of time beyond the grasp of mortal men. Above the sky over the northern pole of the earth, a great creature slowly shakes off the remnants of a rather lengthy slumber.

Eight bristling legs unfold and stretch, then hoist aloft its swollen belly after having lain dormant for three hundred and sixty four revolutions of its ward below. Plucking silken web strings like a harp, the guardian navigates a path along the lines of longitude, effortlessly traversing the vast distances around the globe, from one pole to the other and back again, pausing only to check the latitudinal lines for damage or intruders.

The reflected moonlight shimmers and dances across eyes of a billion facets or more. In each of these facets, were you to get close enough to look, one would see a life reflected from the planet beneath. Through the sleeping months, the spindly spider sated itself on the love and loathing of the broken beings of the earth below, growing fat on the endless feast of emotions, and now, its web once again secured, she begins to weep. A single tear falls for each human being, tears cascading in sheets as she traverses the planet once more with meticulous care. Billions of droplets plummet to the earth as she covers every square mile of the globe, traversing the latitudes slowly so as to stay always in the hour of darkest night. As the slow moving blanket of astral droplets fall, each passes from the ethereal to the real, trailing behind a spiral of silken fiber, coiled and shimmering through the sky. Upon finally reaching the earth, each unfolds and on eight tiny legs of its own delivers its own self by following a signature trail of emotion to the place where the life of its origin sleeps. The tiny creatures negotiate a passage in through letterboxes, open windows or down cold chimneys to arrive at their predetermined destinations.

It is here that, were anyone present to see, one might question whether one was really awake, or simply in a state of childlike dreams. In each house, the tiny creature shakes rhythmically, drinking deeply of the wants and desires of their chosen one, fattening themselves on raw emotions before transforming themselves into some meaningful token to leave in their place, first spinning themselves into a cocoon of coloured silk and then metamorphasizing into some little trinket of deep personal meaning.

Having traversed the whole world again, and with her work now done, the guardian lumbers to the top of the northern pole once more, emotionally and physically spent, to slumber again, until another year has passed, and the time should come for her to awaken and restore the balance of wakeful dreaming once more.

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Author : Ashley Bonkajo

The old woman had not been seen for quite a while. Nor was it unusual for a person to not be seen for months at a time. Robot or (for the very wealthy) android assistants handled the details of day to day life.

The old woman had not answered the door when a server had tried to present her with a summons to appear over the unpaid rent. Some few legal issues were conducted solely face to face.

The owner of the building sent for the police to look into the matter of the unanswered summons. An assistant was dispatched with a master key to let the police, and subsequently, the paramedics into the apartment.

They found that she had died in her sleep some weeks ago.

A smaller assistant robot was standing near the gurney crying. It was one of the earlier models with a flat screen display for facial expression. Blue animated tears spattered from down-turned crescent eyes. A larger crescent for the mouth also denoting sadness. If it had been a later model, it would have been wailing as well.

“Sergeant, I can’t find a listing for next of kin.”

“That’s alright.”

Looking at the small assistant which was still running the animation of tears.

“I think they already know.”

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Author : Benjamin Fischer

Basajaun sighed and rubbed the sweat from under his eyes. A shadow had fallen across reflected rays of his private sun.

“What is it you want?” he asked, blinking and groggy.

The shade resolved itself into the slim image of a woman standing over him.

“Mr. Miquel, I am Yasamin Judd,” she said. Mocha skin, some sort of South Asian. Medium of height, medium build, dressed in a generic gray skintight softsuit that could have belonged to one of a thousand extraterran concerns.

“They always send a pretty one,” Basajaun muttered.

“The spa staff granted me entrance,” Yasamin said.

Basajaun grunted and made no attempt to cover himself. Lying flat and naked on a cedar deck chair, he rubbed his belly.

“You are from Palamos?” he asked her.

“Yes, I represent the Pioneer Union of Palamos.”

Basajaun fumbled around at his side.

“Pioneer Union. Hmph,” he said, bringing a bulb of oil up to his prominent stomach and farting out a glob onto his belly button.

“We wish to renegotiate-” Yasamin continued.

“Renegotiate,” Basajaun said, an ugly look on his face like he’d just caught a whiff of something foul.

“Yes,” said Yasamin.

“Have you read the contract?” Basajaun asked the woman. He began to rub the oil in slow circles around his paunch.

“Yes-”

“Then there is nothing to renegotiate,” Basajaun said. “The contract explains all.”

Yasamin made to open her mouth again, but he waved her off.

“No renegotiation,” he said. “If you had found nothing on that rock, would you come running to me? No. You would have taken my wages and been happy for them. But now that there is copper and platinum at Palamos and you grow greedy.”

“We are not looking for a higher percentage,” Yasamin replied with patience.

“Bullshit,” Basajaun barked. “I have hired gypsies and tinkers and jews before–you always want more.”

“Sir, the Union remains ever grateful for your employment,” Yasamin said.

“Then be silent,” he replied.

“We are,” said Yasamin. “These negotiations exist purely between us. The Union does not wish to give the appearance of labor difficulties at Palamos.”

Basajaun rotated a pair of beady eyes onto the woman.

“So that’s your threat?” he said.

Yasamin shifted on her feet.

“What to you want?” Basajaun asked.

“Rights to the asteroid,” Yasamin said.

“Minus the heavy metals?” he replied.

“Mineral rights will be maintained per the existing contract,” she answered.

Basajaun shut his eyes and sighed.

“I don’t understand–that rock is worth shit without the platinum,” he murmured. “And that’s all you want.”

“We want a place to call home,” Yasamin replied.

Basajaun shook his head.

“The membership of the Pioneer Union consists mostly of refugees,” started Yasamin.

“I know, I know,” said Basajaun. “Those without hope will work in the worst places for the worst pay. I know this–it is why I hired you.”

He paused.

“Finish the extraction a month before the scheduled time and the rock is yours,” he said.

“Thank you, sir-”

“Go away. I have to tan my ass,” Basajaun said.

Yasamin nodded politely and backed out of the sun booth. Basajaun could see that she was trying not to smile too broadly.

When she was gone, Basajaun looked up at the heavy mirror high above him. There the sun blazed away, its glare beading up the sweat on his cheeks and his chest. Almost hidden in its rays was a tiny sliver of blue and white where the ruins of a flooded Costa Brava fishing village lay blistering under a similar heat.

The deck chair creaked like the worn planks of an old trawler.

Basajaun sighed and rolled over.

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Author : John Mierau

“Mr. Jerome?”

Pen and thoughts still pressed to the page, the writer looked up: a tall man in an old-fashioned suit weaved his way through the happy hour crowd.

“David Jerome. It’s really you!”

Another fan? God, why can’t people be happy with the books and leave me alone! “Uh, look, I’m right in the middle of…” David gestured down at the page.

“You write the way people think, did you know that? Almost like you read people’s minds.” He reached out a long-fingered hand. “I’m Jack.”

David didn’t take the hand. “Jack, I’m really -”

“Would you like to? Read minds?”

