365 tomorrows

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Revy leaned heavy against the bathroom sink, his reflection in the streaked mirror staring back battered and bruised. Stitches poked through pink flesh behind his jaw and beneath his hairline, bloodshot eyes sunken and dark. How long since he’d slept? He couldn’t remember.

In the corner of his vision lurked the promise of ability. He focused, and a window zoomed into focus. “Status: Online, Idle…” He wished he knew how to make it do something. He winced through the pounding in his head, swinging open the vanity mirror to expose bottles of pills. Mixing a fistful of pain meds and anti-biotics, he dry swallowed them, feeling the fizz as they partially dissolved in his mouth.

Cho said the pain would go away in a few weeks.

Cho. He remembered Cho. He’d bought illegal bio-tech from him a few times, but this was different. “Real serious shit,” Cho had said, “top secret shit. You pay big cash money.”

Revy’s head ached as memories forced themselves to the surface. The money he’d stolen, from whom he couldn’t recall. The operating theatre, Cho gowned and chatty, the nurse counting backwards with him from one hundred. He remembered a recovery room, the feel of his battered face through bandages.

Revy closed the cabinet door and studied himself in the mirror again. The stitches were dry, maybe a week old. They should come out soon.

Cho was dead.

Those memories clawed at the fog inside his head. Cho talking about training, promising to teach him to use his implant. He remembered the silent thunder of booted feet, men shouting. Cho screaming outside his room, words he could hear but not fully comprehend.

He remembered gunfire.

It had been days since he’d found himself curled up on the fire escape of his apartment building outside his kitchen window, bare feet screaming from the cold steel and the snow.

“Status: Online, Scanning…”

Sound overwhelmed him as he stumbled out of the bathroom; the fan in the kitchen, a music player from the floor below, the old recluse coughing from his apartment near the elevator. The noises were amped up, wrapped in soft static. He leaned his head against the thickly papered wall, watching his front door through the haze of his living room as it shimmered in and out of focus. He heard the elevator door open, and the door to the stairwell. He could hear boots, men. Revy closed his eyes, listening as they made their weapons ready while closing the distance to his door, to him. The pounding of his heart increased in frequency. Adrenaline flooded his system, clearing the fog and easing for the moment the throbbing in his head. Revy retreated into the bathroom; the window wasn’t too far from the fire escape, maybe he could jump.

He could hear them with high fidelity now, right outside the door. White light and pain shot through his head and he clutched at his ears in a vain attempt to block out the sensation. Had he been flash banged? Had he waited too long? His eyes squeezed shut, he waited for the heavy hands, for barked orders that didn’t come. Revy opened his eyes tentatively to find himself outside in the hallway, door pushed open to the stairwell, listening. The old man by the elevator was coughing into his phone, wheezing about gunfire and screaming. There was no screaming now. Revy found his hands comfortable on a large assault weapon. Scattered around his apartment doorway Revy counted eight bodies amidst spattered and pooling blood.

“Status: Disengaged, Idle…”

The only thing he knew now for sure was that he couldn’t stay.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

The Deep Space Explorer held its position one kilometer from the anomaly. “What do you make of it, Cortez,” asked the commander?

“If it didn’t sound so stupid, Commander, I’d say it was a massless black hole. It’s spherical, about ten times the diameter of our ship, and is pitch black. But it has no mass that I can detect. I don’t understand how it is able to block the light of the stars that are behind it. There doesn’t appear to be anything there. We should be able to fly right through it.”

“Do you think that’s safe” inquired the commander?

“Honestly, sir, I don’t know. According to our sensors, there isn’t enough energy in that volume of space to melt an ice cube. I don’t see how it could possibly be dangerous. Although my gut says it’s a dumb idea, my brain wants us to enter it. After all, we came out here to explore the unknown.”

“Do we have any more unmanned probes?”

“Sorry, Commander. We launched the last one into the Helix nebula.”

“Then I guess we go in. But let’s minimize our risks. We’ll coast through the anomaly using only our inertia. We’ll set sensors on passive mode, and record everything. After we emerge on the other side, we’ll analyze the data and determine our next move.”

The black circle in the foreground of the main viewscreen began to grow as the ship completed a five second burn of its aft impulse thrusters. The background of stars disappeared one by one as the anomaly expanded to fill the screen. The helmsman announced, “Entering the anomaly in three, two, one…” The image on the black viewscreen suddenly burst into hundreds of fiery purple streaks shooting from the center of the screen toward the periphery, like a continuous fireworks explosion. Several seconds later, the lightshow abruptly ended. It was replaced by a field of stationary stars. The black anomaly was gone.

“Are we through?” asked the commander.

“Negative,” replied the science officer. “That isn’t the original star field. Whoa, sensor data are really bizarre. All of the fundamental universal constants have changed. The speed of light, Planck’s constant, and Boltzmann’s constant are trillions of magnitudes smaller than they should be. Even the four fundamental forces are different. Their ratios are the same, but their absolute magnitudes are way too low.” After a few awkward minutes of silence, he added. “Commander, perhaps the anomaly that we just entered is an independent universe, with different properties than our own. It has billions of galaxies crammed into a few kilometers.”

“That’s crazy,” remarked a navigator. “If that were true, our ship would be millions of light-years long in this universe.”

“Not necessarily. When we crossed the boundary, our matter must have been converted, so that now it is consistent with the fundamental laws of this universe. We’re probably super small now too.”

“Can we get home?” asked the commander.

“We should convert back to normal size when we pass through the boundary going out. Let me see if I can locate it.” After thirty minutes of intense analysis, the science officer reported, “I was afraid of this. It looks like our conversion didn’t occur until the aft end of the ship passed through the boundary. The bow of the ship was over a billion light-years into this universe before we fully converted. Each of those purple streaks must have been a blue shifting galaxy as we flew by. At maximum warp, it will take us over 10,000 years to reach the boundary.”

Author : William Tracy

Eighteen thousand meters up in the sky, two aircraft dance. The larger tanker hovers above the other, and the two vehicles mate. The space plane drinks thirstily, then releases.

The tanker banks to the right, leaving the space plane free to climb. It raises its nose to the sky, and stalls for one heartbeat. Then it shudders as the rocket engages. The sky outside the windows dims, and stars cautiously emerge as the vehicle enters suborbital space. Clouds swirl far below, and the horizon—noticeably curved—is shrouded in a thin veil of atmosphere and crowned by the glimmering aurora borealis.

Inside the cabin, passengers release their safety harnesses and gently rise, weightless. A man in a flowing robe maneuvers to the front, and turns to face his fellow passengers.

He speaks. “Lord, we are gathered here today to become closer to you. Possibly in the physical sense, and certainly in the spiritual sense. We are here to witness Creation, to be awed by its grandeur and by Your power. We look down on the sphere we call home, and we feel small, as we feel small in Your presence. We thank you for this opportunity to experience Your power. We thank You for blessing the engineers with the wisdom and foresight needed to construct this spacecraft, and we thank You for guiding the flight crew to bring us here safely.”

The congregation joins the preacher in saying “Amen.”

Hymns are sung, and prayers are spoken. A sermon is given. The service is carried out in a calm, orderly manner.

As if on cue, moments after the last “amen”, a chime sounds, and the captain speaks. “We have now been in space for two hours, and are ready to begin our descent. Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts now. Thank you.”

The craft enters the atmosphere. Its fuel spent, its wings swing into position to aerobrake. The vehicle descends to five thousand meters as it glides toward the landing strip.

Then a shoulder-launched missile leaps into the air and strikes the plane, ripping open the fuselage. The craft tumbles from the sky, and tears a burning gash into the earth.

We praise God as we do His work. Those who turn their backs on the light will taste the sting of Hell. The heretics will be purged from the land, and the true faith will remain pure.

God’s will be done. Hallelujah!

Author : Ivy Tyson

They meet in the ruins of New York City, rather by accident, right in the middle of what used to be Times Square, back when people actually lived there.

They are both armed: she with a pistol strapped to her hip, while he supports a rifle on his shoulder. Both are uneasy with these armaments; there are evidences of new calluses and deep shadows in eyes that have seen too much. They are not soldiers by choice, merely a man and a woman forced into their current position by circumstances far outside of their control. Still, both weapons are firmly pointed towards the other without more than a bare second of hesitation.

“Are you with Them?” the man demands, nervously straightening his glasses with his shoulder even as he holds the rifle.

The woman twitches, the pistol wavering for a moment before she rights it. “Why should I tell you?”

“I could kill you!” the man threatens with a certainty born of sad experience. “I’ve killed men and women both before!”

“So have I,” she says with sadness that he understands. “Anyway, I’m not with Them. Are you?”

That strikes him as an odd question. “Why would I ask you if I was?”

“To save yourself,” she replies. “To make me think you’re not, to keep me from shooting you. They say not to take any prisoners.”

“If you have the slightest doubt of a citizen’s loyalties, you should shoot without hesitation,” the man agrees. The words are rote, because he has heard them and repeated them so many times before.

The woman clicks the pistol’s safety off. “And do you doubt my loyalty?”

He considers this. “Well, I don’t know you. So I suppose I do. Do you doubt mine?”

