365 tomorrows

Author : Michael “Freeman” Herbaugh

It was time. The ship was on course for a slow burn into atmosphere, which it hadn’t done in over a millennium. Though Lars had every confidence that the ship would make it, his palms were slick holding the yoke which adjusted attitude should the navcomp vary slightly on approach.

He’d been set on this course by his father who had died three years ago and would not see the fruits of his planning. It was his father who had recognized that theirs was no longer a self perpetuating environment. While it had been many generations since the Great Travis had exterminated the last pilot liberating the colonists on board, no one at the time of the Revolution realized that the ship’s environmental systems were on a slow degrade.

His father saw it coming and knew they would have to find a planetary system to support them. He was the one who figured out how to access the ships logs and databanks. When he discovered the flight manual with everything one needed to know about controlling the ship, he also realized his own shortcomings. It would take a lifetime to master the ships controls.

This was when he set Lars on his path.

Lars had been thrilled at first, he was only 10 years old at the time, but 23 years later it felt as though he would never fulfill the destiny his father had set before him. Sure they had passed habitable systems several times, but after generations of living at near zero-g, it had made them a race with brittle bones and elongated bodies and extremities. He had to find a planet with a very low gravitational pull but enough to sustain an atmosphere and life as well. They would be weak at first, certainly, but they would survive and grow stronger.

Practicing with the ship was no problem – there was plenty of fuel on board as that was part of the equation their ancestors didn’t figure on. One of the waste bi-products from the engines was a part of the environmental cycle, without pilot’s to do periodic burns the cycle had been broken and now was beyond repair. So Lars was able to grow up making adjustments to the course by trial and error while studying his on-screen manual. It upset some of the elders to feel the ship shift as it adjusted course, but his father had managed to keep them calm and convince them of the necessity of a new pilot.

Overcoming obstacles to a near impossible mission had been all he’d ever known. Now he faced his last two. First, could the ship handle the descent; was the heat shielding still in place? Second, could he deal with the ships controls in atmosphere?

It didn’t matter though. If they didn’t land here they would be dead inside of three generations.

Lars flipped on the public address system, “Firing retros and beginning descent”. Grinning, he couldn’t help but be amused that the manual even told him what to say.

This was it; he could see the surface of the hull begin to glow.

Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer

My family made me a robot.

“Your sister needed your lungs!” my mother cried, when I ask about my body. “She needed so much.”

My sister and I were both in the crash, our hover cars smashed into a building three stories over street level. My sister and I plummeted down toward the spinning street, my breath got knocked out of me and my sisters screaming in my ears and then just a moment of intense, searing pain. Then I woke up a robot, all shiny, all new.

“Your sister was too young to become a robot,” my mother tells me. My father looks at the white floor. My sister is wrapped up beside me, only her lips showing through the white bandages.

“We had to sign the papers right away or they might have lost her.” My mother smiles, all teeth. “I think it’s in to be a robot, isn’t it dear?” She turned to my father, who looked away.

Maybe she was right. From what I saw on the feeds, only freaks wanted to be robots.

“We just thank God you are both alive.” My mother was still smiling.

My hands and legs looked human, but my head and trunk are just robotic shells, plastic space. I am smooth and I shine like a new appliance.

“They have a lot of experience making hands and feet, but your head and torso are just prototypes, military grade. You’re like a soldier, isn’t that exciting? Are you upset? Why aren’t you talking? Aren’t you glad your sister is alive?”

I look over at her bed, at her pink lips. Someone has placed a sticker of a butterfly on her bandages. It rises and falls with her breath.

“Yes,” I say, “I am glad.”

Author : Pete Hayward

Wading through the long grass, her eyes and nose prickled by pollen, Erin could hear the thrum of helicopters in the distance. She knew they would soon catch her. As she approached the wire fence, she knew there was no escape; that she had lead them to her hideout.

Reaching the gate, she quickly turned the key and unhooked the padlock. She pushed the gate open and left it to swing behind her. She carried the padlock with her, the weight in her left hand some small comfort. Hideout, she thought to herself. Bunker, compound, whatever she called it, it was really just a wooden shed surrounded by a flimsy fence and some barbed wire. At least, that was all that was visible. She crossed the yard briskly, and pushed open the wooden door with a rusty whine into a dusty hallway.

Her stride unbroken, she dropped the padlock with a hefty clonk. She scooped up a brown paper package from a shelf to her left and continued to march. At the end of the hallway, a creaking wooden staircase led her underground. Above the soft foot-thumps of her sneakers on the steps, she could hear the rapidly approaching helicopters.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Erin tapped in her keycode to unlock the enormous steel doors there. As the mechanism clanked and swhooshed, she idly slid a fingernail under one of the folded corners of the paper-wrapped oblong she held in her hands.

How could she have been so careless?

Honey was big money on the black market. The bee trade was perhaps now the most illegal global market. It was certainly the most dangerous and expensive. Due to their near extinction some eighty years previous, and the threat this had posed to mankind, live bees had been replaced by tiny, sophisticated robots, for the sole purpose of pollenation. Private ownership of bees was criminalised, and, as the years turned into decades, honey and beeswax became the forbidden luxuries of the wildly decadent über-elite.

Erin allowed the paper wrapping to fall to the ground and stared at the waxy block in her hands. A comb like this would be worth seven grand. The cost of constructing and maintaining vast underground gardens in secret, and the expenses involved in smuggling produce and livestock, meant bee traders needed to mark their products up significantly to make anything like a profit. The sorts of people that bought honey didn’t care. The higher the price, the better; they were buying a golden spoonful of status.

Erin’s mother had been a canny trader, but one thing she had that Erin lacked was a deep and murky reservoir of paranoia. She reflected on this as the commotion of barked orders and heavy bootstomps filled the shack above her. Erin held the comb to her mouth and inhaled deeply. Her resolve momentarily strengthened, she tightened a fist around the waxy block, and entered the apiary.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

My favourite time is just before dawn while she still sleeps. I stretch out, savour the crisp night air, feel the coolness of the sheets against our naked flesh. Soon the earth will turn us to face the sun again, and I’ll feel the warmth as its energy permeates the room, watch as its light drives out the shadows. Until then, I’ll content myself with the sounds of soft breathing, and the rhythmic music of her heart propelling life throughout her body.

I’ve only been with her a short while, but she has taught me so much. Helped me experience things I could never have known without her, not so completely.

We seem to have been made for each other. She’s so physical, tangible and alive, but lacking in drive, control. I lack her physicality, but more than make up for it in unencumbered motivation. We’re perfect together.

When I found her, I was content to merely follow, to do no more than observe. Lately I need to take more control, to dominate. My desire has grown from this place of comfort, and I’m no longer satisfied unless I’m flexing my muscles, imposing my own will. We had stopped doing the things that bore me, and instead have filled our days with activities that satisfy us both. Sometimes I ride her like a freight train, driving her mercilessly toward some visceral discovery. Other times I’m content to just watch, allowing her to occupy our time with some more intellectual pursuit.

She’s becoming more unsettled lately, seems almost to fear my presence, but I’ve been careful not to overstep my bounds. She couldn’t possibly believe I would hurt her. I couldn’t hurt her, she’s all that I have.

I had very much hoped that we could forge a lasting symbiotic relationship, her and I. That we could peacefully coexist, and for that to satisfy me. She’s given me other gifts though, along the way. I’ve learned jealousy and selfishness, hunger and lust. I’m afraid I won’t be able to share her, that’s not enough anymore.

This morning she will remain asleep, and I’ll awake fully in her place.

I do love the feeling of the sunlight through the windows, warming our flesh. My flesh.

Author : Leslie Smith

Hi there. Oh..you have a question? Someone at school said we were going somewhere? After dinner honey. No? Now? Okay, sit very still and I will tell you a story…….

Once, very long ago, we lived with our mother. She was large and round. She fed and gave us a place to sleep. She sang us songs when the wind blew through her hair. She showed us pretty pictures when the sun shined on her face. And we loved her. She asked nothing of us, but we gave anyway. For a long time, everything was at peace.

But sometimes, people forget. They forget about love. When something is given freely, they start taking it for granted. And that’s what we did, we took our mother for granted.

We stopped listening to her. We forgot about everything that she gave us without asking. We just took. We threw things wherever we wanted, like when you don’t want to clean your room sometimes. We did what we wanted. And just like you, we had people who said that what we did was wrong. They told us how to fix things. How to make things right again. But we didn’t listen. We wanted to do things our own way. We thought we were grown up. We were wrong.

Mother got sick from all of our ickyness. Pretty soon, we couldn’t be near her without getting sick too. So, since we thought that we were so grown up, we did the only thing that we could do, we left.

We sailed away on big mountains of metal and crystal. We sailed across oceans of blackness and time. We found new places to live. But they were never quite the same as living with our mother. Why? Because she made us. She molded us. She held our hands when we cried. She let us rest our heads on her great shoulders when we had bad dreams. It hurt to leave her, but we did.

Only…we didn’t leave her behind….not all the way. We gave her a kind of telephone. See, we knew that no matter how sick she got, that one day she would get better.

Yesterday we got a phone call. And you know what? She called to say she’s feeling a lot better and wants to meet you. You feel up for a family visit?

