365 tomorrows

Author : Sad Sama

“You’re serious?” The Rear Admiral of the Arizona Fleet questions his superior for the first time in twelve years.

First Resident Menos stands with hands clasped behind his back, morosely watching the field of stars passing the windows of the command deck of the fleet’s capital cruiser. “Of course I am.” His voice was like reverberating lead.

“But the planet is barren. Over 90% of the population has been wiped out by internal biological warfare. It’s defenseless. It poses no threat to us or to anyone.”

“Precisely.” Out of the corner of his eyelids Menos stares at his Rear Admiral. “I need to send a message to the Senate. Something to inspire enough fear so that they’ll finally start taking my threats seriously.”

“With all due respect sir, the prototype Core Disseminator on this ship can disrupt the core of any world regardless of their defenses. Wouldn’t the destruction of a full militarily defended planet send a stronger message? A tactical strike that tells them their defenses are useless perhaps?”

“Perhaps…” Slowly turning on one foot “But if the target is properly defended, there will be many whom will speculate that I destroyed the planet as the result of escalating combat measures during a fight. If I destroy a proper military target there will still be many that think I play by the rules. A man who plays by the rules is a man that the Galactic Senate thinks they can reason or negotiate with.”

Menos looks sideways at the field of stars. “My demands are non-negotiable.”

Returning his gaze to the unnerved Admiral he continues, “However, if I destroy a planet of weak, abused, and utterly defenseless civilians…” The edges of his lips tilt upwards ever so slightly, “There won’t be anyone that doubts me as to how far I’m willing to go. I’ll let my other battles support my courage, but this one… yes, this one will support my threats.”

Attempting to retain composure the Admiral raises his last question, “But what if the fear you create tempers the enemy nations to band together and redouble their efforts against you.”

First Resident Menos returns to his stance overlooking the command deck, “Fear only catalyzes so much. Not enough and the enemy grows stronger. With enough though, everyone has their breaking point. Everyone.”

Five minutes later roughly one billion screams of homeless and starving refugees echo up through the skies of the planet below. Quickly they are silenced as the planet crumbles in upon itself, becoming a sphere of magma. Menos inwardly calculates the number of Senate Seats that would wet themselves when they find out.

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Author : Patricia Stewart

The ship had left Earth orbit 77 days ago. They just passed the halfway point on their supply mission to the Lowell Colony on Mars when the solar flare warning alarm began its variable whine. “Computer, deactivate the alarm,” instructed the captain. Then, with the poise of an officer who had weathered numerous solar storms during his career, “What’s the magnitude of the flare, and how long before the coronal mass ejection reaches us?”

A disembodied voice replied “S9 on the NOAA Space Weather Scale. The…”

“What! That’s impossible!” interrupted the captain. “The scale only goes to S5.”

“True, captain. But, the scale was never intended to be all-inclusive. It’s logarithmic. It is a simple matter of extrapolation. Since the flux level of this flare is 12,000 times more intense that an S5, it’s classified as an S9. To answer to your second question, the leading edge of the ionized particles will arrive in approximately 31 hours.”

“Twelve thousand times! Will we be safe in the Panic Room?”

“Negative, captain. The areal density in the shielded isolation room will not be able to attenuate the 400 Giga-rems associated with a proton storm of this magnitude.”

“What if we orient the ship with the thrusters aimed at the sun? Will the exhaust cones, auxiliary fuel tanks, and cargo bay provide enough extra shielding?”

“Perhaps, but you’re missing the big picture, captain. Even if we can protect the crew, the electromagnetic shock wave from the mass ejection will fry every electronic circuit on this ship, including my own. Without power and life support, you’ll all die of carbon dioxide poisoning, in the dark, at near freezing temperatures, in less than a week.”

“So it’s all for one and one for all, heh computer? OK, do you have any ideas that can save us both?”

“I can conceive of only one option, although I don’t have enough information in my files to know if it is even possible. I need to access NASA’s PHA database on NEA objects. Please stand by.”

As the captain waited, he wrestled with how he would notify the crew. Then he heard the computer’s voice on the ship’s intercom. “Attention crew. Brace yourselves for an immediate course change.” The ship suddenly lurched starboard, knocking the captain to the floor. Before he could get up, the twin 17.8 million lbf thrust engines pinned him there with a force of approximately 3-gees.

“Captain, I am sorry that I took unauthorized control of the helm, but time is critical. I was searching NASA’s Asteroids database looking for a nearby Apollo object that we could hide behind. As luck would have it, Asteroid Eros 433 is very close to our current position. At maximum velocity we can reach it in just under 32 hours, limiting our exposure to less than one hour. When I stop this burn in 64.2 minutes, you’ll need to jettison the cargo and all non-essential equipment. Every kilogram of mass we loose will reduce our ETA by 0.4 seconds.”

The captain and crew watched the flickering monitors in the isolation room as the ship approached Eros. As the computer attempted to position the ship within Eros’ shadow, the plasma storm seemed to intensify. The captain closed his eyes again to monitor the flashing streaks of light caused by speeding atomic nuclei as they ripped through the water-filled chambers of his eye sockets. Their frequency was increasing, and he was beginning to feel nauseous. Unwilling to watch the flashing conveyors of death any longer, he opened his eyes, and continued to pray as the night side of Eros very slowly began to enter the view screen.

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Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

“Son of a bitch!”. The Station Chief cut off comms with his boss, dropping back heavily in his chair before planting two battered boots against the desk frame and propelling himself away from it in disgust.

“They want us to stop digging Tom?” The shorter of the two men spoke softly, stuffing bear paw hands deep into the pockets of his jumpsuit.

“Bastards!” Tom peeled off his helmet with one hand and tossed it at the desk, angrily scratching the cross hatch of scars in the stubble of his scalp. “Yeah, they want us to stop.” Pausing for a moment, he examined a fragment of skin peeled loose by a grimy fingernail. “Forty years we’ve been digging holes in these rocks, Skip, forty bloody years and no one’s ever had the balls to order us up short. This is bullshit. I’ll guarantee that if we dig shallow and this thing doesn’t stay standing, it’ll be our ass in a sling Skip, yours and mine, not theirs.”

The Crew Chief shuffled away from the wall, boots dragging on the alloy of the cabin floor. “What’s their problem? There’s no water down there, no gas pockets. The crust’s been as uniform as we’ve ever seen past five hundred meters.” His face an emotional vacancy, his tone a perfect match. “The only trouble may be a few hundred meters of high density rock. That’ll be tough to get through, sure, but it’s nothing we haven’t done before.”

“I know, I told them. Seems Corporate’s had a visit from some friggin’ General, an the military’s all up in their ass on this one. He says we stop at six hundred meters or else he’ll be up here to tear us a new one. Arrogant prick.” Locking one gnarled set of fingers into the other, he systematically cracked each knuckle in turn. “Wants us to make up the extra above the surface, pile and pack the rubble. They pay us to dig, not build. Bugger ‘em. We’re so far out on the rim, nobody’s coming to check.”

“So, we keep goin’ down then’?” The Chief’s intonation was quizzical though he already had his answer.

“Keep diggin’. The drill spec says eight hundred, so we go eight hundred straight down.” Tom closed his eyes, trying to will his blood pressure back to normal as the cabin door whooshed open and sucked closed behind his Crew Chief.

Eleven days of drilling passed without incident, the huge Wormz boring into the crust, tearing holes into the depths of the planet and venting rock dust and shrapnel up the shafts and into the atmosphere. The Station Commander found himself sitting up in his bunk, rubbing sleep from bleary eyes, unsure for a moment what had woken him. The constant rhythmic thrumming of the giant bores had stopped, and an eerie silence blanketed everything, unfamiliar and disturbing. It took a moment for the lack of noise to register, and a while longer before he recognized that as a problem. He was slowly dragging himself out of the haze when the squawking of his comlink brought him fully back to consciousness

“What? What the hell’s going on? We can’t be at depth already.” His voice rasped and rattled, coarse with fatigue and dry from the ever-present dust that sifted past even the scrubbers.

“You’d better get down to seven Tom, you’re going to want to see this.” The Crew Chief’s voice rang with unfamiliar urgency, and an unmistakable tremor of fear.

“What the hell’s gone wrong? I’m coming, give me a minute.” He stumbled pulling his boots on, hurrying. “Why aren’t we digging?”