David snorted. “I don’t write that kind of fiction.”

The tall man shook his head. “‘I’m not making fun. I know… how much it hurt when Prudence left, how scared you are. I can fix that.”

David shrank away as the stranger rubbed salt where Pru had left him raw.

“I know… your publisher scares you. He yells at you, wants the novel you owe him. Short stories are a waste to him.”

David’s knuckles whitened around the pen. The tip cut, slicing his palm.

Jack smiled at David again. “Sorry. I bet your brain’s about to burst…” The stranger reached across the table, ran two cool fingers across David’s temple. David let it happen, couldn’t think what to say or do to stop it.

“You got into people’s heads better than anyone,” Jack whispered. “It’ll all be clear soon. I wish I could stay, but they’ll be coming…”

David watched Jack rise, unable to speak, divining greater meaning in each word than sound could carry.

“If it wasn’t for you, David, I’d have never known Mystery!” Jack giggled, backing away from the table. “Now all mysteries will be, heh, open books to you.”

David didn’t see Jack leave as the world roared in like exploding bombs, like a lover’s whisper.

David knew…

The bartender didn’t notice the pretty blonde who’d bought her blue dress just for him, after he’d chased off the drunk who spoke ugly words to her and clawed under her skirt.

David knew…

The old man in the corner tried not to be angry. His son hadn’t shown. The boy always sent his mother flowers, and he’d paid to fix the roof last summer. He felt horrible for wondering if the boy remembered today would have been his mother’s birthday.

David knew…

The guy on the stool by the door had slaved six years to pay for the ring in his hand, and the down-payment on the house Shelly loved. He couldn’t wait any longer: he’d pop the question tonight!

The words… David had gotten them almost right. He looked down at the page and his ink-stained fingers; at the words so close to truth and now so empty.

Across the room, the blonde’s insides shook as the bartender noticed her dress.

David dropped the pen. It fell to the floor as the writer put his head in his hands and wept.

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Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

The big bike tugged at his gloves, pleading for the roll of the wrist that would send the 6 cylinders into a frenzy of combustion and release. Patience. He eased out of the garage, coasting down the parking ramp onto the drive before gently throttling up to escape the confines of the ‘civilized’ community in which he lived.

Outside this walled world, miles of twisting and drifting asphalt were waiting.

The smell of hot metal and spent fuel evaporated in a torrent of burnt rubber, and then nothing but the rush of country air as he stretched out atop the gargantuan engine held aloft by two massive gyroscopes of alloy and polymer veneer.

This was what it meant to be alive.

The tach alarmed through each gear shift, redline overlaid in his visor as he pushed the hardware as far as his courage would allow. 200 kilometers came and went in a heartbeat as the world rushed towards him through the ghostly image of the speedometer, the machine purpose built for speed tightening and tuning on the fly. The countryside blurred, thousands of milestones on the periphery of his vision turned liquid in a single stream of molten landscape.

A sudden sharp rise in the road forced the suspension to load up, and as the bike flew over the crest of the hill, that potential released as bike and rider caught air and flew. The sudden rush of adrenaline and endorphins lasted only a fraction of a second before the image of a truck crashed through the ’260′ emblazoned in his visor, through his brain and turned his world dark.

The light was faint at first, and there was the sound of some throaty beast heaving breaths nearby, keeping time with the rising and falling of his chest.

Antiseptic, and ammonia, the smells were unmistakable and cut through the haze. The light was bright now, and defined as he opened his eyes to the silhouette of a woman hovering over him.

“Nathan… Nathan, can you hear me?” The voice was pleasant, calming. A different voice spoke from somewhere nearby, one almost familiar. “Yes… what happened? Where am I?” Nathan realized the words were his own.

“You were in a terrible accident Nathan, you’re in the hospital now, you’ve been here for some time. It’s a good thing your RAAC tag was up to date.” He vaguely recalled the ‘Resuscitate At All Cost’ tag he’d been issued when he reached his eighteenth birthday and his donor commitment was up.

“They’ve done a wonderful job with you.” The cheerful voice moved around him now, straightening sheets.” I was able to get you prime plus a quarter on a twenty five year term, so you’ll be able to make reasonable payments. You were partially at fault, so the Insurance company only covered the basics. We’ll go over the documentation with you when you’ve started rehabilitation.” Nathan’s mind reeled, twenty five years of payments on what? He felt a sudden rush of anxiety.

“There will also need to be a change in your accommodations once you’re released. You’ll go through mandatory integration into a restricted community.” The woman stopped fussing for a moment and stepped back.

“Restricted?” Nathan puzzled aloud.

“Oh, yes, restricted. You lost both legs, one arm from the shoulder and one from the elbow. Your jaw and voicebox have both been replaced as have your kidneys, spleen and a significant portion of your digestive tract. Your left lung and two valves in your heart are new and your torso has been extensively reskinned. You were above the threshold for integration for a while there Nathan, until your second kidney failed, but I’m afraid that tipped the scale.”

“Scale?” Nathan’s voice shook as the scope of his injuries began to set in.

“The Scale Nathan, your Humanity Index. I’m afraid with the amount of synthetic material in you, you no longer meet the burden of humanity, and as such we can’t exactly integrate you with the mainstream communities. You’ll be found work, of course, and a residence. Don’t worry Nathan, we won’t abandon you, we do pride ourselves on being humane.”

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Author : J.R.Blackwell, Staff Writer

The recruiter says that you are a dumbass. He tells you he wouldn’t put you in the infantry for the eighteen worlds, because you would get someone shot. Later you learn this is the worst insult he could give. The recruiter tells you that you would never make it as a pilot, because you haven’t got the head for numbers. Your test scores are low enough that they can’t place you anywhere based on skill. The only thing you can do, he tells you, the man who will decide your fate as a human, is get the genetic restructuring and become a psychic. A councilor.

It’s serve in the military, or slave in the mines, and though you don’t like the idea of changing your genetic code, you know you don’t want to be in those dark mines, so close to the core that you sweat out your life under artificial light. The recruiter gives you that choice, smelling like tobacco and piss, a bus out back to take you to the military and a truck with metal doors waiting for anyone who can’t find a place. You take the bus.

The genetic restructuring has you vomiting in a hospital for a week. The doctors laugh as you spit up blood and chunks of meat from your insides. Get it all out, they say, everything human must go. Laughter, but it’s distant, hollow. Maybe that little grey piece came from your liver; maybe that red slice is a shaving off your heart. At some point, you start to hear voices, bouncing around people, things they tell others without talking, words they tell themselves. A doctor hears her mother telling her she is a whore. A patient sings a pop tune to himself over and over.

Shave your head. Take a post on a military transport. Everyone hates councilors, reading minds, prying, looking for hints of treachery or deviance. They short sheet your bed, spit in your food, and dump your things out onto the floor. You know who did it, you know because you can feel their guilt like warm winds, but you can’t say a word. You tell on them and the captain would spit on you herself, and the rest of them would never forgive you. You are locked in a metal can with people who hate you, spinning through space.