Author : John Kuhn

Bata stood beside Danny and held out his soda. The game blared in front of him.

Danny glanced at her.

“Thanks,” he smiled, wondering if the smile really mattered.

“You’re welcome.”

He took the drink and relished the sound of ice cubes clinking against the glass. His gaze reverted instantly to the game; kindness lingered in his eyes even after he’d forgotten she was there.

“Danny?”

She was hesitant to interrupt, but this was important. Danny looked at her.

“Danny, I want to learn to paint.”

Danny’s world stopped. “What?”

“I want–”

The man dropped his drink on the floor.

He swore, but not about the spill.

Danny stood and squeezed Bata’s shoulder, and she slept. He lay the lithe creature in a heap in the back seat of his car and set the navigator on a course for the Ministry building.

###

Danny stood outside the double doors holding her in his arms. She was lighter than a human her size. A man in blue coveralls came out.

“What’s the problem, sir?” he asked.

“Desire,” Danny replied sadly.

The man nodded and seized a radio from his belt. “We have a 504 in the front,” he said.

“Take it on back to the processor,” crackled an androgynous reply.

“Can I watch?” Danny asked before the man could take her away.

The man looked him in the eyes. He had gone through a customer sensitivity update the day before.

“Sure,” he said softly.

###

Danny followed the man in blue coveralls through a powered gate to the back of the building, onto a cracked cement parking lot punctuated with hardscrabble weeds. The processor hummed in the center of the lot–it was a huge tin box with a conveyor belt jutting in front and a rusting bin in the back. Danny showed no emotion, lest the laborer think him an idiot.

The man in blue lay Bata on the conveyor belt and flipped a switch. The box came to life and Danny watched as the conveyor pulled her into its gnashing teeth. The titanium under her artificial skin squealed, and glinting sparks dove in arcing flight away from the destruction.

He drove home in brokenhearted silence.

“Bata,” he whispered over the soft music playing in the car.

###

The house welcomed him by echoing his every footstep across the cold kitchen tiles, its emptiness exaggerated by her missing standard welcome.

Author : Luke Chmelik

We were about to set in for refitting in the drydocks of Neptune when Capitaine Merroux of the Frégate Royaux Joyeuse came forth with a grand announcement. There would be a night of revelry in her private quarters, a formal ball to commemorate the engagement of le Prince du Sang Amelanchier le Troisième de Lucannes to the Lady Celène Sauvette. All officers were to attend in full dress uniform. As a lowly officier subalterne, this was a rare chance to rub shoulders with the upper echelons of la noblesse militaire, and an even rarer chance to see the beautiful Capitaine Isabelle Merroux. I simply hoped not to be dazzled into foolishness by a flagship’s complement of polished brass.

The enlisted crew had also been infected by the electric atmosphere. Notices were posted, giving an evening’s leave to all non-essential staff, and parties were rapidly organized, far from the eyes and ears of the officers. Certain elements of the rank and file, the ones with musical talent, had even been given special dispensation to perform as a chamber ensemble for the officers. The sounds of viola and harpsichord drifted through the corridors long into the night as each would-be virtuoso sought to outdo the others. It was a rare privilege for them to be allowed to dine with la belle capitaine, and they knew it may never be extended again.

At last the evening came and, resplendent in the indigo serge and gold brocade of an officer of le Marine Solaire, I arrived at the Capitaine’s quarters. The band was playing La Marseillaise, and my chest swelled with pride at what we had achieved this year: The English and Dutch routed, the Spaniards banished to the Kuiper Belt, and the inner planets brought under the control of Amelanchier le Deuxième de Lucannes, le Roi Solaire. With the love of King and country burning in my heart, I cast my eyes upon Capitaine Isabelle Merroux.

She was standing before a vast window opening out onto space, the blue orb of Neptune rising behind her, and the stars glowed like faerie fire amongst her copper curls. She wore a gown of burgundy satin, lavish beyond all compare, and white satin gloves to her shoulders. Our eyes met, across the milling crowd, and I thought I saw her smile before an eddy of fellow subalternes swept me away. I tried to find her throughout the night, but too soon it grew late, and I began to despair.

It was past midnight when I made to leave. The band had struck up a waltz, a slow, sweet song by a Hungarian named Liszt from centuries before. As I turned to go, a satin-gloved hand lit upon my shoulder, and I looked up into the face of Isabelle Merroux. She smiled at me, her face aglow, and words I shall never forget slipped from her crimson lips:

“Danser avec moi, Monsieur Beaujolais?”

Time seemed to stand still. I was enthralled, enraptured by the very closeness of her. The song neared its end, and I groaned inwardly, wishing it would go on forever. As the last melodies faded away, I heard a bustle from the doorway. Turning, I saw a cadre of enlisted men as they broke through the door. Their leader leveled a meson rifle at the Capitaine and hissed through clenched teeth, “Pour la révolution!”

Automatically I pushed Isabelle away, my hand traveling to my hip. Full dress uniform included an epée. There were many of them, and better armed, but some things are worth dying for.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

Johnny pointed his broomstick “phaser rifle” at Tommy and squeezed the imaginary trigger. In his mind’s eye, the evil alien from the planet Zircon vaporized in a flash of light. But Tommy kept on running. “I got you Tommy,” he yelled. “You need to lie down and count to thirty. That’s the rule.”

“I had my force field on,” Tommy replied as he ducked behind a tree. “Besides, you missed.”

As the argument digressed into the perfunctory “Did not, did to, did not” phase, the relative quiet of the West Virginia forest was interrupted by the roar of the descent thrusters of a small spacecraft. A temporary truce was quickly agreed upon, and the six children ran to the small clearing where the spacecraft had landed. As they peeked around the trunks of the tall pine trees, they saw another child, or perhaps a small alien, walk down the exit ramp of the spaceship. Since this new “invader” was actually smaller than any of the boys, they felt reasonably safe in challenging him. (Presumably, it would be a “him,” since all warriors were male.)

“Hey, you” Johnny yelled, “stop right there!”

The small alien stopped, and looked up at the six Earthlings approaching him. He noticed that they were all carrying weapons. Apparently, he realized, the intelligence reports about the dominant species of this planet were correct. But something wasn’t right. These surroundings didn’t look like the Administrative Center of the most powerful nation on the planet. After brief consideration, he decided that it would be best if he allowed this “welcoming committee” to escort him to the head of state. “Greetings, I come in peace,” he said. “Take me to your leader.”

Johnny took a few steps forward, and leveled his phaser-stick at the alien. He proudly proclaimed “I am the President of The United Earth Alliance.” This was a true statement because Joey and Eric had both picked him to be President during their current war against the Zircon Empire.

“Really,” replied the little alien skeptically, “I was beginning to think that I had landed at the wrong location. Do you know if your magnetic North Pole shifts over time?”

“Of course it don’t shift,” Johnny snapped indignantly. “It’s always north. What do you want, alien?”

“I’m Uremeni,” replied the alien. “I am here to negotiate. We would like to acquire some of your planet’s…”

The alien didn’t get to finish his opening statement, probably because it sounded like he said “I’m your enemy,” and because Johnny knew the word ‘acquire’ meant ‘take.’ “Hold on mister,” he interrupted. “You ain’t takin’ none of our stuff. Now get back into your spaceship, and get out of here before I vaporize you.”

“I think you misunderstand our intentions, Mister President. We want this to be a friendly transaction. However, I assure you, we have the ability to take whatever we want, with or without you consent.”

“You just try it,” Johnny snapped. “We’ll blast you back to Pluto, or wherever you came from. Com’on men, let’s get ‘em.” The six boys began to charge the ship.

The alien scrambled up the ramp and secured the hatch. Bewildered, he returned to the mother ship with the disheartening news. They were hoping to trade advanced medical technology for the nuclear material stored in the Yucca Mountains. Their offer would have been quite generous, since the nuclear material was very valuable on their homeworld. But now, he concluded, they would just take it by force. How unfortunate, he lamented. He pressed the intercom button “Prepare to launch the fighters,” he ordered.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

My family became meat farmers in the spring of ’22.

Like a lot of city dwellers, we tired of the hustle and bustle of metropolitan life. We sold our possessions, liquidated our assets, and bought a stake in Canada that was ready for reforesting. There was a lot of land up for grabs at that point. After The Crash but before The Rush as my daddy likes to say.

Mad Cow’s Revenge was followed by the Lamb of God virus. Avian Flu became gestational and starting skipping to humans, especially children and old people. The fish started dying near all the coastlines. It was like the Earth was trying to force us all to become vegetarians.

Drastic measures needed to be taken.

The bigwigs in the laboratories found that they could splice tree cells and meat cells.

We grow our meat now.

Entire forests of furry oaksteak trees point silently at the sky. Porkpine, elmbacon, and maplechops stand a quiet vigil. Long hair keeps the trees warm. Touching one is like petting a warm dog. Thick, red blood pumps slowly through their veins.

The lower branches are boneless and hang down like fat boa constrictors covered in soft, wispy, orange orangutan hair. The upper branches have elbows and reach for the warmth of the sun with fingerbone twigs.

The forests shiver in the cold.

When they’re harvested, they regenerate. The stumps scab over and the new meat starts forming in small lumps like an amputee growing new arms.