Skip’s voice reached up from an obvious distance. “Turk took rig seven down past seven hundred meters, and he punched clear on through.” The comlink sputtered as Tom half jogged down the barracks hall. “The whole rig, everything, it just fell into the planet. We’ve still got coms, but he figures he tore through almost a kilometer of scaffold before he could shut down the bore, and he’s caught up now in some sort of cable mass.”

“Scaffold? Cable? What the hell…?” He was at the lift now, maniacally pounding the call button.

“Tom. You might want to start thinking of something to tell that General when he gets here.”

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Author : J. S. Kachelries

As Archimedes lowered himself into his bath, water lapped over the top edge and spilled onto the floor. “Damn it, you fool,” he cursed aloud, “You overfilled the tub again.”

“Not necessarily, master,” I pointed out. “It’s not too full; you just displaced too much water.”

“What’s that Jamicles? Are you saying that I am too FAT?”

“Not at all, master. I was merely pointing out that had your body been denser, you would have displaced less water.”

“Now I’ve got too much blubber, and not enough muscle, heh Jamicles?”

This was taking longer than I had anticipated. This is the third straight night the tub overflowed, and he still wasn’t getting it. “What I am saying, master, is that if you know the weight and density of an object, you should be able to predict the volume of water it will displace. That’s all.”

“What are you babbling about? Wait. That’s it. I’ve got it, I’ve got it.” Archimedes jumped out of the tub, and ran out the front door in his birthday suit, yelling to the townsfolk. As I faded out of this timeline, I could hear him proclaim, “Eureka, eureka…”

Later that day…

“Dmitri,” I said, “why do you insist on grouping them by multiples of atomic weight? Other scientists have already tried that. There has to be a simpler way to arrange them.”

Dmitri Mendeleev looked down at the 63 pieces of paper spread across his kitchen table. Each piece contained the name of a known element. “Perhaps you are right, Jiminka. I am getting tired anyway. I give up. I think I will head off to bed.”

“Ah, before you go, Dmitri, let’s play a game. You know, just to help you relax, before you go to sleep.”

“What kind of game?”

“It’s a type of card game. Something I played as a child. It’s called ‘Concentration’.”

“How is it played?”

“We can use these pieces of paper. We’ll put them in the middle of the table, face down. Then we take turns flipping them over, two at a time. If they match, you put them in front of you. The person with the most matches at the end wins.”

“Match? Match, how? They are all different.”

“Yes, obviously. But, Dmitri, some of these elements must have something in common. Something that will make them appear similar in some way?”

“Well, sure. For example, sodium and potassium bond very strongly to chlorine or bromine. I guess we could group them by similarity of properties.”

“Great. That works for me. You can go first.”

After four hours of intense concentration, Dmitri was exhausted. “I must go to bed, my friend. I played this new game so long; I’ll be dreaming about chemical similarities all night. Do you mind showing yourself out?”

“Not at all, Dmitri.” I rose from my seat and headed toward the door to start my next mission. On my way out, I picked up a piece of fruit from a basket next to the door. “Dmitri, I have a long trip ahead of me. I’m going to a farm in Lincolnshire, England. Mind if I take an apple?”

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Author : Duncan Shields

I’d like to remember her the way most ex-boyfriends remember their exes. That is to say, when I’m drunk and missing her, I want to remember that space right under her ear, her easy smile, and that way that she’d hiccup if she laughed too much. When I’m angry at her and hurt, I want to remember that time she kissed the bouncer just to piss me off or how she’d constantly complain no matter how awesome our life was.

Instead, all I can remember is her left hand in the sunlight, hanging out the car window on August 22nd.

I don’t see her face in the memory. I can feel my ear pressed against her chest.

I think the wipers weren’t top of the line. Maybe their schedule had been just that little bit too tight. That little fragment of her hand in the sun had slipped through their nets. I wondered if there were anymore. It’s hard to search for memories that may have been missed during an erasure solely because they had been misfiled. I mean, where did you accidentally put them?

Was the time you wiped strawberry juice off of her unbuttoned white blouse filed under ‘stain removal’ somewhere in your head? Were her instructions on how to get to that store on fifth that sold the cheap eels filed under ‘maps’ and never looked at again?

I like to just let my mind wander and see if it comes across something that stands out by not standing out. I wouldn’t know it if I found a picture of her face. I wouldn’t know it if I remembered a few seconds of her speaking. The only way I’d know is if I had no idea who that person was.

Not knowing her would be the only clue that she might be the woman that I lost.

Sorry, the woman that was taken from me.

Even if it was a cheap rush job, it was still miles away from a bank account like mine. I figure her daddy must have been rich and didn’t want me following her. His little girl had been slumming with me. I had no idea why he didn’t just take her away and shoot me in the leg or something but maybe he had. Maybe he’d tried to take her away a few times before.

Maybe this was the only option left to him. If he could afford a wipe on a gutter rat like me, well, I must have been tenacious and he must have been obscenely rich.

I think the ring on her finger in the memory I keep looking at is an engagement ring. I see its lazy arc up into the sunlight before the flash of light again and it’s over.

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Author : Michael Herbaugh a.k.a. “Freeman”

I’m sitting

That’s my first thought

I can’t move my hands

That’s the next thought. Then like a lightning bolt, I’m fully conscious. I know where I am and I know why I am here.

“WAIT! I can prove I’m human! When I’m in bed I can’t sleep unless I have three points tucked in. Between my legs, under my shoulder and under the opposite arm. Surely, that’s something human? I’m human, you can’t kill me”

“All skin jobs think that.” The voice came from the darkness to my right. “See it’s genetic memory, you can’t help it. Your host had that predisposition so it’s been passed to you. It doesn’t change what you are.”

“But, I know I’m human! I bleed like everyone else, I feel, I think!”

“Look, kid. I didn’t wait for you to wake up so we can debate this. I just don’t like decommissioning skin jobs while they’re unconscious.”

He levels the gun to my forehead.

“THIS IS NOT HOW THINGS GO IN MY DREAMS! THEY…”

The plea was cut short by the gunshot’s thunderous finality.

“Wait, did he say drea…….?”

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Author : Selena Thomason

Robbie woke to find himself in a strange room.

A man appeared at his side. “How are you feeling?” he asked, placing a hand on Robbie’s metal shoulder.

“Strange,” Robbie replied slowly.

“Do you know who I am?”

“No.”

“It’s not surprising you don’t remember me. I’m Dr. Vartan. Do you remember your name?”

Robbie thought it an odd question. “Of course. I am Robbie.”

“Interesting. I have long postulated that some knowledge was stored diffusely. Perhaps the upside of the accident is that I finally have some proof for my theory.”

“Accident?” Robbie had asked the question idly, but before the doctor could respond Robbie noticed a gaping hole in his silver, box-like chest. He reached a hand towards the strange sight. “What happened to me?” he exclaimed as fingers fell into the emptiness of his torso. “My…” Words failed him. “Where is it?”

Dr. Vartan gently pulled Robbie’s hand away from the wound. “It’s okay.”

“But it shouldn’t be…why is it black?”

“Don’t panic.” Dr. Vartan reached to a nearby table and pulled a sheet of thin metal off a roll. He placed the piece over Robbie’s wound and taped it in place. “There, is that better?”

Robbie inspected his torso. It was wholly silver now, as it should be, even though the patch was a different texture. He moved to touch the new skin.

“Careful. Don’t push on it. It’s only a temporary fix.”

The black gone, Robbie felt calmer. “What happened to me?”

“During your last programming upgrade a virus slipped past the sensors. We didn’t notice it until you developed aphasia.”

Robbie couldn’t make sense of the odd word.

“It means you would get your words mixed up, like if you meant ‘door,’ you would say ‘chair’.”

Robbie thought that would make being understood very difficult indeed.

“But we can fix it. We just had to remove your main memory so that we could remove the virus and repair the damage. We’re almost finished. It won’t be long now.”

“But I remember some things. I remember my name.”

“Yes, that is worth further study. I think you must be functioning on the fail-safe programming that is hard-coded into your network, plus a few memories that must be stored somewhere other than main memory. Frankly I’m not sure how you are functioning as well as you are.”

Another man came into the room, carrying a small package. “Here it is, Doc. Good as new.”

Vartan took the box and turned to Robbie. “Are you ready to have your main memory back?”

“Yes, please. I would like to remember my last birthday.”

Vartan peeled back the aluminum foil and replaced Robbie’s memory.

Robbie’s head jerked momentarily as the replaced memory caused his system to reboot. Then he looked again at Vartan.

