365 tomorrows

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Levon leaned against the shower tube, letting the jets of water assail his body from all sides. As the sweat of the previous night’s activities rinsed away, the more subtle indicators of his exertions seeped in. Both his head and kidneys ached from the soup of chemicals he’d drank, sniffed and injected with the woman now sleeping naked in the next room.

Warnings pulsing dimly in his periphery reminded him that his kidney augments were still on standby, sifting and analyzing the foreign bodies in his bloodstream. An amber warning flashed, the proximity alarm on his equipment locker had been triggered. His company was awake, the message flashing red as she tried the door.

Levon flipped through and discarded most of the blood-work findings; street grade meth, cocaine and a too high level of alcohol, but the last one stopped him cold. A battery of tranquilizers had been automatically disarmed, all bearing Federated P.D. chem tags.

“Shit. She’s a cop.”

In an instant water droplets were evaporating in a jet of warm air and kidney grafts went into overdrive, flushing his system clean and pumping in Epinephrine.

Exiting the shower he could hear the woman padding around the bedroom, his sub-dermal grid-work of sensory pickups and Faraday shielding twinging as a transmitter narrow-banded a short range encoded transmission. Not only was she a cop, but she had a partner nearby.

Opening the door he found her perched on the end of the bed, tanned shoulders and arms exposed above the bedsheet she’d drawn around herself.

“Hey baby, look at you,” her words slurred together into a sound like a sneeze.

“Hey,” Levon moved to the closet, the auto-bolts retracting as he reached for the handle, “back in a sec.” He slipped through the door, closing and letting it lock securely behind him.

He’d converted the walk-in to a safe room when he’d started renting the sixth floor apartment. The low level lighting reflected dimly back at him from the kevmesh that coated the inside of the cramped space, uneven thicknesses of the dark green ultraweeve armor pooled on the floor where it had run as he’d sprayed the layers on.

He could feel a mass of people thundering up the stairwell at the end of the hall.

He pulled on overalls and a jacket and jammed his feet into a pair of Magnum Ions. Overturning a crate in the middle of the room he slung his shoulder holster and perched in a squat on the box like a bird, face down to his knees. He thumbed the release tabs on two canisters glued into the floor on either side of him and covered his face with his hands. The canisters ticked a few seconds before geysering upwards, thick jets of liquid spattering off the ceiling, foaming and filling the space, securing his hunched form in a bubble of packing foam.

He felt his cocoon shake, knowing that his bathroom had just been blown out the side of the building. A second set of explosions tipped his pod sideways, and Levon braced himself as a final eruption jettisoned the entire closet shell out the newly formed hole in the building, launching it through the window of the much nicer lofts across the street.

Levon had barely stopped moving before he blew the cocoon seals and stood up, the force separating the two halves neatly, leaving a man shaped impression in each.

Stepping through the broken glass and window frame, he surveyed the damage outside, his apartment now just a jagged tear in the brick facade of the building. Below, his shower poked out the side of a cargo van, vaguely phallic in a glittering mess of LED advertising and shredded metal.

Turning, Levon faced a startled couple sitting up in bed. Stepping past them, he helped himself to a piece of toast and a slice of bacon from the breakfast tray forgotten at their feet.

“Don’t get up,” he grinned, “I’ll see myself out.”

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

“I don’t care if it’s selfish, I don’t want you to go.” Sam stood halfway between the doorway and the foot of the bed, caught between staying and walking away.

“It is selfish, but I understand. I’m tired Sam, I’m worn out and it’s time for me to give in to the natural order of things.” The older man’s voice was slow, patient but firm. “No man was ever meant to see as much as I’ve seen in my life, and a man can only take so much.”

Sam wiped moisture from one cheek, quickly as though it might not be noticed. “Whatever it is that’s broken, get it fixed. We’ve got lots of money…”

Jacob cut the sentence short. “It’s not about money. There’s nothing to fix, no worn out part to replace. My body’s working just fine, it’s me that’s broken. This body and all its incarnations has allowed me the lifetime of four ordinary men. I’ve seen three partners age and wear out of their own accord and you, well it has seen you grow from a nervous youth into the poised and confident professional that another much younger man will take his turn caring for in my absence. I’ve had enough, done enough and seen enough. God damn it I’ve felt more than enough and it’s time to move on.”

Sam moved to the side of the bed and reached for Jacob’s hand. The flesh was warm, almost real. Jacob closed his hand around Sam’s tightly. Sam could feel tears welling up again, and through clouding eyes looked at everything but the man propped up in the hospital bed. Monitors tracked vital signs, the numbers exactly to spec. Diagnostics scrolled past on a pair of displays to one side, mechanical equipment passing test after test, repeating ad infinitum. Sam finally met Jacob’s gaze, friend and lover for longer than either of them had imagined possible. Jacob’s eyes burned with a crystalline intensity that, while artificial, shone with an inner light that was purely his own.

“I don’t understand Jacob, if everything’s working, then why? What is it that’s so bad about staying alive? Is it me? If it’s me Jacob, say so and I’ll let you find someone else. I don’t want to be the thing…”

“Sam,” Jacob interrupted again, “it’s not you Sam, trust me, you’re the only thing that’s kept me here this long.” Jacob raised one permanently manicured hand and pondered it, flexing the fingers and turning it to study the hairs on its back. “I can’t remember a time when I was really real. I’ve forgotten what touching real flesh with real flesh feels like, and I don’t believe anymore that what I feel now is the same. I can’t remember what my first lover liked for breakfast. I can’t feel the warmth of the sunrise on my face, the magic of being underwater or the thrill that comes with being out of breath. I’ve been living for so damn long, and I can’t remember what it feels like to really be alive.”

Sam’s cheeks were wet now, and no effort was made to conceal the tears.

“I can’t even cry anymore. I’ve loved and lost so much and I can’t even shed a tear.”

Sam stood stoic, this argument had gone on before but this time there was no fighting back.

Jacob held Sam’s hands, and locking eyes said, “When I’m gone, have whatever flesh of mine remains cremated, then cast me into the wind. In the mornings, look to the east as the day breaks and feel my warmth there. In the darkness know that I’m never far away.” Jacob settled back into the pillows on the bed, and said simply, “I love you” before closing his eyes for the last time.

We would like to thank all of you for spending your valuable time with us throughout the year, and wish you all the very best of the holiday season and good health and prosperity in the New Year!

Best,
The Staff and Writers of 365tomorrows

Paul Di Filippo had this to say about Cory Doctorow in a December 22nd review of Makers

In science fiction, however, the pool of hip, youthful, happening, fresh-eyed, keen-witted, media-savvy, broad-shouldered, accomplished, extroverted and talented writers, blending both revolution and tradition in just the right proportions, is noticeably shallow at the moment. There’s Neal Stephenson, but he’s rather too distant and hermetic, with a low profile and unfathomable, mutating goals. So these days, when pundits and fans alarmed over the prospect of SF’s demise want to point to a knight in shining prose who can defeat all the dragons besetting the genre and guide it to the Shining City on the Hill, they invariably point to Cory Doctorow.