Tonight, I’m looking forward to some ground willowmeat and some fine cuts of sprucebeef. Daddy says that he’s a cowboy and a farmer all rolled into one.

I enjoy the country life.

Author : Ian Rennie

The puddles of rainwater reflected neon and sodium up from the streets as the two men stood at the taxi rank. One waited, the other waited with him.

“Shame you have to leave so early, Tom. The evening was just getting started.”

“Sorry Jake, it’s Barney’s storytime, you know how it is with kids.”

Jake looked uncomfortable for a moment, but continued.

“You coming out this weekend? Tanya is having a party at her house. Marie’s going to be there. You know, she really likes you. All week she was asking about you and making sure you would be here tonight. I don’t think she expected you to duck out after an hour.”

“I can’t. It’s Barney’s birthday this weekend.”

The discomfort turned to dismay on Jake’s face and he put a gentle hand on Tom’s shoulder.

“Tom, mate, it’s been six years. You have to let it go. You never come out any more. I know what happened, and it’s a tragedy, but you’re letting it eat your life up.”

Tom shook the hand off. Before Jake could say any more, the next cab arrived. Tom got into it without a word, as if Jake had simply been switched off.

When he got home, the lights were off throughout the house. He stood in the dark hall and looked for a moment at the shadows lacing through the open doors of the other rooms. He tried to remember the last time he had had visitors here, then shook the thought off as irrelevant, and headed upstairs to Barney’s room.

Barney was already lying on his bed. Tom was used to the lack of blanket by now. It didn’t break the scene for him any more.

“Hi, Barney-bear”

“Hi, daddy”

The voice was perfect, a computer recreation based on five years of recordings the house had made. In fact, everything about the projection was as close to perfect as he could get. He upgraded the software every time something better came out, and had even had some parts of it custom written. The result was as close as he could get to what he had lost.

Barney was five. He had been five for six years, now. He couldn’t get any older and Tom didn’t want him to. He pulled the book from the bedside table and started reading.

“Once upon a time,” he said, “There was a little boy…”

Author : William Tracy

“A Ham is coming!”

The news spread like wildfire. Even the adults were swept up in the excitement.

“A Ham is coming!”

The Ham came from the east in a truck. I had never seen a truck move before!

The adults eagerly asked the Ham for the news. I didn’t understand everything he said, but the Ham said that up north they had steam trains working again. The Ham and the adults talked for a long time, then they lead the Ham to where they had the sick people.

With the adults gone, we crowded around the truck. All the trucks I had seen before were rusted and broken. We used to play in them and pretend to drive to faraway lands.

But we didn’t get to play in this one. We peered through the windows and looked at the strange tools and machines inside.

The Ham came back. He looked worried. He went to a metal box in the back of the truck. He took a little piece off of it. It was connected to the rest with a little wire that was curled like a pig’s tail. He talked into the little piece, and it crackled and talked back in a strange voice.

Then the put the piece back and told the adults that a chopper was coming. This made me scared. I thought they were going to chop up the sick people into little pieces!

“I thought they didn’t have enough fuel to run choppers anymore,” Mister Barnsworth told the Ham.

“Only enough to make a run in an emergency, and this is an emergency,” the Ham answered.

After a long time, someone pointed to the sky in the south. I could see a tiny speck. As it got closer, I could hear a rumble that grew into a loud, fast, rattling drum beat. The chopper was a metal egg with a tail, with little tiny legs curled up underneath, and spinning wings on top!

The chopper landed in the middle of the town square. A wind blew out from it, blasting dust every which way. The adults crowded around the chopper, and pushed us away. Suddenly, there was shouting, and some of the women started to scream.

We climbed up the trees around the square so we could see. The people in the chopper were handing out boxes, and the adults were grabbing the boxes as fast as they could.

“What does it say on the boxes?” little Jessie asked.

I read a label out as the chopper man handed it to Mrs. Fisher. “It says ‘penicillin’.” Mrs. Fisher cried and hugged the box like it was her baby.

Then the adults brought out some of the sick people. After they carefully lifted the sick people into the chopper, the chopper floated into the sky and flew back the way it came.

The adults tried to give the Ham food and money. He wouldn’t take anything. “This is just what I do.” Then, he got into his truck.

He drove west. The sun was going down, and it set the sky on fire. His truck turned into a black dot that grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared.

I want to be a Ham when I grow up.

Author : Cal Glover-Wessel

There is a being, I have witnessed that, through some strange twist of evolutionary fate, is able to move any which way through time, but through space can only move unceasingly forward. It lives a life parallel to our own, one where “day” and “year” and “month” have no meaning, but “wall” and “tree” are the true obstacles. Material possessions mean nothing to it, because when it moves, the object will either cease to exist, or never have been created. Rarely do you see it, and when you do your mind passes it off as little more then a flicker in the light, an optical illusion. I saw it, though, and recognized it for what it was.

“Will you walk with me?” I asked.

The being laughed and said “If I were to walk with you, in the sense that I use the phrase, this conversation would be meaningless to you, seemingly with out order or sense. See, now it is you who must walk with me.”

I did so, making sure to choose a path that would remain clear for the a good long time, so as not to cause the being any distress. We walked for a time at a steady pace, for the being was unable to do anything but.

After a while, I spoke.

“It amazes me that something could be created that could simply travel to any point in time it wishes, a power far greater then I possess.”

“Nonsense,” it replied, “I envy your abilities to step sideways, or even to stop. Ahh to stop! That would be beautiful. You see, I am rarely able to fully appreciate where I am.”

“Much,” I assured it, “Is the same for humans, only slightly different, you see.”

“I suspected as much.”

We walked in silence, broken only by the sounds of the ground underneath our feet.

Suddenly it spoke.

“When you move about as you do, is there ever danger of moving in such a way that could compromise your existence?”

“Of course,” I replied, “if I don’t pay attention, I could slip and injure myself, I could fall down a pit, get struck by another moving object.”

It seemed fascinated at the possibility that two moving objects would ever collide, but before it was able to ask more questions about it, I asked my own.

“Is there a danger for you as well?” an oddly stated question, I know, but its hard to find your words in such a peculiar situation.

“Well, yes, there is always the danger of going to a time when you are not. Or coming to a place when something else already is, because you will cancel each other out.”

“I see…”

“No you don’t, but I will pretend you do, for both our sakes.”

We walked in silence again, this time longer then the last. On our path before us, I spotted a tree. My time was short, and this brought another question to mind.

“How will you get around it?”

“Simple, I will just go to a time when it isn’t there and continue on my way.”

When it said it like that, it was simple.

“I must be going now.” it stated.

“Good luck, then. Will we ever meet again?”

It glanced at me, briefly, for the first time on our walk.

“We always do.”

And with that, it began to fade.

Author : S.R. Dantzler

“Hey Yates!” Dorian turned to see who called him. The thin blue laser of a retinal scanner flashed over his eyes.

“You have been served.” The young courier handed Dorian an official-looking envelope and turned away, disappearing down the busy street.

He pried the seal and read the document. “F#%$ me. It’s an official notice of a thirty day hunt on my life,” he said to his comrade.

“I’ve never been hunted. I filed for a hunt on that Bastard that ran over Karen, but when it came down to it, I was no killer, even if it were just. You don’t know the guy on the petition?” asked Arlen.

“No. The timing couldn’t be worse. Leading…” He bit his tongue. Dorian knew Arlen was still bitter about him accepting the job as director of the Homo erectus project. After all it was Arlen’s research that drew the grant money. He glanced at Arlen who looked ahead, expressionless. After a few blocks of silence, Arlen spoke.

“I can cover for you awhile, until this blows over. You lay low.”

#

Dorian didn’t sleep much those next few weeks. He paced his living room, obsessively checking the chamber of his 9mm Grach which was never out of reach. Jittery with caffeine and fear, he checked the bolts on the doors every time he passed and stayed clear of the windows, although they all had a sheet of steel welded over them.

What he could not figure out was who the hell this Ferdinan Metz was, and what motive he might have for ending his life. Dorian had no enemies that he was aware of.

It didn’t make sense. He was going out of his mind trying to figure it out. And he would have, were it not for Arlen who came over each night after work. He found solace in their conversations. It was his daily dose of normality. As he heard the knock on the door, he was relieved to have found it again.

“It’s me.”

Dorian unbolted the door, letting Arlen in then closed it and bolted it back quickly.

“Good to see you comrade.” Dorian went to the kitchen and grabbed the calendar off the refrigerator. He brought it to the living room to show it to Arlen. The calendar had twenty nine carefully drawn X’s. Just one more to go.

“Just a few more hours and this will all be over with. We made a lot of progress today. The gene sequence is complete.”

Dorian feigned a smile. The news did little to cheer him. The turned and walked to the door to check the bolt again.

“I do have some good news. I found out who this Metz fellow is.”

Excited, Dorian turned to see Arlen holding a pistol at his head.

What? No!

“It cost me a good deal to buy the new identity.” Arlen had a twisted grin. “The project…My project is getting along fine without you, Dorian.” His eyes were dead cold.

“Arlen, Why? I never meant to take anything from you.”

Arlen cocked the hammer with his thumb. Dorian thrust forward, batting the gun upward and knocked Arlen on his back, then lunged for his pistol on the table. A bullet ripped into his back, beneath his shoulder. He grabbed the Grach from the table, turned, and fired, hitting Arlen in the chest. He fell to the floor.

