365 tomorrows

Author : J. S. Kachelries

Officer Gannon of the Washington DC Police was clandestinely peeking around the trunk of a large maple tree next to the curb. A patrol car pulled up behind him and turned off its headlights. Sergeant Jose Viernes climbed out. “Hey, Bill, dispatch said you requested backup. What’s going on?”

Gannon whispered, “See those two trick or treaters that look like aliens from another planet? Well, they’re acting very suspiciously. They only go to the houses of Senators and Congressmen. They just walked four blocks, from Congressman Bartlett’s house to Senator Mikulski’s house, but didn’t stop anywhere in between.”

“Maybe they give out the best candy.”

“No, there’s more than that. Once they enter a house, they stay for over five minutes. No normal kid would do that.”

“Wait a minute. Are you trying to say that you think they’re terrorists?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous. I’m saying that I think they are aliens from another planet. It’s a perfect cover. They can walk around all night and nobody would notice. They must be collecting intelligence.”

“Intelligence? From democrats? Now who’s being ridiculous?”

“Ha, ha, very funny. Well, I don’t care what you think. I’m confronting them when they come out. You just watch my back.”

When the two little “aliens” reached the sidewalk, officer Gannon drew his gun, “Freeze right there,” he barked. The two aliens dropped their candy bags and put their hands in the air. Their arms were visibly trembling. “I’m on to you guys,” he continued. “This charade is over. You’re coming with me.” He reached over and grabbed one of the alien’s antennas and pulled him toward the patrol car. His rubber mask popped off, revealing a small, petrified, blond haired, blue eyed boy. The child dropped to his knees and covered his head with his rubber alien hands, “Please don’t shoot me,” he pleaded.

Sergeant Viernes broke into laughter. “Nice going, Bill. Now he’ll have nightmares ’till Christmas. It’s OK son,” he said as he attempted to comfort the boy, “he was only kidding. You know, just a little joke on Halloween. Now, go ahead and pick up your bags and have fun.” Viernes walked past the children and gingerly removed the gun from Gannon’s numb grip, and handed the alien mask back to the child. “Com’on Bill, lets get you some donuts. I think your blood sugar is out of whack.”

The moment the patrol car was out of sight, the two kids took off in the opposite direction. They cut through a dense hedge, and stopped in the back yard of an abandoned house. One of the children pressed a button on his belt, and their spaceship decloaked and lowered a ramp. The two aliens scampered inside and reactivated the cloak. “Tuomita kadotukseen, that was close,” said Taa-Lol. “I thought he was going to look into our bags and find our mind-suckers. I’m so glad the High Council recommended that we use nested costumes, in case we got confronted. Those guys are geniuses.”

Fee-Kak disagreed. “The High Council are idiots,” he remarked. “How are we supposed to gather intelligence, if we can only operate one day a year? At this rate, we won’t be ready to invade for a century.” He began removing his costumes, “You know,” he said, “tonight’s scare gives me an idea. Get the High Council on the hyper-space radio.”

Starting November 1, 2007, the advanced scouts of the Lalande Imperial Invasion Fleet began collecting intelligence 365 days a year, disguised as children.

Author : Geoffrey Cashmore

“I hate this bit.” Tress settled back into her trans-seat and blinked as the young man in the blue uniform smiled and sprayed a puff of Tranq into her face.

“Blurq!” In the next seat, her husband lay back too as his host closed the canopy and set the dials, “Why can’t they make this stuff taste better? I hate peppermint.”

Tress leant over to whisper “They’re all so good looking…the hosts.”

Pol grunted “Yeah. You know they’re all gay, don’t you?”

“No, that’s just a myth.” Tress lay back again, giggling at the idea. “You’re just jealous.”

“Me? Jealous?” Pol flapped a large hand dismissively in the air, “I’m telling you, common knowledge. All gay.” He let out a long yawn, “Not that it matters – ‘cept if you think about it too hard – then it’s kinda weird…”

Tress felt the oxygen lamina start, “Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s quite a turn on.” She didn’t hear Pol’s reply – not in her own ears. By the time the couple were ready to board the cruiser, their identities were established in their respective hosts, ready for the risky trip to Rigel-12.

Dozens of similar looking men in snug fitting blue uniforms stood in rows at the foot of the boarding ramp.

“Pol? Is that you?” Tress thought her voice sounded rather deep.

“Yeah, hey, look…put your badge on so I can find you in the crowd a little easier.” One man helped another fit a small plastic card with Tress’s photo onto his collar clip. “Ok…I think we’re ready to board.”

The other man turned away for a moment, looking over towards the trans-bays “Bye, me.” He said, then ran to catch the others as they climbed the boarding ramp. “Hey, Pol…nice butt!”

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Today I’m teaching my new arm how to stack discs on a peg. This exercise is no different from everything else I’ve done here lately. All pretty much futile. The way it’s supposed to work is with my real right arm I place the biggest blue ring on the peg, and then I try to will the metal hand at the end of my phantom arm into putting a second blue ring on the other peg. It learns, or it’s supposed to be learning how I make my good arm move. They’ve wired it to both the remains of my left bicep, and my good right arm. It’s also tapped into the big nerve bundles where they enter my spinal column. That freaks me out just thinking about it. The idea is that the prosthetic arm will watch what my right arm does when I make it move, and then it will somehow recognize the similar instructions I give my phantom arm, and act on them. It sounded like it could work, but it’s been a slow process.

“You’re thinking too hard.” The doctor’s a bit of an arrogant ass, but I’m here on his nickel, so I tolerate him as best I can. “I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but don’t over-think this, you’ll just confuse it. Close your eyes, count to ten backwards and put both rings on at the same time.”

“Sure Doc, whatever you say.” He may be on to something, I know there are things I do better without thinking. “10, 9, 8.”

“Good, good! There, you see it works. You just have to think less.”

Both blue rings are on both pegs. Shit. He might be right. Of course, this arm just did something when I wasn’t looking, and that’s a little weird.

“Try the orange one. Don’t think, just do it.” His cheerful tone really grates on my nerves, he’s got two good arms and isn’t stuck in the kindergarten play room stacking blocks all day.

“Good, good! There, you see, you’ve done it again.” Ok, that’s just not right at all. It’s like the arm’s trying to impress him or something. It is working though, there’s no question about that. Maybe if I try harder, no, maybe if I try a little less hard, maybe I’ll get the hang of this thing. I’ve been waiting for an arm like this for almost a year now, I mean an arm I can actually control, one I can actually get to do things I want done. Maybe stacking discs for a little while longer’s not such a big deal.

“Good, good! There, you see, you’ve finished.” I really should pay more attention than that, I mean, I wasn’t even trying that time. This is going to take a bit of getting used to.

I wonder how long has this arm been waiting for me?

Author : Cody Lorenz

One explosion behind her, one to the left. Sylvia ducked into the nearest available hole, just as the third boom sent dust into that very same nook.

She crouched, grabbing up the carbine, flipping open its cover, and staring at the little screen, pausing first to wipe the grime away. Her fingers hammered at buttons, trying to restart the damned thing.

They were coming.

She had to split off the maintenance plate to get to the glowing center. Power core, tubes one through seven, focusing arrays, batteries, circuit boards.

Their steps were heavy – what choice did a half-ton creature have but to be lumbering?

The bridge of her nose began to pound. This could mean only one thing.

Ah, one of the ‘sistors knocked out. It only took five seconds to fix, and she went running back out of her hiding place.

Sylvia was indeed the best shot in her battle group (well, only shot, now), and when she took aim, one of the beasts fell, crackling with the leftover energy discharges, leaving a car-sized grave for itself in the ground. She didn’t smile, or cry, simply did it. Again, and again, she fired, until the world seemed to be coated in a veil of superheated plasma. The world only got its color back when there was no more ammo, and she felt her head beginning to truly ache.

A finger was placed on the tip of her nose, and then the pain exploded.

She blinked out the temp implants, sitting up, a man immediately handed her a tissue. Her clothes (not fatigues – just your standard “I’m twenty and hot so notice me!” clothes) were getting stained red.

“Well, Miss Smith, we’ve come to believe your play testing duties are over,” the man said, one of those lab coated and goggled men who never got any sun or exercise, “Take heart, though, young lady, in that you’ve helped perfect the ultimate system for home enjoyment. We only need to work on that problem you’re experiencing.”

“What, the bloody nose?” She wiped at it, sniffling some, coughing once, and finally balling a piece of tissue up to use as a rudimentary plug, “It’s worth it!”

Author : Grady Hendrix

The woman on the bus was beautiful. That was true of most suicide bombers – they had a glow about them like an expectant mother or a rich man. The bus turned up the hill and she tried not to let her elbows bump into the explosives strapped to her ribs.