Cory’s our kind of people. Read the whole article here…

Cybrosis is a podcast novel written and narrated by P.C. Haring with the voice talents of some of the biggest names in the podcasting community including Philippa Ballantine, Christiana Ellis, Podcasting’s Rich Sigfrit, Mur Lafferty, Chris Lester, Chuck Tomasi, and Heather Welliver. This full length podcast novel hacks your RSS feeds on 01/01/10

The fantastic cover art for this podcast novel is the amazing work of J.R. Blackwell, and Jared Axelrod.

Check out Cybrosis

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Andy knew he was a relic. He used to violently object when it was suggested that he was past his prime, but after a while the reality was too apparent to ignore.

It had been years, maybe decades since he’d been able to find factory fresh parts. Most of his equipment now was made up from bits scavenged and scrounged, then adapted as best he could.

Sometimes there would be an accident in the construction projects, and if he was lucky, and quick, he could tear off whole limbs or liberate power cells before the maintenance crews arrived to chase him away.

Most of these parts were too new, but some could be modified to fit, the rest traded away.

Andy found himself wandering through a section of the city that he remembered as it had been, vibrant and alive, but as he trudged down the streets and through the alleys, he found the roads in disrepair and littered with rubble and refuse. The once tall and gleaming buildings that reached skyward were now bent and broken, some leaning across the street on a neighbor, as if seeking comfort from the overwhelming decay.

This part of the city too, it seemed, had outlived its usefulness, now just awaiting its turn to be torn down and born again.

His head turned skyward, marveling at the battered structures holding each other aloft, Andy didn’t notice the road had given away before him until his weight had shifted too far over the empty space to recover.

Safety systems gone out of alignment and a battered gyroscopic guidance system struggled to orient him for a favorable landing, but Andy hit hard, scrambling circuits already oxidized to the point of being barely functional.

For a while, Andy was still, his world dark.

When he regained motor control, Andy pulled himself roughly and unsteadily upright. He was aware that he’d fallen, but could not recall the events preceding it. Around him he could make out the rough structure of a transit tunnel. Metal rails reached off in either direction in triplicate, no longer shiny from use but rather tarnished and pitted with age. Andy knew how they felt.

Andy picked a direction at random, and had trudged for some time before the tunnel opened up into a larger cavern on one side. In the middle, a pile of refuse burned surrounded by a cluster of shadowy figures who scattered into the darkness as he approached.

“Derelict maintenance droids, ” Andy muttered to himself, then loudly at the retreating figures, “if you were working for me I’d have your parts.”

Andy pulled himself up on the platform, then trundled to the fire, carefully stamping it out.

As he stood surveying the scene, he noticed one of the droids had not left, but rather was lying in a heap on the ground. Andy nudged its head with the toe of one large foot.

Nothing.

Excited, Andy pulled the droid into the middle of the platform where he had room to work. The droid was relatively small, but no doubt useful. As carefully as his tools would allow, Andy set to work disassembling the wiry unit.

Hydraulic fluid spilled everywhere, it’s plumbing obviously ruptured internally having no doubt resulted in overheating or loss of motor control.

Andy marveled at the delicacy of the inner workings of the unit, but was frustrated and confused that there didn’t seem to be a single part compatible with his own chassis.

Arriving back at the head, he examined the dent his foot had left in the casing. It was at this point that his headlights fell full on the droids eyes.

Andy paused, awestruck by the workmanship of these white and colored orbs staring back at him. They truly would be beautiful, Andy thought, if they weren’t so vacant.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

She watched him, often, from the other side of his bedroom mirror, a floor to ceiling affair that allowed her the privilege of spectating from the comfort of her own space.

He would come and go, sometimes alone, sometimes with others. He would wrap himself in sheets of colour, most times his companions would too, but other times they would press just their flesh against one another.

This fascinated her.

The shapes his face made were peculiar, and she began to recognize them as states of being. Sometimes his face was broad, his mouth wide, insides showing white and gleaming. Other times his face creased, contracted in upon itself, on occasion becoming shiny in patches as he quivered.

An unusual specimen to be sure.

She knew she was pleasing, knew from the various shapes and colours of the creatures he kept company with that she too could be satisfying to him, be satisfied by him. She was certain that he would share with her his illuminated state of being, the broad face and gaping maw that she believed was an indication of pleasure.

While he idled, resting, she reached out to him, siphoning away vibrations from his unconscious mind. These things excited her, these random experiential happenings that he shared so unknowingly.

She needed more from him.

There were times when he would stop while passing, looking at his mirror, looking right at her, as though he knew the mirror was merely a window, a portal into her space. She knew he could not see, knew with absolute certainty, but in these moments she froze, not daring to move. Sensations of fear, the need to escape overwhelmed her, but so did the need to stay, to be with him, to have him near her. He would shake away his gaze, his visage one of unusual creases, motion and contraction.

The sensations stayed with her for a time after he departed, and she found she was developing an insatiable appetite for them.

In the darkened hours, when the only light in his space was that filtering in from the portals to his outside world, she would thin the membrane between their spaces to its limit, pressing herself as closely to it as she dared without crossing over so as to be as close to him as was possible. Sometimes he would stare at her through the darkness, unsure of what he could see.

It was one such dark period that found them only the barest distance apart. He searching the darkness with his eyes, reaching tentatively towards a mirror that no longer showed a reflection he recognized, and she pressed against the membrane from the other side, frozen in place.

The sensations that flooded her senses were overwhelming, beyond even her ability to control them. She fought the urge to escape, to slip away, to opaque the wall between them and retreat to a safe distance. When his hand touched her from the other side, it was more than she could bear.

He slipped easily through the membrane, joining her in her own space without resistance. Where his hand first contacted her skin, she felt the heat of his presence, and she craved more of it. Enveloping him, she watched as his face began to undulate through the variations she was sure were those of pleasure. His eyes widened, his mouth opened, white endoskeletal elements exposed. His mouth gaped, closed and opened again, eyes wider as his body undulated, his fire radiating outward from him, through her into the cold vacuum of her space.

She found him beautiful, first in motion, then still.

Recognizing his stillness as a rest state, she contented herself with holding him as he cooled.

It’s December, and we’re closing in on the end of another calendar year, and fast approaching the holidays.

December for many is a time of giving, and so we at 365tomorrows are giving you another staff writer to enjoy year round, starting with today’s story The Quiegman’s Take a Holiday.

Help us welcome Roi R. Czechvala, who many will recognize both from his presence in the forums here as well as his well received feature in October. Drop the forums and say hello.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Harry nudged the body in the lobby with the toe of his boot, weapon unwaveringly pointed towards the head. Satisfied he was dead, Harry retrieved his knife and the man’s keys, turned and carefully locked the front doors.

The entrance secured, he stepped over the body, moved cautiously around the reception desk and slipped quiety through the doors deeper into the clinic.

From a distance, Harry could hear voices in a language he couldn’t make out.