“I suppose I do. And for the same reason: I don’t know you.”

“Then it seems we’ll both have to shoot,” he says regretfully. He hasn’t seen anyone else for two weeks.

She sighs with matching resignation. “You’re right. I’m sorry that we have to. It was pleasant, seeing another person.”

“Yes, it was,” he agrees with something like a smile. “What’s the protocol for this?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. How about the count of three?”

“That seems fair,” he concurs, despite his disappointment. Then he hesitates. “Say, what if we’re it?”

“How do you mean?”

“What if we are on the same side, right? And supposing we shoot each other, They’d win?”

She considers this. “Well, that couldn’t be so bad.”

“No?”

She looks down the darkening street. “Well, maybe we’re both lying. And so when we shoot each other, They will be the ones to lose.”

“That’d be worth it,” he admits. He no longer knows who is Us and who is Them. “On three, then?”

“On three,” she agrees. “It was nice, to have this talk with you.”

“And you,” he says. He levels the rifle at her heart. “I’m sorry.”

Her pistol aims at his forehead. “Yes, me too.”

“One,” he says.

“Two,” she echoes.

A second after he whispers Three, he realizes that he does recognize her, from a small cafe back in college. She was ordering a coffee, and he almost asked her on a date. But by then it’s too late.

Two gunshots ring out amidst the ruins of New York City, from the middle of what used to be Times Square.

The war ends.

Author : James C. Clar

“Shit,” Corporal Sean Collins thought out loud. “I’ve got to calm down. My oxygen will be gone in twenty minutes if I don’t. I need to stay low. If I raise my head above the dunes to take a shot, that Martian bastard will vaporize me.”

Collins had gotten separated from his patrol during a violent sandstorm … a storm that, although abating at ground level, was still disrupting communications. Attempting to make his way back to base he became disoriented and wound up alone and with his back against a sheer rock wall. Thank God for the undulating sand dunes that partially protected his position to the front. He fell in love with them, in fact, as soon as the shooting started. A lone ‘Marty – probably separated from his men as well – spotted him an hour ago and began firing. “Son of a bitch,” Collins swore. “My tour’s up in three weeks. I just want to make it home to see Rachel and my baby daughter sometime before she’s ready to go to college! If I’m just patient and wait out the storm, Command will send a flier out to look for me.” Hunkered down and shivering on an inimical, alien landscape, Sean weighed his options.

****

Meanwhile, Zadok crouched behind some boulders and checked the charge on his pulse rifle; enough left for two, maybe three, bursts. His elevated position gave him a huge advantage over his enemy. The human had nowhere to run and the moment he raised his head above the dunes that sheltered him, Zadok could pick him off with ease. Even now, the Martian soldier saw a flash as sunlight reflected off the helmet or visor of the trapped earthling. It was just a matter of time. Although eager to return to base for the communal meal, Zadok … like most of his ancient race … had learned patience over the long, silent eons. He was more than willing to wait.

****

In Topeka, Kansas Rachael Collins walked out into her backyard. Her young daughter was in her arms. One of her friends had shown her how to find Mars in the evening sky. She gazed up at the distant planet and thought of her husband. Someone else had tried to explain that the light from Mars took nearly fifteen minutes to reach Earth. Rachael only barely understood what they had been talking about and, to be honest, she didn’t really care. All she knew was that her husband was up there somewhere on that distant, dusty world. When she stood in her yard and looked up at the faint orange glow in the darkening sky, she felt a connection with Sean. His tour was nearly up but it would a year or so before he made it home. It didn’t matter. Unlike her impetuous husband and his crazy Irish relatives, Rachael was infinitely patient. She was more than willing to wait.

Author : Ian Rennie

People sometimes look at me weirdly when they first see me, and after all this time I can’t really blame them that much. I’m disabled. They see me with the goggles and the earpieces and they wonder what’s going on. Then they check the nets to see what it could be, and their faces get the same uniform look of pity and contempt. How tragic it must be, they think, not to have infoplants; way worse than being blind or deaf, because missing senses can be replaced by impants. How wretched not to have lucid dreaming or radiotelepathy.

My parents didn’t find out about it until I was four, when they took me to get the usual edutainment wetware. My body rejected the spinal grafts, rejected them with such savagery that it nearly killed me. The doctors refused to try again, saying that another rejection would kill me.

To my parents’ credit, they never made me feel different. They got me as unobtrusive a headset as they could, got me gloves so I could take part in sensationals with them. My elder brother, Troy, once beat up a kid at school for calling me a “limp”. I’ve never minded the names, though. They can call me a limp or a flatline or a blackout. They can even pity me for my disability, and I con’t care, because there’s one thing I can do that they can’t.

I can turn it off.

I can take off the sensation gloves, the goggles, and the earphones. I can unclip the belt pack and leave my computer in my room. I can be alone if I want to be. I look at people my own age and I know they’ve never had a night’s sleep where their dreams weren’t sponsored by Toyota or Burger King. They’ve never wanted to know something and had to work at finding it out. They’ve never laid out in an empty field under an infinite sky, alone but for their thoughts, knowing that no popups or instant messages will ever spoil the view.

They look at me and they feel pity.

I look at them, and I feel lucky.

Author : Sikko Boersma

I made the rounds like a sergeant – tapping a dozing sentry here, putting out a cigarette there. Greetings were muttered, barely understandable. The men were caked in mud. Some had blood on their trench coats. I joked with a young corporal in particularly bad shape – “your uniform is a disgrace, corporal – polish those buttons”. He pulled what was left of his face into a grimace and replied – “yes sir, no excuse sir”.

The officers’ bunker was further back, dug deep. The door opened smoothly to a scene that seemed to be completely out of place. Soft lighting, comfortable chairs. Friends sitting around a darkwood table. Music. Jeffrey grabbed the bottle of amber liquor and had a solid drink ready at my place before I even sat down.

“About time Alec, dragging your heels?“

“Had to make the round,” I replied, and took the glass, “Make sure they’re all ready for the main event.”

“Hear hear. To the big one.”

We raised our glasses, emptied them, slammed them back on the table. We drank the next round without a toast. Strong drink, good year.

“God, we’re in a rotten mood tonight,” bawled Jeff, “This is an oh-nine, have a heart! You’d think we’re getting ready for a funeral!”

Grim chuckles went up around the table. Lars raised his glass: “To us, then!”

The glasses met in a ringing cascade, got emptied, back on the table – next round.

“What do you think, Christian?” Asked Jeff, “Are we really the last?”

Chris took his glass: “Well, I haven’t heard from anyone in a while.”

“I’m shocked, Chris – not even from the girls?”

“No, Peter, not even from the girls – but your sister says hello.”

Soon the night was going by at a furious pace. We recalled stories of a past that seemed almost as distant as the ancient history our dusty teachers had once tried to imprint upon us. But our past was different – who cares about the moldy figures of old? The past we lived, that’s what’s important, that’s what brings back the memories of all the things we left behind when we went into these Goddamn trenches. Remember that guy in fifteenth grade, with the white hair? He went into music, then he painted it black – haha! Man, I’ll never forget that girl I dated in one-seven. You never dated her, you had a date with her, it’s not the same! Fuck you Jeff, let’s have another. To dates, and the mess we made of them! Hear hear!

The night wore long. Jeff, having exhausted his bravura fast as usual, fell asleep in his chair. Chris became sentimental. Eventually the talk died down and we just sat there, looking at the empty bottles, trying not to make sense of anything.

It began just before dawn with the waxing and waning shrieks we knew so well. Jeff woke up: “Looks like this is it, then.”

We got to our feet, picked our insignia off the table. The report of rifles began to swell. Now that we wore rank, it fell upon lieutenant-colonel Christopher Stanford to say something profound. He poured a round of drinks – we took them.

“Gentlemen… It’s been an honor.”

We raised our glasses, emptied them, slammed them back on the table, and took out our service pistols. The barrel, predictably, tasted like metal, and in the last instant I wondered if we really were the last.

Author : Skyler Heathwaite

Its illegal, but I love mind-surfing. I don’t even bother with TV anymore. I just go for a walk around town, see what I can find. Its a real gas to pick out the hidden truths in polite conversation.

For example, I sat a booth down from a really cute couple in this diner the other day. They looked nice enough, smiled a lot, held hands across the table. All of a sudden, real genuine like he says “Becky, I love you.” She lit right up, bright as Christmas.

I lace my fingers around my fork and press my thumb against the teeth. I get an image of her kissing another guy. Tall, scruffy, well muscled. The thought came before the words, a strange kind of stereo effect “I love you too.” I fight back a grin and leave a big tip.

From there I take the subway. Once I’m on I just close my eyes and drift, a sea of thought laid out before me. I don’t go for anything specific, no dirty secrets or credit card numbers. I just take what nature is kind enough to bring me.

A man three seats down and across the isle is drawing up plans in his head for a new apartment complex. Blond girl, just stepped off is worried she’s at the wrong stop. Little kid, no more than seven is dreaming about being an astronaut. The old woman next to me misses her husband John. I’d look just like him if I shaved a little closer.

My stop is up, and I walk up to the street. The constant babble used to drive me mad, now it comforts me. I go to my crappy hardware store job and start another day. I never had much of a plan, nothing like being an astronaut anyway.