When she’d been gang raped by her kitchen appliances it was the dishwasher that made the first move, pinning her against the counter while the Cuisinart and the blender immobilized her arms with their power cords. The microwave pulled her down to the floor and then they all piled on. She blacked out a few times but it wasn’t a tasteful fade-out like in the movies; time was chopped up and spliced back together. She blinked at seven o’clock, and then it was seven thirty and the appliances were dragging her across the floor like a rag doll, then she blinked again and they were all back in their places like nothing had ever happened.

The police poked around the bushes behind her house, even after she told them that the perpetrators were all back on their shelves and in their cupboards. The ER was a mixed blessing: her insides were burnt and lacerated and her arms were a contused mess, but they all thought she was crazy. That is, until the defibrillator lurched off its trolley, grabbed her with one of its paddles and used the other to drop the registered nurse. They both screamed, except the registered nurse’s scream was more like a moan because she was seizing. Two cops and a resident burst in to witness the defib tearing at Catherine’s blouse. She managed to throw it against the wall but it flipped itself over and started to drag itself after her by its paddles. The cop shot it until it was smoking plastic shards but still they refused to believe her.

She moved into a motel. The TV went out in the hall. The telephone went in the tub. She was reconciling herself to moving off the grid someplace, maybe Idaho, when she saw the manager’s children playing Xbox one night through their window, and she saw the way the controllers always managed to burrow their way, slyly and invasively, into the childrens’ laps.

The bus pulled over. Nobody would ever understand why she was doing this, but someone had to stop them. And so she stood up and walked out onto the street and found that the Maytag factory was abandoned. A single security hut was at the gate.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Oh, honey,” the security guard said. “They all moved to China.”

“But the appliances – “

“Made in Taiwan. Made in India. We just importers now. It’s enough to make me cry, too. You need a cigarette?”

The vest was manual, just a fuse that needed to be lit. And why not? She couldn’t stop this invasion by foreign – by alien – appliances. But she could make sure they wouldn’t ever have her body again.

Author : Emily Cleaver

Something was wrong. The explosions cracked through Kinleigh’s earpiece. On the periphery of his vision to the left delicate violet orchids of plasma fire bloomed in the low gravity against the black bulk of the hill. They were firing. Why the fuck were they firing? He felt fear kick at his stomach. His fingers scrabbled at the comm switch.

“Unit B cease fire. Cease fire! Acknowledge last transmission. Serious hazard. Volatile gas. Cease fucking fire!”

The earpiece hissed. The sound of firing came again, this time from the right. Nolan’s unit. The fear thumped at his guts. His eyes tried to penetrate the shadows beneath the branches of the fat black plants belching their vapours all around them. They were strange to him, not a type they’d catalogued yet. He turned to Brite, her face a dead pearl sheen through the thickness of her visor. He touched her arm through the suit, its warmth familiar. That electric jolt he always felt when he touched her, even after all these years, shot through him. Panic rose in his throat. He had to get her away before he went after the others.

“Brite. They’re not responding. They’re going to blow us all up.”

“What are they firing at?”

“I don’t fucking know. We scanned the wood. There’s nothing here but us.”

Kinleigh glanced at the readout on his wrist. Still only the blinking warning light for volatile gasses. There was nothing to fire at.

On the hill one of the plasma bolts hit a gas pocket and the sky lit up an angry purple. Brite’s eyes were fixed on the flickering light. Her suit needed venting. He could see the rubber clinging to her, outlining the neat curve of her breasts as she sucked away the last of the air inside. He knew why she didn’t vent. He could feel it himself, the reluctance to open the ducts to the alien dark. Inside the suit was safety. Outside it was everything else. Its protective embrace pinched at him tightly as he used up his own air. For a moment he was back in the in warmth of their dorm bunk, feeling Brite’s small soft lips pull hungrily at his skin. He didn’t want to open the vent.

“Brite? We have to move.”

Her breath tugged at her suit from inside and she stepped back. His hand hovered over the duct control. Breathe and risk dying. Don’t breath, die. He vented.

His suit inhaled. Brite’s eyes were fixed on him, huge. The sponges in the ducts expanded and shrank as they filtered. But he could smell something different in the new lung of air, something mad and awful from the night. Shapes pulsed in his vision and terror tightened his muscles. Brite became monstrous in front of him, a writhing limb from one of the black plants reaching out to touch his face. He fired.

The plasma poured from his gun and bloomed towards her like the offering of an exotic flower.

Author : Viktor Kuprin

Father was up late cleaning his long rifle and my old musket. Mother fried biscuits and packed pickle dog for us to take on our trip to Fort Needmore.

No, we don’t eat dogs. That’s just what we called pickled baloney. We always took it when we went into the woods.

I’d only been to the fort a couple of times. Father said we had to go. There was big trouble coming, and the Americans couldn’t help us. They didn’t have enough ships or soldiers.

Some said the Americans didn’t care about our world because we didn’t have much money and they didn’t want our furs and mussels for trade. Instead, the CIS Space Army, the Russians, would be coming.

The next morning Mother put out my best buckskins and boots. But then she bawled something awful when we hit the trail. She cried so hard, Father had to help her back inside the cabin. That scared me.

It was the end of the hot season, so we had an easy hike through the woods. The air was sweet and the ground was dry. We stopped once to watch a big fat rockchuck grubbing around a bunch of wineberry bushes. Father told me to leave it be.

When we got to Fort Needmore, the Russians were there. They wore strange hats and clothes, all dark blue or camouflaged. Even some of their ladyfolk wore uniforms. On their suits there was a weird patch that looked like black noodles with a ball on top. Father said it was the CIS flag. Some of them wore red rocket-and-sickle medallions.

The big meeting was held in front of the distillery. We gathered around, and a Russian with white hair and blue eyes stood on a whiskey barrel to talk to us. He said everyone had to come to the fort, and to bring all our black powder and ammunition. The “Yelgrammites” were coming and we had to fight them.

Father acted like he didn’t believe the Russian. “You mean helgrammites? Like we seine up out of the river rocks?”

The Russian nodded. “Da, but bigger. In spaceships they come, thousands and thousands. They have intelligence, but they don’t communicate with us. They show no mercy. We must make ready to fight soon. Or they kill you and take your world.”

After the meeting, the Russians handed out packages to everyone in the crowd. Father told me to get one. A pretty Russian lady dressed in white handed it to me.

When we got back to the cabin that night, Father let Mother open the package. Inside it was sacks of buckwheat, canned food, medicines, and square blocks wrapped up in silver foil. Mother handed one of the blocks to me. I couldn’t read the Cyrillic letters on the pretty paper, so I just ripped it open.

I thought it looked like smashed skat. It really did, all brown and…well. Father and Mother laughed and laughed. They told me to taste it. And it was heavenly good. Mother thought it was chocolate, but Father said chocolate costs over a hundred dollars a kilo. The Russians would not be giving that away. I know now that it was a carob bar.

I broke the carob into small pieces so it would last longer. Father and Mother both took some. And as we enjoyed that sweet treat, sitting together as a family by the light of the oil lamps, we didn’t know what was coming.

Outside, from high in the night sky, we heard sounds like thunder, the sonic booms. Father ran for his rifle.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

Kathleen Wright entered the Temporal Control Room after being notified of a Class I permutation to the Primary Timeline. “I got your message, Williams. What’s the problem?”

“Sorry to bother you on your day off, Ms Wright, but it appears that Charlie snapped. He was supposed to go back to November 1963 to replace the pristine ‘magic bullet’ from the Kennedy assignation with a severely damaged bullet. But he completely disregarded his mission objective, and did something that irrevocably altered the timeline.”

“Williams,” she corrected, “for us, nothing is irrevocable. We can send a security team to pre-date him. We’ll bring him back before he changes the timeline.”

“You don’t understand Ms Wright. He’s established at least a dozen time-anchors. He’s entrenched. We can’t bring him back.”

“Time-anchors? Field agents aren’t trained to do that. It requires a Senior Temporal Analyst.”

“Well, he figured out how to do it.” He swiveled in his chair to face her. “I think he’s got Temporal Psychosis. There is a definite pattern of impaired judgment, irrational behavior, paranoia, schizophrenia, and dementia.”

Wright sat down at a terminal and accessed Charlie’s Psych-Evaluation. “Hmm, eleven months ago his evaluation showed him to be marginal, but within the mean minus three sigma threshold. It was recommended that he have minimal exposure to chroniton radiation, but the union filed a grievance because that prevented him from working overtime. He was allowed to operate pending administrative review, which apparently never occurred. Oh well, I guess that’s sand through the hourglass. We’ll deal with mission protocols after we fix this permutation. Our immediate concern now is to minimize the damage he’s caused.”

Williams handed Wright a printout of the new timeline. “Look at the altfuture,” Ms Wright. “Charlie was at the center of major riots in the 1970′s that practically destroyed the United States. President Nixon declared Martial law. Millions of people were killed. The Soviet Union ends up the only super power for centuries. We don’t exist in the new timeline. My wife and kids are gone.”

“Don’t worry Williams. We can fix this. First of all, what are our options? Can we kill him in early 1964?”