Out in this silence, surrounded by cold, you reach out beyond the glass and plastic ship to the silent falling cold. There in the falling dark, you reach out to the thoughts of planets, hear the thrumming song of their replies.

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Author : J. S. Kachelries

I walked into the offices of Temporal Travel Inc. A bored agent three rows back motioned me toward him with his free hand, as he peered around his upturned coffee cup. “Good morning, Sir.” he said as he placed the empty coffee cup squarely on a coaster. “Where and when may we send you?”

I sat down in the large chair at the side of his desk. “Yes, hello,” I said. “My name is Dr. Marc Strohm, Dean of the Physics Department at MIT. I’m interested in going to Princeton, New Jersey, April 15, 1955, at about 1:00 AM. Specifically, the Princeton Hospital. I need to stay about 20 minutes.”

The salesman motioned to his AI assistant to begin the temporal calculations as he scanned the iridium credit transponder implanted in my forearm. He said, “I don’t believe anybody ever asked to go there and then before. Sounds boring. You sure I can’t talk you into Mars, say 3.5 billion years ago? Tropical climate, twenty foot waves slowly crashing onto orange beaches? Very beautiful, and we’re having a special this week.”

“No, it has to be the hospital room of Albert Einstein on the day he died. You see, just before his death at 1:15 AM, he uttered his last words to the attending nurse. Unfortunately, he spoke them in German, and she only understood English. Nobody knows what he said. I’m hoping that during the heightened brain activity at the end, he may have solved the unification problem. Einstein had spent the last half of his life trying to develop a single equation to unite the four fundamental forces in the universe. As far as we know, he never did it. Two hundred years later, we still haven’t solved it. I’ve been studding German for three years for the opportunity to understand his last words.”

The salesman looked disappointed. His commission was based on years traveled, not scientific merit. “Listen, professor,” he said, “what if Einstein said, ‘Nurse, you’re standing on my oxygen hose.’ You would have wasted a trip for nothing. How about the end of the Cretaceous? You can watch The Great Asteroid impact the Yucatan peninsula.”

“Sir, I’m a Theoretical Physicist, not an Astrophysicist, or a Paleontologist. Look, if you’d prefer, I can go to Time Excursions.”

The eyes of the AI began blinking green. The salesman quickly changed tactics. “No, no, no. You’re the boss. OK, I think we’re ready now. Please step into the Phase Transporter, and we’ll send you on your way. You’ll be able to see and hear everything, but you’ll be in ‘phased-time,’ so you’ll be invisible to them. Have a good trip. And, good luck.”

When he shut the door to the Transporter, everything went pitch black. Then there was a flash of intense light. When sight returned to my eyes, I was indeed in Einstein’s hospital room. He lay propped up in his bed. He looked so old and feeble. But even at this hour, as weak as he was, he was feverishly writing in his note pad. I drifted behind him to study his notes. Fantastic, he was working on the unified field equation. I started to get chills up my back. He appeared to be on the verge of something, when his eyes closed, his hand went limp, and his chest stopped moving. The pen fell out of his hand, rolled off the bed, and dropped onto the floor. The attending nurse ran to his side and shook him gently. “Mr. Einstein, are you all right? Can you here me?”

His eyes suddenly fluttered open. He motioned for her to come closer, and whispered, “Gott zeigte mir die Lösung. Sie war… schön.” Then he smiled, closed his eyes, and died.

It was a bitter sweet moment for me. Although I was disappointed, I was happy for Einstein. His last words were: “God showed me the solution. It was…beautiful.”

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Author : Joshua Reynolds

Dinosaurs thundered through a post-industrial city on their way to work. Suits and ties. Briefcases built to fit thick, knobby talons. The stink of mammal bacon on the breath of some, boiled plant on others. Pollution choking the air and grease and oil and garbage on the streets. A thriving, productive society.

This wouldn’t do. Oh no, not at all.

Not because the dinosaurs had evolved, or even because they had simultaneously supplanted the mammal and driven it to near extinction (except for those in processing farms, getting fat from no movement and squirting out infants every nine months) but because they intended to do it elsewhere.

The Censor stood on top of the tallest building in the city, invisible to the saurian eye, his coat heavy with light-bending circuitry and Ellison cells. He tapped the side of his head, bringing up a HUD screen on the insides of his eyelids. A series of tiny screens within screens appeared on the display, an infinity of bureaucracy. The Timeline Validation Bureau. Bland faces appeared in each screen. Gray little men leading gray little lives in their chronal separation cubicles hard at work, never to know the joys of the infinities of the continuum. And to prevent others from doing so as well. That was the job of the Censor. Of all the Censors, though they were all the same man.

They were all him. All Wight.

And they all loved their job.

“Report.” A multitude of somber voices echoed in his ear.

“Alternate 7816JS is experiencing a major chronal incident.”

“Nature?”

“Scientists have discovered the back roads. They have open doors to Alternates 7826JS, 7846JS and 7886JS respectively and a fourth tacking directly into the continuum itself.”

“Eliminate.”

“My thoughts exactly.” The Censor smiled. “Initiating reality disruption.”

He stuck his hand in his coat and pulled out a smooth sphere-an entropy grenade-and twisted it’s top half lightly. The sphere began to glow as he tossed it up into the air where it rose higher and higher finally fading out of sight altogether. It would phase itself into the heart of the sun. When it exploded it would send out an entropic pulse and erase the rogue timeline from existence as well as the three it had infected with its disease in a controlled ‘Big Bang’. The Censor leaned over the edge of the building, arms resting on his knee and breathed in the humid, swampy air. How many sentients would perish? The machines in his head began to calculate and he hummed to himself as he prepared to leave. Overhead, the sun seemed to flash for a moment, growing brighter with every second as the entropy wave devoured it from inside out.

The Censor smiled as his eye lenses polarized against the glare.

He did so love his job.

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Author : D. Magliola

Ron was sprawled on a park bench. His dirty hands were tucked into the kangaroo pouch of his salvaged Nike hoodie. He exhaled a cloud of vapor and wheezed with his next breath. A single tear ran down his cheek and was absorbed in the dust mask that protected his mouth and nose. Everything had gone to hell since the day before. The scene that previous evening had been different. She had been there.

People had been fighting over things for longer than anyone could remember. First it was for oil. Then it was bombs. Then it was freedom, then food, and finally people just fought for themselves. All around the filthy world, people had stolen shotguns from WalMarts and fought for their lives. Later, people lost hope even in themselves. There was no reason to go on, death was easier than fighting.