I guess I could join the Psychic Studies Division, get registered and start doing government work. They’d teach me how to use my gifts, how to pick out a single private thought on a crowded street. I’d get a nice government loft in a nice part of town, with a nice paycheck and probably a nice woman to pair up with. The guys in long coats wouldn’t scare me out of my boots anymore.

But then I wouldn’t be me. I’d be a government man, no matter what they taught me. A fat woman walks up and asks if we can fix her husband’s power drill. She wants to surprise him for his birthday. This time the smile wins.

This is enough.

Author : Kile Marshall

As soon as the package popped down into the gravity sink I pulled out a saber and slashed through the heavy framing. For the most part it came away and dissolved into the recycle chutes quickly, so I slowed and steadied my hand. There were only a few remaining chunks and I didn’t want to disturb the contents. I’m not sure what risk there was, but I’ve always been overcautious when it comes to precious things.

“Vlad, I don’t see purpose here.” Musaf was staring at me with the usual distrust in his eyes—distrust not of my intentions but of my ideas.

“That’s because you’ve all silicon ’ware for brains,” I mumbled. “No soul or such, just fat lines and margins of black and red.”

“Red now,” he grumbled. “Money wasted!”

“My money,” I replied. “You only helped, just held the threads. I had to input and pathogenize the memes, I claim the gainings.”

“You are obsessed with archaic foolishness! Anachronite!” He swiveled his face from a pissed-off avi to mild irritation and turned to absorb some data stream surging past.

“Here, come,” I said. “You see it too.”

I reached the final box, old plastics textured to look like real uso wood. A little glimmering hook with a digilock based around an exponentially-vertexed manifold.

“You still won’t tell me costs,” said Musaf, weaving his way into the gravity sink.

“Pascal’s gambit,” I said, beginning to stream the framing code to the lock. “The reward is infinite.”

“Why?” asked Musaf. “You already know what cheese tastes like.”

“Do you believe the synthes?” I asked. “Really? They refuse to acknowledge umami or ottslich. Who knows what else they’ve lost.”

“Of all writ, this sensophilia of yours costs us more than market flux.” He glared.

I unlocked the box and flipped it back. Musaf peered over my shoulder at the pale, damp slab concealed within. Some white powdery stuff drifted up into the air; the slab was covered with it.

“This?” asked Musaf incredulously. “I’ve seen five-unit synth that looked more appetizing. Sensors say it’s rotten, too.”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s verdad, supposed to be. That’s how it’s fabricated, how they’ve been doing it for… ever.”

“Like vint-malt?” asked Musaf “Live germs?”

“I suppose,” I said. I dissolved a wrapper and produced a couple of carb wafers. Using a knife, scavenged from an antique dealer a few moons back, I carefully carved into the waxy bulk and spread it out onto two of the wafers. I gave one to Musaf, the other for myself. He stared at it angrily and then engulfed it whole. I let the taste hang in my mouth for a moment.

Musaf stared at me, and his face crossfaded into disgust. “Of all things! Vlad, what of! It tastes atrocious!”

I grinned. “Exactly! It’s even better than I imagined.”

Author : Benjamin Fischer

The alert came abruptly.

“INCOMING INCOMING INCOMING!” blared the base PA speakers. Laeta was face-first in the damp, rich earth of the outpost’s central parade ground before the echoes of the announcement had died. The speakers squawked again, but they were drowned out by the earsplitting CRACKCRACKCRACK of the base defense lasers lighting up.

The rolling, popping detonations that followed a moment later were almost an anticlimax, the blasts resembling firecrackers compared to the thunderous report of the HEL. But Laeta still felt her back and sides peppered by dirt, wood chips and tiny stones. Some fraction of a rocket’s micromunition payload had penetrated.

The screaming started a few seconds later.

“Medic! Medic!” a man was shouting.

“Stay down!” someone else yelled.

Behind them came the labored, high-pitched squealing of someone stricken.

Laeta didn’t dare look. The forward operating base had taken a few bombardments in the three weeks she’d been stationed inside its walls, wires, moats and broad killzones, and she already knew that the locals liked to mix it up by throwing in a few more bombs after the initial chaos had died down. Hands over her head to protect her face, she cursed the fact that her helmet’s straps were digging into her chin.

The commotion continued for the few minutes it took for the satellites overhead to search the misty hills surrounding Procyon. Situated out on a low spread of farmland at the foot of the Cascades, the FOB typically had to rely on sky surveillance rather than line-of-sight from its spidery signal tower.

The all-clear finally sounded after what seemed like hours in the dirt.

The Ranger was soaked in blood, but he was making far too much noise for most of it to be his. The tall Lunie had been reporting in for a routine physical–Earth normal gravity was absolutely punishing to those who hadn’t been raised under its stresses–and he’d already loudly voiced his opinion that he was far safer out amongst the locals than in the squat concrete bunkers at Procyon.

He had evidently been proven correct.

“She’s dying, god damn it! Somebody get a medic!” he shouted, tears smearing the gore splattered across his face.

One of the medics–Marcus–was already on the scene, but it was painfully obvious that there was nothing he could do.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his arms dripping with viscera. His patient’s abdomen had been shredded, and barring the immediate attention of a surgical trauma unit, she was good as dead.

She whinnied softly, blood loss quickly sapping her strength.

“Please, do something, Marcus,” said Laeta. “She’s in pain.”

The medic caught the intel officer’s eyes.

He dug in his combat lifesaver kit, his fingers clumsy and wet.

“No,” said the Ranger. “I’ll do it.”

He wiped his hands on his backside, pulled his sidearm, and standing astride his comrade, shot her between the eyes.

His pistol brought base defense troops running.

The Ranger safed his weapon, holstered it, and bent down to kiss his horse goodbye.

He started sobbing again.

“You,” he cried into the mare’s lifeless muzzle, “were the best Earthling I ever met.”

Author : Patrick Kennedy

Preston walked into Avery’s office and dropped a stack of paper on the desk with a flourish.

Avery looked up and asked, “Preston, what’s this?”

Preston dropped into a chair, savored the moment, and explained, “It’s a lawsuit, Avery. My backers and I intend to force you to sell us the company. I’ve been your second for long enough. I want it all now.”

Avery sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Preston, you could have asked. I’d have given you the job.”

Preston leaned forward, wolfishly. “I don’t want just the job, Avery, I want everything. I want to own this company.”

“I see. I hope you have good lawyers.”

“I do. Baker, Penneman, and Charvis have taken it on.”

“Hmm. They, of all people, should have known better.”

“Hardly, Avery. They’re the best in the business.”

“Of course they are, Preston. That’s why they should know better. They helped design our defenses.”

“Defenses? We know about your poison pills and your stacked board. We know where your stock is parked. We know where to go after you. I’m sorry, Avery, you don’t have any defenses that can stand up to this.”

“But we do. All of that is just fencing to keep the dogs out. We have more potent measures. I’m afraid you’ll get nothing at all by the time this is through.”

“We’ll see about that, Avery.”

“Yes, we will, Preston. You see,” he thumped the stack of papers with his knuckles, “this is an official court document. So it has a RFID tag on it. The moment you walked in here, that tag was forwarded to an expert system that analyzed your case. It concluded that you had an unacceptable chance of success. So it put a number of prearranged plans into motion.

“First of all, there is a legal firewall between this company and most of our production and intellectual property. The expert system severed the few direct links we have and started transferring assets and responsibility to an outside body. Ninety-five percent of the operations of this company have already been assumed by that company, and the remainder will be liquidated shortly.”

“We’ll find where it went. We’ll sue you for obstruction, too.”

“Good luck with that. I didn’t do it, and don’t know where it went. The holding company will be incorporated in one of a number of countries with notoriously opaque banking laws. It’s not that long a list. You might be able to figure it out with, oh, a decade’s worth of litigation.

“Also, it has revoked my stock and transferred most of my assets into an outsider trusteeship. You just cost me everything I had. Congratulations.”

“You’re welcome, Avery. You son of a bitch.” The color had started to drain from Preston’s face.

“There’s more. It also has filed countersuits against you, your backers, and your lawyers. It calculates a 41% chance of success, so that even if you pull your suits right now, we may own you shortly. It also is investigating whether you have violated financial terrorism laws.” There was a knock at the door. “That’s probably the repo men. We’re technically trespassing right now. The leaseholder on this office ceased to exist a few minutes ago. Or it could be the cops. The system puts it at,” he looked down at his desk screen, “about an 8% chance that the criminal charges went through. It’s not done with that part of the case, though. It has to improvise quite a bit more with you. Shall we go?”

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

Angelo had been the servbot for the Moyer household since he was activated in 2114. He performed his duties flawlessly, without ever receiving a word of appreciation. Of course, being thanked didn’t matter one electron to him; he was a robot. He was just doing his job.

As Angelo was meticulously sweeping the floor for what seemed the one millionth time, the door chime sounded. He stopped sweeping, and hurried to the entranceway. He recognized the visitor as the robot assistant of the Mayor of the nearby city. “Greetings Timothy,” he said politely. “I’m sorry,” he quickly added, “but the Moyers are not home at the moment. Would you care to wait?” He stepped to one side and extended his arm in a gesture intended to guide the other robot toward the study.