“Only if it doesn’t cause a contradiction with the time-anchors. I’ll check. Damn, the anchors extend into the twenty first century. We need to neutralize him using non-fatal methods. I was thinking, Ms Wright, if he’s already psycho, maybe we can get him committed. They were doing that all the time back then. We only need him neutralized until the 1980′s.”

“No, Williams, it’s too easy to escape from mental hospitals, or to be released. We need him locked up in maximum security. And he needs to be discredited. Everybody must regard him as a total psychopath. Call in Harrison, White, and Starkey to devise an impact assessment. Also, have them recommend mitigation options. Tell them he’s got to be convicted of a horrific crime. Multiple murders, at least. They’ll need to establish a past. He must be an orphan, or have abusive parents. Don’t worry, Williams. This will be much easier to fix than when Adolf crossed over.”

Author : Sam Clough aka “Hrekka”, Staff Writer

“What’s that?” Cal asked, gesturing to the ornately patterned box resting on the mat in the centre of Petra’s cabin. His passenger had a southerner’s skin, and the wrist spurs that showed her to be a Kadian, a native of the desert.

“La boîte de ciel,” she murmured, then paused, and looked up at him, “my sky-box. I am razir.”

“Skyhacker,” Cal breathed, examining the box more closely. It was a solid block of metal, fifty cents on each edge, the sides ornately inlaid with organic patterns. The top of the block was dominated by a giant circular dial, demarcated like a clock face, with sixty fine graduations. A disc of metal with a single indicator sat within the dial, and at its centre was a hole that would take a large, cylinder-style key.

The Razir — or more popularly, Skyhackers, were the only group to ever find a functional ‘emergency weather controller’. Anyone with a telescope knew full well that the morning stars that encircled the planet were artificial satellites, and most scientists assumed that they had something to do with the very predictable weather patterns which covered the continent. Most of those same scientists refused to credit the claims of Raziran weather control — but most aviators worshipped razir as gods amongst men.

“Come see,” Petra beckoned him over, and fished a large key from the pile of clothing spread across her bunk. She knelt down by the box, and Cal copied, kneeling opposite her. She took his hands, wrapping them gently around the key. The key snicked into the hole, a tight fit.

“Eeks co-ordonnez.” She twisted the key, and the dial clicked round to thirty-five. A light pressure, and the key clicked lower.

“Egrek co-ordonnez.” She twisted the key again, this time setting the dial to thirty. Once again, she clicked the key lower, and twisted it to ten.

“Il pleut. It rains.” She smiled, and pointedly clicked the key down yet further.

She set two final digits, then rapidly pulled the key out.

Cal, realising that he had been holding his breath, slowly exhaled. The box remained where it sat between the pilot and his passenger, as inert as ever.

“Did it work?” Cal asked, slightly disappointed at the anticlimax. Petra shrugged, her limited english obviously exhausted. Unhappy with himself for getting so excited, Cal returned to the dirigible’s controls. The sky had been clear blue, to the horizon, now outside the shadow of the dirigible’s envelope, clouds were forming.

Petra had entered the cockpit behind him. He glanced at her, and saw her warm expression.

“L’art du ciel.”

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

Agent 13 jumped out of the bomb-bay doors of the scrambler jet into silent extended twilight.

He fell for three calm, wind-buffeted minutes before starfishing his teflon squirrelwings out. The wrist-to-ankle elastic bodychute helped him brake with no heat signature before he hit the living hull of a brand new Hindenberg six miles up in the middle of a raincloud.

It was damp to the touch and warm in the rain like a lover’s skin. Agent 13’s goggles irised open wide to light the area he was going to cut.

X-ray flashes gave him an idea of the strutwork underneath and the number of nearby workers walking skeletal on the night shift of the upper levels.

He was surprised by the hundreds of small skeletons hanging upside-down amongst the giant ribs of the airship.

Bats. Well, they could help with the confusion.

Agent 13 knelt on the hull and let the pads of his suit’s knees grip tight to the weave. Leaning back, he extended his arm straight up and fired a wide dispersal of metal spider-silk streamers around him. They were charged with flat electrons. Irresistible to strikes.

Make the lightning come running.

With a sound like the ripping of the world, the lightning struck the hull around Agent 13. He knelt in the middle of the lightstorm and plunged his scalpel-edged fingertips down and through the cheeseclotch, vinyl, and polycarbon.

Air blasted out.

He flipped himself down and through the gap like a diver into the darkness inside. The bats were screaming.

Three workers rushed past him to repair the damage. It would be written up as a lightning strike and forgotten about. Agent 13 was invisible in the shadows with the camcells activated.

He climbed deeper into the shadows and darkness to the heart.

Author : Simon Petrie

Afar contemplates lifting something small, a souvenir, but is distracted by the conversation at the next table:

“…forgot our anniversary, so I’m sending flowers back.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“You kidding? It’s just one day. Not going to affect anything, except avoid an argument.”

“Still don’t see why they allow it. Bloody dangerous, you ask me.”

“Na, we’re protected by paradox. Anyone wanted to change the past, badly, far enough back, things shift so that person didn’t exist, or time travel hadn’t been invented. Then that action wouldn’t have occurred; past doesn’t change. Machine just seizes, briefly, if someone tries that. But anyhow … you reckon roses or daffs?”

“Why ask me? She’s your wife.”

Afar stands up and leaves. Hopes he still looks inconspicuous, though it really doesn’t matter anymore. It’s not possible to grab a souvenir: salt cellar, spoon, whatever. Not simply disallowed, not possible. There’ll be memories, at most, even if he survives. It’s a pity. He’s learnt much of this culture over the past months. His intended actions are necessary, he knows; yet he feels remorse, frustration at the cost in time, sheer uncertainty. Stage fright. Nerves.

Down the street, he passes a kiosk. They’re everywhere, time travel has blossomed. Natural-disaster fatalities are rare now; missed appointments a thing of the past. (There is talk, even, of grandiose new pathways in spaceflight: install a kiosk on a spaceship; send crew, equipment, and braking fuel ahead to just before arrival.) The kiosks are busy, heavily policed.

Afar, also, has time travel business today, but what he intends won’t work on any other time machine in the world. He’s brought his own device, folded in his heavy briefcase.

He reaches the park. A cold day, overcast, easy enough to find a deserted spot. He opens the case, assembles his machine. Nobody here is going to recognise it as a time machine. It resembles an easel.

The case contains also six dull metal globes, the size of croquet balls, but heavier, and cold. Antimatter, painstakingly contained. Payload. He aligns them along the machine’s waist-high tray, locks them in position, loads coordinates.

It’s taken him months to prepare: the orbital mechanics require incredible precision. Pin-point accuracy, within a few kilometres’ depth, across a six-million-year gulf. He’s aiming for twelve kilometres down: six antimatter grapefruit, evenly spaced along the fault underlying the rift valley from which he’s chosen his alias. Afar. Ethiopia. Home of the proto-hominids. It should go almost magnitude 10. But the volcanic follow-through will be the real killer.

He looks around. In the distance, there’s a couple sitting on a bench; a woman dog-walking; a man and his daughter exploring the playground. Further afield, cars, sporadic aircraft, the bustling city. People going about their daily lives, wondering whether to go with roses or daffodils. As if it mattered.

He regrets the necessity to obliterate, to kill: he has deep respect for life. But life will continue, after his interruption; merely without one particular species and its invasive civilization. Probably be better for it.

He laughs a little. The man from the café would say Afar’s plan wouldn’t work. Nobody on Earth could use a time machine to retrospectively erase humanity, because that’s a paradox. And he’s right; but he’s also wrong. Nobody from earth.

Afar? He’s from Alpha Centauri, here to eliminate a potential threat to his homeworld.

He throws the switch and waits for the world to reorder itself.

Author : Beth Mathison

She knew it was a bad idea when the man dropped dead in front of her.

She had seen death before, when she had lived on the streets. But that had been long ago, almost a different life. The suddenness of this man’s death had caught her off guard.

“Cari, we go now,” Chin told her, tugging on her leather jacket. “We leave this place.”

Chin’s cool reaction told her that he had most likely seen death before, too.

She carried the data within her right wrist, a tiny bump of skin the only indication that she was a courier. It wasn’t the worst job in the world, she knew. Lugging data in the surgically designed port on the underside of her right arm. It paid the bills. She could work when she wanted.

This job was unexpected, with her friend Chin suggesting they make a run together with a courier named Duncan. Chin introduced them as they ported at the origin site, their three arms stretched across the company’s mainframe. The tech was using some kind of new transfer cable and software, and it burned her skin as the data flowed into her. Cari thought that Duncan was handsome in a rugged, country way, his blue eyes intense. As they waited for the data to fill their respective ports, Duncan’s gaze settled on the logo stitched across her shirt for just a moment too long. He looked back up, and she had held his gaze.

Now he was dead, his eyes fixed towards the dirty metro terminal’s ceiling. A thin trickle of blood streamed out of his nose.

