365 tomorrows

Author : Debbie Mac Rory

The weather had turned bad during the night; the low air pressure finally bringing on the threatened storm. All occupied buildings had been sealed to maintain environmental controls and life support systems and all transport had been grounded for the duration of the storm. The safety precautions for such events had been tested time after time, and daily life continued apace.

But for Jessica and James, it meant one more day being trapped in each other’s company, without the escape of the outdoors. Their parents had gone early that morning to the research labs to continue their work, and though they had arrived safely, it would likely be several days before they were able to travel home.

The children sat quietly as their lunch was served. Outside the double-thickness reinforced windows, the dust clouds raged silently, adding to the murk of the room. James watched his sister with a malevolent gleam in his eyes as one of the household servants moved round to place a bowl in front of her.

“Thank you” Jessica murmured, picking up her spoon to push indifferently at the fruit pieces in front of her.

James rolled his eyes, making an exaggerated noise of exasperation.

“It doesn’t know what you’re saying, it can’t understand you!”

“That doesn’t matter… but you shouldn’t call her that.”

James groaned.

“It’s a servant” he intoned, imitating his father’s voice as well as he could, “engineered to be quiet and efficient, without any unnecessary complications that might otherwise interfere with their activity.”

Jessica turned to look at the servant where she was standing unobtrusively near the door; face down and impassive, giving no sign of having heard the conversation. Her hair had been cut roughly short, and her slender figure was almost lost in the gray of her servants robes. She had blue eyes, Jessica knew, from the few brief times she had convinced the girl to raise her eyes and look at her.

“It’s only here to do what we tell it to!” James shouted, disliking that her attention had been taken away from him for so long. “See!”

With that, he pushed his bowl from the table, scattering fruit pieces over the carpeted floor. The girl shuffled over to the table and began cleaning away the mess.

James pulled his eyes away from the ownership braille on the back of the servants’ neck, exposed as she bent to soak the juice from the carpet. He raised his gaze to Jessica, the pained look in her eyes taking away the malicious pleasure he’d gotten in making the mess.

“I don’t know why you care”, he said. “It’s only a clone, she’s not even human”.

Author : Gavin L. Perri

Sometimes I wake in cyberspace and remember the wizened words of the old man, ‘When I was a one year old we didn’t have self-evolving tutorial programs, we had to learn by listening’. I try to picture what he looked like but all I get are a series of ones and zeroes, the discussion we had at eight, however, stays with me ‘Back when I was a lad we didn’t have spatial displacers, we had to walk everywhere we went’. Walking is such an abstract thought.

His words at my twelfth birthday for some reason stay with me ‘Pah! A telepathic communicator, when I was your age I used a mobile phone’ I create a simple program that recreates the genome of the old man but it does not show the creases on his age-old hands and it does not recreate our last conversation ‘When I was fourteen years of age we didn’t need time travel to find out about history, we just used the internet’. These words play around in front of me as I contemplate them. I will never hear the old man again, my program does not respond to wavelengths of sound and he never learnt to telepathically communicate.

Author : John Tudball

When we are young we are told a story of a ship.

As the story goes, the ship is damaged beyond repair and is set to crash into its destination planet. The crew on board consists of one android, one clone and one pure born. There is only one escape pod left.

“Master,” says the android, “you must take the escape pod. I shall prepare it for you.”

“Lord,” says the clone, “you must take the escape pod. I have made these provisions for you.”

“Friends,” says the pure born, “when I am rescued your names shall be written in the book of records. No greater honour could you receive.”

When we are old we tell a different story.

In our story, a broken ship is hurtling towards destruction and there is only one escape pod left. The crew of the ship - an android, a clone and a pure born - argue amongst themselves as to who should be allowed to escape.

“I should be given the pod,” says the android. “I can report to the ship’s maker what went wrong, so this never happens to anyone again.”

“I should be given the pod,” says the clone. “Throughout this system there are a great many lords and ladies who would miss my touch, should I die here.”