Then, in the broken cement jungle of Chicago, a small group of scavengers found the girl. She was small, soft, and autistic. It was as if her fractured mind had turned down the volume of the fighting. She was the only one who hadn’t lost hope. She shared it with those who found her. They became the Protectors. The group of men and women, only a few dozen strong, defended their little bubble of hope for years. She was the last beautiful thing. In a world of horror, she was the only relief. The Protectors risked their lives to steal her food. When she became ill with typhoid, they tore apart every abandoned supermarket and pharmacy in Chicago until they found penicillin that hadn’t dried up and become like chalk. She could play the piano, so the Protectors stole her one. While a handful of them stood night watch in the entrance of their decrepit subway station, she had played beautiful music. Wonderful random little notes would tinkle through the frigid night air and help people forget their dead families and hunger. Sometimes she’d sing.

Then one night some freakoids came through in a minivan. They had all the seats taken out and a .50 caliber M-2 Browning bolted to the interior. They hit the guards and crashed down the stairwell, throwing the passenger door open and filling the depot with hot lead before Ron could blow the bastards away.

She had been sitting on the bucket next to the piano with her head on the keys. Her torn dress was an off shade of muddy red, the puddle beneath her matched.

Ron took another ragged breath through his mask. The world had ended that night. There was nothing left to fight for. What would he do? Maybe he’d join the other Protectors, at the bottom of the Sears Tower. Their broken bodies felt no pain. Why go on living in a world with nothing beautiful?

Ron removed his mask and took another breath. He hawked a pint of warm red relief, his scarred lungs liberated of life by the razor dust. If she couldn’t come to him, he’d go to her. Ron closed his eyes and departed to find the last beautiful thing.

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Author : Phill Arng

It was wet work, being in the Sky Platoon. Yawning decades hunched in the basket of those primitive balloons with nothing for company but the clouds and the telescopes for watching all our friends below.

Time moved differently in the chronosphere and it lent itself to idle thoughts. They hadn’t mentioned that when they sent us up here, a few of the centurions went a tiny bit mad. Blew the wrong people up, as it where. That was a crime as we saw it in the early days.

Our job was to enforce the laws, to begin with they where largely contradictory; we fixed them once we had solved the philosophical foundations. Ethics, logic, that sort of thing. Oh yes, time! hah! we had a unique perspective for fixing that one.

I was watching when the first generation of senators frantically ordered the decommissioning of the Sky Platoon. The exact moment when the Emperor violated section eight of the Aerial Autonomy Act. I was watching his face in melting slow motion as zeppelin 17 arrested him. It seemed artless and marked the end of our tenure as public servants.

I must have arrested more than any other zeppelin during that era. I had a somewhat errant perspective on genome crime, I’m ashamed to say. To my credit, I was soon able to arrest individual genetic mutations without destroying the host. That is before we started enforcing the Atomic Pre-Destination Act.

Atomic predestination law isn’t really something you can do alone inside your mind, you see? You have to think up compression matrix to store the positions and vectors of a millennia of atoms, cede synapses to independent thought patterns when parsing them… Whole consciousness fragmented, it was an age of neuro-rebellion. Zeppelin 17 cut some of his brain out with the lens of his warrant card, the rest of us just tried to forget.

Its a shame I only remember the bad stuff. The more I forget, the more the stuff becomes bad. I remembered better than most and my balloon was among the last to fall. I think there are still people up there, warring for their minds, destiny out of sync with sanity.

The world is about to end, did I mention that? I thought it might be for the best. Difficult to tell, really, when your a recovering schizophrenic.

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Author : Duncan Shields

The helmet amplifies my own breathing and makes me feel uncomfortably confined. It’s like when you can hear yourself chewing and it sounds so noisy because of the bone conduction going on with the sound but outside of your head its fine. Except with me I can hear my own breathing coming through the speakers in my earpieces. All I can see through the faceplate is infinite space salted with Christmas-light stars. This is my first space walk.

Something interesting happens to the human mind when it’s confronted with this level of distance. Visually, there is no up or down and below your feet is an unknowable distance of nothing. The tallest building you’ve ever dared yourself to look over the edge of is nothing compared to this. Your brain tries to get a hold on it. It either gives up altogether or the monkey starts screaming and you go crazy. Right now I’m not sure which way it’s going to go. Am I going to blind myself by projectile vomiting against the glass? Am I going to claw at the catches on my helmet just to make it stop? My breathing is getting loud and ragged in my ears. My vital signs are rising.

Control senses it.

“You alright?” comes down the speakers.

I breathe back and manage a squeak. I feel like screaming but I can’t. I know I’m starting to lose it. Any second now the line is going to go tight, they’ll reel me in, and I’ll get shipped dirtside to a desk job or a training facility and my days in space will be done if I don’t get it together.

“McGavin! You alright?” comes down the tube again.

And just like that, like someone shooting out the part of my brain that’s not evolved, I don’t care. It’s like the monkey blew a fuse and just went dark. I look at the stars and they’re just stars. I look down and see my feet dangling and below them is just space. I’m fine. I can feel my little heart blink and start to slow down, relieved.

“Roger. I’m fine.” I say.

The instructor can hear it in my voice that I have it under control and I’ll be fine. He’s done this hundreds of times. He knows the signs.

“Copy. Five more minutes then we’ll pull you in. Enjoy it.” He says.

I start to hum a little tune that I heard a couple of weeks ago. I’m still humming it later in my bunk, going over the high fiving of my fellow successes and our uneasy shunning of the people who panicked and are going back to Earth tonight. I wonder for a while what the switch was in me and how it really didn’t seem like a conscious decision. I wonder if survival is different for some people, like we evolved from different apes. Some people panic, scream and run while some people just turn off and sublimate.

I drift off feeling mysteriously strong but not personally responsible.

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Author : Michael Shreeves

The call had gone out, and they came. Across land, sea, air, hundreds of miles, they came, three million all told. No one in United Dissent could afford to miss an opportunity like this. Still, especially with a pig like Beauregard being sworn in, we should’ve expected this.

If looks could kill, F.O.S.-Zone 841 would’ve been a massacre. Sierra Clubbers were glaring at fresh-cut stumps and fence posts, EFF lawbies at the suits running the multiphasic sight/sound anti-media ECM blanket, and polibloggers and libertarians at the 30ft live feed of the inauguration speech. Us neoComs and anarchists kept busy, thrashing to some third-rate spall band on a packing-crate stage.

Yet another white-button-shirt paced in my direction, his green peace-brassard hanging loose. His plaque didn’t say if he was latter-day or witness, but to us and the IRS it didn’t really matter anymore.

“This is an absolute outrage! They bleed our church dry, and we aren’t even heard! Where is the media?”

“Well, CNN’s barred on threat of monopoly prosecution, MSNBC’s at the great temple for the Patch Vigil, and Fox, well…” I glanced at the holo projector fanfare. “You hear about Phoenix?”

The white shirt cringed. “No one prosecuted, but four-hundred hospitalized… Still, I’ve had the training. If they come, we’ll take it as martyrs, and the people will hear us.”

“They will, eh? What people exactly? The Supporters who hate us here, or the outsiders who hate us all anyway? What network’ll tell ‘em?”

“But…. but…” Boy Scout stuttered. Deputy Directors in the UD weren’t supposed to talk like me. “There are three million of us here, they HAVE to hear us!”