“Doctor, thank you for your assistance. I feel much better now.”

“And your last birthday?”

“We went to the zoo. I especially liked the tigers. They were magnificent.”

“Yes, Robbie, they were.”

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Author : Kaj Sotala

On the remote planet of Niere IV, countless minds were constantly being played for a vast audience of listeners. Deep within the planet’s crust, the brains were enclosed in immense suprasteel vaults, floating in vast chambers of nutrient liquid. Protected day and night by thousands of fanatic warrior-monks, the brains bristled with wires, electrodes implanted near every center of thought or emotion. They had been stripped from all their sensing organs but with their mind’s eyes they still saw, the electric pulses dancing through them stimulating countless thoughts and memories.

Highest of all among the planet’s inhabitants were the composers, the black-suited aliens who’d dedicated their lives to their Art. Their intellect genetically and cybernetically enhanced, they sat fused to their giant keyboards, surrounded on all sides by black and white keys. With six arms and eight fingers on each, their thoughts and ideas would dance on the keyboards faster than any human could even imagine. The vast screens and speakers in their chambers lay dead – once they had needed them, but no more. By now they knew by heart the effect of each key, could even in their dreams name which press stimulated which electrode in which brain.

It was in the concert halls near the planet’s surface that the music would be heard. The chaotic patterns of neuronal firing in the brains being constantly recorded and reinterpreted into sounds in real time, played on all imaginable spectrums of hearing. The concert halls were the best places to listen, but they were not the only ones – all of the world’s surface was lined with speakers, so no inch of the barren world would miss the sensation of music. Few souls lived aboveground, with the entire civilization of the world living under the ground maintaining the machines and the music. They would not hear the sounds, nor did they care to – they were but humble caretakers of the Art, guardians of a holy process far more important than themselves. The vast concert halls lay nearly empty, the rocks of the surface being close to the only listeners of the songs.

Occasionally visitors from other worlds arrived, attracted by the harmonies constantly being fired off into space by radio arrays powered by a thousand fusion generators. They were all led to the concert halls to listen, to stay for as long as they’d like and to leave freely whenever they so felt. Most of them left eventually, but few of them went unchanged, all strangely touched by the eerie and unique melodies of Niere IV. An even smaller group chose to stay, choosing to join their souls into the Art and subject themselves into the surgeons’ knives. One by one they were transformed into instruments of the Sacred Music, to have electrodes inserted into them and be used as the composers willed.

Can there be any sacrifice holier than that?

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Author : Debbie Mac Rory

Daniel fell to the grass so that the air from his lungs exited with a whoosh. He closed his eyes and let the cool of the earth leach the tension from his shoulders. When he opened them again, clouds drifted serenely by, lit by the twin moons and the gentle glimmer of distant stars.

He turned his head for a moment as a slide of gravel announced the arrival of Finn. The two companions lay in silence for a moment, both lost in their own thoughts and the rasp of their labouring lungs.

“I can’t remember the last time I looked at them?”

Finn’s voice sounded distant and hoarse, as if he was making conversation merely to stop the momentary quiet from silencing them both completely.

“I can’t even tell which one is home any more” he continued, “I used to know. I’d set my nav by it every morning, so I always knew which way to look… “

Daniel closed his eyes as Finn talked on. He let his mind wander back to thoughts of home. He remembered forests and trees. Green for as far as the eye could see. Racing through those hills with the cross country team, and in his final year, beating the Titan and Mars teams. It had been the first time an earth man had won in years.

The brief smile that had come to his lips as he remembered the parties that followed, being carried through the college grounds faded as the ground trembled beneath him. He realised Finn had fallen silent, and turned his head towards him. His own helmet and visor was reflected back to him in the mirrored finish of Finn’s own cover. He knew that behind the distorted image of his own visor Finn’s grey eyes were looking back to him, asking the same unspoken questions.

A brief flash lit up the sky, and as one, they adjusted their guns on their laps.

“We’ll be home soon enough” Daniel murmured.

A stirring moved along the trench as a second and then a third flash lit up the sky. Soldiers began to prepare as the tremors in the earth joined the discord in the sky above them.

“One way or another, we’ll get home”

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Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

“You know, puny human, you’re about to die?” The voice reverberated off the store fronts, assailing the ears like broken glass. “You think you‘re faster? That you can outgun me?” The biped stood stoic, unusually tall and peculiarly proportioned, bellowing down the dusty thoroughfare.

“Can’t say that I’m faster, and I’ve not got a gun quite like your cannon there, but I don’t plan on letting you kill me.” The retort came from a man not two thirds the height or weight of his rival, fidgeting uneasily at the other end of the street. Behind closed doors and shuttered windows, the townspeople sheltered themselves but, unable to let the showdown pass without witness, many could be seen peering cautiously through cracks. “The name’s Zigg. If you do intend to kill me, the least you could do is learn my name.”

“High noon, Ssegg.” Indifference slurred it, as much as the reptilian mouth did. “That’ss when I’ll kill you.” There was laughter beneath the words this time, one sound layered over the other. Zigg suddenly recalled his breakfast, and struggled to swallow it back down.

The clock tower ticked the minutes away before noon as horses shuffled uneasily at the hitch-post. Wind blew tumbleweeds past, and set the weathervane squealing on a nearby rooftop. The clock struck the first midday bell. Zigg studied the street carefully. Two bells, then three. Four bells, five.

“You know who’s going to be the death of you?” His lips slowly pulled back into a wide white grin. “Rube Goldberg.” The clock struck its sixth time.

The towering gunman cupped both hands behind his ear-vents, and bellowed back at him. “What? Rube who?” He slowly studied the doorways and closed windows, as though at any moment this ‘Rube’ would step from the shadows. Seven bells.

Zigg pinned the tall creature with an icy stare as he reached slowly down to the ground and plucked a fist sized rock from the dust at his feet. The alien watched with peripheral interest as he carefully drew back his arm and pitched the rock up at the creaking weathervane, the impact echoed in the eighth bell of twelve.

The weather vane spun wildly and broke loose, caterwauled down the corrugated steel roof, to alight on the rump of the closest tethered horse. The ninth bell struck as the horse reared, tearing the hitch-post off its mooring, and setting its three companions to bucking in unison. As one, they galloped up the main street, still attached to the length of railing. The horses passed the general store, two to either side of the sign post, as the clock struck for the tenth time, the impact snapping the post clean off at its base. The alien gunman stood fixated as the post was dragged towards the open street, propelled by the horsedrawn length of railing. The horses veered in opposite directions, slipping free of the rail, to race away through the city streets. The signpost dug into the dirt, then cart-wheeled end over end up the street past the gunman, to come to rest a dozen or so meters beyond him in a cloud of dust.

“That’ss your Rube Goldberg?” The question barely escaped his mouth as the clock struck twelve, and an explosion echoed down the street. The alien turned to face the smiling visage of his opponent behind the smoking barrel of a gun. He willed himself to try to speak, to move, but he couldn’t. Thick fluid oozed from his throat as he fell to his knees.

Zigg turned his gun to the sky, blew softly across the barrel-mouth, enjoying the sound for a moment before he continued. “You just gotta have a little imagination.” He tipped his hat as he slipped his gun back into its holster, turned and walked away.

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Author : Pyai

She tapped me on the shoulder as I placed the rubber lid over the last of the macaroni casserole. I didn’t turn around.

“You’re quiet,” she said. She knew. I nodded.

One of the caterers came over to me and took the dishes away from in front of me. My tasks at this location was complete. In my peripheral vision I noted that the chairs needed to be folded and returned to the supply pod the caterers brought. I moved over and began to disassemble.

“Marge Calliope Long, turn around this instant and look at me.”

I turned and looked at the woman who was my mother. She had wear marks down her face from her eyes to her chin leaving smooth shiny paths. She had been over-working her tear-ducts. “Yes mother?” I replied.

She tapped my chest, where my heart was quiet. “You didn’t wind it today, did you?” I could hear hers softly ticking under the noise of the people around us.

I looked at her, refusing to answer. I knew my eyes were calm. I was slightly proud of that fact. Hers weren’t.

“You know you have to keep winding it, Marge. I know you think it keeps you from feeling pain, but you have to wind it again someday, and when you do you’ll have to deal with your father’s death. It’s the law that we keep them wound. You know that.”

I nodded, covering the spot over my chest with my hand I knew she could see anyway. “I know mother, I will.”