Empty gurneys lined the hall, hospital-blue sheets cast grey in the dim after-hours lighting. At the first open door he paused, holding his gun down against his leg, two handed and ready, he peered around the doorway into the room. Empty. In the corner an LCD panel displayed the x-rays of the day’s last patient. Trans-tibial amputation. Left leg.

Continuing down the hall, the next doorway was closed off, light spilling into the passage through a plate sized portal at eye level. Harry stepped away from the door and allowed his eyes to adjust as he surveyed the room within. There was one doctor with his back to the door and two additional figures, gowned and masked passing instruments in response to barked instructions.

Harry wet his lips, then pushed open the door with his shoulder, bringing his gun to bear as he rotated into the room.

Two sets of eyes widened, then disappeared from view behind the table as his SIG Mauser barked twice, dropping the nurses where they stood.

The third figure spun about, scalpel pinched between thumb and forefinger, ready to cut.

“What are you doing? You can’t discharge a weapon in here, you’ll contaminate the merchandise.” The doctor’s English was crisp and matter of fact.

On the table behind him, Harry could make out part of a familiar phrase inked down the left arm the surgeon had been preparing to sever at the shoulder. “Fidelis”.

“You’ve made a bit of a mistake, Herr Doctor.” Harry moved away from the door, weapon leveled and steady. “That body you farmed this evening isn’t what you think.”

The doctor raised his hands slightly, the scalpel catching and reflecting the surgical lights overhead.

“Nothing more than some drunk soldier.” On the table Harry could see the body was covered in carefully drawn lines, a roadmap from which he was to be carved up like a side of beef. “Drunks are worthless alive, and this one less so if not promptly packaged. He’s losing value while you’re wasting my time. Get the hell out of my operating room, you’ve no idea who you’re messing with.”

Harry moved until he could see the supine man’s face, and the blossomed flesh of a bullet wound in the middle of his forehead.

“No, not ‘just a drunk soldier’. My drunk soldier, and my drunk soldier brought me here to see you.” Harry addressed the body on the table.

“Corporal, relieve the good doctor of his faculties.”

The doctor turned back to the table to find himself face to face with his naked cadaver, now sitting upright and eyeing him with a wolfish grin.

With lightening speed, the doctor lashed out with the scalpel, drawing it from the Corporal’s right shoulder along the line of his collarbone then upward to his throat. Where the skin peeled back, black carbon fibre mesh showed through from beneath flesh veneer. In a single motion, the Corporal grabbed the doctor by the throat, and standing, lifted him from the ground, the scalpel clattering to the floor.

“I’m afraid his parts won’t be much use to you.” Harry holstered his weapon and began rolling up his sleeves. “Your bits, however, are quite useful, and there are a few of our boys that you can rest assured will put them to good use.”

GUD Magazine
Current Issue
ISSUE 4 :: SPRING 2009

GUD (pronounced “good”) is Greatest Uncommon Denominator, an award-winning print/pdf magazine with two hundred pages of literary and genre fiction, poetry, art, and articles. GUD IS TIMELESS. GUD is modern in business, method, and execution, but timeless in message. GUD is published twice a year, for your reading pleasure.

Issue 4 begins with the end of the world and moves on from there. From the unromantically magical take on Ragnarøk in the lead story “Unbound” to the curious history of squid in “A Man of Kiri Maru”, this issue is steeped in mythos, making use of the old familiar tales and some new ones, mixing cosmologies from around the world–and from other worlds as well.

But the focus, be it of prose, poetry, or art, is always on the human–on the clashes between imagination and reality, on choices and redemption, on what the Other can tell us about ourselves. And like any GUD magazine, this one’s eclectic; browse around between the covers and you’re sure to come upon some things you’ll like, whether you’re a genre junkie or a generalist. We hope you’ll find some beauty, something uncommon, and that, for just a moment, the angle of the light will seem a little bit different.

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Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Hans lay face down on the surgical table, completely immobilized and wide awake. His father’s rubber shoes moved in and out of his field of vision as the older man busied himself in preparation, his voice a constant hum of information in the otherwise empty room.

“We can’t effectively target inactive neural pathways, which is why you’re awake. You won’t feel anything, at least, I don’t think I did…” his father’s voice trailed off only for a moment. “If you do feel uncomfortable, be sure to speak up. We’ll want to make a note of when.”

His father double checked his handiwork, having laid out all the instruments he would need on a sterile back table nearby. Overhead hung a large spring-coiled umbilical of fibre optic cable truncated in a blunt two inch long conical tip. A second such cable snaked into the back of Hans Senior’s skull, following him as he moved about the room.

“The initial prototype is completely polarized,” he tapped the back of his head, “one way. The materials that the interface nodes fabricated from were by nature unidirectional.” Barely pausing between sentences he scrubbed the back of the boy’s neck with iodine before deftly slicing through the skin and subcutaneous layers with a scalpel.

“Still lucrative, even with its limitations. Reconnaissance personnel, witnesses, even the skin trade paid handsomely.”

From the table he plucked an insect like device of surgical steel and placed it over the incision. From it a myriad of tiny appendages unfolded, carefully holding aside the lacerated flesh before burrowing even deeper into the boys’ neck, then up into the base of his skull. At the required depth, it injected a thin catheter and, its task completed, simply stopped in place.

“Frustrating how long it took to solve the polarizing issue. So much time, lost.”

Hans Senior unpackaged a fibre cable socket with a long single organic strand trailing from it. Grasping it with a set of forceps, he fed the strand into the catheter.

“This will be so much better for you than it was for me.” No sooner had the strand contacted the tube, it began to pull itself in. Hans’ head flooded with sights, sounds, and smells that he hadn’t known in years. The strand divided and doubled back on itself, only to divide again, sending countless atom thin filaments off into Hans’ grey matter. His father held the endcap until the strand had reeled in all of its slack before carefully guiding it into the still waiting insectile appliance.

The tiny unit came back to life, grasping and aligning the jack with the flesh. It then glue stitched the inner layers to the device below the surface, and sutured the outer skin to its perforated outer edge.

Its job complete, the mechanism detached, and allowed itself to be picked up and set aside with the other bloodied instruments.

Hans felt the restraints relax, followed by a flood of sensation, not all of it pleasant.

“The pain should subside in a few days.” The older man helped his son into a sitting position before grasping the unattached cable from overhead and positioning it behind the boy’s head. There was a strobe of light and a magnetic snapping as the two ends oriented themselves and fitted together.

His father stood in front of him, and closed his eyes.

Hans felt a strange pressure in his head, then had a sudden awareness of why his father had pushed so hard to implant him now.

“You’re dying.” It wasn’t a question, the facts had been laid out for him.

“Yes. I’ve used up my life. I’ve learned so much, but there’s so much left undone.”

Hans felt the pressure again, followed by waves of knowledge. Not all of it was pleasant either.

November has arrived, for many of us this brings an extra hour of well needed sleep. After a great feature with Roi R. Czechvala in October, we’re ready to showcase another great writer here on 365tomorrows for the month of November.