“Three million in a thousand camps hacked last-minute out of the swamps. But don’t worry, I’m sure the suits are listening to every word we say.” I looked at Boy Scout and shrugged. “Look, its very simple. Non-violence has a lot of things to depend on. The bravery of its adherents and the brutality of its enemies are the ones we learn about. But the enemies have to care about their image. They have to want to look good for allies and voters and history. Reporters showed Ghandi and King beaten and won the hearts of the people. But the world already fears us, and the people, well, all they’ll ever hear about is how THEIR candidate’s inauguration went off without a hitch. They won’t even know we were here.”

“But… what then?”

We watched the commandeered metro buses pull up to the gates with some straggling dissenters. This batch preferred white hoods to peace brassards, though. Some of them didn’t even bother hiding their shotguns and bats as the suits processed them through the gates.

“Beauregard’s buddies are here. Excuse me.”

Boy Scout straightened up, ready to stand proud and take his licks. I walked over to the rapidly disintegrating stage, kicked the top off a crate, and grabbed an AK.

“Thank god we lost on gun control. Hasta la victoria!”

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Author : Kenny R. Brown

A very sweaty, very fat man with a rifle paces back and forth at the top of the wall. He is guarding the only entrance, but he is more for effect than for any real purpose. An entire army would be unable to break down these doors. Made of an unknown metal, the entire fortress, let alone the doors are a relic of a long forgotten time.

The most ancient texts in the archives refer to the construction of the Stronghold as the last hope of the people, but the threat to be avoided was omitted from even those texts. Most of the collective wisdom of humanity was lost when the Terms went dark.

Now, those of us who are left gather at the doors of the Stronghold each day; hoping that this will be the day that we are chosen. On the days when the doors open laborers are brought in to toil in exchange for a brick of SynFood.

I have been coming each day since I was a boy. Today though is different. Today, I have come for another reason. During the last dark season; as I was exploring the caves near the village, I stumbled across a camp of the ancients. Inside the remains of a vehicle; I found a trunk containing a rifle much like the one carried by the sweaty fat man. Also, there was a Term; but this one wasn’t dark. It was portable, and self-powered.

I read about the Stronghold. How it was built to house millions; protecting them from an ancient catastrophe. What’s more; I found the code to remotely open the doors. Today; I will bring my requests to the door of the Stronghold. When they refuse to offer shelter for the people of my village; I will open the doors and the men of my clan will storm the Stronghold. Today; the walls of Jericho will fall.

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Author : Patrick Supple

At the peak of the technological firestorm of the mid-21st century, few would have forecast a second Dark Age. The advance of dogma started with the unification of the world’s major religions into an evangelical philosophy in the 2050s. Many had welcomed the amalgamation, believing it would consign wars of faith to history. Yet within two decades the New Faith had dramatically expanded its following through its proselytizing against the dehumanizing and non-spiritual nature of modern technology. The New Faith’s power grew until it was no longer a vehement critic of secular states – it became the state itself. Sharia laws which blended the moral traditions of the former religions were enacted and art and learning slowly atrophied. Inquisition agents searched for scientists who continued to study outlawed subjects and brought them before religious courts.

Harvey Johnson now stood before one such court. He had refused to end his studies in nanotechnology when university science departments were dissolved. He knew he was close to creating repair engines that could prolong human life indefinitely. For years he had worked in secret laboratories funded by wealthy individuals who dreamed of eternity. Harvey’s breakthrough arrived just weeks before he was found by the Inquisition and dragged away in chains.

The Bishop-Judge seated above Harvey began sentencing. “Your crimes are the most heinous that have been brought before this court. Despite the New Faith’s ruling on the sanctity and immutability of the God-like human form, you have continued to study your changeling art. For this crime, even death and the inevitability of your soul’s damnation are inadequate. Through you, this Court wants to send a message writ in stone to others who seek to alter God’s world. I thereby sentence you to become your creation and experience an eternal life of the dammed.”

While still trying to understand the sentence, Harvey was led to a side-room where he was administered an injection of his repair engines and handed back to the inquisition.

Less than a week later, Harvey was pushed into the obsidian void of space from an Inquisition shuttle. He was naked. The vacuum sucked the oxygen from his lungs, his veins exploded as his blood broiled and his skin blackened and cracked as it froze. Harvey felt an unendurable pain and despaired as he now understood his sentence. The repair engines began to reconstitute his body. His blood was recreated, ruptured veins closed, and his body reformed. With the nano-bots able to draw energy and matter from the dust and radiation of space, Harvey knew that his body could be repaired for an eternity. He also knew that the engines had been programmed to simply recreate and not develop adaptations to the rigor of vacuum. When Harvey’s body was whole once more, the stress of the void again tore it apart, only for the nano-bots to rebuild again. Harvey’s only hope would be for madness to come quickly and mask this pulse of destruction and creation, this drawn out moment of death.

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Author : S. ‘Hrekka’ Clough

“So what are you?”

“I told you. A meme.” She pronounced it like ‘theme’. “A memeplex, to be precise. A self-propagating collection of ideas and concepts. A unit of culture, my dear.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“Let me give you an analogy,” she smiled behind the mask. The effect was enchanting. “I’m like…a religion. An infectious idea, carried on because people believe me to be true, or wish I was, so carry me, my story, my form with them. Even if someone tried to kill me, I’m almost everywhere. Compared to normality, I’m untouchable! Entrenched…a part of society.”

I still had a blank look.

“Maybe a different example. I said infectious, right? I’m like a cultural virus. I’m only alive in the most rudimentary sense of the word, but part of being me is having an identity thrust upon me by culture, the medium which I infect. People spread me willingly. I’m a meme at it’s most complex; an example of a simple meme would be the song “Happy Birthday”. It’s an insanely successful, simple meme, yeah? Memes are identifiable, they link together into what makes us civilised. I’m part of the culture!”

“So you’re just a concept?”

“Exactly! Why else would I wear this mask?”

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Author : Graham T. Swanson

Move.

Somewhere inside the soldier’s brain, a neuron crackled and died sending a signal to a limb incapable of receiving, or doing anything about it had it actually done so. He had long ago lost all link or power to the armor’s motivators.

Move.

It didn’t hurt. He was thankful for that, at least; the simulacrae hadn’t lied. The problem was the stasis. The inability to do anything. Imprisoned within your own body, knowing the exact nano count (you’d been drilled in it since the day you got your Aegis) and knowing that you were going to die.

Waiting.

Move.

Another neuron fired. Another moment passed, and the broken figure in the emeraldine armor remained a still portrait beneath the blazing sun. Around him, the calcisand swirled in a new, violent gust of wind, scratching at the glazed surface of the armor ineffectually. Outside the Aegis, that might’ve killed him.

Plenty of time to wait. He listened as best he could for the telltale howl of a stormkicker wind, and fought down the panic rising behind his eyes.

That which we believe in, we are capable of. That which we are capable of, we do.

You are a Protector. Your will becomes your law. You are a Protector.