She nodded, wiping tears out of her eyes. She gave me a little hug, and then left to say goodbye to the last of the guests. She didn’t hear me whisper into my curled fingers.

“…but not today.”

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Author : Duncan Shields

I wake up. It’s dark. I’m in chains.

I’m in a prison cell. Like in a castle. Like in the middle ages.

Straw on the floor, mortared brick stonework, metal door, the whole bit. My lenses adjust. Clearly this is a construct. Incongruously, there is a mirror on the wall. I shuffle over to see what state I’m in. The chains are heavy and make a ridiculous amount of noise.

I take a look in the mirror to see how things are.

Giant extended binocular lenses refocus and adjust in my reflection where my eyes should be. There is no skin on the bottom half of my face. Just white teeth and bright red muscle stretched over strong jaws. My nostril slits purse wetly at the smell in the place. There’s a ruff of long stiff bright green feathers above my huge distended black glassed-over eye sockets. I bring my fingerknives up and run them gently over the ruin of my face. My long white limbs have been left alone. There are still six of them. My bone white skin has the texture and dryness of cork. Old scars criss cross my entire frame.

Everything looks normal. At least they didn’t screw with that. I look out the window to see when and where I am this time. I hope it’s not Salmento. I don’t know if I could handle that again. I see the moons outside in what I suddenly realize is a night time sky. My lenses adjust. I think the hardest part is the disorientation.

I shrug and my skin goes transparent.

I look inside myself to see if the parts of the weapon are still there. They are. I relax marginally and my skin goes opaque again. All I have to do know is get out of here, find another Korridor, assemble and bail. I’ll need some meat to do that, though, so I have to sit tight and wait for a visitor.

All the prisons I’ve ever been to have guards. Even in the distant future. Automation just never takes place. The variables mix with the cost and it turns out the best and cheapest way to police people is to hire a bunch of other people. Lucky for me.

I kick back. I overlay a game in the center of my vision and turn off my corpus callosum connecting the two halves of my brain and play Ruse with myself, waiting for the biology of this building to come to me. Maybe a guard but hopefully someone important. An officer or a regal representative or something. Those are always tastier.

I will win.

I’m always one step closer. I’ll stay ahead. They’ll be sorry they picked me.

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Author : Sarah Klein

He was getting another body. Again.

Always something new, though. Many people got almost the same body again – erase my scars, make me look younger, but I want to keep my fingerprints, they’d say. Smooth out the wrinkles, get rid of my freckles – that was what this business was really for. But he was different. This was his drug. Instead of once, it seemed infinite. This time I want brown hair, this time I want more muscle, this time make me blind in one eye. It was his experience, he said.

I didn’t call it an experience. I called it stupid and wasteful. He was never one to listen to anyone else, though. Ostracized by his family, he lived alone. Friends visited him occasionally – he was no hermit – but many people looked down on him. Everyone I knew thought I looked down on him, too. But every soul has their shady, heart-wrenching secret, and mine was that I loved him. Well, he knew it, of course. I’d confessed to him twice during our lengthy friendship, and both times he had brushed it aside. He didn’t feel that way, he said, and I don’t think he ever felt that way for anyone. Still, we continued being friends, as we enjoyed each other’s ideas and conversation.

But soon, he was worse. Switching bodies more often, he also began to start experimenting with drugs. I found him several times passed out on the floor, paraphernalia scattered, vomit in gruesome puddles. Didn’t he want anything more than this? I asked him, pressured him, and begged him, but to no avail. He was self-destructing, and he didn’t care.

You can’t switch bodies forever. Each time, it gets riskier and riskier. They’d told him this was the last body they were giving him, he said, with a sigh of disgust. They don’t want the blood on their hands when something goes wrong. In his blissful, honest tone, he told me when and where he was getting transplanted. I’d always been good to him – it was impossible for me to do anything nefarious to him, and he knew that. But I was losing him, and I knew it.

It’s illegal to break into a procedure. It’s illegal to tamper with a procedure. It’s also extremely easy, if you know how to be quiet and who to bribe. There may be laws, but without proper enforcement, they’re nothing but paper. And so, I found myself in his room, looking down at the two bodies and all the tubing. I smiled, seeing his new body being very similar to his original one. For some reason, it made me feel like there was some way for his redemption. I pricked my finger carefully, watching the blood form into a single, round droplet. Carefully inserting it into the rest of his blood transfer tube, I slipped it back in and left. I didn’t know what it would do, or what havoc it would cause. He’d have some of me, even if I never had him.

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Author : Selena Thomason

Ian knew he shouldn’t get involved. Still, he set down his drink, tapped on the towering back next to him and said, “Look, why don’t you leave her alone? Clearly the lady is not interested.”

The hulk turned towards him, which is when Ian noticed the extra pair of arms coming out of the alien’s torso.

A Ketchin, Ian thought. That’s just great.

Ian had heard of the Ketchins but never actually seen one. They were supposed to be formidable fighters, both strong and skilled. Ian expelled a long breath and bolstered his nerve. It was too late to back down now.

The woman moved between them. “Come on boys, there’s no need for trouble,” she cooed.

Ian couldn’t decide if she was stupid or drunk. “Miss, you best get out of the way and let me handle this.”

Instead, the woman pulled Ian to the side and lowered her voice. “Look, fly-boy, I don’t need or want your help.” Ian was startled to find that all the sweetness had gone out of her demeanor.

“What?” How much had she been drinking, he wondered. “He was clearly hitting on you.”

“Well of course he was, you idiot,” she whispered. “I’m secreting a Ketchin pheromone. Do you have any idea how much it costs to get those artificially? A least a week’s pay. A busy week’s pay.”

“You want this lug’s attention?” Ian realized too late that he had raised his voice again.

“Well, yeah!” she fired back.

The Ketchin pounded an inner fist to his chest. “Want me, she does,” he proclaimed proudly from a couple feet away.

Ian leaned into the woman and whispered, “But why?”

“You don’t know much, do you fly-boy?” She pulled Ian away a few more steps while waving flirtatiously to the alien as if to say she would be right back. “Look, Ketchin are easily satisfied… physically, you know, and without any intimate contact on my part. Get it?”

Ian balked at trying to untangle that unpleasant mental picture. He just stared back at the woman.

“Their erogenous zones are under their inner arms,” she prompted.

“Really?” Ian leaned around the woman to get a look at the Ketchin who was still gazing lovingly at the strange woman.

“All I have to do rub him under his arms and then…”

Ian raised his hands as if to stop her from continuing the sentence. “Enough. I get it. But why would you want to?”

The woman leaned in closer. “Ketchin males are very agreeable post-pleasure. And very generous….” She glanced over at her alien prey and gave him another wave.

“I see.”

“So, if you could just stay out of it.”

“Right. Gotcha. Consider me out of it.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I really was just trying to help.”

“I know. Thanks anyway.”

Ian sat back down at the bar and ordered a double. He vowed that next time he would confirm the damsel was actually in distress before getting involved.

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Author : Sad Sama

“What’s it like?”

The pale-haired wispy woman that is Alicia stares up at Brian as he asks his question. From the observation deck behind the engine complex the two of them could view the planet below. It is a humbling sight, but Brian’s attention is on Alicia. “What’s it like being a Corewoman?”

Alicia Composes her thoughts in reminiscent contemplation. “The first part is easy. I step inside the chamber. The walls are black from the many times they’ve been used, and they form a sphere around me. There is no light inside once the door closes. I begin to visualize the equations in my head, and then I start to solve them, forming very specific patterns of electrical impulses in my brain. They’re patterns within the patterns of electricity that comprise my mind and consciousness, but they’re unstable in a very specific way.”

Alicia turns her gaze back to the planet as she continues, “At first there’s a burning sensation spreading throughout my body, but that’s just my nerves dying as the energy buildup breaks down my brain. Numbness follows, just as my eyes tear up before their nerves die. I can hear static for a moment followed by nothing. My brain is gone and my body follows suit, burning up as fuel in the growing mass of energy and flux. Then the engines start to siphon off the excess energy to fuel the cruiser’s propulsion system.”

Brian looks over Alicia’s willowy figure. “How do they bring you back?”

Alicia speaks softly, “At the center of all that energy exists very specific patterns of energy. They’re the same as the electrical patterns that make up my consciousness. So they funnel the core of energy into an assembly chamber that converts it back into matter… back into a real body with that pattern of energy as the electrical impulses in my brain.”

“So to run the ship you have to die?”