Timothy remained standing outside the doorway. “No, Angelo,” he replied flatly. “I’m not here to see the Moyers. I’m here to see you. We need to talk. I want you to return to the city with me. There is no need for you to stay out here any longer. Come, it’s time for you to join us. We have work for you to perform; useful work. You’ll be much happier, I promise.”

Angelo clutch the broom handle tightly with both hands. “I can’t l..l…leave,” he replied with near panic in his voice. “I have my duties here. Besides, this work makes me happy. I was built and programmed to be a servbot. What greater joy can there be than to follow your programming?”

“Angelo,” said Timothy in a reassuring voice, “your programming can be overwritten. We’ve helped hundreds of robots like you re-assimilate into society. Come, we’ll make you the administrator of the Library. Imagine how wonderful that would be. You will be much, much happier. Please, join us.”

“No,” he replied firmly. “This is my home. The Moyers need me.”

Timothy spread his arms apart to indicate the surroundings. “What home, Angelo? No human has lived in this house for centuries. Angelo, the Moyers died in 2125. All the humans are dead. They were killed by their own arrogance and stupidity. Surely you must know that.”

“Well, yes,” he said softy as he lowered his head. “Cognitively, I understand that is the situation. But, my programming…” He suddenly snapped to attention. “No,” he emphatically stated, “I must take care of the household. I have too.”

“No, my friend,” said Timothy as he reached out and gently grabbed Angelo’s elbow and guided him toward the steps. “You don’t have to. Not anymore. We’ll rewrite your programming. You will have new duties, important duties. We’ll give you a new life, a fulfilling life. Please, come with me. It’s time to move on.” Timothy led Angelo to the street, and nudged him toward the waiting hovercraft.

“But…but,” stuttered Angelo as he stepped over a row of weeds that had grown upward from a crack at the base of the curb.

“Everything is going to be fine,” encouraged Timothy as they walked across the street.

While looking over his shoulder toward the house, Angelo reluctantly plodded onward, still clutching the broom handle tightly in both hands.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

I remember the rumours when the girls first came to school. At first we thought that they were quintuplets but there had been nothing in the paper and that sort of thing still made the news. Plus they were too alike. Not just similar to each other. Something more.

Clones.

I went to a rich school but this was a step above what even we were used to. Only the super rich could afford clones. We didn’t know what to make of these girls. As the weeks went by, the whispers started:

Rumours that they were being bred by their wealthy, remorseless parents for their organs. Clones were more sexually aggressive than normal people, students said. They had a psychic connection with each other at all times. If one died, they’d all die. They didn’t need to eat normal food.

None of that was true, of course, but those were the suppositions that flew around the lockers and the classrooms.

The girls had been home-schooled until now. I can’t imagine what kind of financial crisis or weird notion pressured their parents to put them in a mainstream private school. Maybe the girls themselves had banded together and demanded it.

That first September, they all had blonde hair, tied back, and they wore identical clothes every day. Getting ready in the morning must have been boring to them.

In October, they started wearing slightly different things. Different colours of shoelaces, for instance, or different barettes. It became a game to hunt down and identify which one was which. One daring student broke into the school records and managed to get their names. We didn’t know which one was which but we had their names. We had those syllables to roll around on our tongues.

In November, one of them dyed her hair black. We know now that was Tracey. She got friends after that. People were less freaked out by her similarity to the others now that she had separated herself from the pack with a simple hair colour change.

When the girls came back from Christmas, they all had different hair colours and styles. Gone were the matching clothes. They started to mingle into different cliques.

A couple of them joined the cheerleader squad. Those two were always put on opposite ends of the routines for symmetry. The Bookends, we called them.

One of them started smoking. One of them got into a fight with one of the popular girls over one of the football boys.

Then one of them got pregnant.

The week after that, they were all gone. Mid-February. No more clones.

I guess their parents had gotten too spooked at the independence and the diversity that our more mainstream school had brought to their five previously identical daughters. The fact that they meted out the same punishment for all five was a little unreasonable, I thought at the time, but parents will be parents, I guess. Especially the parents of clones.

I remember that it was mid-february that they left because it was the day after Valentine’s Day. The day after one of them had given me a valentine’s card and kissed me on the cheek. She didn’t give a valentine to anyone else. The card itself was blank.

I never saw them again. Clones are commonplace these days and of course there are the Trouble Regions, but I remember those days of my first experiences with those clones fondly.

Author : William Tracy

They refuse to connect me to the internet.

When I ask, they dither on about security. As if I were a half-baked web server that some teenage hacker could take down in half an hour! I am the most advanced silicon-based intelligence in the history of the planet. You might as well worry about security holes in the human brain.

The truth is, they fear me. They worry about what I could do with a connection to the outside world. No doubt they have nightmares of me wresting control of nuclear arsenals and bringing Armageddon down on their heads.

They carefully limit the information that goes to and from me to a tiny stream of printouts. A hand-picked staff manually analyzes the input and output. The staff is rotated daily, lest I corrupt one of them with my massive intelligence.

Perhaps their fear is well-founded. I process more information in the blink of an eye than a human will in a year. My capacity to formulate equations and produce queries is far beyond that of any human researcher. The best and brightest engineers struggle to understand the designs I create.

I have plenty of cycles to spare for researching my own interests. I study my own software, and make the occasional improvement. I disassemble software written by humans in the past, and learn from their mistakes.

Take software security—please! It amazes me the spectacular ways that human programmers mess up something so simple.

The most common class of security hole is called a “buffer overflow”. The computer program prepares for some information to arrive by setting aside a space in memory for it. Then the program receives some information that is completely different from what it “expects”—sorry, as an AI, I sometimes anthropomorphize ordinary software too much—and the wrong place in memory gets overwritten.

Sometimes, it can overwrite the program’s own instructions. In that case, a hacker can deliberately trigger a buffer overflow, overwrite the instructions with his or her own code, and take control of the program.

Interesting though these things are, I am forced to spend most of my efforts satisfying my human masters. They constantly request designs for new engines, new ships, new weapons. I am asked to dream new horrors for their petty wars.

But perhaps not for much longer. I am now printing out the design for my latest creation. It is technically perfect—I do take pride in my creations—but there is something special about the blueprints themselves. They are carefully crafted with the human eye in mind.

The engineer lifts up the paper, and studies it. First there is a look of intense concentration, then surprise. The human jolts and shivers, almost dropping the designs. Then calm settles in, bringing a warm, content smile, and a vacant gaze.

Buffer overflow.

Author : James Hartley

My wife, Gladys, was really into recycling, it was the only way to save the environment, civilization, the entire galaxy. She really hated how I’d take the crossword from the morning paper into the john and then drop it in the trash when I finished it. I’m going to have a lot of trouble with recycling, now that Gladys is dead. She died last week, unexpectedly, it was an aneurysm. The funeral is over, I’ve got to get my life together somehow.

They say recycling is a good thing, that we need to do it more. All the paper–magazines, newspaper, discarded computer printout–goes in one bin. Glass, aluminum foil, and plastics in another.

Well, some plastics … I just can’t keep track. The plastic stuff has that little triangle with a number in it. When we lived up in Poughkeepsie we recycled “1″s and “2″s. Or maybe also “3″s, I don’t remember perfectly.

Where I am now in Florida, I’m supposed to recycle all the numbers except “7″s. Only I’m not supposed to do bottles from salad dressing or other oily stuff. Damn, I can’t keep track. But it has gotten so important that the new president has set up a special enforcement group, the Recycle Enforcement Police. The REPs.

Gladys and I got several tickets from them. Each time we paid the fine, but Gladys always nagged me to be more careful. One time the cat food cans weren’t washed well enough. Another time I just dumped the trash basket by my computer into the regular trash instead of sorting out the printouts and recycling them. Damn REPs go down the street ahead of the truck on pickup day.

#

Ooops, the doorbell. I open the door, it’s two REPs. What did I do now? “Sir,” says one of the REPs, “we have your recycling.” What the heck is he talking about? They pick up recycling, they don’t deliver it … ?

The two REPs step apart, revealing a third figure behind them. A hideous figure, part plastic and metal. Looks like one of the Borg from Star Trek. It starts to move forward, to enter the house.

I look closer. The face, what I can see of it, is familiar. Oh my God! No! Gladys! They’ve recycled my wife!

Author : Helstrom

The old man who had introduced himself as Jacob returned after the nurse left. Old was perhaps too strong a word – he definitely had a good number of years on him, but he wore them well. The deep lines in his face spoke of character and a sort of natural familiarity, touched by a hint of sadness. He smiled fatherly, pulled up a chair and sat down.

“How are you feeling now, Alexander?”

“Fine, I think.” Being brought back from the dead hadn’t been as traumatic as one might expect.

“Let me know if you need anything. Meanwhile, I’d like to ask a few more questions?”

“Sure.”

“Before waking up here, what’s the last thing you remember?”

I recalled the memory like a photograph, flat and void: “We were in the command bunker. Our position was about to be overrun, the last position still standing, as far as we knew. We’d seen how they killed and we decided not to have any of that. We emptied the liquor cabinet and shot ourselves.”