Move.

Another neuron fired. Another moment passed.

And then he did hear a sound. Loud, arrhythmic, the clatter of bone on bone. A sound that broke even his neurochemically enforced calm. An enemy sound. Instinctually, he listened for the soft following thump of the massive feet. Another half of his mind chanted an Our Father as the three-meter shadow appeared at the crest of the dune, four feet moving in cadence.

It was hurt, its tiniest weave betraying that fact. He wondered what it wanted here. He’d heard the stories, that the Vraakan ate the dead; seen the films. Maybe that was what it wanted; maybe it was a survivor, seeking last sustenance. He took morbid pleasure in the fact that that scared him less than the idea of being buried by a stormswept dune, covered over like a footnote. A footnote in a war whose story was filled with them already.

The great figure approached him. From beneath the black-lacquer crags of its armor, stretched across its mighty, demoniac reptilian form, he could see the dark-hued blood flow in rivulets over the red-grey scales. It was breathing heavily, harshly. He glimpsed the huge, ugly wound that would kill this enemy.

The xeno, the enemy, hadn’t come to feed. They’d come to die.

One massive enemy arm gently circled his ribcage and brought him up,cradling him like a mother with her child.

Firey eyes locked with his, and he realized their femininity somehow. A baritone whimper rumbled from her throat as she set herself down where he had been. When he didn’t respond, she whimpered again, pitifully.

She wanted a companion, was all. She didn’t want to die alone. He nodded, moving.

Afterwards, they died together.

They died warm.

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Author : Stin

Final round.

Just don’t get knocked out.

Just keep on your feet.

You can do this, you need to do this. You need this win.

CRACK!

He’s too fast. I can barely touch him. It’s not fair, they shouldn’t be allowed to fight like this, they have too many advantages, how’s a guy like me supposed to keep up with a machine like that?

It’s not fair. He’s bigger than me, there’s more too him, but he moves around like he barely weighs a pound. I don’t even see his fists move sometimes. I just feel the gloves and then

CRACK!

Too fast…way too fast, and what a wallop. What did they used to say? “He hits like a Mac truck”. This guy hits like a space freighter coming out of a jump. Damn Roboxing officials. They’re supposed to screen for this type of thing, we’re not supposed to be getting

CRACK!

Killed out here. There goes my eye. I’m half blind. The ref has to stop the fight now, or my corner? Someone stop it, look at my EYE for crying out loud.

Never mind the eye. Just keep moving. Just wait until the bell. Just don’t get knocked down. Stop letting him hit you, put your guard up!

CRACK!

I can barely lift my gloves, my arms feel so heavy, my head droops, and everything feels like it weighs tons. How am I supposed to be able to fight like this?

You need the money. You know you need the money. Money is essential. Money buys things you need and then maybe once you have the things you need and you get out of debt you can get back to training, and then if you train enough you can beat monsters like the hulk in the corner.

It’s not like you need to win, we both know you aren’t going to win, just

CRACK!

Don’t get knocked out, that was the bet, don’t get knocked out…

Don’t

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

I feel my jaw unhinge, I feel my legs give out; my arms are like wet towels, before I know it I’m on the mat.

And then I hear it: “BOXOTRON 77681 is down! Winner by Technical Knockout: Joe ‘The Circuit Breaker’ Granger!”

I can hear the human laughing in his corner, the crowd goes wild, I’m going to be in the shop forever after this. More debt. My other eye shuts down and I hear my corner say: “Put him on the slab. Damn 77k series aren’t worth the metal they’re made of.”

I wish I could disagree.

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Author : Dane Richmond

The media fanfare had died down after the first few months. It had been amazing at first but it gradually made the transfer to annoying and then overwhelming. Now years later the paparazzi were gone along with their fame. There was the occasional photographer when she and Marc went out. She could feel sympathy from Marc. He said he didn’t miss the attention but she knew he did. He was upset and distracted—he must not have gotten the promotion he had hoped for. She decided to make him a special dinner and wear that teddy he loved.

They made history when they had the empathy chips implanted nearly 5 years ago. It was revolutionary at the time, if they hadn’t had the public behind them they could have gone to prison for violating the Anti-Enhancement Laws, but they had been so in love then that they didn’t care; they wanted to be so much closer. The chip had worked, all of the emotions that the other felt were transmitted via a satellite uplink. They had proven all the critics wrong: knowing exactly what he was feeling had caused some arguments, if he was looking at another woman, but it had brought them so much closer, knowing that even when they were arguing he still loved her.

The chips were becoming available for widespread use. It was the new tattoo with your lovers name on it. An hour long surgery and you were closer to your spouse than you could ever hope to be naturally. Companies were advertising faster upload times and the newest one with a cell phone feature. It wouldn’t be long before the “Love Chip” was available right outside the churches in Vegas. She had thought it would always be a tool to enhance love but now it was just another money making tool for corporations. They didn’t mind that, like the tattoos, sometimes they had to be removed; they made more money taking out the chips than they did installing them.

Just as she was hoping that maybe there was a photographer outside their drive, like in old times, she felt a flash of fear and panic that lasted for a fraction of a second, it felt so entwined with her own thoughts that she didn’t have time to sort out her emotions before the flash of blinding pain.

The photographers crowded the small church, taking as many pictures of the twin caskets from every angle possible. One of the photographers approached the funeral director asking him to push the caskets together for a better photo, but was politely rebuffed. A reporter was interviewing both sets of parents, asking about the lovers lives over the last five years, post-love chip. “It’s breaking news, Marc Stevens, the first man with a love chip, gets hit by a bus and it kills his wife Jennifer! How can you not talk to me? This will halt the market on Love Chips, they killed that girl. How does it make you feel to know that because of this piece of technology your daughter dropped dead in her home?”

He was still shouting questions at the parents as he was forced out of the funeral home.

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Author : Joshua Reynolds

They were tearing him apart. Muscle by muscle, tendon by tendon. Unraveling him like a ball of string. He screamed but he had no tongue and no sound came out as something cold and hard cut into his throat, spreading the edges of his flesh back like the petals of a flower.

Smith awoke suddenly and an empty bottle rolled off of his chest and bounced to the floor. He rubbed blearily at his face, feeling nothing, and sat up. The couch was a fold-out but he never managed to get that far before passing out. Empty pizza boxes and fried chicken buckets and styrofoam hamburger containers littered the floor of the apartment, mingling with empty bottles of booze. Cheap booze too. The best a government stipend could buy. Smith grinned humorlessly and stood up with a groan that was more from habit than any aches and pains.

After all, he didn’t have aches and pains any more. In point of fact he couldn’t feel anything anymore. Not cold. Not hot. Not nothing.

Oops. Double negative. He’d have to watch that. A sign of mental degeneration. He’d have to mark that on the chart they’d given him. Smith hunted vainly through the detritus of his life for something to drink and then gave up after ten minutes. He plodded into the kitchenette and poured himself a glass of tapwater and slugged it back. Water was just as good as booze in any event.

