365 tomorrows

Author : Joshua Reynolds

Rifles barked and Censor Wight grunted with the impact of each slug. High-velocity bullets. Unpleasant. A lucky shot had disrupted the light-bending circuitry. He continued to run, hugging his burden to his chest and weaving between the columns thrusting upward through the orange sands of Mars. Behind him the aether-troops of the German Reich followed, air-guns whistling. Their scientist-kings had discovered the Time-Doors in an abandoned Martian Citadel in their home-alternate of 8926HF and, being a neo-facist sliding expansion empire, had decided to invade an alternate Mars. As one does in these situations, apparently.

Why people couldn’t be happy with what they had, Wight didn’t know. He was happy after all. How hard could it be?

Of course, the problem was that these particular Martians, the ones the Reich had just wiped out, were scheduled to invade this alternate’s Earth in the year 1888. And really if you let people mess with the schedules, you were inviting anarchy. Chaos. Free will. He shuddered. Terrible thought.

The Censor vaulted over a tumbled column, his free hand dipping into his coat as he rolled to his feet and pulled the buzz-gun holstered there. He pulled the trigger and the first of the black armored soldiers to follow him over the column tumbled backwards as the Imp bullet chewed through his armor and burrowed into his heart. Rifles cracked and the Censor scrambled for cover. That would encourage them to be more cautious. Give him time to do his job. He holstered the pistol awkwardly and tapped the side of his head. On the insides of his eyelids an infinity of free-floating cubicles appeared, a panorama of images within images. The eternal bureacracy of the Timeline Validation Bureau.

“Report.” A cacaphony of voices whispered in his head.

“I have secured the package. Permission to scour Alternate 8927HG of interference.”

“Permission granted.”

The Censor smiled and ran his fingers gently down the inseam of his coat, activating the Ellison cells. A ripple spread outward from his crouched figure even as the rest of his pursuers finally regained their courage and swept towards him. The ripple grew and spread like a soap bubble expanding. As it hit them, the aether-troops wavered and vanished. So too would their base-camp and eventually their ships in orbit. In fact, all non-natives of Alternate 8927HG would be erased from this time-line. Except for him, of course. After all, what would be the use of a Censor who got himself censored? None at all, obviously.

The Censor smiled as a thousand men and women blinked out of existence. He did so enjoy his job. He looked down at the burden he’d been carrying. Bundled together in a red scrap of cloth two Martian eggs sat, leathery and black. The Censor laid them gently against the column where they would be protected from the elements. Eventually they would hatch, spawn and invade. According to schedule.

Good for them.

He looked down at the eggs and smiled.

“You’re welcome,” he said as he disappeared.

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Author : RFK

There is a 65% chance I’m thinking with you now, though your scientists believe it to be smaller if you’ve heard of me at all.

Although I found you mammals late in the Cretaceous period, I was legion when the Cenozoic era began. I started with small marsupial-like rodents who later because extinct. Conquest and expansion are my way; peace is incomprehensible. I infected their favorite food source – a small insect then prevalent. There, I latched on to their light sensing apparatus in the cerebral ganglia. Usually, light was the bugs’ bane – their predators devoured them in droves if they stayed up too far into morning. By worming my way in an axon here, a dendrite there, I made the entire speies average staying 32 minutes later in the daylight. They were devoured. The extinction bothered me not; I had already escaped.

And so I entered my next hosts. And many more after that…across eras endlessly evolving - through marsupials, birds, cats, many others - until I came to your kind. You were larger and cannier, seeming champions of your own destiny as you brazenly wielded your neocortical wealth to the detriment of your prey. But we evolved together, with my kin warping you in so many ways. Some drove your ancestors mad, but these were just driven from the herd and left to die alone, as did we. Some inflamed the skin, making boils that would launch us into the air, hoping to find a new host quickly but seldom so lucky. These infected were shunned as well – many were burned when you evolved religions and rites – precursors to your hated germ theory.

But I survived. I was subtle. A guanine here, a thymine there was all it took. Such a wonderful playground your species is! I had more than 100x the body mass to propagate in and 1000x the neurons compared to those ancient rodents. I didn’t have just a photoreceptor array to alter; I had an infinity of subtle ways I could advantage myself. Some failed, like the boils, but some did not. Thankfully, many did not.