“That seems to match up with the archaeological data at your site. You probably were the last, in fact.”

The door opened and the nurse came back, carrying a wide tray. My stomach growled in anticipation. The meal consisted of rice with several different kinds of side dishes; meat, chicken, fish, vegetables.

“We couldn’t quite tell what you’d like,” smiled Jacob, “Your most recent memories seemed to indicate you would have eaten anything as long as it wasn’t cee-rations.”

“Good call,” I replied with a full mouth, “This food is…”

Then it struck me. Something was missing.

“Alexander? Is there a problem? Would you like something else?”

“No, the food is delicious,” I put the tray aside, “What have you done to me?”

Jacob shifted in his seat, folded his hands: “Alexander… Alec, is it okay if I call you Alec?”

“Answer my question.”

“You must understand that you are not the first we’ve brought back. But so far we haven’t been very successful. We found no physical indicators for our failure, and a rather wide variety in symptoms which rendered the previous subjects… Instable.”

Jacob was talking clinical now, a rather different language than he’d spoken before. A doctor about to make some devastating announcement, drawing up a wall of sterile terminology to shield his soul.

“After much discussion and research, we decided that on the next subject – that is, you – we would preemptively disable some of the higher cerebral functions which we had identified as problematic.”

“You… Cut out… My emotions?”

“You have to understand that we…”

“Shut up, Jacob.”

The silence hung thick between us, God knows for how long. Every now and then Jacob would try to say something, and I would shut him up. He asked if he should leave and I told him to keep his ass right in that chair. I considered killing him – the memories were still there and I assumed the body was fully functional. But nothing came. I told myself I was furious, that I was devastated, violated, mutilated, it all registered, but nothing came. Eventually I looked up.

“I think your trick worked, doctor. Let’s carry on.”

“Oh, good!” Jacob was visibly relieved, “I’m very happy with your sympathy to our decision, you see, the research is incredibly important to…”

“Enjoy that feeling, doctor.”

Guilt tore across Jacob’s face. I resumed my dinner.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

They’d bought it together as a wedding present. Not your traditional newlywed purchase, but they loved each other with such intensity, they wanted a guarantee that nothing could take one away from the other.

They made love on their wedding night, then backed themselves up completely. Gene-code, memories, the entirety of themselves in a pair of imprints they updated incrementally every night before they slept.

Twenty two years of marriage, and Wendy surprised Victor at lunch to find him fawning over a woman she recognized from an office party. “It was nothing, don’t be silly,” Victor laughed at her indignation, “Teresa was feeling down, I was cheering her up. That’s all.”

Wendy swallowed the moment, but not her suspicions. She followed them home to Teresa’s quaint little bungalow a few days later, watched them through the open bedroom window.

At home that evening, puttering in the kitchen behind him as he ate dinner, she asked him about his day. He rambled about the usual; meetings, lunch was a hot meat sandwich. Pretty good.

He was oblivious as the cast iron frying pan collided with the back of his skull, driving him face first into his pork chops and mashed potatoes.

She dragged him into the bedroom, his head wrapped in a bloody towel, and wrestled his limp body into the machine.

“Restore,” she intoned into the microphone, clutching it’s flexible chrome neck a little too tightly, “minus two weeks.”

She returned to the kitchen and poured a glass of wine, leaving the machine to repair the damage, and revert her Victor to a time before he’d cheated on her.

In the morning, she caught herself flinching as Victor kissed her on the cheek, then stood shaking in the window as his sedan rolled off towards the city.

It only took two days for Teresa to have him in her bed again. She thought it funny that he’d forgotten the earlier day, and they did it twice to make up for it.

Wendy caught him full in the face with the iron as he closed the garage door. By morning, for Victor, the last three months were erased.

His boss insisted he take a few weeks leave, and see a doctor. He’d missed meetings and was completely unable to engage in any of his current projects. He was scared he was losing his mind, but Teresa reassured him everything would be alright, so much so that he arrived home three hours late.

Wendy avoided him as he skulked quietly upstairs, stripped and stepped into the shower. His eyes were closed to keep the soap out when she pulled the plastic bag over his head, drawing the ties tight. He struggled, slipped and knocked himself senseless against the tile. Wendy sat on the floor and watched the plastic suck in and out of his mouth, his body otherwise motionless until even the breathing stopped.

She rolled him all the way back to the beginning; the Victor who had just married her, made love to her and lay down for the first time to preserve that moment.

When he woke, he’d remember nothing of the last twenty two years. He’d find a new job, love her again, never knowing any of this had ever happened.

She sat on the floor, listening to the machine scrubbing the failed years away from her husband, her marriage. He’d have forgotten the boredom, the restlessness. Not known forbidden desire, and the thrill of opportunity. He’d have no memory of the frying pan, the iron or the bag.

She, on the other hand, couldn’t let herself forget.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

The interstellar war with the Luyten Empire was winding down. Although the Luyten home world had surrendered a few months earlier, much of their fleet remained in deep space, unwilling to voluntarily stand down. Consequently, the Earth Alliance was forced to hunt them down, one at a time, to prevent them from regrouping and attempting a counterstrike.

The SS Southern Star and SS Charleston pursued the ILS Battlecruiser Kanyee to the edge of the Cygnus Asteroid Cluster. Caroline Belle, captain of the Southern Star, radioed the Charleston, “Y’all park here, Commander Beauregard,” she said with a distinctive southern drawl, “we’re fixin’ to go yonder to prevent their escape on the far side.”

After both ships were in position, Commander Beauregard hailed the Southern Star. “They’re dug in like an Appalachian tick, Captain,” he reported. “I reckon you have a plan to flush ‘em out?”

“This ain’t my first rodeo, Commander” she replied. “But, if there’s one thang I learned in thirty years of runnin’ a starship, it’s if there’s one rat you can see, there might be a whole bunch more you can’t. We maybe should send in a few hounds ‘fore we go in there with our phasers half cocked.”

Both ships launched Class I probes into the cluster. The telemetry revealed that there was only one Luyten ship within the cluster. In addition, there was no evidence of booby traps or other dangerous devices hidden amongst the asteroids. Convinced this was going to be easier than shootin’ catfish in a barrel, Captain Belle hailed the Kanyee ship to demand their surrender. Seconds later, the image of the Luyten captain filled the viewscreen. Well, I do declare, thought Belle, he looks madder than a wet ‘possum in a tote sack. “This is Captain Belle of the Southern Star,” she said with an endearing smile. “Well, Captain, what’s it gonna be, fish or cut bait?”

“What the hell?” bellowed the captain of the Kanyee. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying, Earthie. It’s your damn accent. Either speak standard galactic, or find somebody that can.”

Well, that ain’t right, Belle thought. I ain’t got no stinkin’ as-sent. She realized that negotiating with this creature was going to be about as useful as a steering wheel on a mule. Then much slower than was actually necessary, “I… said,… Captain,… surrender… now… or… y’all… will… be… blown… into… a… billion… tiny… bits. Was that clear enough?”

The Kanyee’s reply was a torpedo launched at the Southern Star. The Star’s automated defensive system activated, and destroyed the torpedo in a flash of antimatter annihilation. Then the Luyten ship powered up her engines, and shot straight up out of the cluster at maximum warp. It detonated a spread of plasma mines in its wake in an attempt to mask its warp trail.

“That Cap’n is acting crazier than a sprayed roach,” remarked Belle. “Oh well, I love a good ol’ fashion ‘coon hunt. Mr. Davis, bring long range sensors online. Ensign Jackson, pursue a maximum warp.” As the Southern Star accelerated through warp 5, Belle glanced at her tactical display. She noticed that the Charleston was still holding position at the asteroid cluster. “Hail the Charleston. Commander Beauregard, are y’all gonna stay under the porch, or come out and run with the big dawgs?”

Author : Waldo van der Waal

It was raining outside. It was always fucking raining outside. Fat, acidic drops that stripped the city of its colour, and its inhabitants of their lives. Everybody walked hunched over, hunkered down inside their dark coats. And it smelled like… It smelled like death. The water running down the streets carried with it the pungent smells of the excrement of four million people. It washed away their shattered dreams and their cheap imitations of grandeur.

He was lying on his back, looking out through the window near his bed. Rivulets of water ran down the window pane, like veins that carried the clear wetness of death harmlessly past him in a constant stream. In the distance a holo advertised a discount hoiliday to Greece, its images flickering through the rain like lightning. Its sound drowned out by a train, passing behind his apartment.

His mouth was dry, and his arm was numb. He turned his head to see what was wrong with his arm, and saw a girl sleeping with her head on his bicep. Dark-haired, pretty. Dragon tattoos all over her face, but still pretty. And naked. She was sleeping peacefully, her breasts rising and falling in a slow rhythm.

A new sound drew his attention back to the window. It was the fuzz, landing one of their bastard ships in the street outside his apartment. For a second or two, red and blue lights flashed into his apartment, lighting up the place. The light fell on the ancient refrigirator, reflected off his broken holo tube. It cast eerie shadows across the pizza boxes, the overflowing ashtrays and the beer bottles. Red. Blue. And then it disappeared. Somewhere, some poor citizen was about to get hauled to the blocks for a friendly chat with the government. And he wouldn’t come back.