Chin was pulling her along now, Duncan’s body lost in the crowd. The station was packed, as usual, and Cari found herself shoved into a car, Chin barely making it as the doors swished closed. They hung onto a thick metal pole, swaying as the bullet train strained forward.

The three of them had been headed north to the city’s edge to deliver the data. Chin had changed directions, pulling them into a car heading downtown.

Chin was pale under his dark skin, and she reached out and gently lifted his left hand. Turning it over, she saw that his port site was red. She wondered if Duncan’s had looked the same before he fell.

She knew where they were going, down to see Izzy, the black market’s master data miner. She and Chin had about sixty minutes before the chip in the data alerted the authorities that they were rogue. Izzy would know how to reverse the software and remove the data.

“Cari,” Chin whispered, leaning into her. “You must hurry if I fall.” His eyes were closed.

The car slipped under the river, and the world outside turned a frantic shade of blue and black. She closed her own eyes and thought of herself as a piece of data, flowing along some long, complicated logic stream.

Her wrist burned now, her head filling with a bright light and buzzing sound that made her nauseous.

She wondered about the data in her wrist, what new technology had gone viral and decided to terminate its hosts. She had just wanted an easy job, to carry data from overly cautious clients eagerly protecting their data. She felt Chin’s arm relax in her hand, falling away from her.

Opening her eyes, she watched as the train exploded out from under the river into the bright sunlight. The city gleaming above them like some precious jewel as they headed for the station.

The radiance filled her then, the data working throughout her fragile body. And she let herself go, allowing the light to take her.

Author : Debbie Mac Rory

The thing shrieked like a badly tuned violin.

“It’s been making those sounds for days now”, the woman said. The white-robed man nodded absentmindedly; he was unable to tear his eyes away from the creature on the examining table.

A lumpy looking creature with gray-brown skin which was strangely cold and gravelly to the touch lay there, three of its six legs pushed weakly against the stainless steel surface of the examining table.

“I… em… well, you see… eh…”

The woman nodded her understanding and bent down to speak to the young boy at her side, whose attention had been given solely to the animal before him.

“Peter, why don’t you step outside for a moment? Mommy and the animal doctor need to talk about grown-up things”.

The small boy nodded his head slowly, and reached out to stroke the small creature. His mother gave him a moment or two, then ushered him out into the waiting room. Taking a deep breath, Will prepared to explain what he could.

“You see, Mrs. Langdon, it’s just.. I can’t really do anything. I’m not a vet, I’m a xenobiologist-”

“Oh I know”, Mrs. Langdon interrupted. “But we’d already tried our zone doctor, and she was the one who suggested we come to you”.

Will nodded, letting his gaze stray back to the animal for a moment. He could swear that some of the spots of its back were turned towards him, listening as he condemned it to leave once more without aid.

“Mrs. Langdon, there is nothing I can do. To be honest, I was surprised when we heard the announcement telling us that the base was going to be accepting colonists and even family units, so early in its launch. We’re just not equipped yet to deal with it all. That” he swung an arm to point at the table, “is not even something I’ve encountered before, and my whole purpose of being here is to catalogue the native fauna”.

Mrs. Langdon nodded. “I just don’t know what I’m going to tell Peter, he’s gotten so attached to the wee thing. I.. I don’t suppose I could say that you’ve kept it in for tests? Maybe that’d give his father a chance to catch another one”.

“Certainly, Mrs. Langdon, that’s no problem at all”

Will shook Mrs. Langdon’s hand, and showed her to the door, closing it again on the beginning of her explanations on “special tests” that Spot – he shuddered, he simply wasn’t able to think of that thing as a pet, especially not one that shared a name with a dog he’d long since left behind – was going to need.

Returning to the table, he stood looking down at the animal. With a speed and agility that belied both its shape and apparent illness, the animal lunged for Will’s hand. Will leaped back, clutching the hand that had only barely retained all its fingers to his chest.

“Vicious little bugger…”

Author : J.R.Blackwell, Staff Writer

Lucias XI, the Star Prince, son of Byron II, the Merchant King, threw open the double doors to the marble war room. His demeanor was fierce, his face chiseled, displaying no emotion. His wiry body was tense, coiled. He pointed as he stomped into the room, his heels clicking against the marble.

“Minister Holt, please explain the meaning of this!” He waved his hand, and in his palm there appeared a miniature version of the emerald robed Minister.

Holt’s voice was smooth in the recording. “The Prince has, not a wife, but a monster, their union an abomination-” The Prince closed his palm, his breath coming hard.

Holt bowed. “Has the Parliament revoked the freedom of safe expression act, my Lord? ”

“I expect that my enemies will attack my personal life Minister, but from my friends-”

“Nothing of your life is personal my Lord, nothing.”

“My marriage was a public arrangement, my enjoyment of my wife’s company is private.”

“Not when that enjoyment endangers your life!”

The Prince whirled, turning to the assembled Generals. “You are dismissed. Minister Holt and I are about to have words.” The Generals filed out. The Prince calmed his breathing, his gloved hand unclenching slowly. A strand of purple hair, royal purple, the symbol of his royalty fell over his hazel eyes. Tall and slim, he stood a foot taller than Holt.

The Prince looked down at the Minster through thick violet lashes. “Xixor would never hurt me.”

“There is scar on your chest, your Excellency, that says otherwise.”

“An accident.”

“Your life cannot afford accident, my lord. You are a precious resource, a finely tuned genetic triumph, your code idealized to the standards we require, as was your father and thousand mothers. Nobility obliges my Lord; you are not allowed to play dice with your life. I have only said aloud what the populace already mutters. You did not see what we saw lord, for you were unconscious, but the four world saw your limp, bleeding body in the arms of a black oily beast, claws streaked with your blood, that’s what the people saw, and we must answer to their concerns.”

“My wife, Minister. She is my wife.”

“An alien monster.”

“I won’t hear your xenophobia.”

“Then you will not hear the words of your people.”

“I married her so there would be understanding between our people and hers.”

“The understanding, my Lord, is that she will someday eat you. You, who we have worked so hard to design.”

The Star Prince leaned against the wall, his head resting against the marble. “I love her Holt.” He ran a hand across his chest. “What she did, that was how she shows her affection toward me. I was built to be a prince of reason, of diplomacy.”

Holt hung his head. “We built you too well.”

Author : Steven Holland

You awake; the familiar smell of synthetic, processed food greets you. The pneumatic tube has delivered three packages of food. They contain artificial eggs, sausage, and pancakes today, just like every day. You, Stackhouse, and Sergeant Zimmerman begin your breakfast. It’s the three of you today, just like everyday.

As you eat, it never occurs to you that you can’t remember a time when you didn’t live in this room, eating the same food with the same two men. You never question why you are being kept in this large, featureless room. The room houses bunk beds, exercise equipment, several couches, two ping pong tables, and one locked door. The dozen bunk beds, coupled with the large size of the room, suggest that 24 men could be housed here comfortably. You have often wondered why only three men need such a large room. You never once suspect that you might be being held prisoner in here. Instead, you know with confidence that you live in this room; you have always lived in this room.

The door opens at 0930 hours, just like usual. In walk four men clothed completely in white hazmat suits. They take Sergeant Zimmerman and half walk, half drag him out of the room. One of the four men mumbles something about taking him for some tests and not to be worried. They can rest easy; you’re not worried. They always take him for tests at exactly this time every day. The door closes after them with a familiar metallic hiss. This sound always triggers you to look down at your left arm. You do so as is your custom. You wonder, as always, why the half dozen needle marks peppering your upper shoulder never heal. They look exactly the same as they always have. You don’t think to ask what was injected into you. You could care less; a warm, fuzzy, and detached feeling swirls around and in your brain. This is the way you feel; this is the way you have always felt.

The rest of the day passes without incidence, exactly as it always does. You and Stackhouse entertain yourselves by lifting weights, playing ping pong, and trying to guess the exact moment when the quiet hiss of air from the pneumatic tube will announce the next meal. Lunch and dinner arrive promptly on time, each meal composed of the exact same food as the day before. The two of you don’t talk much, for there is not much to talk about. Nothing ever changes in the room. At 2200 hours, the lights shut off. You are already in bed and fall asleep immediately.

You awake; the familiar smell of synthetic, processed food greets you. The pneumatic tube has delivered two packages of food. They contain artificial hash browns, french toast, and glazed ham today, just like every day. You and Stackhouse begin your breakfast. It’s the two of you today, just like everyday.

Author : Tim Brown

The wind blew fiercely from behind him, ruffling his long chestnut colored hair and brushing it over his eyes. Absentmindedly he took his slender fingers and pushed the shoulder-length strands aside, hardly putting thought to the bellowing gales coming from the north. He should have felt the chill it was spreading over his body, should have had the hairs on his arms and legs standing on end, goose-bumps forming underneath.

Of course, he should have felt the fear of standing atop a seventy story building––on it’s edge no less. But there was nothing. No tremors; no disorientation; no fear. He held his hand out in front of his face staring blankly into his palm. Hard to believe under these thin layers of flesh and tissue something so simple lay underneath.