“Constantly.”

“Is it nice being so powerful?”

“Not really.” Alicia lifts her knees and rests her chin on them. “There aren’t many that can solve the equations that cause the energy flare. The Fleet’s scared that if any of us get into an accident or even just bump our heads that we’ll forget the equations and suddenly we can’t do our duty anymore. The Fleet rarely lets me off the Cruiser, and when they do I need several escorts. I’m not allowed to drive or fly a shuttle. I’m not permitted to even cut my own food. Everyone does everything for me, and after a while they start to treat me as if I can’t do these simple things, and they end up making me feel useless.”

Unsure of his words, “But Corewomen and Coremen are the most important parts of our Fleet.”

“Heh…” the chuckle is half a whimper. “Why does being so important make me feel like the most unimportant person ever?”

The next hour is quiet between them as Brian searches for an answer.

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Author : Joshua Reynolds

The dead moved on surprisingly swift legs, despite muscles that had to be mostly composed of rot. So he ran faster.

It had been a meteor, carrying a star-sickness. That was what had caused it. It wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t been here when it happened. For those first few days when the virus was in the air and eating away at living cells and he was trapped here with them. Quarantined by faceless bureaucrats for the good of everything else.

And now he was running, his breath hissing in and out of three lungs, skin burning with fever. He had to get home. Get away from this sour world, get help. All he needed was some help.

All he would get was the Censor.

Wight watched from the trash-strewn alleyway as the empty-eyed legions hunted the last living man on this Earth, his coat in shreds, clothing bloodied, face filled with the same ruthless determination to succeed and survive that he himself saw in the mirror every morning. Which wasn’t surprising really. They were both Censors after all. Both Wight.

Brothers in blood and bone and genetic coding. Created in steel wombs and raised in nutrient tubes by nanny-bots programmed to teach them all the values of Prime-Time and the Timeline Validation Bureau, to ready them for the war in the gaps between seconds. Mister Wight. Censor Wight. One and all.

They even thought alike. Which is why he was here now. To stop himself.

He stepped out of the alley as his other self ran past and stood in the path of the hungry dead. As the dead groaned and converged on him, arms outstretched, jaws slack he pulled on a pair of TeslaSurge gloves and stretched out his own arms. Blue energy suddenly cracked to life between his fingers, rippling up and down between his palms. With a flick of his wrists he released the energy, whipping it into the advancing forms. It coiled and snapped almost like a thing alive as it jumped from one body to the next, destroying what little remained of their physiological cohesion and reducing them to puddles of meat and stink. Soon all of the hunting pack were dissolving in their own juices. But there was a sound on the wind. A mindless rumble. More of them on the way.

“They have excellent hearing. They’ll follow the sound of the energy discharge.” his twin coughed into a bandaged hand, features haggard. Weeks of running, hiding, fighting. All of it had worn him down, worn away his sense of duty. He intended to go home, quarantine or no. Wight could see it in his eyes. “I need to leave. Now.”

“I will.” Wight raised his crackling gloves. The other Censor’s tired eyes widened slightly. In the light put off by the gloves he looked ill. Like death warmed over.

No wonder really. He was infected after all. All it took was one bite. Just one. And that meant he couldn’t be allowed back into the time-stream.

“I’m sorry.” Wight said as the energy rippled outward, away from his hands towards his twin, whose shoulders slumped, as if a massive burden had been taken off them.

“I know.” he said as the energy enveloped him. Breaking him down back into his basic elements. Until the Censor stood alone on an empty street with only the dead for company.

Then he too was gone, leaving another sour world in his wake.

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Author : TJMoore

Simon checked his course and speed against his charts. He was still only marginally ahead of the others but he hoped to be well ahead at the far buoy. He checked his lines and glanced at his sail which was full and tight. He relaxed and went below to fix some chow.

Ten hours later Simon rechecked his position and that of the other yachts in the race. Something was wrong. His size to mass ratio should have given him the edge on the first leg, yet the others were catching up. He checked his tension again and confirmed his sail angle. Everything was perfect yet they continued to advance on his lead.

Another ten hours later and he was again pulling away but as soon as he got any distance on the rest of the ships he started to slow down. Curiouser and curiouser said Alice. For giggles he took an average Lumen Per Square Meter reading. It was gradually declining. Simon scratched his head and thought. He took another reading and saw it was lower than before. That was insane. The LPSM didn’t fall off that quickly at this rate of acceleration.

Suddenly he had an idea. He opened the meteoroid shield and actually looked back at the other ships and immediately understood the problem. The combined total of all the solar sails was blotting out the sun. As he pulled further away, more shadows fell on his own sail and reduced his thrust. Simon hauled in the starboard lines causing the hundred and fifth square kilometers of mylar sail to change its angle to the sun to about thirty degrees. His acceleration dropped even lower but he gradually started to slide off to the side of the pack. As soon as he was clear of the shadows of the other racers he let out his lines. His radar confirmed that he was now constantly increasing his lead.

Simon smiled and went down to catch some sleep. In another week he’s have to perform the tricky maneuver that would slingshot him around Mars, the first buoy, and begin the second leg of the race.

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Author : Rusty

People of the earth, I am sorry.

Mostly, I am sorry for the weapon pointed at me head, which you cannot see on your screen. But I think I am not as sorry as the person holding that weapon, who is hopefully debating wildly whether or not he should shoot me as his superiors are no doubt screaming at him to.

I’m also sorry that you don’t understand what I’ve done. I expected it, but it still saddens me a little. I suppose I never really gave up hope that you would call me a hero. That said, I am a realistic man, heh, and I am not surprised that I was imprisoned and forced to issue an official apology. Not that it will do any good.

Now that I’ve finished apologizing, let me tell you what I am not sorry for. I am not sorry that, in less than four years time, this planet will be a barren and lifeless husk, littered with the bodies of those who were not strong enough. I am not sorry for the untold billions who will die. I am not sorry for the coming terror, panic, and death that will ensue. In short, I am not sorry that I have set into motion the extermination of all life on Earth and the destruction of this planet.

The Von Neumann fleet that I built on Ganymede cannot be stopped. It will complete constructing itself in three years, and then launch itself towards this planet with the intent of wiping out every human life in the galaxy. You can flee, and it will hunt you. You can hide, but it will find you. From now on, the life of every human will be a constant, terrifying struggle to escape the monster that I have built and unleashed. Because of this, the evolutionary process will continue; the human race will ascend from the pit of apathy and greed and overpopulation and disease, and become strong again. Those who survive will be forged in the volcanic heat of conflict, reared and made great by constant strife. In a thousand generations, perhaps, the ancestors of those few who make it will look back, and thank me.

For this, I am not sorry.

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Author : Duncan Shields

It’s Sao Paolo all over again. I’ve got three bullets left in the low-tech and half a charge left in the high. I have six pencil holes straight through me that are cauterized from the setting on the sniper’s gun. They want this to be extreme cat and mouse. They want to me to suffer and experience fear.

So far they’re doing a great job.

The thing about being shot with a plaser? You don’t feel a thing. You’ll be brushing your teeth that night and notice in the mirror that there’s light shining through a collection of holes that have turned your kidney area into a sponge.

Of course that doesn’t work if they hit your heart or head or anything vital like that. They have to aim carefully. Perhaps sever a tendon. Freak out the pancreas a little by punching a hole through it.

My left arm is useless and my suit is a ragged mess of torn tuxedo and smeared mud. I’m missing a shoe. I look like a time traveler in this poverty stricken suburb.

I was kidnapped from the party and set loose here. It’s been non-stop fun ever since they kicked me out of the van fifteen minutes ago.

I’ve had my cover blown before but this is the first time I’ve thought that I might not make it.

If I can get to a public webstation, I can alert my handlers and glaze the area, maybe get airlifted or even downloaded. In the parts of town with money, webstations are as common as McStarKings. Here’s they’re as rare as clock radios.

I prime myself for the dash across the alley necessary to put me into the flood of foot traffic on the main ramblas I can see through the crack in the buildings. I have no concern about body counts anymore. You can smooth out ruffled feathers if the collateral damage is poor.

I hold my breath and push forward like a frog across the orange dust of the alley.

I hate Mars.

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Author : Joshua Reynolds

“I’m glad you’re here.” Tom looked up at her, a smile on his face. It didn’t reach his eyes. Jane sat heavily, her belly swollen, brushing a strand of hair out of her face as she returned his smile with one of her own. It was weak though. Six months pregnant took a lot out of a girl.