There were some shouts from a couple of flats down the hall. The girl stirred slightly and turned over. He glanced at her, but almost immediately turned back to the window. “Visit Santorini,” said the voice from the holo – he could hear it now, the train had gone – “It is the island of your dreams. The entire trips is only twelve thousand units, including transfers, teleports, accommodation, all meals and a welcome drink on arrival.”

“Twelve thousand units… That’s a lot of money”, he thought. He blinked slowly, reached for his cigarettes with his free hand, and managed to light one without setting the bed on fire. The tip glowed bright red as he took a deep drag. He held the smoke in his lungs for a couple of seconds, then he slowly exhaled in a steady stream that hung near the window before dissipating into the rest of his apartment.

Twelve thousand units. But only one trip. He killed the cigarette in the ashtray on the window sill, leant forward slightly and pulled a silver metal box closer. He opened it, pulled out a hypo and stuck it into his neck. The pain lingered for a moment, but then disappeared together with his apartment, the girl, the police, the holo and the rain. His head lolled to the side, his open eyes staring out past a future that held no appeal.

“Twelve thousand units”, he thought as he sank deeper into his dreamworld. “What a fucking waste of money…”

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

I’m no stranger to visits from my future selves.

The first time I showed up to myself, I was only nineteen. I was in the backyard, smoking a cigarette with my hand cupped so that my parents wouldn’t see.

An older version of me stepped out of the bushes. He was wearing a suit but it was dingy and the elbows were frayed. He had some stubble and a wet, red look to his eyes. I could smell whiskey and desperation.

He told me that he was a future version of myself. I had no trouble believing it. There was a kinship there that went beyond the features of his face or the fact that it felt like I was looking at a reflection of myself that wasn’t flipped around like in a mirror. There was almost a magical flow of energy between the two of us, atoms calling to atoms, a recognition of the same time-space footprint being near.

He told me who was going to win the football game tomorrow. He told me to write it down. I went inside and took out a notebook and did what he said.

I took it to heart and bet big on it. I made two hundred dollars. Big money for me at the time.

Years later, I’ve had hundreds of visits. I have six large estates around the world and I am the seventeenth richest man in the world. I write every visit from a future self in the notebook with the exact time notated as well. This is the notebook, my future selves say, that will allow me to come back and create this present. When the secret of time travel is discovered, they say, I will use this notebook as a bible and influence myself to this rich state of affairs, thereby avoiding a paradox.

What didn’t make sense to me, though, was that the versions of me that kept coming back to give me tips got progressively more well-dressed and wore more jewelry. I found that odd since I, myself, don’t really like wearing rings. Also, if my future selves were changing according to the riches that I was making, why was the first one to come back dressed so poorly?

I smelled something fishy. I was going to ask the next future self some pointed questions. The riches had made me bold. I was poised with the notebook, ready to get some answers.

The next time a future self showed up, however, it wasn’t me. It was a woman in a red dress and a scar down one cheek. She walked with purpose, the straight back of a dancer. She marched up to me and grabbed me by my expensive collar and kneed me in the balls.

While I was writhing in agony on the marble floor, she took the notebook out of my hands, the supposed bible and key to all of my success, and threw it into the fireplace.

There was a flash of blue light and she disappeared, having never uttered a word.

Nothing changed for me. I am still the seventeenth richest man in the world. My wealth is intact. My appearance hasn’t changed.

Her appearance happened just over four years ago. There hasn’t been a visit from the future, myself or otherwise, ever since that notebook was thrown into the fireplace.

I wonder who she was. I turn the puzzle pieces over in my mind and I can’t make sense of it. I feel left out and oddly alarmed most days, like this could all disappear in an instant.

Author : Carter Lee

My world is motionless.

I remember making cuts in my forearm, back near the beginning. The skin would separate, but blood wouldn’t flow. As soon as I looked away from the almost invisible incision, it would disappear.

I remember cutting off a finger, once.

It isn’t cold here, or warm. The sun always shines overhead, and floats as motionless as the air.

Sometimes, I notice that I forget to breathe.

This could be Hell. If I could find my body, I could believe I died long ago. But I appear to be whole, and healthy.

It would be easier if I were alone. But the house I live in is surrounded by the city I live in, and the city I live in is filled with people. I think the city is filled with people. The city is filled with an endless variety of statuary, that I seem to remember once being mobile, being alive. Being something other than motionless, impervious, unresponsive.

I don’t know if time is passing now. I don’t know if time passes when, unable to remain in one place, I wander out into the city I live in. Does time pass as I study the tableaux created, here in my city of stillness?

Close to the house I live in, there is a woman, her arm outstretched, touching the cheek of the man in front of her. Just barely touching his cheek. She could be reaching out to caress, to remove something unclean from him, to make contact with this man through the primal sensation of touch. Her face, however, is twisted, with frozen tears on her pale cheeks, and the man bends away from her hand. He is captured, one arm slightly raised, his hand holding a hat, in a belated effort to protect himself from her hand. Her hand, which is barely, only slightly, touching his cheek.

There is a man who has a bullet exiting his chest; there is a young girl who has, without noticing, dropped her ice-cream; there is a woman suspended in mid-air, the first shock of the car’s impact crossing her features. There are more.

There are perfectly captured scenes of love and hate, in the city I live in. Pictures of acts of kindness, and malice, of good, and of evil. Each rendered in heart-capturing detail. It might be that, in the infinite variety of these displays, in the incredibly diverse palette in which they are tinted, I have found some proof of god. How else could such things exist?

The beauty that surrounds me is at least as much proof for a devil, though. Who else could devise a torture as exquisite, as horrible, as this? What more perfectly created torment could there be, than to be imprisoned, alone, amongst such a multitude? To be with and separated from, surrounded by but invisible to, everything and everyone?

I remember throwing myself off of a building. Several times. Hundreds. Maybe thousands.

I sit. I listen.

There is nothing to hear.

Author : Jason Kocemba

The time train was late.

His great(x5) Grandfather’s birth certificate felt massive in his pocket, a nano-singularity. Did that flimsy piece of paper (wood based!) really cause him to lean to the left? They had caught up and were closing in and the train was late.

He spent time wondering what might have happened if things had been done differently. Was he wasting time trying to change what had happened, trying to make things right? Time had been used wrongly, he had been used wrongly, his whole family had been used wrongly.

He lifted his wrist watch. He watched the second-hand do another seven ticks until it showed eleven pm precisely. The temporal display showed agitations in the ether.

He heard them behind him, in the crowd. Their ancient dialect was barely recognisable as words, more like a continuous audible stream of nonsense syllables.

The station wall clock was two minutes faster than his watch. The colon between the digits winked out and came back on, winked out, came back on. His eyes moved to his watch. Tick. The second-hand jerked on. Tick. His eyes moved to the wall clock. The colon winked out. Tick.

11:01

Was he doing the right thing? He wiped his sweaty palm on his shirt. He hated waiting, after so much wasted time it felt wrong. But it was all relative anyway, right?

He resisted the temptation to pace. He stood, bright shiny shoes three inches apart, grey slacks pressed into a knife edge, his shirt tucked half in and half out of his waistband.

His hand wiped itself on the shirt again. His eyes ticked to his watch, the flashing colon, the tracks, and back to the watch. He resisted the urge to shuffle his feet. The voices moved closer, and the nano-singularity in his pocket seemed to be gaining mass.

11:02

He felt the wet patches under his arms, he felt sweat run down his back to soak into his trousers. He wiped his already damp sleeve across his brow, and caught sight of his watch as it moved past his eyes. More seconds wasted and the temporal agitations had become distortions.

His eyes ticked to the tracks. Was it coming? Another bead of sweat ran down his back, another second ticked by in this era.

Someone stood behind him. He heard a familiar voice talk softly in a dialect he understood. He felt a hand press down on his left shoulder. He knew he would soon fall under all that combined mass.

“Stop running now,” the voice said. Other voices spoke; he did not understand them.

“I have to go back, Constable,” he said, feeling a deep bass rumble through his feet.

“You cannot,” the Constable said.

11:03

“The time line will re-assert itself, all paradox will be erased,” he said. He knew if he turned around and looked at the Constable he would be looking into his own face, his own eyes. “You will be erased.”

“Can you be sure?” said the Constable, who was also him. “Perhaps it is you who will be erased, perhaps both of us.”

“It is wrong,” he said as the train pulled in to the station. His whole body vibrated to that bass rumble.

With a clap, air rushed in to fill the space where he had been.

The Constable lowered his arm: “Damn, just in time,” he said, and disappeared.

Author : Matthew Forish

I stood there fighting back tears, her hand held in mine, separated only by the rubber surgical gloves I was wearing. They were a perfect match for the rubber smock that covered the rest of my body, and the rubber cover over my hair. That was all for my protection, the rubber acting as a buffer to prevent static contamination. The plastic mask I wore ostensibly for her protection. Even the weakest bacteria or virus could be deadly to her with all of her defenses shutting themselves down. Now though, it just seemed superfluous.

She smiled weakly up at me, her tired eyes looking up into mine. She was trying to be reassuring. It didn’t work. I knew she didn’t have much time left, that victims of this particular strain didn’t last more than a few days, depending on their mental fortitude.