This month, for your reading enjoyment, we feature the work of William Tracy, known in the forums as Afishionado.

William has had a number of stories on the front page over the past few years, and we’re sure you’ll enjoy his featured work this month.

Enjoy the stories, and don’t forget to drop by the forums to leave some feedback.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Arway sat down gently at the desk. Dust was already starting to gather, defying the environment scrubber’s valiant attempts to keep the air spotless.

Two weeks, maybe three.

Careful not to disturb anything, he leaned as close as he dared to the desk’s surface and breathed in slowly, deeply. Hundreds of particles raced through his sinus, and he unconsciously rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth as they were identified, cross referenced and catalogued.

Without realizing, he’d closed his eyes as he took in the recent history of the space. He opened them quickly, hoping no one had noticed. Turning slowly, first left, then right, the entire gestalt of the working space was absorbed. Conventional writing instruments, ink dried on their rollerball tips. A collection of sticky notes, brief and cryptic impressions left behind from notes long taken and discarded. A transceiver for the holodeck pickup that he’d stepped over at the door. The contents of the machine it had last interfaced with was already downloaded, its information being indexed against the new data as Arway absorbed it. As he worked, patterns flared up in his line of sight, connections drawn in faint light-lines between objects in the real space around him; hyperlinked notes, tags associating items with each other and her file. There was a nearly infinite number of rabbit holes, each ranked as to their relevance by the intensity of their colour signature.

Arway stood up, and stepped back into the middle of the room.

Two uniformed officers and a plain clothes detective stood by the door, murmuring to each other in hushed tones. Their conversations were also logged, but their words were just so much static to Arway. He was used to their discomfort and resentment.

When he spoke, the three other men stopped talking and listened.

“She was here. She disconnected from virtual sixteen days ago, but stayed here for two days unplugged before leaving. There’s no evidence of electronic funds transfer anywhere near her.”

While he spoke, he stood staring blankly at the desk, not looking at the men behind him.

“She was living off soup and bread, but not it eating here. Probably visiting a food line nearby. She was bringing coffee back, dark roast – mostly Sumatra. That’s not food line coffee, she had to be buying that though there’s no evidence of hard currency. No paper dust, no ink scent, no trace. Whatever she’s spending she’s keeping it vacuum sealed for safety. We won’t be able to trace where her money’s coming from until she slips.” She wasn’t going to slip.

He flexed his shoulders underneath the heavy trenchcoat before continuing. The cramping muscles would soon bring on a headache if he didn’t work them out.

“She was alone. Her clothes are not laundered. No soap, lots of body residue. Dermis samples are present but no hair. She’s either shaving outside or inhibiting. Wherever she is, if she’s not laying down, she’s not leaving much of a footprint. While she was online she logged on average eighteen and one half hours of activity per day. Targets encrypted, currently decoding, information to follow.”

The detective interrupted from the doorway. “Targets? Multiple?”

Arway turned to look at him, the milky sheen of his implants catching the detective off guard as he tried to keep eye contact, forcing him to look away.

“Targets. Multiple.”

It was one of the uniforms that broke the silence that followed.

“Looks like your partner’s gone right off the reservation, eh Arway?”

The comment he filed away with the static, too immersed in the data of her presence to care what they thought.

They expected him to hunt her. He just wanted to understand.

Wil Wheaton : Just a Geek

Wil Wheaton’s second book, as read by the author. Wil Wheaton has never been one to take the conventional path to success. Despite early stardom through his childhood role in the motion picture “Stand By Me”, and growing up on television as Wesley Crusher on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, Wil left Hollywood in pursuit of happiness, purpose, and a viable means of paying the bills. In the oddest of places, Topeka, Kansas, Wil discovered that despite his claims to fame, he was at heart Just a Geek.

There’s a rumour that someone on the internet is making Wil’s work available for free. If you’re that guy/girl and you’re reading this, stop snacking with his meal ticket. The book’s not new, and the audio book’s not new, but the stealing is, and that’s not cool.

If you’re at all interested in what Wil has to say – follow the link to Wil Wheaton’s Blog where you can buy it and know that Wil’s actually getting the money. He’s self published this thing, and if you’re not paying him for it, he’s not getting paid. Worse than that – if you’re paying someone else for it, they’re stealing out of Wil’s pocket.

Don’t do it. Buy a copy from Wil. After all, he’s Wil Freakin Wheaton.

October has arrived, and it’s high time we featured another writer here on 365tomorrows.

This month, for your reading enjoyment, we feature the work of Roi R. Czechvala, known in the forums as 1stSarge. Roi’s been a fixture on 365 for some time, and has seen a number of stories on the front page already. A career military man with a dry sense of humour and just enough of a cynical nature to be endearing, I think you’ll enjoy his work as much as we do.

Enjoy the stories, and don’t forget to drop by the forums to leave some feedback.

Jake Freivald at Flash Fiction Online has written a good review of the book –  Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction edited by Tara L. Masih.

Give the review a look – you might find the book is of interest.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Nathan hated fighting with Claire. It was inevitable; they’d been awake and otherwise alone with the ship, tending to its needs, granting their minds a temporary reprieve from the long sleep. If you spent a few months alone with only your partner hurtling through deep space, you’d find things to disagree on too.

He never meant to argue, she was just so pig-headed sometimes. Before he knew it a rolled eye and sharp comment became a tennis match of barked recriminations and rebuttals, and the inevitable storming off to opposite ends of the ship.

He watched her from his perch in the observation deck as she moved among the rows of plants in the greenery below. The outer hull plates were transparent now, the ship having rolled towards a star similar enough to Sol, so close as to provide light, yet distant enough not to scorch the delicate plant-life. He studied her as she stripped to the waist and soaked up the sun’s rays herself.

It was his captivation with the sheer beauty of her that afforded him the best possible view as a cluster of meteoroid’s lacerated the hull, tearing through the weakened greenery hull-plates like hot knives through fresh snow.

Nathan screamed at Claire’s upturned panicked face before the defense systems hardened the hull, opaquing his view and hers.

Nathan ran. He barely heard the warning messages describing the breach, and the steps being taken to contain it. He threw himself headfirst down the vertical shaft towards the core channel, grabbing the lower rungs of the ladder as he exited and with jarring force flipping himself to land feet first on the floor below. Sprinting to the greenery doors, he found them sealed tight.

He could only watch through the window of the door, pounding with flattened palms until his hands stung while mechanical spiders attached plate and injected alloy to repair the damaged hull inside.

On the ground, scant metres from where he stood helpless, a maintenance droid methodically held and sliced the scaffolding and shattered structure that had Claire pinned to the deck. Carefully removed pieces were set aside as it busied itself with freeing her. While it carved, a surgical droid scanned, glued and stitched the broken pieces of her body as they became accessible, it’s hands flitting in and around the cutters and clenched claws of the much heavier machine towering over it.