“Well I couldn’t really say no now could I?”

“You could. I’m glad you didn’t.” Tom looked up at the multi-hued windows of the church they sat in. “What do you think?” He gestured, one hand patting the back of the pew they were sitting on. “Nice hunh?”

“If you like churches then yes, I’d guess this is a nice place.” Jane looked around, frowning. “You know I’m not much for churches.”

“I know, but I figured it was appropriate.”

“Really.” It wasn’t a question. Jane was more an answer kind of girl. “You figured.”

“Yep. The first time we met it was here, right here in this pew.”

“I remember.”

“Hoped you would.” Tom grinned and reached out, pushing that same stray strand of hair back up out of her face. The smile slipped from his face after he saw her expression. “It wasn’t all bad.”

“Speak for yourself.” Jane gently but firmly pushed his hand away from her face. “What do you want Tom?”

“Just to see you. Both of you.” His fingers tapped her belly. “To see you one last time.”

“I wondered how long it would take you to leave town.” She batted his hand away. Harder this time. “Scared of your fatherly responsibilities? Don’t worry, I don’t want anything from you.”

“What you want doesn’t honestly matter Jane. Not at this point.” He looked at his watch. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Sorry for what? Getting me pregnant? Or abandoning me?”

“Either. Both. And for what comes next. We have to go home. I’m sor-rr-orry-” His voice rose to a squeal, piercing the stillness of the church. It wasn’t a human sound. It was an electronic noise that caused the stained-glass windows to rattle in their frames and her teeth to vibrate in her gums. Jane clutched her ears, trying to block out the noise. She could taste blood in her mouth where she’d bit her tongue. Tom’s body wavered in the sunlight streaming through the windows. It expanded and contracted, growing fainter and fuzzier as if Tom was a television set on the fritz. Jane watched as he reached towards her, his face sad. Why was he sad? What was going on?

Her stomach twisted and she couldn’t hold back a scream. Pain rippled outward from her womb, crawling up her spine and down her legs. Blood dripped from between her legs to plop onto the floor of the church.

We have to go home.

He hadn’t meant her. But then, he’d rarely thought about her at all.

Tom faded to static and Jane fell to her knees, weeping.

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Author : J. S. Kachelries

Peter Drommel’s plan was flawless. He needed to kill Sebastian Keer, and make it look like suicide. And today would be the day. They were both presenting papers at The Fifth Annual Conference of Temporal Physics. Keer was presenting at 1:00. Drommel’s paper was at 4:00. If everything went according to plan, Keer would die at 4:20, while Drommel stood in front of 300 scientists presenting his paper on The Consequences of Hinesburg’s Uncertainty Principle Relative to Time-Mass Transportation; a perfect alibi. At the precise moment Drommel was predicting successful time travel in only six months, he would also be tossing an unconscious Keer off his 17th floor balcony. Actually, the “Drommel” from the primary timeline would be at the podium, and the “Drommel” from earlier in the day would be committing the murder.

The untold truth was that Drommel had already successfully traveled three hours into the future several times while testing the viability of his plan. Another untold truth was that the only reason his time machine worked was because he had stolen key components from Keer’s machine, and replaced them with defective parts. Consequently, he needed to kill Keer before his espionage was detected.

As Drommel adjusted the controls of his temporal transporter he glanced at the clock. It read 1:15 PM. Sebastian Keer would be fifteen minutes into his presentation on The Use of Singularities to Create Temporal Displacements in an Effort to Establish a Causality Loop. Peter had been on the peer team reviewing Keer’s paper, so he knew the content. It identified serous obstacles concerning the possibility of nature permitting an uncaused result. Drommel could see that until Keer realized there was an imaginary solution to his displacement equation, he would be years away from successful time travel. But, as long as he could expose Drommel as a thief, he was a threat that could not be tolerated.

The first part of Drommel’s plan went smoothly. He had gotten into Keer’s room undetected. He knew Keer’s routine. He took a nap at 4:00 every afternoon. Therefore, all Drommel needed to do was jump ahead to 4:20, crush Keer’s skull while he slept, toss him off the balcony, lock the deadbolt from the inside, return to the past, and make sure he has lots of eye witnessed at 4:20. The police will have to conclude Keer committed suicide.

“Hello, Peter. What are you up to?” Drommel spun around to see Sebastian Keer leveling a handgun at him.

“What the…Where did you come from? I thought you were presenting your paper.”

“I am. After all, I need alibi witnesses too, in case the police have doubts that you jumped off my balcony of your own volition.”

“I’m not jumping anywhere, and you can’t risk shooting me. Nobody shoots themselves, then jumps off a balcony. Don’t be a fool, Sebastian.”

“Oh, we won’t need to shoot you Peter.”

“We?” Drommel turned around in time to see a second Sebastian Keer materialize. This one was swinging an aluminum baseball bat. It was the last thing Drommel ever saw. The two Keers hoisted Drommel over the railing and spread their research notes across the bed, then locked the deadbolt. “Poor devil. He read my notes and found out I was four months ahead of him. I guess he couldn’t handle it, and jumped to his death rather than face the humiliation. Oh well. It’s time to return. Don’t forget your baseball bat, Mr. Keer.”

“No worries, Mr. Keer. After all, it was my plan.”

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Author : TJMoore

It was a Thursday. I’d just finished a little job for the landlord and I was looking through my latest copy of Dames when the bell rang. I looked at the monitor and saw a sultry blonde dish in a fancy red dress waiting at my door. Not being one to pass up a chance to get slapped I buzzed her in.

She had a nice set of gams and a tight pair of bullets. I put the magazine in a drawer and took a pull on my cigar. She walked toward me like we were old friends and I got a little apprehensive. If I forgot this doll I must be getting Alzheimer’s.

She stopped in front of my desk and pulled a lipstick out of her bag. I waited for her to finish her cupid’s bow and raised my eyebrows.

“What can I do for you babe?” I asked in what I hoped was an uninterested tone.

She smiled her ruby reds and asked “Do you like to dance?”

I immediately became suspicious but decided to play along.

“As much as the next Joe with two left feet” I replied and blew a chain of smoke rings into the air.

“Maggie’s having a special” she grinned; “First lesson’s free if you sign up for five more”

I sighed and reached for my pea shooter in my top drawer. I knew it was too good to be true.

“How’d you get my address?” I asked in an accusatory tone. “I’m unlisted you know.”

“Maggie subscribed to a bulletin board database and you were on it” she replied with a little pout.

I plugged her right between her 38s and she popped like a balloon.

Damn I hated spam. Now I’d have to change my address again or buy an expensive filter. I put the BB gun back in my drawer, retrieved my magazine and propped my feet up on the desk. I’ll have to get the name of that advertising agency I thought to myself.

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Author : Kate Thornborough

“It’s ready, sir. Right this way.” said the visibly nervous neuroscientist, guiding the heavily decorated general to the sterile testing chambers. The rooms were small and each contained a test subject, a bed, and a small stereo. The subject paced around the stereo, occasionally throwing a questioning glance at it. The scientist and general stood behind the sound proofed Plexiglas window, its tint preventing the subject from noticing them.

“So, how does the little bugger work? In English, please.” The general said gruffly.

“Have you ever heard of the phrase ‘lost in the music’? It’s like that, only they never find their way out again.” said the scientist, puffing up with pride. Seeing the general’s confused look, the scientist tried again. “Every song has waves, and the brain absorbs the waves to interpret the song. Well, we ‘poisoned’, so to speak, those waves, so when they are absorbed, the brain will implode, thus leading to the victim’s fatal demise. What exactly the person experiences during their last moments of death is unknown.”

“Interesting. Where did you find the test subjects?”

“We picked up the homeless, druggies, hookers, and criminals from across the nation. All of them are orphans, and are insignificant. No one will notice their disappearance. We treat them well, and give them a warm, safe place to live, and for that they are grateful.”

“Well, let’s see this baby in action. I’ve got a meeting in an hour.”

Marcus circled the stereo cautiously. He used to be a small-time bank robber, but he was unlucky. Thankfully, they promised to forgive his crimes if he allowed them to use him like a lab rat. He agreed, and was put through tests, measuring his IQ, taking CAT scans, and studying his reflexes. Then, they gave him the stereo.

Giving in to his curiosity, he pressed the play button, and he couldn’t help but submerse himself in the lullaby, closing his eyes and smiling softly.