I affect your soma and your sex but mostly your brain and mind. My touch is subtle - you are bolder because of me. The same tricks I used to make mice more readily eaten by cats make you reach out and explore, try new things. Your social rites that make you touch – that was me. The insecurity many of you feel in the depths of your soul drives you to one another to desperately assuage the longing I induce. Even better, one in a hundred of your girl children I turn male and infect in the womb. I give him other advantages that you see and admire. I only care that he is fertile, desirous of creating many offspring and skilled in doing so because of me.

Call me toxoplasma gondii. And you are mine.

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Author : Daniel Nugent

The stars shone coldly through the solar plane of the binary system XJ-22V. At a point 100,000 kilometers away from the lone planet in the system, space began to warp itself in such a way that if you looked at it, you would vomit. Which is what the grey, blast-marked ship resembled as it was ejected from the cross-dimensional tear.

A moment elapsed and the ship’s antimatter annihilation engines came to life, hurtling towards the gravity well of the planet. As it breached the atmosphere, its hull, bristling with menacing tubes began to glow with friction. By the time the ship slammed to an abrupt stop 20,000 meters above the surface of the planet its skin was glowing white hot. Again a pause of but a moment and the ship shot off again, slower than before, but still leading an immense sonic boom through the acidic atmosphere.

As the ship slowed, now a mere 500 meters above the surface, the belly of the half flattened, convex hull split and a series of electric eyes and sensory apparatus emerged. They picked apart the bizarre, slooping alien flora and disfigured landscape atom by atom, searching for the ship’s destination. The olfactory boom picked up a chemical signature that matched the designated profile. All the eyes swiveled in the direction that the scent had come from and pinpointed the origin. The craft’s organelles retracted and its belly sealed again.

The ship maneuvered to the destination and again dropped like a rock, this time with landing pads extended. The ship didn’t slam, so much as pat the ground. Even as it was settling into the marshy earth, a circular airlock on its side swiveled and hissed as atmosphere escaped.

A biped in a khaki colored suit that made him look like a scarab emerged from the portal and mounted a ladder leading to the ground, a boxy kit on his back. After jumping off the last rung, he looked at a panel on his wrist and walked up to the precipice of a small cliff, his suit trailing noxious gases as the atmosphere slowly dissolved it.

Looking down into the pit below, he saw what he was there for: A massive, black-green, tentacled figure, shiny and oozing. He flipped on his suit’s external speaker and said loudly, “Hi, I’ve got a package for a Mister Xelquarkle?”

“I’m him,” said the hideous terror from beyond the stars, with a timbre in its voice that could curdle milk.

“Okay, I’ll just need you to sign here,” said the man, extending a pad and a stylus. Two tentacles grabbed them and scribbled a tainted symbology upon the pad, which promptly melted.

“Oh, sorry…”

“Nah, don’t worry, that’s the third one that’s done that this week. Here’s your package.”

“Thank you!”

“Have a nice day.”

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Author : Idan Cohen

The car was like lightning beneath the curve of his body, electricity and steam pumping in unholy unison to create a movement that was never meant for mortal men. Cities flashed by the windows, kaleidoscopic – Petrograd, Birmingham, Chicago, Tel Aviv, a thousand thousand more. Forests gave birth to deserts and became oceans that became plains.

His instructor smiled lightly, gently guiding his hand on the gears, the wheel, knowing the car as if born within it, born to it. The road was gravel beneath them, and concrete, and the sky, and the stars themselves bore their signs. They drove, and the wind caressed their travel.

At last, they stopped – whirlwind dash was withheld, for now.

Jimmy laughed.

The time traveling space car was the best thing ever.

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Author : V.L. Ilian

“Have you come to a decision?”

The voice of the negotiator is breaking my concentration. Just like I’ve been told… it’s a fair deal but I can’t help feeling like I’m selling my soul.

“Some feel that they’re selling themselves but that is simply not the case.”