By the time the atmosphere was stabilized, and the doors opened, Nathans hands were numb and Claire was fully exposed on the floor. Her body was a latticework of suture lines and micropore patches, and while her chest raised and lowered, he could see the labour of her breathing. The surgeon stood still, its chest a billboard of vitals, its work done save for the occasional jolting of Claire’s heart back to motion. Nathan could see she was struggling, the muscle repaired but the shock to her system too great.

“You can’t leave me here, you can’t leave this all to me.” His voice caught in his throat, tears rising unbidden.

“You can’t quit, I need your help, I can’t do this by myself.” There was a too long moment of silence until the surgeon reminded her heart to keep beating.

Nathan felt his anger rising. “This is just like you, storming away from anything that seems too hard.” He found himself yelling without meaning to.

In his mind he saw Claire at their last argument, balled up fists and the fire of purpose in her eyes.

Nathan dropped to his knees, gently placed his cheek against hers and whispered, “I don’t want to live without you. I love you. Please don’t go.”

His tears fell warm against her skin, the only sound the now steady beating of her heart.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

This is the first time I’ve been awake in… I don’t know. Months? Years?

The sentence they gave me was a twenty year stint in this meat locker. There’s nobody around to tell me how far in I am.

The air in here is brutally stale; heavy with the smell of sweat and piss. I should be on line air, and this can’s supposed to be sealed tight. It’s not though, there’s something wrong with the system and they’ve cracked all the lids so we can breathe.

Thoughtful bastards.

I must be on the downslope of this thing, my muscles don’t respond worth shit and I can feel the edges of my teeth where my gums are peeling back. That doesn’t happen overnight.

Some water would be nice, my mouth feels like something crawled in it and died. There’s nobody around to fetch a drink either.

Whatever they’ve broken, they’d better fix it soon. I’m not sure how long I’ve been awake in here; days I think, maybe a week or two.

Twenty years as a popsicle didn’t seem so bad at the start. Go to sleep, wake up and I deal with what I deal with when I get out. But this… this is inhumane.

I can feel the halo they screwed into my skull, the tugging and nagging pressure of the lead tapped in through the bone.

I think they jarred it when they took the lid off.

Or was it putting the lid back on?

I can’t remember, how long have I been awake? Days? Weeks?

Or am I still asleep?

Twenty years as a popsicle. Never occurred to me it could be so cold.

Strange Horizons (www.strangehorizons.com) is a weekly web-based magazine of and about speculative fiction. The term “speculative fiction” refers to what is more commonly known as “sci-fi,” but which properly embraces science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, slipstream, and a host of sub-genres. The magazine was founded in September 2000, and as [they] said then:

“[Speculative fiction is] important to the world. These stories make us think. They critique society. They offer alternatives. They give us a vision of the future—and warn us of the potential dangers therein. They help us understand our past. They are full of beauty, and terror, and delight.”

Strange Horizons publishes short fiction, poetry, reviews and articles of interest to the speculative fiction community each week on Monday.

As Strange Horizons, like 365tomorrows, is staffed entirely by volunteers, and as unlike 365tomorrows, Strange Horizons is a professional paying market, they need to run fund raising drives from time to time in order to keep the coffers full and the gears oiled and turning.

They’re hoping to raise $7,000 in the month of August, and if you can spare a few dollars, we’d like it if you helped them out.

A link to their fund raising page can be found here:
http://www.strangehorizons.com/fund_drives/2009/main.shtml

You’ll be supporting the future, and that’s a good thing.

It seems like only yesterday that I was reading Outer Space Romance, the first story posted on what was then the brand new 365tomorrows site. That was August 1st, 2005 – four full years and nearly 1,500 stories ago.

August first of 2009 brought us Pixelator, and the first story of this, our fifth year of bringing a new, short piece of Science Fiction to the web every single day.

There have been some changes, and we’ve had a few more staff writers fade into the background while other pursuits are keeping them busy, but their words are immortized in the archives, and there are new talents emerging that may soon step up and take their places on the front lines.

Speaking of the archives, we’ve added some more useful search capabilities to the site, allowing you to easily review all of the stories of any given month going back to that very first story. As well the search has been enhanced to provide type ahead feedback to guide you towards that elusive tale you’re trying to track down. The site archives can be browsed here, and if you’ve got some time on your hands, there are almost 1,500 stories there waiting for you.

On the submissions front, we’ve been inundated with an increasing number of submissions from an ever expanding group of writers. We’re trying our best to keep up, and are adding some new eyes to the review process in order to respond to stories in a timely fashion. We do appreciate your patience as we struggle to keep up with all of your collective creative talents.

We’ll continue to make incremental improvements where we can, and we’ll send out updates as we make changes, or add features.

From all of us, thank you for helping make this a continuing success.

Best,
:The staff and writers of 365tomorrows.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Tanya rested her head on the table sideways, watching the needle slip through the flesh in the crook of her elbow. Dr. Tetler attached a line and hung a clear bag on the I.V. stand beside her.

“We’ll let the saline run for a minute before we proceed.” The Doctor smiled at her, a practiced expression he failed to make convincing.

Tanya looked to the ceiling as a cooling sensation crawled up her arm. She was tired; not being able to sleep well on the streets, she looked forward to the promised bed and regular meals, even for a little while.

“Alright, we’ll begin now. You may feel a burning sensation, which is normal.” The Doctor’s voice faded into the background as she watched him hang another bag, this one with a distinctive orange and black striped logo on it. “This should start binding fairly quickly.”

It wasn’t a burning sensation so much as liquid fire racing into her body. Flames coursed through her, from her arm into her chest where she was sure it would erupt as a molten volcano out of her pounding heart. Her mouth stretched wide, screaming until her voice was so hoarse all she could do was growl, air pulled and pushed through vocal chords she knew must be burnt black as coal.

The pain crescendoed, spiking in her toes and fingers, an exquisite throbbing that echoed the pounding of her heart. She flexed hard against the strapping that held her, her head bouncing against the table, the entire frame shaking as a tray of instruments clattered to the floor.

The Doctor moved hesitantly towards the door, spellbound by the spectacle before him.

Once the bag drained completely, the fire subsided. She breathed, pain and fatigue falling away, replaced by a sense of euphoria. Opening her eyes and finding the light almost unbearably bright, she narrowed them to slits. She could hear her own heart drumming, blood coursing through her newly tuned body. She breathed deeper, felt the oxygen flood her bloodstream.

Flexing again, she felt a new and keen awareness of every muscle fiber, every ounce of available strength.

Another heart beat nearby, accelerated by a fear so strong she could smell it.

Tanya turned again, noticing the needle still protruding from her arm and reached across to pull it out, freeing one arm and tearing the restraint from the table in the process without apparent effort. As the needle dropped, she pulled herself fetal, the other restraining straps giving way like damp paper. Rolling sideways off the table she landed in a low crouch, knees fully bent, arms easy at her side;  a coil spring aching to discharge.

Tetler reached behind him without looking, brailing the table top for the tranquilizers he knew should be within easy reach.