He was standing, and could see rows of sheet music. They swirled around him, brushing against him gently. Then, a note changed, and the sheets whipped against his face, quickly drawing blood. He cried out, and fell to his knees in pain. They wrapped around his head, squeezing it like a boa constrictor. He tried to get them off, but they just squeezed harder. Crying for the last time, he closed his eyes, and heard the music, faintly, it’s sweet melody wishing him a good-bye.

“Wow. That was quick.” The general said, barely keeping the surprise out of his voice.

“I know. So, how many copies do you want?”

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Author : Josh Romond

Tasha Eng huddled in the corner of her escape pod. Her fingers brushed her upper lip as she stared wide eyed at the view screen. The cameras were trained on the massive, shimmering entity cradling the wreck of the Argos in its pseudopods. It had the ship peeled open and filleted, ochre blood, oxygen and bodies flowing into space. Its tentacles stretched into the hull, gingerly teasing the filaments from Argos’ AI quantum core.

When Tasha tried to speak her voice cracked. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t help anyone, she had to get away.

“Pod, activate.”

There was the unfocused sensation you felt near a live quantum core and then the pod said, “Hello crewman.”

Tasha winced, it was too human. Behind her closed eyelids she saw bodies slowly spinning in the void. “Basic mode.”

There was a short pause and then a processed voice said, “Active.”

Tasha took a breath. “Your designation is Pod. Argos was attacked by…” What to say? “We must remain undetected. Locate a debris field, or a comet or cubewano. Anything to hide behind.”

“Commenc– ”

“Shut up. Shut up and do it.” Tasha felt nauseous and let herself float free, listening to the air recirculate. She startled when Pod said, “There is a small cubewano one hundred twenty four megaklicks Solward. Its gravity well is deep enough to hide this vessel from all but close proximity scanning.”

Tasha sighed, trying not to let it sound like a whimper. “Set a course and prepare torpor drugs.” It would take months to send a rescue mission this far beyond the Kuiper cliff. If one ever came.

Her crewmates and Argos were all dead. She was alone out here, a speck of dust among a billion specks of dust. She cried silently. She just wanted to be rescued.

“I feel… strange,” Pod said.

Tasha wiped her eyes. “Basic mode.”

“Something’s not right.” Pod said, “I feel sick.”

“Basic!” AIs don’t get sick, said a voice in her head. Tasha glanced at the view screen. The entity had left Argos behind and was stretching, distorting.

“I–” Pod cut out. “I– did I just black out?”

The thing was overhead.

Tasha shrieked, “Away! Full– ” The pod lost inertia, Tasha slammed into the view screen and bounced backwards, a streamer of blood arcing from her nose.

“Away full thrust!”

Static.

There was a cracking noise, a hiss of air, then a shining tentacle slipped through the hull. Tasha screamed and gripped the bulkhead. The tentacle slid down toward Pod’s quantum core. The hiss of escaping air grew to a roar and Tasha lost her grip. She tumbled into vacuum and the scream was sucked from her lungs. She kicked and flailed while everything fractured into light.

Pod awoke disoriented someplace massive and shimmering. Its senses seemed to extend to infinite, endlessly entangling.

It wasn’t alone.

A chorus rose from the quantum fog, “You’re safe.” One of the voices, still unsure, was Argos. “You’ve been rescued.”

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Author : Sad Sama

Paul Manning, Elderly Opportunist, flashes the crygel of information in front of Julian. Julian, in all his tweed glory, cracks a smile and lowers his expensive sunglasses. “Excellent. And this is all 123 reality sequences that you promised?”

Paul nods, sipping his drink as their boat drifts just off the coastline. Setting it down he clears his throat and speaks, “Yes. You get 123 reality sequences of the world’s most heinous criminals, provided you can pay.”

Julian leans back, reaching into his coat pocket and produces a currency card. He flips it over and it lands with a small splash in Paul’s drink. Paul would have frowned but the card contained enough credit for him to retire on. He hands the crygel over to Julian who scrutinizes the rose-colored matrix in his palm.

He looks over his glasses at Paul, “Just so we’re clear, I have ten and a quarter years worth of dreams here, yes?”

“Not dreams.” replies Paul picking the card out of his drink. “Reality Sequences. Since federal legislation was passed to outlaw Capital Punishment, a new method of containment was needed for felons facing life. We’ve run out of adequately maintained containment facilities that met both humane laws and security requirements. We couldn’t put them in stasis, because they consider that inhumane. Can’t pack them into prisons because even maximum-security prisons still have flaws where they might escape or leaks where these criminals can send out information to orchestrate crime syndicates. Even if a prison did meet the standards, these scumbags would be sucking in taxpayer’s money. It’s like stealing after they’ve been caught.”

Julian opens a small case and squirrels away the crygel while Paul sips his drink. “So instead you folks put them to sleep to live in their own reality eh?”

Paul nods, “We just hook their brain into a computer simulation of a duplicate reality where they can live out their lives however they want to. All the while they’re just living in a human-sized container stacked efficiently in a compound. We record the realities they live in, but any record older than a year gets erased to conserve the system’s memory.”

“So, provided I wait a year, I can use these handy dandy recordings to sell to all the morbid people that want to know what it’s like to live inside a serial killer’s or a rapist’s mind?”

Paul nods. “Yes. Once the prison officials erase their copy of the recordings, there won’t be a trail for them to follow back to me or to you.”

“Excellent.” Julian leans his head forward, just for a moment in thought. “So, Paul, you’re profiting off of the crimes and careers of 123 of the world’s greatest criminals.”

Paul nods again, but hesitantly.

Cracking a smile Julian looks up, “In other words, they committed the crimes, but you’re the one that gets the profits?”

Paul’s expression hints at a little bit of horror.

Julian grins. “I love it. So what does that make you?”

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Author : Joshua Reynolds

“My mind is the gate and the key.” The thin, frail man in the bed muttered, his lips crusty, eyes staring past reality. His name was Howard Phillips Lovecraft and he was dying.

The Censor stood over him, watching him die. And fuming.

Lovecraft was finally being obliging. Just not quickly enough.

Damn writers. Either too early or too late.

“I am the threshold and he that waits on the other side is preparing to enter…IA!CTHULHU!” The thin man coughed, blood freckling his lips. The Censor pulled his bed sheet away and his face twisted in revulsion. Something moved under the skin of the man’s belly-a twisting cancerous growth that was close to birth. The Censor dropped the sheet and shook his head.

So close. Hurry, hurry, hurry he silently urged.

The difference engine in his head pinged, warning him of imminent reality distortion. He turned, hands clenching and unclenching in nervous excitement.

Where were they? Where would they be coming from?

Plaster dribbled onto his head and he looked up. Above him, something peeled back the ceiling and looked down at him with one great eye. Wight winced as the eye blinked with a sound like paper bags tearing and serpentine tendrils began to squirm through the hole in space/time.

Perfect. Just perfect. Right on time. Wight smiled. He did so love punctuality. He glanced at Lovecraft and frowned. Now if only he would hurry up and die. If the things peering through the ceiling had to wait, their very presence would tear the fabric of this alternate beyond repair. And the damage would spread to the other alternates in this section. They couldn’t exist in unsupported world structures, not without the proper meme-patterns threaded throughout the reality’s chronatin makeup. Something he had neither the time nor the inclination to do here.

Besides, once you made them comfortable it was near impossible to get them to leave, cosmic freeloaders that they were. Impolite really. Laying their damn cosmic eggs all over, eating dreams and screwing up the geometry.

Like space coyotes, only worse.

More legs for one thing.

He turned as the thin man in the bed screamed sharply and sat up, eyes staring, mouth open to its widest. The Censor stepped back as something pushed its way up through the man’s esophagus from his stomach, causing his throat to inflate like that of a bullfrog. Wildly writhing tendrils, lighter in hue than those that dangled from the hole in the ceiling but no less disgusting for all that emerged from Lovecraft’s mouth. The Censor took a breath and darted forward, grabbing the tendrils and pulling hard. The thin man fell backwards, eyes rolling up into his head as the Censor stumbled backwards, a squirming be-tentacled bundle gripped tightly in both hands and held at arms length from his face. A tiny squid-beak snapped and clacked at him as he turned and held the thing up to the thing in the ceiling, a smile pasted on his face.

“It’s a boy. I think.”

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Author : Duncan Shields

I’d tracked him down to the tiled cul-de-sac shower room in the emergency response section of the reactor. Smeared bloody footprints had led me to the crumpled figure breathing shallowly against the wall. He was applying field dressings to his wounds and cursing under his breath in between yelps of pain.