“But this isn’t what I wanted to do with my life”

“And nobody will stop you from pursuing your goals in life. Some of the other members lead absolutely normal lives outside the compounds, protected by our anonymity program and enjoying the extra income that comes from royalties. However one look at your dossier tells me that with the royalties you’ll be receiving you’ll never have to work again.”

He has a funny way of putting it. Just the thought of the weekly sessions with doctors and machines poking and prodding me for the rest of my life…

“You’ll even help people. Every bit of data gathered from studying you will lead to great discoveries”

“What about any of my future children?”

“They’ll be offered a similar deal when they come of age but they’re free of any obligations”

My hand picks up the pen and I feel the sting of the samplers as they draw my blood to mix it with the ink. As I hand him the signed contract the negotiator stands up and shakes my hand.

“Welcome to the Superhuman Protection Alliance”

But his words did not come from his mouth…

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Author : Kate Thornborough

David was able to make the transition as soon as he finished University. I’ve been in Secondary for a little more than seven years. I should have undergone the transition years ago. If only my brain was faster. Everyone else in my compound can perform advanced math and equate many species’ genomes. I struggle with the most basic calculus formulas and the simplest of fungi DNA send me into a loop. I want to be just like everyone else, inside and out. I look average, and I am grateful for that small blessing, but I want to feel average too. Why must I be different?

Many stare at me as I drift mournfully by, estimating my age and creating equations in a blink of an eye. It would take a good half and hour for me to do that. That is why I’m going to go through with the transition illegally. I just want to get it done so the gaping and humiliation can finally end. Besides, who really needs to know every physics equation?

Lucas, the operator and owner of the machine, guides me to the chamber. It is littered with coils and wires, and many are covered in dark ooze. Gulping my cowardice, I focus on Lucas and see him grab some glinting object. Delivering it to me, he nervously points to a safety poster and rushes out of the room. The object has two holes in the handles, and the blade is oddly thick. My normally clumsy hands automatically conform to the handle as if it was a treasured toy from my childhood. Flexing my fingers cautiously, I jump in startled shock as the blade splits in two. I panic, and I fear I have destroyed it, but a glance at the safety poster reassures me. I follow the instructions, and proceed to sever the personification of my stupidity. I feel my body becoming heavier with each snap, and I pause at the last vein. I say a quick prayer, close my eyes, and amputate my final connection to my former life.

My body collapses, and I slightly sink into the muck. I try to move, but nothing happens. As I lay there, a diagram springs into my head. It shows an arm- mapped out on a graph- with an equation next to it. Crazily, I play along, and plug in my arm’s approximate weight, length, and other information. Picturing the formula written out, I slowly compute the answer, taking my time to carry the various digits. Finally, I get an answer. 75 1/3. When nothing happens, I contemplate my mistake. Then, I remember that I forgot to factor in the 8X. Calculating the many numbers and reevaluating the variables, I receive another answer. 24. Suddenly, my hand springs to life and looks at me, awaiting my next command. Groaning, I realize that I should have waited and paid more attention in math class. This was going to be a long walk back to the bus stop.

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Author : Allen McGill

LEADER was about to impart; hoards of followers pressed toward the sanctified podium in the domed plaza, along the warren of tunnels leading from it, and on every crag and terrace where the stentorian resonance could be felt. The silence of static thousands was tangible, pressing on the epidermal layers, smothering.

Suddenly, without warning or introduction, LEADER’s words bellowed throughout the cavernous domain, reverberating off the crystal ramparts: “We are the master race! The inferior humans must be destroyed! They have decimated all we’ve permitted them to inherit and now threaten our world with their incessant pollution, wars and diseases.”

LEADER’s corporeal image materialized beside the podium in an evolving emergence of light; angry red infused with the blue tint of sorrow and a purple shade of pain. LEADER’s physical being was immense, more massive than any other in the assembly. Bodily countenance spoke as clearly as the mind-projection of thoughts and words. LEADER would be understood and obeyed; the universe to change forever.

“Their ambassadors and politicians convey nothing but untruths; their so-called religions are nothing more than means to control, enslave, and lead our offspring into cults of self-indulgence and anarchy totally against our belief in the unity of all.