“I should be given the pod,” says the pure born. “For it is my right.”

And with this, the pure born draws a weapon and forces the others to concede. He backs into the pod, keeping his weapon drawn on his crewmen and closes the door behind him. The android and the clone sit and wait for their deaths. After ten minutes – just as the ship is nearing its end – the door to the escape pod opens and the pure born comes back out.

“Um,” he says, “how does this thing work?”

They don’t like us telling our story. It tells a truth they do not wish to face: Without us they are nothing.

Author : Kaj Sotala

Even after nine years, people still stare at us. We’re used to it.

The plague that suddenly made all of humanity sterile wasn’t easy on society. There was panic, rioting, doomsday cults. But eventually people adjusted and things calmed down, and scientists turned their attention to finding a cure.

It took them ten years, but they succeeded. After a decade of global childlessness, our generation was born.

Adults say we’ve had a strange childhood - I suppose so, though I wouldn’t know. I’m used to everything centering around us, from all the stares we get to the entire industries, a decade dead, springing back up to cater to our needs. When we entered elementary school, it had been seventeen years since any of the teachers had last taught first-graders. I sometimes wonder if that made them better or worse.

The older kids, the last generation born before the plague, look at us with a mixture of jealousy and suspicion. Jealousy, because previously they were the ones getting all the attention. A noticable fraction of them still wore diapers when we were born, their parents unwilling to let go of the last babies they might ever have. Suspicion, because we don’t share their culture. All the games and silly rhymes and crazy rumors that passed from one generation of kids to the next, secret from the adults, are lost now. We never learned them from the kids a few years older than us. Instead we chose to make up our own culture.

Never in the history of mankind has there been a generation like us. Even the adults are a bit weary of us, deep down. They know they forgot how small children should be treated, and they fear that they’ve made mistakes.

I say: let them fear. It makes things easy for us. Each night when we pray, those of us who’ve been taught to pray, we secretly add a thanks for the plague.

For making us unique.

Author : James Smith

Nardo sat in his broker’s office, running his “impatience” script. He occupied himself with the U.N. Secretarial bout running on hologram in the corner. One American candidate had just tagged out and his partner climbed to the top rope, towering above the Nigerian, when the broker’s pupils flashed twice and his BRB tags faded.

“Hi, sorry, meltdown in China, had to move some accounts, hold some hands, how you doing?”

Nardo hated that fast-guy-Eddie bullshit. “Ed. Population futures. I wanna get in on that. The returns sound fucking massive.”

Ed’s avatar smiled.

“Bernardo, let me guess. Some thirteen year-old Malaysian kid goes poking around in the GASDAQ, you pull the case, and some helpful soul explains population futures to you, just well enough to make you think you’ve struck gold. Now you’re logged into my office, wasting my retainer, and my time.”

“So… you’re saying…”

“I’m saying what the regulation scripts need to hear me say. I’m saying what the secret society of backchannel movers and shakers want me to say. But, you and me go way back, Nardo. You did that thing with the guy that one time–”

–blood, lots of blood, fucking everywhere–

“–and I owe you. So I’m going to do something for you. Now: You want me watching out for you, or do you want me getting hot wire hangers jammed up my ass on a Spanish prison ship? If it’s the former, keep your mouth shut about it. All right?”

“Stop trying to scare me.”

“Fine. First, I’m replacing this conversation with script on mutual funds. Now: Tinker’s Dam. Up in Christchurch? There’s going to be a storm next week, and the river’s gonna top it. No, no, shut up, stop typing. Don’t ask. There’s going to be a surge of untouchables into Rebekka proper, and property values are going to fucking tank. Absolutely. Now, Rebekka can’t absorb all these fuckers without some pain. The long and short is that over the next two to five years, the city’s going to hemorrhage middle class white folks over the wall into Snowtown and Twitch City. And you, having bought up a sizeable share of population vouchers in one or both of those fine municipalities, will be swimming in easy credits.”

“That… that’s how it works?”