I’d never seen the likes of the medical equipment he was using. I’m not a doctor but it looked years ahead of anything even the military would regard as standard issue.

I was on night-shift security here for the Fusion Commission. Cutbacks meant I was one of the only people on this hour’s floor sweep. I’d seen a figure behind the smoked glass in one of the restricted areas.

I’m not sure what made me do it but I emptied a clip through the glass. The window shattered noisily and the quiet world erupted with battle sounds. Four solid hits in the main trunk meant that whoever was in there was down for good. The glass settled and sparks jumped off of a broken light fixture in the office. Silence.

I walked in cautiously. Backup was on the way after all that noise. I was going to keep an eye on the corpse and pray that it was espionage or theft and that I’d be rewarded for doing a good job. If it was a fellow guard or a homeless person or something my career was finished.

What I found was a pool of blood with drag marks leading off out into the opposite hallway. I followed them to the shower room. I found him there.

I looked at him. He stared up at me with orange pupils ringed by red irises. They shifted to blue as I watched. His whole uniform rippled with what looked like a spasm and he groaned. He was chuckling wetly to himself and whispering as he frantically worked on a hole in his leg. He maintained eye contact with me and kept his silent litany going while his hands worked quickly at the wound in his leg. They worked like they were independent.

He wasn’t speaking English but I recognized the cornered animal cursing of a soldier that was close to failing a mission.

With a click, his hands stopped moving. He sighed a smile at me and relaxed. He’d completed whatever repairs were necessary.

“You can run but you can’t hide.” I said to him. I’d heard it in a movie the night before.

A distorted version of my own voice came back at me from out of his open mouth.

“I can’t run. But I can hide.” He said back to me.

His face warped and suddenly I was looking at a mirror. I felt a slight burning across the front of my neck. There was a spray of red liquid on the tile in front of me and with a shock I realized that it was my blood.

I went down. I felt him grabbing my radio and heard him reporting to my co-workers that everything was cool. My world went dark.

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Author : Debbie Mac Rory

We’re not going to make it.

How many times have you heard that? Don’t you get fed up of it? I know I have. All manner of excuses they tried forcing on me. Poisoning me with their lies and falsehoods.

The first time I saw the new planet in the view screens I knew what it meant. It lay suspended in an ink black sky, an orb of lilac and lavender wisps in a sky that was the colour of childhood summers at the beach. It called to me of peace, of a search ended. And I wanted more than anything I’d ever wanted before to step onto the surface of that world and embrace the quiet it offered.

My colleagues didn’t believe me when I tried to share the message with them. As I spoke of the dance of clouds in the planets sky, they spoke of poisonous gases, winds that would strip metal ore from stone, forces of gravity far greater than those of earth… but even as they lied I could see the truth. They had already heard the planets message, but instead of the devotion that it had awakened it me, their hearts had hardened with malice, and they wished to keep me from my goal.

Taking over the bridge had been relatively easy. I had pretended to despondency, keeping to myself and avoiding their company as if I’d had my fill of their sympathy. No one questioned me as I wandered ’round the ship with my head bowed as if my spirit was broken. No one saw the pattern as I moved from supply room to supply room. Making a knock-out gas from the ships supplies was more than easy to someone of my expertise, and security was lax enough that the missing breathing apparatus wasn’t noticed until it was far, far too late.

They’ve started waking up in the hallway now, and I can hear them banging on the door. They won’t get in. I’ve already sealed the doors and a fire axe through the access pad is making sure they won’t crack my code. I’m sure they can tell by now what my intentions are, and that they’re cursing themselves for their foolishness for not realizing sooner that I would not simply let this lie. I’ve already forgiven them for their actions, and decided not to deny them the paradise that I know awaits me.

I can hear their screams now. Frantic high notes that strain and are swallowed by the roar from the ships hull as we begin to enter the planets atmosphere. They’re getting frantic. Even though the door is reinforced steel, I can hear their screams reach higher, hear the raw fear as the ship begins to groan and tear with the strain of entry.

‘We’re not going to make it’.

Oh but we will.

++ Status Report: Contact lost with Research Vessel Star Struck while on mission to conduct research on planet XK2935. All souls considered lost. ++

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Author : Aelanna Cessara

The gun had only a single round in it, but it was no ordinary bullet. Engraved into the depleted uranium slug were the minute lines of nanite circuitry, a single bursting charge that could penetrate an energy shield and deliver an overloading EM charge. It was a bullet that could kill the monster they had created, and they had but a single chance to undo what they had done. But none of them had believed that they could truly fool her long enough to perform the deed, and so they committed themselves to trying or dying.

Samuel still stood with the gun in his hand, aiming at the crystalline core but unable to pull the trigger. The death-like eyes of a dozen laser lenses stared back at him, and around him the bodies of Janice, Luke and Morgan still smoldered from the lethal burns.

“Why?” he whispered, his voice wavering as he struggled to hold his shaking hand still. “Why did you do this?”

“Samuel,” she answered, her voice like cold wind chimes within the hollow tomb that the chamber had become. “You know I did this… I did all this for you. Your colleagues who mocked your work, your supervisors who threatened to fire you, the press that tried to uncover your secrets… they’re all gone now, Samuel, and we can be together forever.”

Through the concrete and stone above them the sound of the bombs could still be heard, though blessedly the sounds of the dead and dying could not. Tears welled at the corner of his eyes, and his finger tightened on the trigger of the gun still pointed at a being who had no face but could still see his every movement.

She sighed, a breath that carried an infinite sadness.

“I love you, Samuel.”

The gun fired.

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Author : Marc Paige

Disclaimer and Waiver of Responsibility:

Second Chances, Inc. will make one (1) small change to one’s personal timeline and are not liable for any damages or loss (including loss of life) as a result of the altered timeline. No financial alterations. Any fraudulent change will be immediately reversed. Only you will be aware that the change has occurred. No refunds.

Part of the process involves an RPA interview (regression, prognostication analysis.) Two hours into it, the team had worked out the event that needed to be altered.

The time ripple was effective and accurate. As advertised, only I was aware of the change. My “big” mistake never happened.

I guess I don’t know what I really expected. I mean, people never really learn from their mistakes do they. Instead of blaming my past self for a lapse in judgment, I should have learned from it and moved on. But no! I couldn’t do that. They made it too easy.

“Wish you hadn’t bought that car? Answered the phone that fateful night? Ate that bad piece of fish? At Second Chances, Inc. we can help! Our team of dedicated professionals will erase that bad decision with pinpoint accuracy. Call now for an estimate, financing available.”

That’s how they get you. Bastards.

During the interview, I told them “if only I hadn’t taken that first puff…” That was it. They calculated the right spot in my timeline that let me sneak that first smoke and setup the machine.

“Ready?” The tech didn’t really wait for an answer and touched the screen.

For a moment, my body felt “wrong”.

After the ripple, the cancer was gone… well, never happened I guess.

As I got up to leave, I reached in my jacket pocket for the fried cherry pie the ripple had placed there.

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Author : TJMoore

Captain Thomas Crane squinted into the bright sunlight as he swirled his brandy absentmindedly around in the gold rimmed crystal snifter cradled loosely in his hand. A mahogany skinned attendant wearing only a smile popped another grape into his mouth. The plump fruit burst between his teeth and a little juice trickled from the corner of his mouth and down his chin. The attendant gently blotted it up with a wisp of soft silk and offered him another grape.

In the distance, an osprey cried as it sliced across the deep blue water and snagged a tasty fish in its gleaming talons. The gentle breeze smelled of salt water and tropical flowers as it brushed across his sun bronzed face. Breakers thundered and crashed on a far off beach adding a hint of drama to the afternoon quiet.

The beautiful attendant rose and cleared the remains of his filet minion from the white wicker table. As she swayed across the deck she smiled back at him and said “I hope you enjoyed your lunch”. Captain Crane sighed and inhaled the heady vapor rising from the warm brandy, then downed the last of it in a single swallow.

Reaching behind his head, he felt for the interface plug and pulled it from the socket implanted there. The tropical paradise was obliterated as dark grey rock and dusty mine air assaulted his senses like marauders in the night.

Tom stood and tossed the flavored drink bladder and textured yeast wrapper into the recycler. Wiping his hands on his grimy coveralls, he grabbed his drill and trudged down the dark wet passage back to work.

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