Tanya could smell betrayal.

The Doctor’s hand closed on an auto-injector as Tanya exploded from her crouch. Legs extending fully, she launched at him, arms forward, hands extending like blades. The force of the impact drove him backwards into the door, hypo spraying harmlessly into space as her fingertips penetrated his chest just beneath the collar bone and curled into his ribcage. Falling backwards, she pulled him, screaming, on top of her and as they fell, she twisted one hundred and eighty degrees at the waist, throwing him to the floor and landing on top of him.

His fear flooded her senses, the smell of a taste she found irresistible. She silenced his screaming, tearing out his throat with her teeth.

“Funny,” she thought, as his blood soaked her gown, the chorded muscle of her body rippling bare through the open back, “I don’t feel the slightest bit tired anymore.”

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Thirty two years. He’d lost count of the number of homicides.

A Detective for twenty one of those years, John Barrick wished he knew how good he’d had it as a beat cop.

There was no going back now.

John opened the back door of his cruiser. Reaching in, he grabbed the zip tie holding his prisoner’s hands behind his back and dragged him roughly out onto the ground. The car’s suspension wheezed at the change in load, re-leveling itself.

Barrick pulled the limp figure’s head back by the hair and snapped a sim cap under his shattered nose.

“Wake up, Stanton,” he shook him, pushing the cap into the man’s nostrils until he recoiled from the smell, “wake up.”

Stanton coughed and sputtered, hands straining against the binding and head twisting behind the wide tape covering his eyes. He finally managed to get his feet underneath his body and propel himself upright.

“This doesn’t smell like the cells,” his speech slow and calm, “I want my legal representative.”

Barrick unclipped the heavy gun he’d hung on his belt, and prodded the unsteady man in the back with it. Stanton moved hesitantly away from the prodding, puzzled at the whining sound that followed each jab in the spine.

“I’m tired of catching you, Stanton,” John’s body ached with fatigue as he pulled the prisoner up short before a half meter square opening in the ground. “I keep putting you in the box, and you keep coming back and doing the same shit again and again.”

Stanton grinned, exposing broken teeth behind cracked lips. “That’s the beauty of virtual. I can do twenty years of that standing on my head, and when my time’s up, you’re just a little older and none the wiser. Twenty years in a bit box don’t mean shit to me out here. It’s just the economics of law, don’t beat yourself up over it.”

Barrick had seen Stanton convicted seven times since he’d been on the force, each with a twenty year term in virtual lockup; fully immersive confinement with the realtime clock turned way down. The prisoners rode out the whole sentence, but the taxpayers got to save the expense of a full term crate in a big house somewhere with all the amenities. Economical. Mostly effective, except for the Stanton’s of the world.

Barrick clipped the gun back on his belt, and gripping the other mans shoulders, propelled him forward until one foot hovered over open air. He kicked the other foot out violently from under him and stepped back as Stanton dropped ten feet down into the darkness.

“What’s this, pre-v isolation?” The voice was still calm above the sound of him pushing himself upright again in the darkness. “That’s against protocol, when my lawyer hears…”

The rest of his words were muffled as Barrick wrestled the heavy wooden lid into place over the hole. Unclipping the heavy gun, he leaned into it, listening to the whine as the igniter primed and enjoying the satisfying pop as it discharged steel framing spikes through the lid and into the crate below.

The clip emptied, Barrick tossed the gun on top of the crate before filling in what was left of the hole and spreading the remaining dirt.

As his cruiser climbed the gravel road back to the highway, Barrick eyed the towering paving machines at rest behind him. In the morning, they would lay down a mile wide stripe of concrete and asphalt, locking the door on Henry Thomas Stanton for the very last time.

While they worked, for the first time in thirty two years, John Barrick knew he’d be asleep.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

The orbiter had touched down at Vandenberg, and Lewis and a dozen others had flown cargo the thirty minutes to San Francisco airport. They trudged in from the tarmac in loose formation out of habit, unprepared for the crowds in the terminal.

The debriefing team had talked about friction, that the religious right had taken offense to their involvement in the colony war.

There was an awkward moment when the soldiers met the seething mass of people, unsure if there would be familiar faces, confused by the angry looks and rumbled undercurrent of discontent.

“Murderers,” a lone voice lit the fuse, causing the crowd to erupt into a cacophonic barrage of unfettered hatred.

The soldiers had faced more threatening forces, but here, at home, unarmed and unprepared, they could do nothing but close ranks and retreat to safety.

Police raised riot shields as picketers raised placards, the two groups squaring off as the tired soldiers slipped away through the terminal.

Lewis took the shuttle to the BART platform. In an hour he’d be in Lafayette, at home with his wife and his little girl. He understood now why Tessa hadn’t been there to meet him.

The waiting rail car was almost full. Finding a vacant seat, he addressed the woman seated across from it.

“Do you mind if I sit here?”

The woman’s eyes flared up at his, and drawing up noisily she spat on his boots.

“Murderer.” Her eyes burned into him as he turned and walked to the other end of the car. “Did you forget God while you were fighting up there?” Ignoring her, he found and lowered himself into another vacant seat. His massive frame, used to two years of a gee and a half nearly crushed the structure as he landed. The people already sitting nearby quietly got up and moved away, taking up standing positions with their backs to him.

They were in Oakland City when four young men produced guns as the doors closed and the train began to move again.

“All of you, wallets, jewelry and phones in the bags,” the shorter of the men spoke loudly as they moved through the car, waving guns with one hand, bags open in the other.

“Are you going to fucking do something?” The same woman had Lewis fixed with a glare again, though this time her eyes were filled with fear.

The men hadn’t noticed Lewis, and as he raised himself from his seat, they backed away, raising then lowering their guns uncertainly. Lewis bristled with armor, the chitin alloy plating spliced into his skin would stop anything of the calibre these men could heft, and in sheer mass he could crush them without effort. They knew that as well as he did.

“Listen man, we got no problem with you, we’re just making a living…”, the stocky one’s voice trailed off as Lewis brushed past him.

Lewis stopped facing the woman, her eyes darting from him to the wavering guns behind him. He bent over, wiping up some of the still wet spittle from the toe of his boot. She jerked back and froze as he raised his hand. Putting a wet finger to her face, he smeared a cross on her forehead.

“I hope your God remembers you, when you meet him.” His face was inches from hers, his breath hot on her trembling face.

The entire car stared in shocked silence as he straightened and stepped off the train at MacArthur station, leaving them alone, passengers and thieves.

There’d be another train shortly, and at the moment Lewis needed, more than anything else, space.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Tucker went through the drills with the rest of the squad in a state of meditative indifference. It took focused effort to keep his mech and chem systems in check while still performing well enough to earn one of the dozen seats on the Mars shuttle. These freelance lifts were rare, and he couldn’t miss this opportunity.

What little attention he could spare he directed to monitoring the other’s level of performance. He deliberately maintained a slightly-better-than-middle spot in the ten kilometer run and obstacle course. He kept that position as they commando-crawled five hundred meters through a muddy creek bed while a machine-gunner fired a steady stream of live rounds over their heads, the gun’s belt drive screaming above the clatter of shell casings piling up at her feet.