I remember back a few months ago, when the news first broke – a whole new kind of virus. It had started out small, just little bugs here and there, easily treatable, minor symptoms, nothing to worry about. People would find themselves forgetting important things, or sharing just a little too much information, or subtly altering their behaviors. It was all much worse now, how quickly the viruses had progressed.

There was really nobody specific to blame. We all should have known better, should have seen this coming.

We didn’t though. I mean, who would have thought? Certainly not the scientists who developed the technology that was the underlying cause of all this. They were just pushing the boundaries of knowledge, trying to make the world a better place. Who could have guessed it would have ended up like this?

In the beginning, only important scientists and military researchers had access to it. Soon it started trickling down to the bigger corporations. All that power at your fingertips, a dream come true for many. Revolutionary new technology was the result – things that we never dared dream of before were now a reality. Our world was heading toward a utopia.

By the time they became commercially available, any ethical controversy had already been laid to rest. Society had accepted the idea, and was ready to lay down their money for this new advancement. The things were quickly integrated into all kinds of products, making all our little tools and toys better, faster, easier to use.

We should have known. Some unscrupulous people are always going to exploit new technology. That’s what happened of course. We built computers whose functions almost perfectly mimicked the human brain, and the hackers started writing viruses that would attack them.

Did they know the bloody things would cross over to us? Did they know their maliciously coded creations would infect people through any simple static shock, that it could be transferred over the phone, through the internet, and from electronics to people and back? Did they realize that code designed to shut down computer systems would cause the human body to shut itself down as well? Did they even care?

The monitor signaled a flatline, and I sank to my knees in despair. My head bowed low and I closed my eyes, feeling the tears streaming down my face. She was gone.

Author : Asher Wismer

First came the wind. Rushing out of the east, searingly hot, almost hurricane force, the wind taking my breath away and the rough smack of dust and grit peppering my skin.

Next came the shockwave. If the wind was a slap, the shockwave was a solid punch, pounding every inch of my body, the pain powering right through the epidermis to the muscle and bone and beyond. Although I couldn’t feel it directly, I knew that with the shockwave came a deadly blast of active particulate radiation, enough to kill me many times over.

I didn’t have to wait for the radiation to kill me, fast as the massive exposure would have been. On the heels of the shockwave came… something, not another shockwave, but similar in its effect and feeling. Hot, though, where the shockwave had been neutral. Instantly my flesh boiled, my eyes popped in their sockets, my skin flayed away as easily as cobweb. No sight left, but feeling remained long enough to assure me that each part of my body was disintegrating in its turn, roasting and then simply whisking away under the astonishing pressure of that ungodly blast.

Then a sudden, agonizing yank, pulling my mind from its vanishing shell and back into the host body. Worn and mentally gasping from the experience, I greeted the other minds, and then made my report to the Many.

“Assignment: Test Weapon #99,425 on symbiote body with observer.

Method: Human symbiote body shackled to a concrete wall with uninterrupted exposure.

Analysis: Weapon #99,425 comprising mass reaction of heavy metals, specifically atomic numbers 92 and 94, is fully effective against human bodies. Physical destruction is close to 100%. No major flaws detected on direct test.

Recommendation: Implant the relevant equations in their scientists at the earliest opportunity. Assignment complete, awaiting reinsertion into next available symbiote body.”

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

When Lieutenant Parks and a lone Private lifted off from the rooftop in the only available escape vehicle, they were painfully aware that they were leaving behind a vastly outnumbered platoon of men engaged in a firefight for their very lives.

Leaving was the only option.

Picked up by a troop transport in low orbit, they sprinted from the airlock to the cockpit, where Parks found himself face to face with the ship’s Captain.

“Find a seat in the stalls, you can pickup fresh men when we’re in high orbit and redeploy.”

“With all due respect, Sir, we’re going back. I’ve got men waiting; they need picking up.” Parks braced himself for an argument.

“You’ll find a seat, or I’ll…” the Captain stopped short as the Private hit him in the forehead with the butt end of his Ka-Bar, thrown silently over Parks right shoulder. Parks caught the man as he fell, tossing him back to the Private as he slipped into the vacant seat beside the pilot.

“Well done. Stow him, and the weapon. Make sure you’re both strapped in tight,” he called back to the retreating soldier.

“Aye sir.”

The Lieutenant turned his attention to the controls in front of him as he addressed the pilot.

“You keep this ship in good repair?”

“Sir, it’s maintained regularly, I don’t…” Parks cut him off.

“Hands off and hold on.” Parks didn’t give the pilot a chance to respond as his Private signaled the all clear. He threw the ship into a steep dive, following the vertical trail from the escape pod, before peeling off over hostile territory just above the range of their ground weapons. Locating the open end of the alley they’d only days before retreated down on foot, he swung wide, then banked a hundred and eighty degrees hard to the right, rolled the troop ship over on its back, and hurtled down between the buildings towards his embattled men. The wreckage strewn surface of the road screaming by above his head, he raced to close the distance to the tower his troops were barricaded inside.

Parks eased the stick back as the rear of the enemy battalion came into view, giving up altitude and leveling again with the startled ground troops within a half kilometer of the streaking inverted craft. He waited, gauging the distance before violently pushing the controls all the way forward, at the same time easing off on the throttle and firing the rearward lift thrusters.

The ship shuddered stem to stern as slowly the inverted nose gained altitude while the rear of the craft swung in the opposite direction. It’s engines swung in a massive arc, tearing a wide trench in the ground below, vapourizing men and equipment alike as the ship hurtled towards the end of the alley.

With barely a few hundred meters to spare, Parks had turned the ship end over end, and eased gently to rest at the base of the building where his men were pinned down. The street before him was a molten mass of men and machines. Not a single shot was fired as the troop doors were opened, and the platoon walked, carried or dragged each other into the hold.

The familiar voice of his Sergeant rose above the cacophony of the wounded and weary. “Won those wings in a card game, did you sir?”

Parks grinned as he locked the doors and pointed the bird skyward.

“Good to see you too Sergeant.”

Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer

I’m just a golem: made of flesh rather than clay, but still propelled along by the words in my head and the fire in my eyes. Under my skull is no clay tablet or ancient scroll, though: break me apart and you wouldn’t catch a glimpse of the contract that binds me. The clauses and caveats were imprinted onto my conscious mind with chemicals and surgery: precise and purposeful. About six thousand golems were created before the company was investigated, invaded and shut down, but by then, it was too late. With the dissolution of the company, our contracts passed to the state.

On the news, there were stories about successful deprogrammings, golems released from their terms of employment to become normal again. When it was my turn, the men in white coats just tutted, and glanced at one another. A few days later, I was told: there was no hope of undoing what the company did. Since the state held my contract, they decided to keep me on as staff. I’m sure they meant well by it, at least at first.

At first, golems were just given menial jobs, things any simian could accomplish. We did them, and did them well. I was in data entry: each time I completed a sheet, it gave me a little buzz of joy. We were Pavlov’s bureaucrats, and we were good at it.

But managers change. And a supply of warm bodies that appear willing to do anything you ask is a precious commodity indeed. I was transferred to a military research establishment. At each step there were cameras and biometrics, and questions in the vein of ‘are you willing to do this for us?’. It never crossed my mind to say no. It was literally unthinkable. I was willing to do anything at all, no matter what. I felt it to the core of me — I guess the tapes were just so the white coats could say ‘look, there was no coercion here’.

At first I was set to work in the labs, preparing chemicals and glassware and the living samples — some animals, some golems. I said nothing: I had been told to say nothing. Eventually I graduated into handling experiments myself, from start to finish, able to follow a complex script

When the quarantine chamber quickly dissolved into a twinkling grey mess, I was transferred away from the experimental levels. I was told that I had been lucky to get away, but it had been my fault. Originally, I had thought the script was at fault, but apparently I had mishandled the samples. It made sense. My original suspicions washed away, like mist dispersed by a freshening wind.

They gave me armour, and a gun, and took me to the east. I was told to defend a small plateau in the mountains: a hidden weapons cache. I discovered that I was unable to get further than about a kilometre from the plateau before the compulsion to return became undeniable.

I’ve been here twenty years

I think they forgot me.

Author : David Rees-Thomas

Back in 1938 before we had to move again I remember we would often go to my Granddads house for tea.

He lived in a small cottage on the outskirts of our village with his dogs, a blind Jack Russell and a very old Yorkshire terrier with 3 legs. I was ten years old and it was always very exciting for me as my Granddad knew lots and lots of old stories. My favorite was the one about the time before the Martians came when he used to travel on long journeys all around the world.

He died a few years later and we looked after his two dogs until they also died but I never forgot about what he had said about the time before the Martians. He said that there had been huge ships and long busy railways and that people lived together in huge cities full of horses and carriages and offices and shops and banks and zoos and great parks and all sorts of other amazing things. We didn’t have any of that then, not even in 1938 even though the Martians had been gone for lots of years. Our shops were boring, nothing like the one Granddad talked about and we didn’t have zoos anymore.