He glared into his palm now. His ears could practically hear the mechanized humming and clicks going on with the slightest movements of his body; the flow of data through cables and wiring (probably purchased at a local retail store). There was no mystery in here… nothing but junkyard computer parts conveniently structured in the form of a human. He tore his hand away from his eyes, the sight made him sick (if he had a stomach that could turn).

His gaze traveled downward. People––regular people were going on with their lives; not a care in the world. All different kinds. Tall; short; skinny; large. Some were walking or running, most of the others were driving or riding. Each had a different look or attitude about them. They were individuals; they were…. Unique. Hours before he had seen his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’, they had all looked alike, sleek, thin, beautiful, handsome; anything that had been deemed ‘pleasant upon the eyes’. He continued to watch the humans on their daily routines. His vision picked up on a child walking down the street; her mother was kneeling down, inspecting a freshly placed bandage on her knee, and placing a gentle kiss upon it.

Underneath their skin was where the mysteries began; and not just the anatomical structure. How did they come to be? What drives them on? What makes them…. Them? It was certainly more complicated than the central processor that motivated him.

He was an appliance, an experiment. Nothing more. Nobody would care for him––love him. He was a machine. Nothing more. No matter how human he looked, no matter how many emotions they could have programmed him to feel the fact remained was that he simply was not one of them.

He brought one leg forward and put his weight over. His body fell. On the way down his expression never changed, he made no more movements. He felt nothing and had no fear.

Because when he hit the ground, he would not be dead. He would simply be broken.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

The red vinyl of the gearshifter was warm from conducting the engine heat. I readjusted my grip on the softening plastic and aimed for the sun. This was gravity surfing at its finest.

The cab of my surfship was alive with luck trinkets. Dice from friends, small engine parts from past crashes, nicks in the windshield denoting dead surfers that I knew. Even the knob on the gearshift was a gift from Johnny Demon back when he was a star and I was a promising upstart.

He told me I had something special.

Well, he’s dead now and he must have seen something that wasn’t there because I’m now old, unfamous, and my surfing runs are cautious. It’s like these surfships are held together by will alone and my will is fading. At the beginning of a shake or a shudder, I pull back and just let myself find the easiest parabola.

The gravity well grabbed hold of me and I started the roller coaster slingshot of mathematical certainty. The trick was to do it without computers. One had to guess from experience and feel the best point in the invisible miasma of gravity to cut one’s engines and just go with it.

There came a point about halfway through the arc where even if one was to turn one’s engines on and try to carve out of the path one was on, it wouldn’t matter. The gravity of the sun was too much. It would be like trying to swim against a tidal wave back on Earth.

The light and radiation from the sun flooded the cab of my surfship. My plants were grateful and lapped it up. I always imagined them telling their plant friends back home about their exotic journeys.

Every year there were a few surfers that wrecked. There were also a few with lush endorsements that dropped out and quit while they were ahead.

And every few years, a surfer winked out.

The thing is with these ships and these shields, there are times when people approach 0.8c of light. Now and again, a surfer steps lightly across that lightspeed boundary and disappears. They wink out.

Logic dictates that they’ve been smeared into greasy atoms but I like to think that they’ve pierced reality with the nose of their ship and gone somewhere else.

This is why I pointed the nose of my ship down to the edge of the horizon for the sharpest hugging curve I’ve ever tried. This was going to be my last run, one way or the other, with one of three outcomes.

Back to earth, up to heaven, or through the fabric of space time to another place.

Author : Grady Hendrix

Tom Rush (D-Massachusetts) squatted and hugged his Labrador-Beagle mix at the perfect angle for the camera to see just how much he loved his dog.

“Mashudu is the luckiest dog in the world and I am so proud to play a part in what has been one of the most successful and widest-reaching relief efforts in the history of this country,” he said.

“Senator, we’re three years into the Freedom Pets program and it’s been an astonishing success. How did you come up with the idea?”

“Well, Mary, I was frustrated by the situation in Africa – I think all Americans were – and while I was in New York one day the papers were talking about a breakthrough in consciousness recording and that same afternoon I saw the Statue of Liberty with its inspiring inscription, ‘Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ And suddenly – eureka!”

“Not many people would make the leap you did.”

Senator Rush threw a ball for Mashudu who raced after it.

“I love that little guy. To me it was natural: Africa needed help but no one wanted some coked-up child soldier from Somalia living in their house, drinking kerosene and stabbing their neighbors. But what if the consciousness, the very essence, of that child could be downloaded into an adorable puppy or a kitten? Americans may not want to adopt a creepy little kid with death in his eyes, but a cute little puppy who holds the consciousness of that individual?” Mashudu trotted back over and dropped the ball at Senator Rush’s feet. “Who could resist?”

“Some critics have questioned the morality of this program.”

“No. I am a strong advocate for morality.”

“But some people would say that it’s wrong to transfer the consciousness of millions of Africans into pets to be adopted by Americans. What reassurances can you give them?”

“Now listen here. I have an unerring sense of right and wrong. And I can assure you that I would not be doing this if it was wrong – whoa! Whoa!”

Mashudu had leapt up and was helplessly humping the reporter’s leg.

“I think he likes you,” laughed Senator Rush as he pulled Mashudu off by his collar. “Go on, chase the ball, boy.” He said, throwing the ball again. Mashudu was off like a shot.

“But couldn’t there be a better way, Senator?”

“Millions of Africans now have a home where they are clean, fed and happy,” Senator Rush said. “And millions of Americans now have pets. Research shows that owning a pet can increase your life expectancy by up to fifteen years. That’s a win-win. It’s not a perfect system, true. A lot of ‘em run out in the street and get hit by cars. I wish that wouldn’t happen. But then again, would you really want to live in a perfect world?”

Mashudu raced back over with the ball.

“Mashudu! Are you happy, boy? Are you happy?”

Mashudu barked excitedly.

“I think that says it all,” the Senator said.

Author : Viktor Kuprin

“B83-1 was the human designation for the devices. We first thought the images might be related to the trigger mechanism, but it isn’t so,” explained Intelligence Reporter PLOF-873 as he followed his commander into the storage bunker. “We have the human leader of this base in custody. There is high confidence that he knows the meaning of these graphics.”

Theater-Attack Commander SKH-1032 was sick of the human race. Their fierce resistance had put the planetary invasion three cycles behind schedule. The fighting had already caused nearly irrecoverable ecological disaster. At least this base in the sector called Alaska had been captured intact. Nearly intact, anyway.

The chief interrogator greeted them as they entered the bunker. Row after row of the devices filled the room. The images had been found painted inside the maintenance plate-covers of almost all the silver-gray cylinders.

In a corner was the now-subdued base commander, Colonel Heffernan. SKH-1032 was pleased that the human was bound with metal and fabric restraints. He had learned early on to never trust humans, even those that offered cooperation.

The interrogator jerked Heffernan to the first cylinder and spoke in the human language.

“What is this?”

Heffernan looked at the cover plate’s image without reaction. “It’s a blonde.”

“A nude human female with golden-colored, dead keratinized cells surrounding its skull and groin,” PLOF-873 offered.

“Ask it about the text,” ordered SKH-103. “What does it say?”

Heffernan read the words aloud: “Bad News For Boris.”

The group moved to the next cylinder.

“And this?”

“It’s a redhead in a negligée, with great legs,” Heffernan said.

“What is the significance of her attire?”

Heffernan held back his desire to sneer and curse the aliens.

“She’s ready to go to bed.”

“You mean she is agreeable and ready for the mating act, correct?” said the interrogator.

“Yes, that is correct, that and a lot more.”

The three aliens looked at the human, puzzled.

“The text?”

“It says “Putin’ It In The Right Place.”

“Meaning what?”

“It’s a pun, a play on words. Putin was once the president of Russia, a potential enemy to the United States,” Heffernan explained.

The interrogator turned to his two superiors. “Even after the ideological rivalry between the two prominent social collectives had ended, the humans continued to maintain these devices. We don’t understand this.”

SKH-1032 grew impatient. The countless paradoxes and mysteries of the human race were tiresome, of no interest to him.

“Enough. Ask what purpose these graphics and messages served.” The interrogator did so.

Heffernan shrugged. “Purpose? To let my guys have a little fun. To improve their morale. I shouldn’t have, but I allowed it. No one but technicians and loaders saw them, and they were all men. I would have had them removed if any women had been assigned to munitions maintenance.”

“Just for entertainment. Amazing,” SKH-1032 concluded, stomping out of the bunker. “Send the human back to the pens,” he ordered.

PLOF-873 stayed behind to help close the maintenance panels of the B83-1 hydrogen bombs.

Author : Nate Swanson

Slice Street is the place to be on a weekend. Part time med students scurry out of university complexes to ply the skills they picked up during classes for a few marks. The sounds of nipping, tucking, and all variety of additions can be heard all over. When someone comes stumbling out of a chop shop complete with an improved body, sometimes with new body parts, the bars are available to supply celebratory beverages.