Several of the men curled up fetal under fire, disqualifying themselves involuntarily, and Tucker downgraded his speed accordingly.

It wouldn’t take a genius to recognize his Special Ops rigging if he slipped here, and that would bring a rapid and painful end to Tucker’s unauthorized excursion.

Pulling himself out of the muck, Tucker loped the last hundred meters downhill to the gun range, joining the dozen or so already there. Several sported bloody stripes across their backs where they’d been grazed by the gunfire.

Tucker wiped the mud from his hands on the back of his pants, before unracking and loading an M4 Carbine and stepping into an empty slot on the range. There were only two perfect shoots ahead of him that he could see, and he squeezed off an evenly spaced volley of shells at his target, carefully distributing them across the red of the bulls-eye, and deliberately putting one just outside the bull, kissing the colour.

Making safe the weapon, he re-racked it and followed the others along a short trail and into another clearing. Here a handful of uniformed men stood reading incoming performance data on hand held pads while they waited for the stragglers to filter in.

“Sten, Rourke, Burke and Trillo, you’re in Red Quad. Clean up, suit up and be on the apron at sixteen hundred.” The shortest of the uniformed men barked the orders.

“Abrahms, Booker, Suez and Styne, Blue Quad. Clean and suited, on the apron. Sixteen hundred.”

“Jope, Minerez, Minsk and Parker, Green Quad. Clean, suited, sixteen hundred.

For a moment Tucker felt panic well up, and nearly lost his grip. Parker had finished behind him in all the exercises, but must have impressed on the range. As Parker elbowed his way through the crowd, Tucker sidled up and, unnoticed, drove two rigid fingers into the base of his spine as he passed. The movement was so swift and the contact so brief that the man barely noticed. It wasn’t until he’d taken another dozen steps through the crowd that his legs folded up neatly beneath him, and he dropped silently to the dirt.

There was quick discussion amongst the uniforms as a medic made his way through the confused crowd to the fallen man.

“Tucker, take Parkers place in Green, looks like this is your lucky day.”

Tucker knew that it was Parker who’d gotten the lucky break. He still had to kill the rest of them once they cleared orbit and that was unlikely to be as painless.

The thought of imminent violence brought the chem bubbling to the surface, and he pushed it back down. Not here, not now. He’d stay near comatose through liftoff, but before the zero hour there’d be no reason left to hide, and they’d have nowhere to run.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Caroline walked the long way down from the bluffs, down the winding dirt road and out into the farm fields. To her right the abandoned silo – silent silhouette against the moonlit sky. Impotent concrete rocket reaching skyward, never to fly.

Derek was a jerk. He had driven her up there, her and the friends they shared. She just assumed.

Never assume.

Once Donna arrived it was pretty clear his attention was elsewhere.

“Don’t go!” He’d called out, but she left anyways. He didn’t follow.

Jerk.

In the distance a dog barked at her intrusion, but the sound didn’t grow closer, and the farm house was too far from the road for her to worry. She watched, looking for lights in the windows, for some sign she wasn’t alone. So distracted, she didn’t notice the odd streak of light hanging in the middle of the road ahead of her until she’d almost stepped into it.

Static crackle caused her to snap her head around to find a sliver of bright white light suspended in the air, almost as tall as her.

Unconsciously, she took a step back, and the band of light seemed to do the same, segmenting into two vertical halves, one moving back first, followed by the other.

Caroline fumbled in her pocket for her phone, and holding it in front of her thumbed the tiny camera to life. The device chimed three times, and then clicked, flashing the screen in a futile attempt at lighting the scene. She frowned at the phone, the image a complete white out.

Spreading itself into a virtual wall of light almost the full width of the road, the anomaly pulsed dimly three times, then flashed bright as daylight. She stood blinking, then dropped her phone and gaped at the image of herself captured on the shimmering fabric of translucence. Her likeness flickered, suspended, looking altogether as surprised as she felt.

From the ground, her phone began to vibrate, the 1812 Overture rising in volume from its tiny speaker. Still fixated on her captured image, she picked up the phone. Derek. A flood of emotion caught up with her. Jealousy, hope and for the first time fear of this strange phenomenon she was experiencing alone on this road.

The light shimmered and changed, her likeness distorting and shredding as the smooth fabric of brightness fragmented into a multitude of ribbons. It began to vibrate in time with her phone, and from seemingly everywhere at once, the 1812 Overture shook the ground beneath her feet.

The phone hit the ground again, this time only seconds before Caroline. She clasped her hands over ringing ears as the thin pillars of light began dancing around her, some searing white, some deep blue, some variegating through all colours of the spectrum. She curled up fetal on the ground as they closed in, surrounding her, cutting off any possible retreat to the farm house.

“Get away from me,” she screamed, clamping her hands down tightly over her ears, but unable to look away. “Leave me alone, get away, leave me alone!”

For a moment, the light faltered, pulling away and dimming in its intensity. Unsure.

“Please, leave me alone,” she sobbed.

The hanging strands of light slipped into each other, merging as they touched, until there was but one dim stripe of light hanging over the roadway. It hovered for just a moment, and then zipped from the dirt, to the silo on the horizon and then straight up into the night sky.

Caroline watched, tears streaming down her face as she called out. “Wait, don’t go.”

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

“Mama?” A tiny voice slipped quietly through the room. Between her and the woman in the bed an impenetrable forest of metal stands, tubes and blinking machinery stood guard.

“Come in sweetheart, it’s alright.” Her mother’s voice warmed the space, shushing the noisy equipment. “Mama’s alright baby, come see me.”

Clad in a pink dress and knee socks, the girl of no more than five years bravely stepped away from the safety of the door frame. Big blue eyes focused and fixed on her mother lying in the hospital bed, and her legs carried her along that line of focus until she could reach out and touch her hand.

“There, there, Mama’s all better now.” She held her daughter’s hand gently, but firmly. “The doctors made me all better. Come. Climb up here and cuddle with me.” She tried her best not to wince, shuffling a little to one side to make room. She held her one arm away so her daughter wouldn’t become tangled in the web of cords snaking away from her body.

The girl climbed cautiously up the side of the bed, nearer the foot so as to avoid the side rail, and then crawled up beside her mother and lay her head gingerly on her chest.

“Did they really take out your broken heart Mama?” She barely breathed the words.

“Yes dear, they really did.”

The girl put her ear tentatively to her mother’s chest, listening for the familiar thrub thrubbing, but there was no such noise.

“Mama?” She started and stopped.

“Yes dear?”

“Mama, can you still love me now that they took your heart away?” The words were brave, but her voice quivered.

Her mother wrapped her arms around her baby girl. “Of course I still love you. My love for you isn’t caught up in some broken old heart, it comes from everywhere.” She suppressed a gasp as the little girl squeezed her back tightly.

The girl contented herself snuggling quietly a time.