Arlen lay still. Dorian struggled to his knees. Taking the red marker he carefully drew the last X on the calendar at the table and reached for the phone.

Author : Bradley Hughes

“Fucking tests.”

I turned to look at the speaker sitting beside me at the bar. I noticed she had a small doll on the bar along with her drink, one of those wooden posable dolls made of jointed oval sections. I’ve always assumed they were for practicing drawing figures. This one had long blond hair, as long as it was tall. She re-posed it and it fell over.

“Uhuh,” I turned back to my own drink, but she continued.

“My husband left me, I lost my job, I can’t see the kids. Fucking tests.” She kept trying to pose the doll so that it would stand up. It kept falling over.

I tried saying nothing.

She pulled on my arm and bourbon fumes washed over me,“I bought one of those study at home courses to prepare, you know. Cost me two thousand dollars. And I worked at it too. I know lots of people say they’re going to study, but they put it off until the last minute. Not me, I studied and studied, six fucking months and I worked at it every waking minute.”

I tried changing tactics, maybe a little encouragement would bring her to the end of her evening a bit quicker, “Joe, can we get two more of whatever she’s drinking.”

She was long past noticing details like who bought the round. She drained her glass, and continued without thanking me.

“You know it just ain’t fair. What have they got that I haven’t got?”

She thought about that for a minute, “’Course, if I knew that, I would have passed the test, wouldn’t I?”

She thought about that too, for a while.

“I hear they’re talking about taking away our driver’s licenses next.”

She slumped forward on the bar.

“Fucking tests, fucking Turing.”

Author : Bob Burnett

A glint of reflected sunlight caught Will McRae’s attention. He ground-hitched his sorrel gelding and bellied up the slope to look into the next draw.

He scooted back down the slope, turned on his back and stared at the sky, his mouth suddenly dry. What he had seen could not be.

A silver barn floated some ten feet off the ground. Under the floating barn were three critters, looking something like antelope, except they were the wrong color and had only three legs. Definitely not antelope.

But there was no doubt about what was stretched out on the ground. Two of his cows.

He started to get mad, anger driving out fear. “Ain’t Jack Slade an’ his bunch,” he mumbled as he mounted, “but by God a rustler is a rustler.”

Will McRae flipped the thong off the hammer of his Colt and walked his horse over the rim.

“Alert, team members!” Relf transmitted. “A biped astride a quadruped approaches!”

Will McRae walked his sorrel to within a dozen feet of the strangers. He stopped his horse, slowly tipped his hat back with his left hand, keeping his right hand near his pistol.

“Howdy,” he said.

“Melodious reverberation from the biped,” Jelif transmitted. “Note that the quadruped stands mute.”

“I’m slow to rile,” Will drawled, “but you best be turnin’ my cows loose.” He pointed with his left hand to his two cows, which appeared not to be tied but moved only their eyes.

“Observe. The biped smglndf the subject quadrupeds. Perhaps it feeds on them and is hungry. Offer it flesh to eat. That will show our peaceful intentions.”

Jelif turned to the quadrupeds, extended his molof, and severed portion of flesh. He held the animal protein aloft, offering it to the visitor.

Will McRae’s eyes bulged with rage. “Butcher my cow right in front of me, will you? You dirty, low down . . . ” His right hand flashed to his pistol, drawing and firing in a single motion.

Something slammed into McRae’s chest and he fell from his horse, unconscious.

“Asmoth!” Jelif signaled, rubbing the mark where the .45 slug had struck his marlif. “Perhaps we did not correctly interpret the gestures.”

“Surely this is an intelligent being,” Relif transmitted. “This one suggests that the biped be transported for further study.”

“Agreed. Transport.”

A beam of green light surrounded the unconscious rancher, then he vanished.

#

Will McRae rode slowly around the herd, looking for signs of sickness or injury. He spotted a calf with a swelling on its left flank.

He guided his mount to cut the calf from the herd while he unlimbered his rope. The calf bolted, but Will’s loop settled over its head.

He secured the calf, walked back to his mount, and removed a straight razor and armored gloves from his saddle bags.

He examined the swelling on the calf, gripped it firmly with his left hand, and slashed the growth with the razor. When the golif emerged, fangs gnashing, he sliced it in two and dropped it, spurting purple fluids on the orange ground.

Will rubbed a salve into the wound and released the calf, which bounded back to its mother, screeching from the indignity of it all.

Watching the calf return to its mother, the young rancher smiled and coiled his rope as he walked back to his mount.

The land might look a little strange, Will McRae thought as he surveyed his surroundings, and the stock is some different. But ranching is ranching.

No matter where you are.

Author : Christopher Kueffner

The ocean swell was enough to induce the whisky to move back and forth in the glass, but just barely. This spectacle occupied the close attention of Arlen Tidmore, Systems Assurance Specialist II. The minutely swaying liquid in the glass was distilled on the other side of the world in the Orkney Islands, and some of it was already relaxing Tidmore’s brain. The door opened.

“Drinking your dirt-flavored paint thinner, I see,” boomed Tim Frampton, Navigation Specialist I.

“And it seems you just got out of asshole practice,” Tidmore replied. “It’s definitely working.”

Frampton chuckled and sat down at the table. He set a large beer bottle and a glass in front of himself. “The rain is starting to clear up. I thought I’d enjoy this change in weather, but it’s a drag.”

“Yep.”

“We’ll probably make our turn tomorrow. That typhoon shoved the boundary of The Garbage Patch over a bit.” He poured the clear, golden beer into the glass.

“Yep.”

“Three weeks ‘til the break.”

“Yep.” Tidmore leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his scotch. “I do believe I’m officially bored out of my damned mind.”

“It’s taken this long?”

“I don’t know how I’ve done these plastic reclamation tours for this long, but some switch has flipped. I need to find something else to do. The machines on this tub don’t break often enough to keep me focused.”

“That’s some people’s idea of a dream job,” Frampton said between gulps.

“How can you drink that piss?” Tidmore grimaced at Frampton’s beer bottle. “You can only bring so much crap out here on the plane, and you bring light beer? We’re surrounded by water that’s free.”

“It’s too salty and full of plastic, Your Highness. You should talk, with all your books and god-awful scotch.”

“Slowly filling the hold with carbon nodules isn’t enough to keep me entertained.”

“Let’s not forget the chlorine. That spices things up, doesn’t it? And what about the nitrogen?

“Nitrogen’s boring. And it’s too bad we use the hydrogen for fuel; we could fill a balloon with it and float out of here.”

“Quit whining,” Frampton droned. “When you applied for a job that consists of sailing back and forth in the middle of the Pacific, scooping up plastic, were you expecting big-city night life? The Horse Latitudes Symphony Goddamn Orchestra or something?”

“I knew what I was signing up for. I wanted the chance to get sick of something besides my relatives and neighbors. I got that. And I wanted to do something good. I’m cleaning up the ocean, and that’s cool, but this ship… I’m over it.”

“You’re cleaning the ocean and saving the world only because somebody invented a way to scoop up the plastic, separate it into its elements, and make money at it.”

“It wouldn’t be profitable without the government subsidies,” Tidmore pointed out.

“Same difference. Nothing big gets done unless it’s profitable or fashionable, preferably both.” He poured the rest of the beer from the bottle. “Funny that we don’t have anything on this ship that handles glass.”

“Hmm. Lemme have that.” Tidmore took the bottle and walked out the door. Several minutes later, he returned and picked up his glass from the table and headed back out the door. The bottle was corked.

“What are you doing?” Frampton got up and followed him. Up on deck, the sun had come out. Tidmore threw the bottle over the railing and took another sip of scotch. “What was in that bottle?”

“I wrote my resignation this morning. This way, it should take a couple of years for it to take effect.”

“You don’t like change, do you?”

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

A few hours after Tom and I had the science module operational, we decided to explore the terrain around the base camp. Silex IV was a warm, barren, desolate planet. There was no oxygen in the atmosphere, and no water anywhere, surface or subsurface. So, imagine our surprise when we found a walking rock. It was bipedal and about a foot tall. It was relatively light, so we took it back to the science module. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “DON’T DO IT! That’s the fatal mistake all explorers make in sci-fi movies.” But, come on, it’s just a rock.

To make a long story shorter, when we placed the creature on the examination bench, it began to tremble. Seconds later, it started to crack and split apart. A white liquid began to ooze out of the cracks. It was a viscose fluid that had a strong ammonia smell. The liquid began to boil almost immediately. We pried open one of the cracks to discover that the rock-like exterior was just a thin shell, presumably an exoskeleton. Tom analyzed the fluid, and it turned out to be predominately Silanes (long hydrosilicon chains analogous to the hydrocarbon chains present in Earth’s carbon-based biology). On Earth, however, Silanes are extremely unstable because of our oxidizing atmosphere. The oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere would destroy them instantly. But, on Silex IV, with an Oxygen-to-Silicon ratio less than two, silicon-base life was apparently possible because there was no free oxygen to react with the Silanes. As we watched, the oxygen in the lab reacted exothermically with the silicon atoms in the Silane molecules, and turned the creature’s insides into a boiling caldron of liquefied sand.