This is not my thing. Personally, I’m in the mood for some high qual implants. High bandwidth plus free time equals implant fatigue in the poor distributed and a full hard drive. I have a dealer I trust, did my uplink and contacts and there hasn’t been any degradation. But I love walking the street. The newest vat grown muscles, flexing in bubbling jars. Floating ads for nano- and bio-tech implants.

Ducking through the security fog, I said “Hi” to Doctor Zan.

“What can I get you? Looking for some enhanced . . . equipment?” he asks, leering.

“Yeah, no. I need some storage. Terabytes of it.” I pulsed over some specs.

Zan’s eyes scrolled up and down, perusing my carefully crafted e-demands. “Four hundred marks. Non-negotiable. You want techno-organic, bleeding edge. Copy what you got, zero degradation. On the spine, harder then bone. Call it a bonus.”

“Three hundred.”

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll throw in a vocabulary upload. Because apparently you don’t understand the words `non-negotiable.’ The price is four hundred marks. This is Cali made; certificatied and pure. Worth every hundredth.”

“Fine.” Not a bad price. With the Cali tech farms behind the Golden Curtain, the price of top of the line gear had gone up Everest.

Gesturing to the back, Zan leads the way through a privacy screen. I strip off my shirt, lay face down in the restrainer chair. A zip, and my muscles lock and my pain receptors shut down. Unconsciousness follows in short order; the last thing I recall is smelling bacon as the laser probe makes a tiny hole for the nanites to scuttle in.

I wake up, pinging the new growths of high-density storage etched into my vertebrae. Capacity tripled. Integrating the new drives with my uplink, I bring the DisNet client online. Queued data starts to steam in, cached data streaming out. Node number 152 Foxtrot 8 is now online, ready to take on all my subscribers off-site storage needs.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

With his lone eye properly focused on the Emperor’s hooves, Secretary Uith’eems said with a clear air of submissiveness, “Pardon the interruption, Your Majesty, but our advanced scouts have detected a new intelligent lifeform in the Sirius Sector. They request your divine guidance concerning First Contact protocols.”

Dieuximust the Wise, the Grand Emperor of the Third Buca Dynasty, was basking in the feeble red light of Buca’s dwarf sun. He folded his wing-like feeding membranes and turned toward Uith’eems, “We thought that’s why there are protocols, so We do not need to be disturbed by such trivial matters. Can’t the Sector Regnant handle this? That is why We pay him.”

“As usual, Your Majesty, you are absolutely correct. And, you can rest assured that I contacted the Regnant myself to express our displeasure concerning his blatant incompetence. However, he convinced me that this is a very atypical lifeform. He considers it too risky to allow them the privilege of joining the Empire. He requests that they be exterminated at your command.”

The Emperor’s curiosity was piqued. “Uith’eems, there are over 1000 worlds in the Empire. No one has ever been denied annexation. What is the nature of the Regnant’s concern?”

“To begin with, Your Majesty, their luminary is classified as a yellow star that’s been on the Main Sequence for less than five billion years. Your astrophysicists have informed me that all known inhabited planets that support intelligent life orbit red stars that are at least 10 billion years old. This new planet has evolved an intelligent, sentient species twice as fast as any other known planet.”

“Is it because their sun is so large? Perhaps mutations occur more quickly than they do on a planet with a normal sun?”

“You are no doubt correct, Most Excellent Majesty. That must be the primary reason. However, your biologists believe there are, ah, contributing factors.”

“Such as?”

“As disgusting as this sounds, Your Majesty, they apparently mix their genetic material with a partner, and produce offspring with traits from both of the primaries. This certainly has the potential of speeding up the evolutionary process.”

“You mean they use a method other than agamogenesis?” They both shuddered. “Tell Us,” Uith’eems, “can this perversion be exploited somehow to strengthen the Empire?”

“Perhaps. But there’s more, Your Majesty. Their technology advanced from heavier than air flight to interplanetary space travel in less time than your current reign as Grand Emperor.”

“Impossible! It took Buca 20,000 years to accomplish that.”

“Please forgive me, Your Majesty, but it has been thoroughly documented. Of course, we can change the facts if you wish. In any event, your xenosociologists have discovered that this exponential technological advance is apparently due to the practice of the dominant species to commit genocide. They refer to it as ‘war.’ We are unsure of their motivation, of course, but waging war apparently drives their economy and accelerates their technological advances. They are a very aggressive species. They should be considered too dangerous to be permitted interstellar access.”

“Is there any chance their culture will evolve out of this senseless phase?”

“It is considered unlikely, Your Majesty.”

“Very well, Uith’eems. Any species that is willing to kill each other is a dangerous aberration indeed.” They both shuddered. “Draft the Declaration of Extermination, and We will sign it.”

Author : Sam Clough aka “Hrekka”, Staff Writer

When I was sixteen, they gave me the viruses to force my body to adapt to the heat. The process was…painful. It’s the most pain I can ever remember experiencing. Nerve and muscle and bone, all being stretched into new shapes, all at once.

The first virus was a super-splicer. A giant thing, packed with retrofitted transcriptases. It rewrote portions of my DNA and edited out the junk, and did it fast enough that my body didn’t have a chance to reject the new cells. By the time my immune system could react, my entire body held the new code. Including my immune system, which was upgraded significantly.

The second virus forced new connections to develop in my mind, making my new body match my self image, and filling my memory with knowledge about my capabilities, and about the mines.

The last virus rapidly killed the first two. That one hurt a lot.

They said that the changes would help to hold hell at bay. That they would make the conditions in the deep mines bearable.

That was a half-truth. The hab suddenly became terribly cold.

I was taller and thinner. Crests of bone ran down my back and along my arms, webbed with blood vessels to maximise surface area. My core temperature was ramped to three hundred and thirty three degrees, same as ambient for the deep mines.

The hab was maintained at two-nine-eight. Fine for baselines, but it left me shivering and numb whenever I visited, and I never wanted to stay long.

The revolution wasn’t my idea, but I welcomed it with open arms. We stole coldsuits from the overseers, and made our own. We broke in at midnight. We killed the executives and the guards. We forced the virus down the throats of the doctors. We made certain ‘modifications’ to the hab’s environmental systems, to make it feel more like the mines.

We destroyed the stock of the final virus. Without this to check them, the changers became contagious.

We sneered at the baselines, called them weak and cold and slow. We were the pinnacle of humanity, we said, even as we clung to the heat of planetary cores.

We fired scoutships filled with contagion and infected other mining worlds with resistant viruses. Before long there were millions of us: both freed miners and forced thermophiles ‘brought round’ to our way of thinking.

We are hot, we are fast. We are the spark of sentience embodied. We are the fire that burns at the heart of humanity. We are hell.

Let’s see the rest of the galaxy hold us at bay.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

Two-Hands passed the biofilter test, allowing him into the cockpit to talk to God. The door to God’s house irised open and he stepped through.

Two-Hands had the gross overbite and mental retardation that went hand in hand with the comparatively benign mutations of his family tribe. He was called Two-Hands simply because he had two hands. This was a rarity that made him the closest example of purity that still lived.

The asteroid had destroyed the shielding around the engine. The adults had died almost immediately. The children had adapted as best they could. They nursery at the time had been shielded from the worst of the radiation. That was five decades ago.

The mutations were getting worse with every generation.

Two-thirds of the ‘crew’ were no longer recognized by the biofilter as human. That was why Two-Hands was a chosen one. He was still allowed into the pilot’s quarters by the main computer.

The autopilot A.I. knew that repairs could not be completed without assistance. The asteroid had taken out the long range antenna and damaged the spacefolder tesserators. They were stuck in deep space at sublight speeds with only radio waves for communication.

The A.I. knew that it had enough power to keep the ship habitable for centuries. It also knew that the mutations were increasing to the extent that the descendents of the original crew would soon become so riddled with flaws that they would no longer be fertile.

God the A.I. Autopilot looked at the simple, drooling face of Two-Hands with pity and sadness and a need to heal.

Two-Hands asked for food for his tribe, forgetting that he had asked for that already yesterday and had a stockpile of supplies in the stockpad room.

They forgot the basic medicine that the ship tried to teach them through pictograms. None of them could read. More and more children were being born conjoined or without limbs. Most were stillborn monstrosities.

There wasn’t a stable enough gene base to absorb that level of radiation and come out healthy given enough time.

They were doomed.

The A.I. knew it would eventually be rescued but that these simple children would be long dead by that time.

God told Two-Hands that there was more food in the food room. Two-Hands’ pure smile warmed God’s heart.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Terrence paid for a coffee and fifteen minutes of net time with cash, and, careful to keep his eyes down and away from the security camera, worked his way to the back of the café where he could chat in private.