“Their inferiority extends even to their inability to communicate without ‘heard’ or ‘written’ language. They are of less value than the animals they devour, or keep in chains. We have been patient with them since we first allowed them to crawl upon the dirt of a pristine world and begin to destroy it. We excused their faults, pardoned their intentional disregard of our warnings and demands for care. Too long. Far too long. Possibly our own fault. But now the time has come to remedy the error.”

LEADER drew up tall, taller than could have been imagined possible, crystal-white of determination emanating from within the visible body. The atmosphere in the cavern was still as the congregation, warm to suffocation.

“I have decided,” LEADER continued, “and the council agrees with me, that we will halt the continuance and advancement of the human problem. The final solution! Extermination!”

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Author : L. Hall

Martin’s hand waved lazily at the string of scented smoke that hung in the air. The tent smelled of sand and hot breezes, mixed with heady aromas of spices and metal. The mines on Cypress 304 provided the Wan Military with their massive ships, but the aboriginal people provided the metal. The taste, the smell, the heaviness of metal hung about the planet… enveloping the adapted vegetation.

The government had showed the cadets countless films; reels upon reels of warnings of contamination. Degradation of humanity was the most highly punishable crime; the human element could not be soiled by other planets. The military emphasized that non-Terran planets were inhospitable and beneath human consideration.

All the new recruits were psychologically tested after every third film, until it was ground in and concrete the contempt the men would have for other worlds. This was standard Wan protocol, to prevent AWOL and keep their people focused. A very young cadet Dremmel had measured his responses to the psychological tests, slowed his heart rate and answered appropriately; ensuring an assignment off world. Those who could not were doomed to a life in the lush but identical offices in a Terran bio-dome.

Deserts were non-existent on Terra-Earth and when a burgeoning Captain Dremmel arrived on Cypress 304, his senses exploded with unfamiliar sights and sounds. With watchdog mechanical eyes following everything the crew did, it was a rare occasion when Dremmel’s eyes would stray from his work. But when they did stray, he drank in the sepia desert and held it close to his heart.

After three years of active duty, Captain Dremmel’s crew boarded the “SC Bounty” to return to Terra-Earth. As the ship rose toward the upper atmosphere, there was a hissing sound as a piece of the extended cargo bay ripped off. Some distance away, three figures watched as the “SC Bounty” shuddered and fell apart, falling back into the lower atmosphere and eventually, the planet’s surface. The records of the Wan Military recorded no survivors… certainly not the Captain, his first officer nor his navigator.

Two years later, Martin breathed in the intoxicating scent of spice and metal. The taste of the Cypressian woman lingered on his lips. He stroked her dusky skin, following the ridges along her back. She chuckled and at the heavy sound, Martin’s skin tingled. Looking up at him with her golden eyes, she hummed contently. “You Terrans… You have such a hunger for desolate places…”

Captain Dremmel had gone native.

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Author : Patricia Stewart

Space Colony Delta was the largest manned spacecraft in history. It was a three-mile in diameter donut that rotated in the most stable location in the Earth-Moon system, the Lagrange L4 position. The population of 12,176 souls lived and worked in the six Habitat Sections that were equally spaces around “The Rim.” Today, however, was not a good day to be living in Section 3.

The warning klaxon finally subsided. “What’s the situation, Chief?” asked the Station’s Commander.

“Not good, sir. According to the sensors, an iron-nickel meteoroid, approximately 15 feet in diameter, punched a hole through Section 3 about 15 minutes ago. The primary bulkhead doors sealed off the Section, but the damned thing went clean through, exposing almost every hallway to the vacuum of space. Anybody that wasn’t blown out during the decompression had about 20 seconds to get into a pressure tight living area or office space. They’re probably 1,800 people trapped, with anywhere between 12 and 24 hours of air, depending on the size of the room and the number of people in it. I’ve got both shuttlecraft evacuating whomever they can through the exterior escape hatches. But at best, they can only save about 50 people an hour. We have to seal the entrance and exit breaches, and re-pressurize the section, or over a thousand people will suffocate.”

“Can’t you seal the breaches with a meteoroid patch or sealing foam?”