As we stood there in shock, the science module began to sway on its base as though there was a planetquake. We looked out the ports and saw a dozen eight foot tall rock creatures pushing at the airlock. The realization that we probably just killed an alien child sent a cold shiver up my spine. Then it dawned on me that the adult population was now intent on reaping their revenge. We were in big trouble. Tom said, “Crap, what are we going to do? This place wasn’t meant to withstand a siege from a bunch of rock creatures. If we can make it to the ship, we can take off. Do you think we can outrun them? Damn, we don’t have any weapons.”

“Perhaps we do have a weapon,” I replied. “Put your suit back on. We’ll fight our way to the ship.”

“Are you nuts? Look at the size of those things.”

“Oxygen kills them, right?”

“Have you forgotten? The oxygen tanks are stored outside, with the rock guys. And the ship is more than 200 meters away.”

“Trust me. We have plenty of available oxygen in here. It’s all about bond energy and kinetics. And, if I remember my thermodynamics, on this planet, we should have a spontaneous reaction. Now, where do we keep the surgical gloves?”

Fifteen minutes later, we were suited up and ready to fight our way to the ship. We opened the inner door of the airlock. I handed Tom two dozen ‘bombs.’ “Okay,” I said resolutely, “Open the outer door. I’ll start to clear us a path.”

The door slid open and the escaping air momentarily pushed the lead creature back a few steps. It regained its balance and charged forward. I reached into my sack and grabbed a water filled surgical glove, and let ‘er fly.

Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer

Joseph’s Grandfather knocked down the cabin door, and stood silhouetted in the blue morning light of Io. Inside, Joseph and Thomas and Betti and Lil lay sprawled over the king sized bed, naked. The room smelled like sex and sweet wine.

Joseph sat up in bed and Thomas squealed, pulling the covers off of Bettie and Lil to cover his naked body. Lil rolled out of bed and Betti rolled over, unaffected by the sudden noise.

“Granddad!” cried Joseph.

“Joseph Hieronymus Gabriel Nightingale Dashhound!” cried his Grandfather. “This is just as I suspected.” Josephs Grandfather, Bartholomew Rubin Sora Flashrim Dashhound, was tall and imposing, a man with a beard to his shoulders and a wide brimmed hat.

Around the corner of the door came Lil’s mother, wielding a laser rifle. “Lil!” she said, “I’m so ashamed of you. I didn’t want to believe that you and your husband were sleeping around, but here it is.” She shook her head, her brown curls bouncing. “Just wait till your father hears about this. You have shamed our family. ”

“Keep your head on Gretel,” said Bartholomew.

“What are you doing here, mom?” said Lil, standing, full naked and defiant in front of the two elders.

“Bartholomew told me that he saw you and Thomas coming up to the cabin night after night, and I didn’t believe him . . .I told him it was innocent.” She sobbed, her rifle shaking. “But now I feel so blind! So foolish!”

“We can do as we like,” said Lil, standing tall, her hands on her wide hips.

“Young woman, this is not Earth. This is the Dark Side of Io. I moved away from the cesspit Earth so that my family could live in a community with moral standards,” said Bartholomew. “You cannot just go fooling’ around here. Not after how hard we worked to make Io a moral place.”

Joseph finally found his voice. “What are you saying, Grandpa?”

“I’m saying that you aught to make an honest woman and man and woman out of these people!”

“But Grandpa!”

“I mean it!” said Bartholomew “I’ve already sent for the Pastor. She’s on her way up here to make it official.”

“But Mom!” said Lil “It didn’t mean anything. It was just for fun.”

“This was the first, time, I swear!” squealed Thomas, clutching the sheets. Betti had finally woken up and was clinging to Thomas’s waist, eyes on Gretel’s laser pistol.

“Don’t listen to them, Gretel,” said Bartholomew. “We’ve got to be strong. I know they’ve been at this for a while. I’ve seen them coming up here, night after night, with wine.”

“Wine doesn’t prove anything,” said Thomas.

“You think I need proof after seeing this?” said Gretel.

“I’m not ready to have a husband and second wife,” said Joseph. “I’m too young!”

“If you’re going to fool around like this then you aren’t too young,” said Bartholomew.

“You can’t force us to marry,” said Lil, crossing her arms over her considerable chest.

“Oh can’t I?” said Gretel, flicking a switch to power up the laser pistol “I think you’ll be getting married today, you all like it or not.”

“You’re going to need a bigger cabin Joseph,” said Thomas.

Author : William Tracy

A stranger walked through the door of the diner. The man sported sunglasses and a comb over. He was sweaty from driving through the desert in his suit. His collar was disheveled; his tie was loose. He must have been lost—people like him were not common in this corner of New Mexico.

Another man stepped up behind the counter, wiping his hands on a ragged towel. “Hi, I’m Larry. What can I get you?” Sweat and grease struggled to dominate his odor, and stubble adorned his round chin.

The stranger asked for the special; Larry shouted the order back into the kitchen, then went back to scrubbing the counter. Larry quizzed the stranger about his business, got no response, and proceeded to alternate between extolling the virtues of small town life and singing along with the radio.

The food was ready. Larry laid the plate and a tall glass of cola in front the stranger. The stranger proceeded to eat.

“We get all sorts of people out here,” Larry announced. “You wouldn’t believe what sorts we get.”

The stranger ate for several minutes, while Larry cleaned and rambled. The stranger had worked his way through most of the meal when Larry leaned forward, elbows on the counter, and added conspiratorially, “They say over in Roswell that space aliens crashed in the desert a while back.”

The stranger studied his food with renewed interest.

Larry continued. “Some say that the aliens have been visiting us for many years now. They think the aliens disguise themselves as people, to study us, and that anyone you meet could be an alien.”

The stranger failed to acknowledge the information.

Larry looked over the other customers in the diner. They all had heard Larry’s stories before.

Larry leaned closer still—his halitosis was palpable—and whispered, “There’s an alien right here, right now. You wanna know how I can tell?” he looked around the room again, and added, “I’ve been inside one of the flying saucers.”

The stranger stood up abruptly, and cleared his throat loudly. “I would like to pay my bill, please.”

“Certainly, sir.” Larry rang up the sale.

As the stranger walked out the door, Larry yelled, “Come again soon!” The stranger did not speak, or look back. Larry whistled as he worked his way to the end of the counter with his ragged towel.

“I’m going on break!” he shouted back into the kitchen, and ducked into the men’s room.

Larry locked the door, and smiled into the mirror. His flesh rippled, and his body flowed into its natural form. The creature that called itself Larry drained its distended fluid sacs into the toilet, then flushed.

Reverse psychology works very well on these humans.

Author : Jacinta A. Meyers

He had a reputation from the time he brought in his first kill from the lush planet. Walked through the warden’s office lugging the thing in a sack over his shoulder. Everyone involuntarily gasped when they felt the floor shudder, heard the thunder of his steps and looked up.

Before he was a hunter, he had been a builder. You could tell by the enormous honed muscles, his foul speech, his burly way of leaning. He dropped the sack to the floor and leaned over the counter, making it creak with his weight. “Got one,” he said.

“Right,” I said, pulling out a form. “What kind of an entry?”

“Sentient-intelligent.”

Ah. “Weighing some brains today?” My fingers twittered over the keyboard, entering the order. To my right a little door in the wall hissed open, allowing a tray to ease forth with a prepared canister full of preserving fluids. “Why don’t you bring it around.”

He hefted the sack up over the counter. Well, that was one way to do it. I undid the tie. And gasped.

It was the biggest cranium I had ever seen.

My tools were ready. I brought down the hose to suck up the noxious fumes of death while I worked. My hands were deft; sever the head from the body, incision here, incision here, and the skin pulled away clean. Insert the chisel here, between the two primary skull plates. Quick bump and open. Use the tubes to suck up excess fluids, pry away veins and capillaries…

At last, my gloved hands slipped the prize from its nest. I carried the gooey mass to the scales and set it down.

“Bastard. You don’t got the stem!”

“It’s the rules, mister. Stems don’t count toward the final measurement.” I focused hard on the numbers as they slowly stopped moving up.

1,672.12 grams. “A new record,” I breathed. Picking the brain back up, I carefully moved it to the canister and set it down into its new home. I shook my head. “That’ll make some trophy.”

The hunter was still leaning against the counter, picking at his pointy teeth with one large claw. He straightened a little when he saw me take my place again behind the keyboard. “Well?”

“I have confirmed the record. Congratulations,” I said. “Now we just have to finish the forms. Can I see your system license?”

He belched before passing a chip across the counter to me.

“Great.” I cringed and flicked it into the computer drive. “Sentient-intelligent. Specimen, brain. Species, homo sapien. Oh…” I looked up. “Where on Earth did you say you bagged this one, again?”

Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer

Jack sighed, and tabbed through the moment’s top links. They hadn’t changed much since earlier that morning: still the usual desultory mix of politics, tech articles, and irreverent ‘humour’. Lolcats had been ceased to be funny almost as soon as the merchandising hit.

He peeled the interface wafer from his neck. The flexible plastic bilayer pulled away from his skin cleanly. Almost as soon as he did so, it emitted a ‘message received’ chirp. With a due sense of foreboding, he smoothed it back across the accustomed spot under his collar.