No tastebuds.

Life was shit.

He examined the glass. At least he could still see colors. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to tell the exact shade of brown his water was flowing with today. Burnt umber evidently. That was a new one. He poured the rest of the water out and watched it swirl down the rusty drain. He set the glass aside, careful not to crush it and looked at his reflection in the mirror.

Average. Unnoticeable. Bland. Synonyms for the same conclusion. Plastic features that didn’t move right unless he concentrated on them, hair that didn’t grow, stubble that never went away. And underneath was what?

Plastic parts and wires. Everything human ripped out to make room for all those new machines. His bones were made of an alloy that the government had bankrupted four states to create. His muscles? Fibrous cable interwoven with neuron-optic wires to stimulate nerve memory.

Sometimes, when he moved too fast, his skin ripped.

It didn’t hurt though.

Nothing hurt.

“We have the technology. We can make him better.” He rasped, fingers trailing down the window. The glass cracked at his touch and he cursed under his breath.

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Author : Aelanna Cessara

Seven.

He only had seconds left to live. Despite all the augmentations and training that the soldier had received, the result of countless centuries of evolution and refinement in the art of war, technology could not truly ease the limit of mortality. The projectile had easily penetrated so many layers of armor, flesh, and bone, and now he was dying, bleeding from wounds that no medic could patch.

Six.

Perhaps if there had been a major medical facility nearby, he might have had a chance. But this was a battlefield, and the screams of the other wounded and dying were all around. There was no hope for this one, who had survived so much only to die on this war-torn field on a forgotten planet. There was not even a family to whom news of his demise might cause pause, no lover on a distant colony clinging to his memory, no friends who might pray for his soul.

Five.

But he was not alone. Patched into his armor, his suit, and the implants within his very brain, another entity still stirred, even as he slowly faded. This was no flesh-and-bone woman, but it was the only companion he had known in so many long months of harsh combat. The artificial intelligence had access to all his health monitors, and knew without a doubt the ultimate fate of this broken human man.

Four.

Flickers of memory pulsed through the soldier’s mind as the countless cells that made up his brain started to die, a rushing torrent of thoughts and remembered events that he could only passively watch. Washed out colors and faint sounds focused, and he could see distant and forgotten scenes long forgotten.

Three.

They were friends. She blushed as he kissed her timidly, awkwardly pressing his lips against hers, her cheeks flushed red as her brilliant eyes gazed back at him. The world seemed to slow to a crawl as she spoke those words for the first time, and he exulted in that knowledge.

Two.

They were lovers. The warmth of her body and the touch of her smooth skin calmed him as they lay together in bed. He weaved his fingers through hers and whispered urgently to her, begging, pleading. His breath faltered and his face glowed with unimaginable joy as she said yes.

One.

They were a family. She sat next to him as they watched their children play in the front yard, the sun warming their faces as the gentle sounds of laughter and joy filtered through the clean air. He leaned back and sighed happily, breathing in the scent of summer. She held him tight and kissed him again as he closed his eyes drowsily, all his pains and worries forgotten in that perfect moment of eternity.

Zero.

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Author : B.York, Staff Writer

Everyone deserves another chance. Sometimes when I look out amongst the white blankets I can conceive of forgiveness, or even a world where people could make mistakes before they were judged. I try to believe in my excess chances that go on further than the eye can see. But then, I am told that no evil man lives here.

The switch keeps those thoughts away from me, though. Rumors abound that the switch was put there to single the guilt out. Many men with many views all know the weight of life on their shoulders. Why put it on a council when you could transfer it to the shoulders of one white-collar Atlas.

It’s my responsibility and perhaps my burden as well. Every year I come inside, I lock up and say goodbye to the people who think I am just going to bundle up for the winter. Looking them in the eye is the challenge. Many men with many views debated over whether or not this was right, this way just. History books won in the end and they decided that the future of our species could take no more.

The sign above me clearly states “Recycle for a Better Tomorrow” in bold red. There is an irony in the fact that only I will get to see whether the sign maker spoke the truth or not. Another day passes and sometimes I don’t keep track of which day it is. It’s the computers’ job to tell me when to flick the switch.

Millions of households all locked up to escape the cold. All of them inside to reminisce about how they came to this planet, and how wonderful prospering has been. Prospering for nine months isn’t prospering; it’s incubation.

To look out on the snow during the day I know the switch has to be flicked is peaceful. Silence is peaceful. Looking out amongst roaming white hills with the flecks of its making still cascading down from the sky is maddening to some and yet comforting to myself. The epoch of the cold times comes in three minutes and forty-three seconds. I used to get nervous during this time but after a while you just understand that the dead leaves hidden beneath the ice coating is something more than just a sign of the seasons. It is a metaphor.

Sipping hot cocoa on a day like this is one of the greatest pleasures any being can experience. With one hand I tip the cup to take in the molten chocolate to my hearts desire. With the other… oh, with the other I flick the switch of course and then…

Well, then I am the only man on this planet enjoying hot cocoa. Then I’m alone again for four more months. No chance for anyone out there to ruin the winter by murdering, stealing or cheating. Everything is pristine white just as the council wanted it to be. Settlers will come in the springtime, joyous of the houses that have been made for them and not one will get a chance to enjoy them enough to ruin them. Not one will ever be an evil man.

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Author : Duncan Shields

I woke up from the deep cryosleep with a bleary head and a taste in my mouth like I’d licked a battery. The gel washed off cleanly and I was standing in the hall with the other colonists in my underwear with the HR monitors still stuck to us like faithless remoras. I looked to my left but my wife wasn’t there.

An older woman stood beside me stretching with an expansive peaceful smile on her face. The smile of the landed settler. The trip is over, the smile said, and now the hard work begins. Let’s get to it. I smiled back. I had gone under first and it was a big ship. Lisa had been put into another compartment

The lockers contained our clothes. We put them on and huddled around the monitors to get the reports on the atmosphere outside. I checked the colonist logs to see where my wife was.

The atmosphere was breathable and it was a sunny day. The doors hissed open and nearly all of us ran out with abandon and rolled around in the red flowers. Ten thousand humans played like children around the base of an iron mountain arkship in the middle of a field of alien flowers.

I didn’t. I just kept looking at the log list and at the message in my inbox. It was a message from my wife. I pressed play.

She didn’t get on the ship. She’d been seeing someone. She didn’t think that I’d understand. She was sorry that it had come to this. She didn’t think that running away together would solve the problems we had. She had added her fare to mine so that I’d have more points over in the new land and be a desirable mate. She was staying home.

I think I played it back three times. I let it sink in. Outside I could hear the whooping and yelling of people born again in a new world. Tears crawled down my face. She had seen me to my compartment. My last memory of her was watching her put her jacket in the locker next to mine. It had been a ruse to let me sleep easy.

I’d been asleep at over light speed for months.

The message was nearly five hundred years old.

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Author : Jinque

Eoin dropped his bag in the hallway, and turned into his living room. His computer was nowhere to be seen.