“No, sir. The patches are sized to seal 99.9999% of possible impacts. That’s a hole of two feet in diameter, or less. The foam can only seal a crack less than three inches across. The problem’s the pressure. The fifteen foot hole equals about 25,000 square inches. At a minimum of 0.8 atmospheres, the outward load is approximately 300,000 pounds. A patch won’t hold unless I can tie it into the secondary structure. And there just isn’t enough time. I’m out of ideas.”

“Perhaps I have a solution,” said the disembodied voice of CACC, the Station’s Command and Control Computer. “If the Chief’s crew could open up the two exterior breaches to a circular hole exactly 18 feet 4 inches in diameter, you could plug the holes using the nose section of the shuttlecraft, and seal the gap using foam.”

The Chief was irritated by the stupid suggestion. “It won’t work CACC. As soon as we pressurize the Section, the shuttlecraft will pop out like a campaign cork.”

“I believe, Chief,” explained CACC, “that each shuttlecraft can produce 500,000 pounds of thrust for up to two hours. Properly coordinated, the thrust can counteract the internal pressure long enough to rescue everybody that’s still alive.”

It took 4 hours to laser cut two circular openings, and two more hours to seal the gaps. The shuttlecraft thruster loads were coordinated with the re-pressurization of the Sections, and at 0.8 atmospheres, the evacuation began. It was complete in less than an hour. Only 84 people died, all of them in the first few minutes after impact. Later that day, the Commander asked CACC a question that had been plaguing him the last eight hours. “CACC, you’re not programmed to have that kind of reasoning ability. How did you come up with that idea?”

“It wasn’t my idea, Commander,” answered CACC. “As part of my duties, I ‘read’ approximately 600 bedtime stories every night to the Colony’s children. A favorite is Hans Brinker’s story about a Dutch boy plugging a leak in a dike with his finger. It’s not a big leap for me to think of a shuttlecraft as a finger.”

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Author : V.L. Ilian

With only a beep the small wrist recorder came to life extending its minute sensors.

“Casefile 2501 /12– Primary analysis of crimescene. Hello Neko… what do we have today?”

A rather tall man in a containment suit approached. “Well detective, we’ve finished setting up the stasis field in the alley. Victim is a female, 16 years of age by all indications”

“Identity?”

“Not determined. Her retinas are unreadable due to heavy drug use prior to death. DNA hasn’t turned up a match yet so she may be foreign.”

As they walked past the blue curtain, an all too common scene of brutality greeted the detective. Resting in the trashpile, bathed in the shimmering light of the stasis projectors, was the body of a young blond girl, laying lifeless, staring at the sky above.

“The garbage truck found her there while it was making its rounds and called us directly. Unfortunately the area doesn’t get any other traffic. “

“How long has she been sitting there?”

“Estimated time of death is 17 hours ago …; cause of death is kind of difficult to pin down.”

The detective could see the marks on her broken body and the dried tears of blood from her red eyes, once blue.

“How many options are we looking at?”

“There’s evidence of violence, sexual abuse and heavy substance abuse…, legal drugs but they’re so many that the portable analyzer crashed. Also by the looks of her I wouldn’t rule out exhaustion, heart failure or even aneurism.”

“Must have been some party…”

As Neko went back to his men the detective approached the body. His movement caused ripples in the field, but that didn’t detract from the effect the image was having on him. “Serene” was the only word one could use to describe her. A girl looking up at the sky, brushing away the tears brought on by her unhappy life.

Once every few years a victim would get to him like this. The detective would see to it that this case would not remain unsolved…

“It seems we’ve interrupted dinner for nothing.”

Neko’s announcement replaced the detective’s thoughts with confusion.

“What on Earth do you mean?”

“The DNA just returned a match. Take a look.”

“I’ll be… That’s it then. Shut everything down.”

The detective, datapad in hand, approached the crime scene administrator.

“Give the order to pack everything up. Slap the maximum fine on the owner for littering and bill him for the department resources spent on this. Damn stupid people.”

“Sir… What about the remains ?”

“Pack it up and send it to the recycling facility… bill the owner for that too.”

He took a last look at the body before they stuffed it in a bag.

“They make them better every year… and I must be getting old.”

“Case 2501/12 – case closed – improper disposal of synthetic remains”

With only a small beep the recorder retracted its minute sensors remaining motionless… serene.

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