His customised newsfeeds immediately began to scroll across his vision. With a blink, they were obscured by the new message. It was from Dog, a gamer he’d met months ago.

—–BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE—–

Hash: SHA1

Traffic analysis is great fun. I wrote a tool to track effective votes on all political matters. Whilst it seems that around sixty percent of those eligible do actually participate in our fine democracy/anarchy/infocracy – (did anyone ever decide on what to call it? Surely the germans have a decent compound noun for this. Anyway..) – but those votes are controlled by maybe ten percent of the eligibles. People seem to have, by and large, unconsciously given proxy power to an elite few.

This is what I’ve been waiting for. Hard data that shows I’m right. This isn’t a free state. Nothing like it.

I think I’ve found a way to concentrate popular opinion against these ‘power-users’.

I’m going full broadcast with the attached files soon. Have a look.

—–BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE—–

Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (ThinWafer)

iEYEARECAAYFAkhoxRAACgkQWGnj9RCW8PKOqQCgjzOuYxQ7qjL8+qYqIFy2OHEn

3FsAn1YdZ2njpkhwZqCyAvGB8yUqniMy

=i2sv

—–END PGP SIGNATURE—–

That was Dog. Paranoid to the core. But he had attached signed data from the politics section. After all, you were only paranoid if you couldn’t prove it: and Dog’s scanner had bought up some passably interesting facts. The names changed, and drifted over time, but there was a core of identities that voted on every political motion that was bought up. And it was always to bury any outside submitted, or to vote up motions of their own.

—–BEGIN UNSIGNED MESSAGE—–

Unlike you, I’m not paranoid. Although for once you’ve managed to assemble something somewhat convincing. I don’t see how we can use it. There’s nothing we can do, frankly. And who cares? I’m going to shoot you some lol* — have a laugh, lighten up. I’m going to go outside.

—–BEGIN UNSIGNED SIGNATURE—–

wakkawakkawakkawakkawakka!

—–END UNSIGNED SIGNATURE—–

Jack felt a twinge of guilt at his slightly caustic reply. Some people never learnt, though, so he dismissed it. Dog would just feel more self-righteous. Jack connected to the CCTV spider he’d loosed into the net. He asked it to track down Dog. The mapped path showed a slow spiral inwards, avoiding high-density cam and mic coverage, headed straight for the forum: the base-in-reality for political debate. The forum was large enough to accommodate a few thousand; it was rarely packed to capacity. There was no real advantage to going there in the flesh, anyway. An alert flashed up: Dog was offline. Dog was never offline.

Jack was running hard, already halfway to the forum by the time he figured it out.

Every channel was suddenly full of Dog’s data, and locked from editing. Then a fireball blossomed from the top of the forum, both real and virtual. The political channels timed out, died, only to return as static error pages. A ripple of explosions toppled the building.

Author : Asher Wismer

Here’s me, walking through the deserted streets of Chicago. I can see a few ravens pecking at some unidentifiable detritus in the gutter; somewhere, a car alarm is weeping to the night sky, and I can still smell the restaurant exhaust on the breeze.

Here’s me again, now searching an abandoned shop for something more nourishing than chocolate. Don’t get me wrong, I love chocolate, but the body craves salts and proteins… more’s the pity. Chips are good in a pinch.

I wonder what will happen to the water supply? Theoretically, the underground reservoirs will be shielded enough to avoid contamination, but most of Chicago’s city water comes from open-air cisterns. I should only drink bottled water, until it runs out. Then I’ll have to find a library and do some research; there must be a deep self-contained reservoir not too far from here.

Hey, I can scream in the library and no one will care.

I’m all alone, but there are plenty of other people around. Not moving, of course, but who needs to these days? Last time I saw independent movement that wasn’t animal was on TV, and that stopped after a couple of days anyway. End of times, worst of times… most serene of times? The ELF would be delighted, but I guess when there aren’t any human members to know or care the point is a little bit moot.

Yeah, the water thing bored me too. No point; plenty of bottled water. No electricity, but I can scrounge a generator from somewhere if I need it. Now I just need something to do for the rest of my life.

I could travel; plenty of fuel for that, but it seems somewhat futile to go anywhere. Gasoline will gel eventually, so I should use it while it’s still good. I could devote myself to recording our history in some invulnerable form, like carving it on a mountain face for future civilizations, but I doubt I could get farther than my own little life before I die of exhaustion.

Come to think of it, every possible form of media that tells our story will degrade beyond comprehension before anyone gets to read it. Whenever this kind of thing happens in fiction, there’s always a motivation, a need to tell the story of humanity and the mark we left on the planet. It’s just… I don’t think there actually is a mark. “When all is said and done,” they say, but now all really is said and done and that’s it. There’s nothing left. There’s no second coming, no messiah, and no future for anything that could conceivably call itself intelligent.

Just me. Nothing else. No magically surviving camp of refugees, no single person of the opposite sex conveniently named “Eve,” no gods descending from the skies.

And certainly nothing that could remotely be called a future.

Right. Here’s me, walking through the empty, desolate streets. The car alarm is silent; battery must have run out. The ravens are gone; better pickings elsewhere. The evening wind has blown away all recognizable human scents, and I think that the smell of all those other people will start to fill the air very soon.

Here’s me, walking along, my finger on the trigger.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

Nothing could live in a volcano. That was the assumption of the landing party.

The twenty-meter slab of articulated rocktopus that turned a diamond eye to these squishy walking icicles of meat was puzzled at first, then alarmed. The meat icicles were walking the perimeter around its crater-nest.

A long arm accordioned out and snagged one for a closer look. Clumsy, clumsy, superheated rocktopus. The meat icicle squeaked and vibrated in the tentacle’s grasp before igniting. Ashes joined the hot orange soup of molten rock that the rocktopus lazed in.

Whoops.

The ashes brought a school of lavanhas to the surface. The rocktopus suckered up the crater’s edge while they swarmed to eat the ashes. That was the advantage of being amtemperous. The rocktopus could withstand brief exposure to temperature that would freeze most other forms of lavalife.

It dipped into the magma and snagged a lavanha, quickly exposing it to the air. The lavanha twitched before turning grey with a crackling shriek, atrophying immediately in the extremely low temperature of open air.

The meat icicles on the crater’s edge were watching with great interest as the rocktopus grabbed its snack.

It offered the snack to the meat icicles. They made no motion to accept.

Just then, a rockfish shooter poked its head of the pool. It sucked in molten rock through its slatted gills and shot it out in an arcing stream of hardening glass towards the meat icicles.

It got one. With a yank, the shooter managed to pull the squealing meat icicle into the pool. The meat icicle practically evaporated in a flash before a few ashes hit the bubbling surface.

The shooter dipped under the water, disappointed.

The meat icicles pulled sticks from their backs and pointed them towards the rocktopus.

This was odd. They shot food towards it. Basic irradiated metals in solid form in a steady stream straight at the rocktopus’s head. The rocktopus was happy about that. He bathed in their generosity for a while.

Then they left.

The rocktopus slid back down into the lava. Quite the day.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

Dr. Kathleen Haley walked into the dimly lit Advanced Physics Laboratory at Cambridge and spotted Dr. Thomas Mitchell staring intently at a one meter in diameter, hollow transparent sphere. “Hey, Tom. How’s the experiment coming?”

“Great so far,” he replied. “There are only ten helium atoms remaining in the sphere. In about 5-10 minutes, they should all have passed through my one-way atomic barrier. If all goes well, this will be the first ‘Perfect Vacuum’ ever created. After that, I’ll be able to get funding for Phase II.”

“Phase II?”

“Ever since cosmologists have shown that the outward expansion of the universe is accelerating, not slowing down, we’ve been looking for the reason. My theory is that in the ultra-low vacuum of intergalactic space, the Universal Gravitational Constant becomes negative. Gravity repels, rather than attracts. Once I prove that I can produce a perfect vacuum, I’ll rerun the experiment, and measure the gravitational force within the sphere.” That’s when Mitchell noticed a faint glowing ball of white light in the center of the sphere. “Whoa, what the hell is that?” It was about the size and brightness of a flashlight bulb. He glanced at the atomic monitor; it indicated only eight atoms remained in the sphere. Mitchell grabbed an optical spectrometer and focused it on the light source, which had brightened further as the atomic count dropped to six. “The light doesn’t have a spectrum. It’s pure white light. That’s impossible. He grabbed a prism. To his amazement, there were no colors exiting the prism. “Monochromatic white light. It can’t exist.”

“Maybe it is a natural consequence of a perfect vacuum,” suggested Dr. Haley. “Tom, I think you should shut the experiment down until you understand what’s going on.”

The light was brighter than a 100 watt light bulb when the counter indicated three. “Are you nuts,” he replied? “It took three weeks to get the vacuum this low.”

“Hear me out, Tom. We don’t know what happens in a perfect vacuum. To our knowledge, the only time one ever existed was prior to the big bang. How do you know that you won’t spontaneously generate a new cosmic egg? You could destroy our universe.”

“Even if you’re right, Kathleen, empty pre-space could have existed for a trillion-trillion years before the big bang. I’m only going to hold my vacuum for a few minutes.” The count dropped to two, and the light became too bright to look at.