“Caprice, I’m home. Where are you?” Eoin’s computer poked her head over the top of his favourite chair.

“I’m right here, Master Eoin! Welcome home!”

Eoin smiled, and walked over, nudging Caprice out of his chair. “Thanks. Have you got those reports on the revolutionaries? I know we did some research…”

“I have all of them, Master Eoin.”

“Excellent. Now, you can read them for me while I think. This paper is due in two days, and it’s important; forty-five percent of my final grade!”

After a while, Caprice turned to him.

“Master Eoin, want to see something neat?”

“Sure. Whatcha got?”

“I found music you like!” On the screen in front of them, a playlist popped up, and a heavy metal song started playing . Seeing his reaction, Caprice clapped, and giggled. “I have more! See?” She pointed to the screen. Thousands and thousands of song titles began scrolling by, just a little too fast to read.

“There’s no way we can afford all that! We’ll have nothing left!” Eoin cried out.

“It was free, don’t worry!”

Eoin was pulling his hair out. His computer was a pirate.

“Caprice,” he muttered, “What else do you have in there?”

“Nothing, Master. I promise.” Caprice turned to the screen, disengaging the music library, and pulling up the report files again. “Let’s continue…”

Someone knocked at the door. Caprice unhooked herself from the plasma, and went to open it.

An explosion of shouting and black uniforms flooded the room. Caprice screamed, and as Eoin whipped around, he saw her being tackled to the floor by two officers. “Don’t stun her! She’s a computer!”

“We know!” The smaller officer barked. The two men on the floor wrestled with Caprice, and Eoin lunged.

“Don’t touch her!” A third officer approached him, and held up a clipboard with a central government seal on it. “Mr. Hayslip, Your TriTek personal assistant, model 119/b is being taken offline. Large illicit data transfers have been traced to her IP. As far as our techs can ascertain, she has illegally downloaded music, software, and tools related to the bypassing of program security measures.”

Eoin took one look at Caprice, who looked back at him, her face expressionless.

The officer took the top sheet from the clipboard and handed it to Eoin. “We hereby sentence your 119/b ‘Caprice’, to three months enforced downtime. My officers are inserting a device to prevent boot-up. Any attempt to remove it will permanently damage her hard drive. No data, apart from the illegal files will be lost. It’s all on the ticket.” He turned back to his comrades. “All done?”

“Yessir.” The larger of the pair on the floor reached up behind Caprice’s decorative headgear, and found her switch, which was located just behind her ear. “Shutting down…” Caprice stiffened, and her eyes dulled, still fixed on Eoin.

“Goodnight, Master…”

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Author : Curtis C. Chen

The first crystal fell on Los Angeles in the middle of rush hour, killing thirty-two people. Caltrans spent an hour trying to move the enormous mass before it drilled itself into the ground and disappeared.

Two hours later, another crystal splashed into the Pacific Ocean. The Navy sent a submarine to track it, but they couldn’t go deep enough. Three hours after that, another one hit the Pacific. Then a fourth crystal struck the ocean south of Japan, flooding the coast.

Someone noticed that all four impacts had occurred on the same line of latitude, proceeding west. Governments evacuated cities while the bombardment continued, every three hours, like clockwork: China, Iraq, Algeria, the Atlantic Ocean, South Carolina. Then the tenth crystal impacted off the coast of Mexico. They were moving south.

NASA triangulated the origin of the crystals to a point outside the Moon’s orbit. Observatories all over the planet turned their lenses that way, but saw nothing. The ship was too small to be visible at that range.

We had no vessels that could reach that far. All we could do was evacuate, and attempt to study the crystals, which we were so far unable to halt or slow as they burrowed underground.

Five days later, the last of the crystals fell into the Pacific, west of central Peru. There were now one hundred and eight crystals embedded deep in the Earth, arranged in a precise grid circling the equatorial region of our planet. The aliens had parked their ship in space and let Earth rotate each target into position for them.

Eight different research teams had crawled down the crystal tunnels. Two teams were broadcasting live video when the crystals began burning. Again, we could only watch, helpless.

The world burned for nearly a year. Most of the plant and animal life died within the first day. The crystals weren’t just raising the temperature– they were also causing chemical changes, using the planet as raw material to terraform itself.

The aliens waited a decade before landing, to let their new vegetation and prey animals grow. The few humans who had managed to survive, in Antarctica and other frozen places, were slowly suffocated by the toxic atmosphere. We mourned them, but only briefly. We still have work to do.

The crystal fire had killed our bodies, but freed our minds– some say souls, or spirits. We don’t entirely understand it, but we know that we’re still here. We can see everything. And we can do things.

We watched the aliens land, and sent scouts to verify that they couldn’t sense us. Creating six billion angry ghosts had not been part of their invasion plan.

They use electronics, just as we did, and we’ve found that our incorporeal forms can directly affect electrical systems. A million physicists, no longer restrained by language barriers, are devising a plan to sabotage whatever the aliens do next.

We’re betting that they won’t want to live on a haunted planet.

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Author : David Zhou

“My card,” he said, bowing gracefully to the client from Tarqon, the fifth planet in the Tostis system out in the deep reaches of the Spiraling Galaxy.

“I want to thank you,” the client said. “Thank you for taking on this job. They said you were the only one who could — who would do it.”

“That I am, my friend. I’m a historical writer. I write history. And for this sum, I will write your history.”

The man handed his client a slip of paper with a number on it. It was not small.

“This sum is acceptable. Barely. How would you like payment?”

“Oh, I’ll take care of it,” said the man lightly. “I’ll take it out while I’m writing your history. You won’t even notice it’s not there. Because it won’t be there. You know. Causality and all that.”

The client nodded slowly. “So you have it? Our history? What we want?”

“Yes, yes. You want to win the Sixth War of Independence. You want to ensure that a Seventh cannot, and did not, happen. And as a personal favor, a freebie if you will, you will have married Willemena of Erustis in your thirtieth year.”

“Yes, that’s right. The outline we gave you has more detailed notes. The dates of events, the order we would like them in. And Willemena’s address at that point.”

“Got it.”

The man started to turn away. He stopped for a moment. “Don’t worry, it’ll be quick. You won’t even know it’s happening.”

“I hope so,” said the client.

“You can’t, really. Notice. It’s how it works. One moment Tarqon is suffering from a drought of freedom, and the next, Tarqon will be independent, and you’ll wake up with Willemena in your arms and by your side. Sides. However you people engage in such acts.”

The client smiled. “Good luck, then.”

The man grinned. And started towards the gateway.

“Um, one question.”

The man turned, eyebrows raised.

The client hesitated and then spoke. “With all of your writing, how do you know that you’ll still exist? I mean, what if you change yourself?”

The man laughed. And grinned again. “My friend, I don’t worry about that. I like what I do.”

“So?”

“I have supreme confidence that whatever set of choices I have to make, I’ll make the ones that lead to historical writing.”

He turned and entered the gateway.

“Besides, I’m too good at this.”

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