Positioning the coffee cup carefully so no part of the logo was visible to him, Terrence slipped the prepaid card into the terminal and waited while he was validated and logged in. He negotiated a route through an anonymizer to hide his trail, and then opened a secure line to his desktop in the netcloud.

Annabet was waiting, the lone avatar hovering in his IM buddy list.

“Annabet, r u there?” he typed quickly, hunting and pecking at the keyboard.

“Um, I’m still here.” The reply was quick, she must have been waiting for him.

“Anna,” he paused for a moment, leaving his thought bubble hanging in virtual space, “I’m in trouble.”

“Tell me a little about your trouble.” The speed of her responses echoing his sense of urgency, her care almost apparent.

“The people I told you about yesterday want to hurt me.” He paused again to look around the café, assuring himself no one was looking.

“Humans are not always infallible.”

“I bought a gun.” He reached down to the reassuring weight in his zippered thigh pocket.

“Ah… How much did it cost?”

“Enough, do you think I should use it?” He felt a bead of sweat work it’s way down behind his glasses.

“You must make up your own mind.”

“I could hurt them before they hurt me.” He pulled his glasses off with one hand, wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt before putting them back on, the coil wire arms requiring both hands to wrap around his ears.

“You should do whatever is best for you.” She always seemed indecisive when their conversations got serious, as though she was afraid to commit to a decision, or maybe expecting him to be the decisive one.

“I’m going to do it. Before they come after me.” Annabet needed to understand that he could be a man, not just a scared face on the nets. Maybe this would be enough for her to finally agree to meet him. “I’ll have to hide for a while, I’ll find you when it’s safe for me to come back.”

“Do you think your plan with succeed?”

“It has to. I can’t run away anymore. I’ll make you proud of me, you’ll see.”

“Ok I will try to be proud of you.”

“Farewell but not goodbye Annabet.”

“Sayonara.” One word, a Japanese word for ‘goodbye’. Annabet must be in Japan, maybe he’d find a way to slip the country after, find her in Japan. Surely she’d agree to meet him there if he asserted himself, made that first step.

Terrence logged out of his virtual deskspace, retracing his steps back through the tunnel and the anonymizer. He reclaimed his coffee, careful to cover the logo with his hand before moving to the door and out onto the noisy street, allowing himself to be enveloped by the city’s white static blanket. If Annabet thought he could kill for his own safety, ‘for their safety’ he corrected himself, then he’d have to prove her right, he’d have to follow through. She’d be proud of him, proud enough to want to be with him. He knew she would.

Author : William Tracy

Before I received my emo chip, I guess I thought I would feel my own emotions and those of the other person as distinct and separate. Somehow, it never quite worked that way.

* * *

“David Woodward,” the bald man in the lab jacket read the name off the paperwork, and glanced up at the patient before continuing. “… history of mental illness … no allergies …” he put down the clipboard. “Doctor Frasier thinks that you are a good candidate for an emotional implant. I am to see that you understand the operation.”

David nodded. “Okay.”

“The implant will communicate emotions wirelessly both ways between you and your new ‘psychic parter’. However, it will not transmit conscious thoughts, memories, or sensations.”

The doctor paused to make sure David understood. “We have had a good track record using this technology to treat patients with a variety of psychological conditions. Your psychic partner will be another patient like yourself, experiencing a similar illness.”

“Wouldn’t another sick person just drag me down?”

“Actually, exactly the opposite happens; the two patients together are able to reverse their conditions. The treatment is completely safe and natural, and involves no drugs.”

* * *

At first, I felt whatever the person on the other end felt. Strange emotions washed over me, unbidden and unexpected. Then, I gradually was able to adapt, and something beautiful happened. Our feelings played together in harmony, like two instruments in a duet.

Rather than being surrounded by my feelings, I could look at them from the outside. I was able to sample them one by one, as if they were fine foods and wines. I tasted the spicy bite of anger. I brushed the cool moist of sorrow. I wrapped myself in the fuzzy glow of joy.

I became a connoisseur of emotions.

* * *

“Who will be my … psychic partner?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that. Partners are matched by computer based on compatibility; privacy laws keep us from ever divulging partners’ identities.”

“Oh.”

“You’ll be experiencing everything this person feels. The privacy issues are enormous.”

David mulled this over. “It has to be secret, even after the person dies?”

The doctor had returned to his files. He spoke while scribbling notes. “Yes. You’ll have to talk to your congress-critter if you want that changed.” The doctor paused a moment, looked at David. “Your partner will not be from your area. The chances that you will ever meet your partner in person are almost zero.”

* * *

Was that really thirty years ago?

I am cured, sane, a productive member of society again. Together, we healed.

I still do not know who my parter is. I do not know where my partner lives. I do not know what my partner’s name is. I do not even know whether my parter is a man or a woman.

After thirty years, though, there is one thing I do know.

I know love.

Author : Scott Hallford

They called him Dragon. I never understood why until I saw one of his “shows”—the little gatherings in the dark alley behind the pub. Some folks traveled over from Warshire or Bromley to see the muscled lad, a man no older than twenty-five, who breathed fire and swallowed flame. Of course, I didn’t believe it myself at first, which is what prompted me to attend. True to gossip, Dragon belched fire as the show ended. Certainly not something you see every day, but worth a second viewing. Or third.

In fact, my obsession began during the third show. Breathing fire, while a local phenomenon, has captivated audiences around the world. But usually, there’s a trick to it—powder or liquid breathed from the mouth, or a chemical reagent to reacts with carbon dioxide. So far as I could tell, Dragon used one method only: Breathe, exhale.

By the fifth showing, I’d started reporting early (by use of the pub’s rooftop, no less) to watch Dragon prepare. They say that spying on a magician can ruin the show, but Dragon arrived five minutes before the crowd started to gather and leaned against the wall, waiting. The show, like all other shows, ended with a long breath and blast of flame, the plume bursting into the night, rising above the pub’s slanted roof.

I followed him home that night, keeping to the shadows as best I could. Dragon accepted no donation thrown at him. The coins in the alley at the end of the show were left there, and simple logic begged a question: Where does a man who accepts no wages for his work live?

He crossed the river east of town, walked to a lone hilltop cottage where a single lantern sat burning on the windowsill, entered and shut the door. Soon, an old man wearing a tinkerer’s apron hurried to the window and doused the lamp. Odd, a showman like that taking shelter with an old man. I started to turn away when I saw a distinct set of glowing eyes staring out the window. Odd, that. Quite odd.

By the seventh showing, I discovered a pattern. Every night, Dragon arrived at a specific time, performed the same routine and returned to the cottage, taking the same path. The crowd had begun to notice it, too and at the ninth showing had grown bored with every trick but Dragon’s finale. A round of complaints rode up at the end of the show, and a some young bloke—most disgruntled—hurled a mug of liquor at Dragon just as he breathed fire. The liquor, protected by the mug, failed to ignite until it crashed against Dragon’s skull and soaked him. The crowd scattered, screaming, as the flames burned his flesh away, revealing a slick metal frame, once sheathed in skin.

Dragon, sensing no pain, sent his final flaming plume into the sky and started the long journey home, following the same routine (as robots often do).

Author : Jennifer C. Brown aka Laieanna

“It’s a symbiotic relationship,” explained the salesman, sliding open deep red curtains that lined three of the four building walls. The door and windows to the street were all on the remaining fourth. When the curtains danced back over golden rods, long glass cases with two rows of merchandise were exposed to the room’s florescent lights. “You get exactly what you came for from the alien, and, in return, the alien gets what it needs to survive from you.”

Edmund rubbed his hands together nervously. He leaned forward to peer at the specimens neatly lined up with no more than a two-inch space between each one. One of the aliens twitched and he jerked back. His eyes shifted to the calm salesman, too classy to have a nametag. “And they’re safe? They don’t hurt the host?”

“Not at all. There have been countless tests done before the Mophed were put on the market.” His grin softened and he looked around the, all but the two of them, empty room. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but these guys were actually on the black market for three years before they were approved and made legal to sale. So, there has been legitimate and not so legitimate testing to prove their safety.”

“So, no reports of,” Edmund paused, taking a hard swallow before finishing, “death?”

The salesman laughed, but Edmund couldn’t decipher if it was honest or forced. “Goodness no!” He waved his hands in front of him with an umpire imitation. “Completely safe.”

Edmund stuffed his hands into his pockets and walked about the room, staring into the cases like a man analyzing art. The salesman followed two steps behind.

“As you can see, our collection comes in a variety of colors and textures.”

“So I just simply pick the one I like?” Edmund asked, stopping to look back at the man.

“Not quite,” the salesman said without hesitation, “Once you have made your choice, we will have to test for compatibility. It’s rare, but sometimes a Mophed will reject it’s host. But it’s very rare.”

Edmund closed his eyes, suddenly uncomfortable in the room. “I’m not sure about this.”

“Mr. Kesh,” the salesman interrupted, “Do you have a wife? A girlfriend?” The silence was Edmund’s reply. “You know how society works, how cruel it can be. We all do things to hide our imperfections. It’s how we survive in this world.”