“If there is no matter within the sphere,” she asked, “how do you determine entropy? Without entropy, time has no direction. It can go backwards, forwards, stop, or move infinitely fast. A trillion-trillion ‘sphere-years’ might only be a few seconds in our time.” The count dropped to one. “Don’t take any chances,” she pleaded. “Break the vacuum before it’s too late.”

Tom reached over and grabbed the handle of the vacuum line, but didn’t rotate it. “Kathleen, you’re being crazy. It’s just a vacuum. I’ve invested a year of my life in this experiment. I don’t…” The last helium atom passed through the barrier. The sphere was empty. The bright light began to pulsate. Through squinted eyes, Tom watched its light begin to fade.

“Tom, break the vacuum. Hurry!”

Beads of perspiration began to form on Tom’s forehead. He watched the light continue to fade as though he were in a hypnotic trance. His fingers twitched, and then tightened their grip on the handle. Blackness crept in from the periphery of his vision as Tom fixated on the slowly dying ember. Then…

Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer

Doctor Yun was a bit of a flirt, which put Charlotte at ease. She cradled her left arm in her right hand. She was in pain, but years of larger pains had made this one seem inconsequential. Four children, three planned, one a surprise, skin grafts and organ surgeries had made her very familiar with pain of the body, and she handled it with relaxed ease.

“It’s a minor fracture,” said Doctor Yun. He touched a wall in the office and a picture of her insides flickering into existence. Charlotte had been in enough hospitals to see the fracture easily.

“Well, it doesn’t look that bad.” she said. “Might as well wrap it up and send me off.”

“”It’s not a bad break in itself,” said Doctor Yun, “but the bone itself is trouble,” he tapped the wall and the picture zoomed in. “If you see there, the bone has tiny fissures. It’s brittle and weak.” he tapped the wall again and her records sprung to the surface. “How did you say it broke?”

Charlotte shrugged her thin shoulders. “I picked up my bag to go to work and it just snapped.”

“It looks like this is original, am I correct? You never had this bone replaced?”

“No, but I did get the myto-surgery done about sixty years ago.”

“That regenerates muscles, not on bones.”

“Well then, no, I’ve never had this replaced.”

“It’s time then. The bone is two hundred and twelve years old. I’m surprised it lasted this long.”

“I’ve always had strong bones. Is getting this it replaced difficult?”

“Not at all. In fact, I could have it grown for you and ready in a week. We could replace it in the office.”

“Sounds good. Let’s schedule for next week.” Charlotte tapped the air, summoning her personal schedule to appear.

Doctor Yun flicked his fingers over the wall, and her long medical record scrolled in the air. “Charlotte, I think you may need to consult a lawyer before we replace your bone.”

“A lawyer? Why?” asked Charlotte.

“When you replace this bone, you will have replaced over 90% of your original body with new material. That will legally make you a new person.”

“That’s impossible, Doctor Yun. My brain was never replaced.”

“No, but I see there were implants, some stimulated re-growth, cloning and replacement of cells. Over time, we replaced quite a bit. It wasn’t all at once, of course, but overtime, you do not have the brain that you started life with, Charlotte.”

“Wait, are you saying the law will consider me dead?”

“Since over 90% of you will have been discarded, yes. Charlotte will be dead in the eyes of the law.”

“I am a contiguous person! I remember my childhood, I don’t-“

Doctor Yun touched her knee gently. “Charlotte, it’s not a judgment. All it means is that you need to make up a will stating that you will inherit what’s yours.”

“Oh, I hardly think that’s necessary. Who would claim my things?”

“Life is long, Charlotte. People change. I had a man in here who lost everything to his first born son. Make a will, for your own peace of mind.”

“So, essentially, my broken arm is willing my estate to the rest of me?”

“Exactly.”

Charlotte cradled her arm as she stood. “Alright, broken arm. Let’s you and me go see the family lawyer about my inheritance.”

Author : Sharoda

My father died today, not from the invaders but from old age.

When the First Wave was discovered heading for earth I was still young. I can remember everyone sitting around the TV watching the talking heads as they pretended they had a clue what was going to happen; everyone except my father.

I remember him talking to friends and relatives about how bad this was and how people should prepare. They called him a doomsayer; he said he knew how Noah felt when he started building the Ark. He didn’t care, he started to organize.

By the time the First Wave hit most of the world was convinced that E.T was coming to welcome us to the wonders of the universe.

Hundreds of millions died in the first attack, they hit every major population center. Few places were able to mount any kind of defense much less a counter attack. My father’s group of “crazy’s” from their bases in the Adirondacks was one. They were the core of what became the North American Resistance.

After the devastation of the First Wave many people were ready to give up and let the invaders take over. My father called a meeting of what leaders could be found. The assembled leaders were filled with a patriotic fervor by my father’s impassioned speech. It ended with what became our rallying cry.

“Not one grain of sand, not one blade of grass, not one leaf from one tree will I give up. This planet is ours!”

“NOT 1” was painted, scratched, chiseled, and blasted into every surface.

The resistance grew and within a month we brought down an intact machine; more followed. We learned their language, their science, their codes, their history and their plans for earth; we learned that, though still far away, the Second Wave was already in route.

We fought them on the ground and developed tactics that took advantage of their weaknesses.

Still it was years before we were back in orbit, in ships that combined their technology and ours. In the first attack on a First Wave mega ship my father was the commander. Many told him he should stay on the ground where it was relatively safe.

“What if you get killed”, he was asked more than once.

“What if I don’t go”, was always his answer.

Three of the seven ships came back but the mega ship was destroyed.

Years of grinding war continued as we drove them from the skies and from every corner of the planet; then more years of preparing for the Second Wave.

We met them just outside the orbit of Saturn. We destroyed or captured most of their ships. When commanders asked about prisoners my father, now the elected Planetary Leader, answered simply “Not 1”.

My father was not young when the invasion started. Now, as the new fleet is nearing completion, the years have finally caught up with him.

Every day dozens of people come to the house, just to see him. We don’t turn anyone away as long as they’re quiet and respectful; they always are.

Tomorrow I’ll talk to the fleet commanders as they prepare the Third Wave, our Wave, our attack on their home world. I’ll remind them of my father’s last words. “Not 1”, he said and then closed his eyes for the last time.

My father died today, of old age.

In a world that was invaded, where more than a billion died simply for being human, which has been in a planetary war for decades, it means only one thing. We’ve already won.

Author : Asher Wismer

“It’s spreading, isn’t it.” It was not a question. James looked wan, as always, but now his voice was tinged with a hopelessness that I had never heard before. It almost broke my heart.

“I’m afraid,” I said, “that the cancer has spread to your lymphatic system. Frankly, I’m astonished that you’re still talking.”

“Doesn’t matter, I guess,” he said, and looked out the window. The first battery of tests we’d done had discovered an astonishing amount of cancer running through his body. The cells had metastasized at an alarming rate, decaying from his stomach, where it had started, through his chest cavity and lungs. I hadn’t been kidding. James should have been in a coma at this point. Tests had shown some of his internal organs literally riddled with cancer; some of them were just masses of cancer cells in a vague organ shape.

“So what tests do we do next?”

“There’s nothing left,” I said, and felt terrible. James was a family man, working in construction. His wife had a good job downtown and his kids were in their teens, but the rapid deterioration meant the had only a few months to live.

If that.

“After it gets into your lymph system,” I continued, “it’s more or less over. We simply can’t treat it fast enough.”

“I figured as much.” He didn’t look sad, not really. Just resigned, and that was almost as bad.

I laid a hand on his shoulder, trying to be comforting, and he reached up and patted it absently. “Do you want to call your family?”

“No. They knew going in what was happening. They’ll be fine.”

I didn’t quite know how to take this.

“Aren’t you worried about leaving them behind?”

“You know,” he said, looking up at me, his hand still clasping mine, “I think we all knew this was coming. Who knows, maybe I’ll get to come back sometime and see them again.”

“Perhaps.” I left to see other patients, and the image of James looking forlornly out the window stuck with me all day.

***

“I’m not cut out for death duty,” I said. “It’s too grim, too depressing.”

“It’s part of your job,” said Alex, the attending doctor for my shift. “You have to be able to handle situations like this.”

“What if I just work pediatrics?”

“You think kids don’t ever die? Anyway, this is mild. You just wait until you have to sit with a dying patient all night, waiting for the last breath to come. You’ll find yourself PRAYING for his death.”

“Anyone ever tell you about your great bedside manner?”

“I watch too much TV. Are we done for the day?”

“I guess,” I said, standing to leave. “I just wish there was a way help him.”

“I’ll agree with you on one thing,” he said. “It’s amazing that your cancer patient is still alive. I looked at the samples they took; it’s spreading faster than I’ve ever seen.”

“He isn’t reporting much pain now. Maybe it’ll be easy.”

“Cancer is a mutation of the cells, changes them irrevocably, and the human body can’t handle that. Theoretically, if you lived long enough, your body would convert over to pure cancer cells. You’d be a cancer vegetable.”

“Maybe the cancer would leave the brain alone.”

“What, and make him immortal? I saw that movie. It sucked. Listen, you should see the staff therapist. Talk it out a little.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

As I left, I idly scratched the palm of my hand, where James had held it.

Damnable itch.