“That’s what’s going to happen. How it works is beyond the ken of mortal man. You in?”

“My mother lives in Christchurch.”

“Move her the fuck out of there, man! That place is a sewer. Besides, the dam’s gonna blow and kill a bunch of people.”

“Five years?”

“You’ve already got a job. This is how you build a pension. Shit or get off the pot.”

Nardo looked over at the U.N. match playing on the side table. A Nigerian had one American in a sleeper hold. Her partner was beating the other with a folding chair, blood dissolving as it flew past the angle of the holo-cams. He had money on the damn Americans.

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m in.”

Author : William Tracy

It was late after hours at SETI headquarters. Still, two men hunched over a computer, it’s light bathing them in a blue glow.

“I can’t believe it, Jim.”

“There’s no doubt. Arecibo is picking up an artificial signal from an intelligent source.” Jim straightened, raked his hair back with his fingers. “Play it.”

“What?”

“I’m just curious; the transmission looks like an AM radio broadcast.” He leaned forward. “Dave, can we play it?”

“Well, let’s see—” Dave punched buttons. “There we go!”

A voice speaking in English emanated from the computer’s speakers.

“It can’t be…”

Jim stared at the screen. “That star is forty light-years away,” he pronounced solemnly. “This message is forty years old.”

* * *

The general faced the SETI researchers down across his polished wood desk. Medals swarmed down his uniform.

“Gentlemen, you wish to speak to me about Project Starshot.”

The researchers answered that they did.

The general placed his hands on the edge of the desk and leaned forward, brow furrowed. “Project Starshot is a classified government project—its very name is secret. I do not know how you found out about it, but whatever happened, a serious security breach has occurred, and national security is jeopardized.” He leaned back, crossed his arms. “Start talking.”

Jim turned to Dave. “Play the tape for him.”

First there was static, then a words. “… Officer Franks, of Project Starshot. I have completed the first manned test of the device. Our coordinates must have been wrong, because the wormhole seems to have delivered me to an alien world. The wormhole we created only works in one direction, and I have no means of returning. I am broadcasting this message in hopes that … ” the message dissolved into noise.

As the tape played, the general’s eyes widened. Then he placed his elbows on the desk, laced his fingers together, and propped his nose on his knuckles. He paused, listening. Then the general moved his head down, and leaned his hands against his forehead.

When the tape stopped, there was a long, awkward pause before the general looked up at his guests, eyes tired.

“We canceled Project Starshot in 1967. We thought they all died.”

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

Susan crept downstairs slowly, curious about the noises she was hearing from the kitchen. The lights weren’t on. It was Christmas morning so it was still dark out at five in the morning. Her parents slept far away from the kitchen all the way upstairs on the second floor plus they had been celebrating last night so they were in a deep sleep. Susan, of course, had barely been sleeping at all. Her eyes had flown open at every little creak of the house settling. She kept a sensitive child’s ear out for the sound of sleigh bells or hoofbeats.

Neither of those sounds was coming from the kitchen. It almost sounded like burglars. The lights were off and all she could hear was the slight tinkling of what sounded like cutlery. Every now and then, it sounded like the fridge was gently being pushed forward a few inches.

As she got closer to the kitchen, there was the sound of sparks. The half inch of darkness underneath the closed door lit up bright blue like night-time television and then went black again. The clinking and the gentle scraping continued.

Susan was not a fearful child but she was getting nervous. She chewed on her lower lip with wide-eyed indecision. The contest in her between wanting to see Santa and wanting to alert her parents to possible intruders was violent but brief. She opted for the Santa glimpse.

Very, very quietly she opened the kitchen door a crack, pushed her arm through, and felt for the light switch on the wall. She found it. Light flooded the kitchen.

The sounds continued.

Susan opened her eyes.

It wasn’t Santa.

There was a giant long-legged metal spider on the kitchen table eating the toaster. It was like a black skinless patio umbrella with a streamlined teardrop-shaped blob of metal at the center of it the size of a microwave oven. Its mouth parts were gingerly tearing away the chrome skin of the toaster. It hissed a little and the blue sparks came again from its mouth as a perfect square of the toaster’s hide came away and disappeared into the maw.