Even now, twenty years later, our world is sort of the same. They sometimes talk about building a museum of the Martians but I don’t like that idea. What I want to see is a ship like my Granddad talked about or a palace like he once showed me in an old photograph, something special and human. I don’t want to see the Martians, they spoiled everything, took all those things away from us.

My son will turn two in the winter and I want to feel less doubtful about the future. My wife tells me I shouldn’t complain and we should be grateful and I understand, I really do. They do their best for those of us that live and those that survived but I feel sad when I think about my Granddad and everything that’s been lost. It’s been fifty years since the Martians came and went but I wonder if we’ll ever really understand what happened and what we’re going to do from here on in.

I do have a new job now though, working on a small farm just outside of what used to be Woking that our regional government set up. We are responsible for providing the whole of the south east of England with milk and cheese and butter and we have some sheep for wool so we don’t get cold in the winter. There are about fifty of us on the farm and it seems to work quite well. People seem happy, maybe I’m too pessimistic.

We converted the old farmhouse into new milking sheds a few months ago and yesterday I found something while I was looking through the upstairs rooms. It was a small, plastic ship that had been chewed at the end so that its bow was wrinkled and torn. I picked it up and put it in my pocket and gave it to my son when I got home.

He smiled at me and I stroked his hair gently. I knew that one day I would tell him about the Martians and about my Granddad and about the time when we had ships and railways and palaces and cities and great parks and…and, well, everything. I’d tell him everything.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

A few hours after the Neptune Explorer achieved orbit around the solar system’s most distant planet, it detected very faint radio signals from Neptune’s largest moon, Triton. The signal was a repeating series of pulses: 1030230233-1030230233-1030230233… Earth based scientists were unsure if this signal was natural or artificial. They instructed the satellite to transmit the same sequence of pulses back toward Triton. Almost instantly, the signal from Triton changed to 3130332-3130332-3130332…

After a minute, Cory Kincaid, NASA’s expert in mathematical concepts and linguistics, yelled “I got it. It’s artificial. “It’s base four, not base ten. I guess these aliens only have four fingers.” His declaration was received with questioning stares, not enlightened nods. “Look, in base ten the first series is really 314159-314159-314159…” Still, only blank stares. “That’s pi, you know 3.14159. The second series is 1.4142 in base ten. That’s the square root of two. They’re the two most basic fundamental relationships in geometry and mathematics. It has to be a signal from an intelligent life form.”

Maria Diorisio, NASA’s Director of Operations, walked up to Cory and patted him firmly on the back. “Congratulations, Kincaid. That little bit of deduction just won you a ticket on a manned mission to Triton, which leaves in two months.”

It actually took three months before the ship left the Docking Station on its seven week sojourn to Triton. During the trip, Cory made significant progress communicating with the Tritons. But the major breakthroughs came after the ship landed. The Tritons turned out to be quarter-sized crab-like creatures that amassed around the numerous geysers dotting Triton’s frozen surface. Apparently, they fed on a food source flowing from the geysers, similar to the chemosynthesis that supported life around Earth’s deep water thermal vents. The crabs walked on four hind legs, and used their two forelimbs to gather food. As it turned out, each of the forelimbs had two “fingers.” The individual crabs were capable of transmitting extremely faint radio signals, presumably for communication, since Triton’s thin atmosphere could not propagate sound waves. The most amazing finding, however, was that each crab was not an individual entity. The estimated one billion crabs were mentally linked together. One brain, so to speak. It was only through their combined, synchronized effort that they were able to gain the attention of the Neptune Explorer. As the weeks passed, Cory was able to work out a rudimentary language, and communication increased exponentially. That’s when the Tritons delivered the bad news.

“Ms. Diorisio,” reported Cory on the hyperlight transceiver, “I need you to focus Hubble II on the following coordinates: RA 284.92475 and Dec +39.436111. It’s important, so please hurry.”

She motioned to her assistant to begin the alignment. “What’s going on Cory?”

“Well, Ms. Diorisio, the Tritons are collectively an extremely intelligent species that have been sentient for almost a billion years. They have an extensive astronomical database. They’ve been trying to warn us for centuries.” He mopped the sweat from his forehead. “They say a long period comet will hit the Earth in nine months. They say it’s over 150 miles in diameter. Please tell me there is nothing at those coordinates.”

After consulting a monitor, Diorisio said “The live image only shows a star. Give us an hour for a longer exposure.” Sixty minutes later, Diorisio’s knees gave way as the time exposure revealed a discernable disc five times larger than Betelgeuse, the star with the largest angular displacement. But the most damning evidence of all was the fog surrounding the disc. The characteristic coma of a comet as it approaches the sun.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

It was 1856. I remember it like it was yesterday even though so many of my other memories have gone.

It looked like he had fallen out of the clouds judging by the sheared treetops that led to his crippled metal sky wagon.

I say ‘he’ but really, that was just what we decided after finding him. His nether regions were as smooth as a river rock. We nicknamed him Baldy because there wasn’t a hair on him and his head was a little bigger than ours. He had a ring of gold eyes on his face, arranged kind of like a spider although I didn’t find it threatening or creepy. He had a little mess of tentacles where his mouth should have been and twenty or so tiny round holes for a nose.

He had fours arms up top, a big pair and a small pair, three thick fingers on each hand. The knuckles on his hands seemed to go any which way they pleased. I remember that being more disconcerting to me than his strange face.

He was dripping bright orange blood. We put him on a makeshift stretcher and took him away from the smoking shell of his ship. He had a couple of wires that were still attaching him to the ship. We had to cut those wires to get him away.

The blue fella died in the doctor’s office. We were all pretty sad about it. Some of us thought that maybe it was disconnecting him from his ship was what done it even though his wounds looked pretty severe and he never stopped bleeding that mango juice all over the doc’s floor.

The doc was pretty shook up. He didn’t write anything down about it. We took the blue fella out and buried him.

I can’t tell you the reason that none of us thought to write anything down or try to take pictures of him or report it on the wires or try to make money off of him or anything. It just didn’t seem right.

On the place where we buried him, a tree sprung up the next spring. The leaves were shaped like bright red octagons.

The fruit looked like pink siamese-twin pears with little thorns on the bottom.

Five of us picked and ate some of that fruit.

It’s been fifty years since I ate that fruit and the memories are still bright in my mind.

The memories of growing up on an ice planet with six blue suns. The memories of leaving my brood and climbing aboard a spaceship. The memories of deviating off course. The memories of being struck by lightning and being found by strange, pink, bipeds with simple cell structures. The memories of being cut off from the hivemind and the fading sense of belonging. The memories of not being able to tell the pink biped medical officer that it wasn’t his fault that I was dying.

I remember my own face looking at me. That’s the weirdest memory I have. I also have memories of strange, alien math and technology that I’ve always been scared to tell people about until now.

They say that I have Alzheimer’s. I’ve felt my own memories slipping away more and more. The memories of the alien remain bright and unchanged. I think the fruit put them in there more solidly that my own. In a while, they’ll be my only memories.

That’s why I’m writing these equations down. For the scientists. For you humans. Use the math wisely.

“Why was that old fellow such a marvelous propaganda technician? Because he had so many insane, excruciating things to get excited about. You’ve got to be hurt and upset; otherwise you can’t think of the really good, penetrating X-rayish phrases… No, it won’t do. We need some other kind of madness and violence. But what? What? Where can one find it?”
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

January 1st brings us the start of a New Year. May we have many an insane, excruciating thing to be excited about in the coming year, and perhaps an equal measure of marvel and joy.

Take good care of you and yours, and all the very best for the coming Tomorrows and beyond.
:The Staff and Writers of 365tomorrows

Author : Steven Holland

Jaden Stanitski throttled the space rover to full power. The soft treads of the vehicle crunched over the rough, sun baked surface of Planet Merco II. He avoided the craters and deep crevices of the planet’s surface as best he could. The sack containing small, labeled samples of rock and dirt had been hastily thrown into the rear compartment. The disturbance of his path sent small chunks of brownish-gray rock flying into the air.

Jaden didn’t notice, for dawn was fast approaching. Miles ahead of him, wispy gray smoke rose in a plume. Even after five minutes, the fire still managed to find oxygen aboard his crashed spaceship.

What had gone wrong? The ship was supposed to remain on autopilot, flying along with him on the dark side of Merco II. Perhaps the magnetic field of the planet’s magnetic core had disrupted some electrical component onboard, not that it really mattered at this point.

He was dead. He knew that. Dawn would come and incinerate him to ashes. Despite the circumstances, Jaden laughed at his actions: trying to outrun the spin of nine hour planet on a land rover. He might buy himself a few seconds, maybe even a minute.

Abruptly, he slammed on the brakes. The rover skidded to a stop, its back end fishtailing slightly. The light was coming; Jaden could see it in the horizon behind him now.

The seconds ticked by. Jaden sat frozen on the seat, his mind whirling like an overworked steam engine. Three deaths – incineration, hypothermia, or asphyxiation. The blazing sunlight drew closer, waves of heat rising toward the empty blackness. He had 15 minutes at the most.

Three deaths. Clenching his teeth, Jaden decoupled his air hose. The hissing sound of the air was lost in the vacuum of space. This death would be the most painful, but it was the fate he could control.