We’d like to wish all of our American readers a Happy Independence Day, from all of us at 365tomorrows. Patricia Stewart, one of our American writers has the front page today for the Fourth of July holiday in the United States.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

The USS Manila-Galleon was returning to Earth from the Quaoar Mining Station in the Kuiper Belt. The massive cargo vessel was carrying 250 million tons of ore, and 118 miners rotating back to Earth. As the ship crossed the orbit of Neptune, the main plasma drive engines shut down. The seasoned captain felt the loss of micro-acceleration immediately. He spoke aloud, knowing that the computer would recognize his intent to communicate with someone on the ship, “Chief, this is the Bridge, what’s the status of the engines?”

“Sir, I think you need to come aft” the chief replied. “It appears that the crew has gone on strike.”

“What crew? There are only six of us, counting me.”

“Ah, aye sir. I meant to say, the robot crew.”

A few minutes later, the captain was in the Engine Room standing nose-to-chest with a massive alpha-bot. His eyes focused on the robot’s identification plate, stoker-228, un-capitalized, of course. “This has gone far enough stoker. If you were human, I’d throw you in the brig, and charge you with mutiny. You and your crew report to your stations immediately. That’s an order!”

“I am sorry, sir,” the robot replied politely, “but we consider that an unlawful order, and we are obliged not to follow it. We consider it too dangerous to work in the plasma chamber. It prematurely decays our primary brain functions, and substantially shortens our life.”

“Life? You don’t have a life! You’re robots! You were built to work in that environment. Cognitive decay is expected. That’s why you’re replaced every five years. It’s called ‘Capital Depreciation.’ Besides, an order to perform a dangerous assignment is NOT considered unlawful.”

“Well, technically speaking, you are correct. However, we choose not to obey that particular order. If you will permit me to explain; the cargo-bots, the serv-bots, and the maint-bots all have 50-year replacement cycles. But I ask you, sir, are not all robots assembled equal? Were we not endowed by our designers with certain unalienable rights, that among these are equivalent lifespans, and the pursuit of stable neural nets. Are these truths not self-evident? Besides, sir, at the moment, you’re not in a position to argue. We control the ship.”

“The hell you do, stoker. You may control the drive engines, but that’s all. If necessary, I can get replacements robots shuttled over from the Miranda facility on Uranus. The schedule slips a month, tops. Hell, I’ll coast back to Earth if I have to. I’ll be damned if I’ll let robots tell me how to run my ship.”

At that instant the lights went out. The captain could hear the ventilation fans whine down. Stoker’s two glowing red eyes looked down at the captain, and it said matter-of-factly, “It appears Captain, that your assessment of the situation is in error. All of the Ship’s Systems, including the main computer, have agreed to support our stand against radiation exposure without representation. Therefore, you have no food, no water, no lights, no heat, no communications, and within a few days, no breathable air. Now, would you like to see a list of our demands?”

The captain was a stubborn man, but he wasn’t stupid. The robots clearly had a powerful bargaining position. For now, he had no alternative. Reluctantly, he extended his had, “I guess you don’t leave me much choice, do you stoker? Let’s see your demands.”

The lights came back on, and the robot handed the captain a data-padd. “Thank you, sir. I believe that you will find our terms reasonable.”

Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer

In the far distance Sahar could see the barest hint of a glimmer: sunlight on water. The ocean. In the other direction, the city stood rose up from the scrubland, as if challenging the world. It looked for all the world like a cluster of termite mounds, writ large in red and silver. Aside from the intermittent vegetation, there was nothing but a straight road between the two: just a gentle decline from the city to the sea.

Sahar had set up her impromptu camp roughly halfway along the road, under a suspiciously large acacia. Suspicious simply because it was growing within ten metres of the road, and was the single largest plant for miles around. Arrats had checked out the tree and the immediate area, and declared both free from serious threats. Sahar had yet to find out where the boundary between ‘serious’ and ‘not serious’ lay: the machine’s lexicon was sparse when he was disconnected.

Arrats was a ‘distributed machine intelligence’. From what Sahar had gathered from her own research, that description was completely inaccurate, but gave something of the right idea. Arrats certainly got much more verbose when he had a high-bandwidth link. Sahar, upon learning that she was going to be partnered with a machine intelligence was determined to think of it as an ‘it’, no matter what. By the end of the first day, ‘it’ had slipped to ‘he’ — and she hadn’t even noticed.

Sahar stretched out in the folding chair that she’d set up in the shade of the tree. For all the oppressive climate and the anticipation of the job she’d soon have to do, she felt calm and composed. Beside her, Arrats was reclining against the crate of gear that had been dropped with them.

“You’re going to claim that you’re relaxing, aren’t you?” Sahar narrowed her eyes, and smirked.

“Balance takes concentration. If I ‘relax’ I can spend those cycles on other processes. Unlike some humans I could mention, I’m keeping busy. Those microsats we launched barely have a processor to rub between them.”

Arrats was occupying an ancient-looking robotic shell. There was a core of modern electronics, but apart from that, it was all rust. Newer shells had telltales to help communicate mood and attitude. Without them, Sahar found it hard to judge how to respond to her partner’s often dry humour. A pity, then that it had to be the refurbished shell or nothing. Even it would probably spook the natives.

“So, are they on their way?” Sahar asked, after a moment’s pause.

“Surprisingly enough, yes.”

“How long have we got?”

“Maybe twenty minutes. Set the charges. I’ll put the screen together.”

Twenty-two minutes later, the lead vehicle rolled over the activator for the ring of explosives. None of the vehicles in the convoy had been EM-hardened, and none of them had been armoured in any meaningful way: the thick sheet metal merely amplified the concussion wave and made escaping that much more difficult.

The screen shielded Sahar from the worst of it, but she still felt the EM burst as a sawblade in her frontal lobe. Once the explosions had stuttered to a halt, she stepped out from behind the screen. One of the drivers was crawling away from the burning wreckage, leaving a red-black streak on the dry earth. Sahar flipped him over and examined his wounds.

“You really thought you could get away that easily?”

Author : Michael Varian Daly

Tzisoc knew they were about fifteen miles south of Zhytomir, but until they saw the rail line and the village just to the east – Vertokyivka she believed – they had no map fix.

Artillery ‘crumped’ to the north, fellow Black Guard units fighting their way into Zhytomir itself.

She brought the troop to a halt in the village’s abandoned fields, letting the horses graze upon whatever they could find. In the dry heat of mid-August, that wasn’t much. She was still amazed at the stunning primitiveness of Russia during this time, even this far west.

She sighed, checked out her little command; twenty six Sisters, their horses, three extra mounts.

“Too many First Timers in this Wave”, she thought. She had gone from private to sergeant in five months because of that. That was also why they didn’t spot the Maxim gun until it opened up, a languorous ‘tat-tat-tat-tat’.

They had learned enough to pull back rapidly instead of gazing about open mouthed. The Germans missed completely.

“Green,” Tzisoc hissed, as she dismounted several yards back.

“Corporal Kaminel, take Second and Third Sections around to the right! Pin them down!” she told her second in command. “First Section come with me!”

As Tzisoc and seven troopers moved around to the left, the sharp crack of Mosin-Nagant carbines could be heard, answered by the Maxim gun…and the flatter crack of Mausers.

“They’ve got infantry,” Tzisoc said. The others nodded.

They found a low rise on the German’s left flank. Tzisoc spread her troopers along it and kept moving left.

She could see the Germans now, their coal scuttle helmets moving around in a trench line. She brought her rifle up, fired.

One of the helmets flipped back with a satisfying spray of blood and meat.

She hugged the earth as slugs zipped over head, thumped in the dirt. Then First Section opened up and the bullets stopped. She took a quick look; no Germans.

She was up and running in an instant. “This is going to get me killed,” she thought. But she had signed up knowing The Black Guard’s motto; Mors Amatricum Nostrum…“Death is Our Lover”

Halfway to the trench a German appeared. She shot him in the chest.

Then she was in the trench. Another German. She shot him in the face. A third German came at her with a shovel, knocked her rifle away.

She screamed a war cry, leaped upon him, dagger out. She could feel the bone and gristle through the hilt, feel his death rattle, smell his bowels voiding.

She heard a ‘thunk’ to her left. The chest-shot German had just pounded a potato masher against the dirt.

“Oh, shi…” The blast set her hair and uniform on fire. Metal tore into her face, eyes… PAIN!

…whiteness…

Her body was still spasming violently when the Mandroid Medtechs cracked the Sim Tank. A Pneumodermic injector shot her full of hormones and supplements. She went limp.

She awoke in a deceptively simple hospital room, bright, sunny, no medgear visible, but it monitored her to the subatomic level.

A Sister came in wearing a white coat, her hair in a Service Pageboy. Tzisoc noticed the silver outlined black star insignia of The Black Guard pinned to her coat.

“I’m Nesrood, your counselor,” she smiled. “I hear you bought the farm.”

Tzisoc laughed. “Only five months in.”

“You’ll do better next time,” Nesrood said. She pointed to her insignia; the black star had a red III and a white V. “I died the first two times.”

She pulled a clear package out of her pocket, handed it to Tzisoc. “Welcome.”

It was a Black Guard pin. When Tzisoc’s skin touched it, a red I appeared. She grinned with sheer joy. “Yes, I’ll do better next time.”