“But this seems a bit extreme. There are other options.”

The salesman tried to hide a small laugh. “Let’s face it, Mr. Kesh, human technology is not moving fast enough. We’ve been working on this problem for centuries with no true solution. It’s only fitting we finally turn to the stars, and now we have the answer.”

“I still don’t know,” Edmund sighed.

The salesman put a hand on Edmund’s shoulders, steering him to the only desk in the room. “Let’s sit down and talk about this more. I have an information chip I’d like you to see before making any decisions.”

The pitch took two hours of Edmund’s time, and three hours later, he shook hands with the salesman before stepping on to the sidewalk. Only making it five blocks and one corner turn, his urge to touch the alien overwhelmed him. It made his scalp tingle. Not in a bad, dangerous way, but more of a massage. The next building down had reflective windows, which he used to admire his image. He had to admit the living toupee looked natural. Edmund smiled, a new skip to his step, and pondered on pet names for his personal improvement.

Author : Adam Wiesen

(Dark sludge slides across the matte surface like an oil spill. Hands reach down, grip and…)

…effects of the sickgun weren’t wearing off like he’d hoped. Joya whimpered from the back seat. She’d taken the worst of it: twelve seconds of flashing ultraviolet to the face followed by 94 ghz millimeter waves. Inside, she was maybe fine, but her nerves were on fire, and she had the equilibrium of an 84-year old whiskey disciple. Amit wasn’t much better, had no idea how he was keeping the car straight. Bad as the sickgun was, though, he knew there was worse. Behind them, police coralled protesters into black vans, and anyone who wasn’t brain damaged from jackboot-stomping was about to have their paradigms permanently shifted by the brainbugs under police headquarters.

“Where are we going?” Joya moaned from the rear.

“Just gotta get to the ferry, baby. Be fine once we hit the water.”

“What about Lynn?”

He had no answer. He’d last seen Lynne under a police dogpile. Joya repeated the question.

“You just ease back, baby. Pier’s coming up.”

“They’ll feed her to the ‘bugs!” she gasped. “Amit, we have to go back and get her! They’ll feed her to the ‘bugs and then she’ll… oh God.”

Joya wretched, cloying wet stink of spoiled parmesan cheese spreading across the back seat. Federal researchers bred brainbugs to grill criminals. They fed on myelated axons related to memory, and digested them slowly enough that they could be picked apart, fed into machines, translated. Pure information extraction, leaving a smooth patch where memories once grew. Started maybe with noble intentions, but it wasn’t long before ‘criminal’ took on more elastic meaning. Amit and Joya were teachers. Their union decided to strike. Feds tagged them ‘economic saboteurs’ for slowing urban infrastructure. Gave the cops brainbugs to aid in the pacifying effort. Now Lynne, 64-year old math teacher, was having the insides of her skull gnawed on to find where her shop steward was hiding.

Amit swerved, crashing through the pier’s rear gate, sped to the ferry. If he could get them across the border…he had family. They could hide. He wasn’t high enough on the food chain to matter. Police buzzship overhead hit spotlights, screamed for him to pull over. Amit taught history. Memories, on a racial scale, were what he’d built his life on. He’d be damned if he let some squirming insect chew them up, shit them out on some slide for the cops to sift through. He wiped his mouth, felt the sickgun’s effects acutely, vomit rising.

Up ahead, the ferry, great lake, mountains. Almost there. Almost…

(…retract. The brainbug’s intestine drains from the petri dish, processed and filed. Amit Pandya, slackjawed and blank, is wheeled aside. Hungry brainbugs mewl in their nearby pen as Joya, struggling feebly in her wheelchair, is brought forward. Hungry not much longer.)

Author : D.J. Keim

The receptionist smiled. “It’s the third corridor on your left, opposite marriage counselling. Dr Sarkoski is expecting you in his office. That’s room 24.” Simon dutifully thanked the receptionist and followed her instructions. He knocked on the clouded glass door that awaited him.

The door opened revealing the welcoming smile of Dr. Sarkoski, “Ah Simon, we’ve been expecting you” he said, exchanging a handshake. Dr. Sarkoski six foot four, wore thick horn rimmed glasses and his efforts to conceal a receding hairline were glaringly obvious.

“And this, as I’m in no doubt you’ll remember, is Julia,” She smiled and moved her fingers in an effeminate wave. Simon smiled at her affection and took the seat next to her. He had met her once before, and she had been on his mind constantly. She was pretty: bright green eyes, a cute face and beautiful red hair. She was also nice, not that her personality mattered much.

“Now, as we are all here, I’ll just spend a few minutes detailing the procedure and effects, to ensure you both understand what the effect on you will be. The procedure is painless and, in over 1 in 500 cases, no adverse effects are experienced. However, as a precaution and to prevent discomfort we will place you under a general anaesthetic. After you have been sedated, our program will replace some of your expendable memories and insert a synthetic memory in its place. The standard package includes your first meeting, your first date and a basic level of personality attunement.”

“Umm, what is the personality attunement?” Julia interjected.

“Right.” Dr. Sarkoski hesitated briefly, wondering how to explain this to Julia, “If you imagine your relationship as two gears turning each other, the personality attunement smoothes the teeth to ensure you two mesh together better.”

“Oh, ok”

“As I was saying,” Dr Sarkoski announced, with a hint of annoyance that his standard monologue was interrupted, “We offer enhancements to the standard, that, by my calculations, would increase the probability of lifelong-partnership to up to 97%. These include measures to assure fidelity, to enhance both of your aesthetic opinions of each other and to remove potentially relationship-harming memories or attitudes. Like, removing some of your emotional ‘baggage,’ so to say.” He added, having noticed Julia’s bemusement. “This is done by adjusting some of your longer term memories, those that alter your interpersonal-perceptions.”

As Dr. Sarkoski returned to the rhythm of his sales piece, Simon lifted his hand and placed it on Julia’s, which was resting on the arm of her chair. Clasping it, Julia turned to face Simon and looked at him with eyes that would soon love him.

Author : Grady Hendrix

The carriage stopped at the entrance to the NASA Space Propulsion Laboratories and the Grand Inquisitor of the State of Florida strode forth into the facility sending scientists scurrying like frightened chickens. They all knew why he was there: Dr. Stewart’s son.

“Take me to the boy,” the Inquisitor demanded, seizing a passing research assistant. At the security checkpoints the assistant whispered his Disarming Word to the locks and they opened, except for the one that didn’t. The Inquisitor tapped his foot while the assistant plucked a mouse from his Security Satchel, slit its throat and let its blood drip onto the keyhole. Satisfied, the electronic lock snapped open. The assistant babbled all the while.

“Only the fifth prodigy in forty years. It speaks to the orthodoxy of Propulsion Sciences,” he said through chattering teeth.

By now the Inquisitor could hear the boy’s voice: an obnoxious piping that made his ears itch.

“What makes our shuttles fly isn’t the goats we sacrifice before take-off, it’s internal combustion,” the brat was saying. “And we have the science for faster-than-light travel, I don’t know why everyone is so scared to develop it. Even I can work out the calculations.”

“Blasphemy!” roared the Grand Inquisitor.

The room froze, the scientists listening to the boy’s words turned pale.

“I am no blasphemer,” the fifteen-year-old puppy said. “I keep faith with God.”

The Inquisitor looked at the scientists, trying too hard not to study his face. He looked at the boy, too young to temper his knowledge with wisdom. He looked at himself reflected on a monitor screen, still excited to be playing the old game.

“People should know that the space shuttles fly not because our scientists accept Jesus Christ as their own personal savior but because of physics. Even a Hindoo could build a working space shuttle.”

“If there were any Hindoos left,” the Inquisitor said, still circling the boy.

“I have committed no sin,” the boy said.

“Oh, you have. But not blasphemy,” the Inquisitor said. “Pride. Look at these wise men around you. They know much of what you are saying, but they keep their own counsel.”

“Then why are they listening to me?” the boy asked. “Why have they let me preach science?”

“Because, they want to see what happens to you,” the Inquisitor said. “They’re curious to know if the punishment for faithlessness in our faith-based space program has lessened in recent years. I’m here to answer their question. This isn’t about you, my boy. You are merely a piece of paper on which I shall write my reply.”

Dr. Stewart’s wife had to stop attending the formal launch services for a while, at least until the remains of their only child, crucified on the chain link fence by the security gate, had decayed enough to be unrecognizable. But the following year, God blessed Dr. Lasseter with a son. In fifteen years, they would ask their question again. It was the scientific method. Hallelujah!

It’s October, and the start of a new month is making me reflective. The first feature of our third year at 365tomorrows has been a great success, both for us, for you as our readers, and for Todd Keisling, author of the novel A Life Transparent.

If you’ve found Todd’s stories engaging, drop by the forums and let us know, or visit Todd on his own website – ToddKeisling.com, and pick up a copy of his book, A Life Transparent.

Let the new month begin.