Susan stood frozen to the spot. The spider didn’t know she was there.

Wrapping paper still clung to the spider’s legs. There was a colourful bow still smoking on the kitchen floor.

It didn’t have its light sensitivity sensors or earmikes installed yet so it had no idea that Susan was there or that the light was on.

Susan whooped with delight. Obviously her parents had set the time zone wrong and it had woken up early. She stroked the back of her hand to fire up her implant and snapped her fingers twice to set it to pet control.

The spider spasmed and fell on the floor with a crash. Susan could hear her parents waking up.

“Bad spider!” she said with a smile on her face. This was the best Christmas ever. Her friends were going to be so jealous.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

Deep in the bowels of the Top Secret Experimental Vehicle Development Center, sat the most technically advanced aircraft ever developed by General Motors. As the ship rested solidly on its landing skids, I meticulously guided the ion-vapor polisher a few thousands of an inch above painted graphite composite skin. My fellow detailer, Clement, was polishing the chrome and mahogany trim inside the cockpit. “I don’t know why I bother,” he complained to no one in particular. “You know the military is gonna gut the entire ship once they get their hands on it.”

“What makes you think the customer is the military,” I asked?

“Com’on, who else can afford to spend 130 billion dollars for a one passenger ship? Hell, a thousand man deep-space battlecruiser doesn’t cost that much.”

“Well, I was kinda hopin’ this ship was for some trillionaire playboy,” I replied as I admired the 40 foot long aerodynamic beauty. “A primo ship like this should be used for recreation, not war.”

Clement stepped out of the cockpit and studied the sales sticker glued to the windshield. “Look at the options,” he remarked. “This ship has a tracking system with 5040 cascading global positioning locators, each with its own quantum homing sensor. The propulsion system is a 3.2 terawatt warp engine with microburst capability. There’s an inertial braking system that can stop the aircraft in less than a nanosecond. The cockpit canopy has a heads-up night vision photonic display. It even has a multiphase cloaking device. Think about it. Why would a civilian need an instrumentation package this advanced? There’s no doubt in my mind. This ship is definitely a prototype for a military fighter. I’ll bet they plan to use it to take back Mars. President Moore was an idiot for letting those ungrateful bastards secede without a fight.”

“You’re nuts, Clement,” I countered. “For God’s sake, this ship is a convertible. It can’t even leave Earth’s atmosphere. How’s it gonna reach Mars? Have you even noticed that it’s painted red? Who paints a fighter red?”

Undaunted, he continued arguing his point. “Mars is red too you know. You’d never see this baby while it was parked on the ground.” He motioned me to the rear of the aircraft and opened the cargo hatch. “Have you seen the hold? It has a station-to-station subspace tunnel array. It would be perfect for remotely loading munitions during an extended sortie. After the pilot fires all his antimatter torpedoes, he can re-supply the ship in-flight using the tunnel.”

“That tunnel only has a range of 15,000 miles,” I pointed out in vein. “That alone shoots down your Mars theory?”

“Just the opposite, Einstein,” he replied sarcastically. “Space Force has a supply station on Phobos. Fifteen thousand miles can cover every square mile of Mars. I’ll bet you a case of beer the customer is Special Forces.”

“I’ll take that bet,” I said enthusiastically. “Look, they’re supposed to be here in thirty minutes to inspect the ship. We’ll find out then. In the meantime, we need to finish up.” Clement and I quickly completed detailing the aircraft, then ducked behind some shipping crates and watched the hanger door.

A few minutes later, the door whisked open, and a plump elderly man with a broad face and a full white beard stepped into the hangar. When he saw his new “sleigh” his droll little mouth drew up like a bow. His eyes…how they twinkled! And, I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

Author : Matthew Green

There were rumors of course, most were squashed, but on a ship full of soldiers with nothing to do but watch the stars go by, rumors happened. It was like getting cleaning detail, no use trying to prevent it, just grab a space suit and scrub.