“Mama,” she said finally, “your love doesn’t rumble like thunder like it used to.” She pressed one ear again to her mothers breast, covering the other ear with a free hand. The sound rising up wasn’t the familiar steady beating she had grown with, but rather a different sound that ebbed and flowed. She squeezed her eyes shut and listened to breath being drawn in, and pushed out, and to the rhythmic rushing that kept time.

“Mama, your love whooshes like the ocean. Like the great big wide ocean.” She lay there, eyes closed and smiling, liking very much the new sounds her mother made.

Her mother lay still too, her tears also like the ocean, but adding no sound of their own.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Kruger had given up wiping the dust off his goggles, relying instead on the shadow cast by the ridge line for direction, a shadow that was shrinking. They’d have to find a pass to the other side before the sun swung overhead, or risk boiling in their watersuits.

A gap in the rock opened up, and turning into it, Kruger saw in his periphery what looked like a large rock retreat into the shadows. He stopped, and Packard stepped into him hard from behind, almost knocking him down.

“Warn me before you do that.” Packard’s was too tired for his voice to convey annoyance.

Kruger pawed away the dust on his goggles, staring into the darkness. Had he hallucinated that?

“I think that rock’s alive,” he pointed one gloved finger, raising his arm only from the elbow, “the locals eat some kind of shell meat from out here, that might be food.”

His copilot moved closer, wiping at the red film that obscured his vision, skepticism hidden beneath his sealed headpiece.

“I wish I’d thought to grab the rock hunting gear before we bailed.” Kruger noted his companion wasn’t too tired for sarcasm.

Kruger kicked loose a chunk of stone and tossed it into the darkness, flinching despite himself as a flat expanse of what appeared to be rock dislodged itself and lumbered along on four angular legs in the shadows before hunkering down and becoming still again.

“I think we’d best leave that alone Kruge, I doubt we could beat that craggy bastard to death on a good day.”

Kruger felt a bead of sweat form on his nose before his recycler snatched it up, and he realized the sun had moved overhead, the temperature inside his suit rising.

“We’ll get ahead of it, chase it out into the open.” Kruger moved slowly, careful to step back inside the decaying shadow.

“Ahead of it?”, Packard’s voice taking on an incredulous tone, “Chase the damned thing? We’ve been walking for four bloody days, I’m not in any shape to catch anything, and if we did, how do you propose we kill it?”

“We sweat to stay cool, and we’ve got suits to conserve moisture. That thing’s hiding in the shadows and trying hard not to move. If we make it run in the open desert, I doubt it will last five minutes.”

“I doubt if I’ll last five minutes.”

“Pack, it could be days before we get back, we need food. We just run it until it drops, and it’ll bake in the sun all afternoon. We wait in the shade until dark, then we eat.” Kruger had a plan. Kruger always had a plan.

Packard shook his head, but followed the pilot’s lead, moving carefully past the creature while collecting fist sized chunks of rock.

When they were safely on the shadowed side of the ridge, they began mercilessly pelting the animal with thrown stone, forcing it first to retreat to the edge of the outcropping, and then reluctantly to break cover and lumber off into the blinding afternoon sun. They chased it as far as they could, before returning to the safety of the overhang, watching it stagger and falter on the open ground, unable to find refuge from the heat.

Kruger sat carefully, leaning back against the rock. “Now we wait.”

Packard pictured the hard shelled creature, likely drifting over with sand while they sat there.

“I only wish I’d thought to grab a can opener when I was bailing out.”

Packard again; always with the sarcasm.

Most of you are familiar with 365tomorrows from the SciFi stories published to the front page every day, but there’s a community lurking just beneath the surface too. Check out The Forums, register and jump in to talk about the stories and chat with the authors.

Link up in the Science Fiction forum and discus other people’s sci-fi (books, movies, TV, comics, etc) and share news that reminds us how close to tomorrow we actually are. Visit The Pod where we all go to relax. If a story from the front page inspires a continuation or spin off, post it to The Day After Tomorrow. Finally, for stories submitted to 365 that aren’t accepted, a recent addition is Building a Better Tomorrow where you can go to find revision help for rejected tomorrows.

Follow 365tomorrows on twitter to get links to the day’s stories as they are published. twitter.com/365tomorrows

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Detective Staind waited in the darkness of an empty doorway. He watched as the man, head down, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, crossed the street fifty meters away. Waiting until the man turned down an alley, he unholstered his weapon and followed. It was much easier finding someone when you knew exactly where they were going to be.

The man threaded his way through the refuse and rubble that littered the alleyway. It had been years since anyone cared for these buildings, only the crazy and homeless took refuge here now.

At the mid point between the two larger streets, the alley narrowed to just a shoulder’s width, and at this point the figure stopped, puzzled, his progress blocked by steel drums piled with broken stone. Something was wrong.

“William,” Staind yelled down the alley, causing the man to turn, startled. “William Heath. You’re a difficult man to find.”

The figure stepped back from the opening and cast furtive glances, looking for an alternate exit.

“That’s the only way through William. Unless you can get past me,” he motioned with his pistol over his shoulder, “but I don’t like your odds.”

William moved slowly towards the detective, hands still in pockets, but head up, alert. “Who are you? What do you want?”

Staind leveled his weapon at him, halting his approach.

“You’ve upset a lot of people William, you’ve killed a lot of women. You didn’t think that could go on forever, did you?”

William’s hands were at his sides now, fists clenching and unclenching, eyes locked on the barrel of the gun.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do William, yes you bloody well do. You’ve strangled thirty two woman in the last five years. Thirty two, you prick. You’re very careful, I’ll give you that, you’ve left almost no evidence behind at all. Not a trace of you anywhere, no bank accounts, no public records. You’ve done a very thorough job of not being anywhere we could look.”

“You’ve got nothing then, have you?” he smirked.

“Well William, I said you left almost no evidence. You did make one mistake, people like you always do. Yours was not making sure Mary Truman was really dead before you stuck your tongue in her mouth. She’s a diver William, big lungs, you should have kept the pressure on a little longer. That piece of your tongue she bit off, she was choking on it while you incinerated her face. We found that piece of you stuck in her throat.”

“There’s no way flesh you found in some dead whore could have led you to me. That’s impossible.” William shifted his weight from foot to foot, eyes still fixed on the raised handgun.

“Normally no, as you’re not in the system. Lucky for us though, one of the fathers you left grieving owns a company that clones feed animals. He grew two good copies of you. One he kept for himself, for what I don’t want to imagine, but the other offered us a face to show, gave us fingerprints to trace. It gave us a trail, and that trail led me ultimately,” he paused, “to you.”

“Officers are crating and cataloguing your squat as we speak. We have quite the case and I expect William Heath will fry quite nicely when all is said and done.

William smiled, extending his hands as he resumed his approach. “I suppose this is where you take me into custody.”

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me.” Staind spat noisily, then squeezed off a round into William’s forehead, dropping him like a rock. “We’ve already got you in custody.”
 

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.