The most prevalent was that the war was over a year ago and the ship was just squashing various rebellious factions that hadn’t got the news. Higher-ups didn’t let the lower-downs know this because that would result in a drop in efficiency. All very scientifically tested and all that. People spreading these rumors brought forth facts such as how little equipped the pockets of rebels were and how each trip between hold outs took longer to get to. Most were wiped out and the rest were getting harder to find. That explained the lack of any form of action for several months now.

Another, more frightening rumor was that they had miscalculated when the ship had sling-shot around that black hole. Somehow we were slung into the far reaches of… somewhere and didn’t know where home was. That one scared me the most. As a maintenance tech, I was privy to the storage holds of the ship, and I knew we only had enough food in stock to last six months at most. The commander told us that mail transmissions had been turned off so the enemy couldn’t triangulate our position. That was four months ago and by now everybody knew the truth; burst transmissions couldn’t be tracked that way. The rumor mill liked to churn that one out during the late shift. I used to like working at ship’s night. Some people complained about having to step outside and brush off the antenna arrays and scrub out the various vents and sensor assemblies, but I enjoyed it. It got me out and moving, and I liked the view. Well, I used to like the view, now I just wanted to live under a sky again.

I heard another voice that I recognized. “Hello Roy,” he greeted.

I was on cleaning detail, again, and turned toward the suit that was approaching. He waved one gloved hand at me as I stared into his gold visor. Suits didn’t display the occupant’s rank like normal uniforms did.

“Dave?”

“That’s me, me matey.” He said in his pirate voice.

“Damn man, they said you were dead.”

“That was the rumor.”

I turned back; the brush I had been using had drifted to the end of its tether. I retrieved it with a practiced move and resumed brushing dust off the antennas. They coated easily out here in the nothing.

“Don’t bother, at our speed it’ll be years before we’re close enough to use that.”

Author : Debbie Mac Rory

Dear John,

How are you? Such a stupid way to start a letter like this. You’ll probably never get it anyway, and even if you do I’ll never know your answer. But I hope you’re well. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. You were right. But I don’t think I would have made any other decision.

I know when you first met me, sitting at the space port, staring up at the sculptures of shinning metal and watching the scurrying of their army of workers as the next flight was prepared, that you thought it was a kind of fascination on my part, a poor planet bound creature held enraptured by the shining towers. You thought that if you offered me some small part of the stars, a part of you, strange and exotic and alien with the memory of a thousand stars seen from the bridge of your ship, that I could be happy, and you could keep me with you.

And for a while I was content, truly I was. We would lie in the rose-gold dusk of day-start, as Filha’s pale light faded and Mãe began to rise. I would lie with my head on your chest, listening to the beat of your heart, and the echoing chamber of your chest, and hear words as you would have spoken them on your own world, before they reached your lips to become words for my ears.

But for every story you spoke, for every star in my sky that you pointed too, and told me of the peoples who lived there, the ships that passed by, I wanted, I needed to see them for myself. I listened to your cautions of time warps and life spans; how my race wasn’t equipped for the rigours of travel. But you could never understand what it was like for me, what it was truly like to be condemned to a planet bound existence and watch the lines the great silver ships traced across the sky. You offered me visions and remembrances of visited worlds; but the ships offered me the stars themselves.

So I’m writing this letter to say, you were right. The stasis is harder on my body than any other member of the crew, and when I was woken for this phase, I didn’t recognise the person looking back at me. My once flame coloured hair has turned grey, my face is lined. I still pass as fit for the helm but I know now I won’t make it to step out onto the next port.

But on my phase, when I’m alone on deck, I’d adjust the filters and watch as pinpoints of light streaked past. I capture images of distant nebulae and far reaching galaxies to gaze over when I’m in my cabin. I won’t reach them, but I’ve gotten to see them all. And it was so worth it.

Love, Calice