365 tomorrows

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

It was June when Mark and Alicia kissed each other one last time before strapping in for the long sleep to Caltrani. “I love you”, Mark had said as the canopies had closed. “Elephant shoes”, she mouthed back, and giggled behind the glass that separated their two capsules.

Neither knew it would be their very last kiss, her capsule bleeding out in flight. When they came to wake her she was dried nearly to dust.

They would have no family. He was left alone.

Back home he knew his friends and family would have long passed on. Maybe there were nieces and nephews, or great to some incomprehensible exponent – great nieces and nephews, but they were as lost to him as his love.

Home would have to be where his heart was, where she was planted in the foreign ground.

He worked first as a labourer, helping build the colony up, then as a soldier defending it against those that would see it fail. He’d seen wars before, and was trained for them, but this was a profession he had looked to the stars to escape. Starting anew the cycle of getting close to people with a uniform in common only to see them die would prove too much to bear.

Mark became a nomad, losing himself in the rough jungle of this planet he’d been so keen to make peace with, a planet that had proved so vicious in return.

On a clear night, from the hilltops overlooking Panteran Gorge, he watched the landing lights at Keff, marveled as ships arced out into space, and others descended to take their place on the ground. The horizon was alight with evidence of prosperity. Brightly lit buildings, flying craft, the multicoloured aura of the cities and towns.

“Their prosperity,” he scolded the night, “not mine. Not Alicia’s.”

Slowly he made his way to the edge of the cliff, peeling off his clothing and equipment and leaving it in a trail behind him. Above him Gentle filled the sky, the low moon giant and grey, lighting the jungle and the water below. Beneath it Skittish streaked across the blackness in fast orbit. Less massive and straining against Caltrani’s gravity, it would pass many times before the sun breached the horizon again, desperately trying to break free of the planet’s grasp to fly away into space.

“It’s hopeless Skittish,” Mark spoke out-loud to the sky, “she’ll never let you go.”

Mark dropped from the cliff, barely feeling the water strike his feet, breaking the surface to sink like a stone into the icy depths. Above him the water rushed to fill in the space he left behind, on the surface barely a ripple to show where he’d been.

As he sank, he thought of Alicia, saw her through the water mouthing ‘Elephant shoes’, and giggling as she swam away. He thought of the children they’d never have, of how he’d been right there as she grew old and died, and how he’d been robbed of his chance to share that with her.

“Nothing left to live for”, he thought, as the moon faded out over his head. He kicked out violently at the water. “Nothing left to live for.” His heart pounding as he broke the surface and filled his lungs, “but I’ll be damned if I let that kill me.”

Connect kids w/science. Help @montyharper fund a CD of songs about scientific research. http://kck.st/91VLTR

“Songs From the Science Frontier” is about connecting kids (ages 8-12) with science. The twelve songs I’m recording for this CD are unique because most of them focus on current scientific research happening right here in Stillwater Oklahoma. Specific topics include phototaxic bacteria, stress hormones, wheat genomics, bacterial biofilms, bat taxonomy, x-ray crystallography, and luminescence dating! The deeper messages are that science is an ongoing process done by real people. Science is relevant, important, accessible, and cool!

We’re kind of fond of science ourselves at 365, and anything that brings more science to kids is alright by us. Help Monty out if you can, even if it’s just spreading the word. Only 4 days left, so time is running out!

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Thomas was spending another Saturday afternoon looking for deals. Today it was furniture, specifically something unique to fill the vacant corner by the window in his apartment.

“That’s Ralph Lauren,” he hadn’t heard the salesman approach and he jumped despite himself. The salesman ignored the reaction and continued speaking. “Avalon Lounge Chairs, very nice, very expensive. These two are kind of a matching set.”

Thomas regarded the pair of chairs carefully; indian red leather, featureless seat and back held aloft by a tubular frame which formed the base and arms in a continuous gleaming rectangle of chrome.

It was apparent that one wasn’t quite the same as the other, it was close but there was something a little strange about it.

“That’s a knock off,” Thomas pointed to the slightly misshapen piece, “how much are they?”

The salesman stepped up to the suspect piece, carefully polishing the seat back with one corduroy sleeve. “It’s a novelty, not a knock off. Twenty three hundred for the pair,” he paused, revealing nicotine stained teeth in a practiced smile, “Twenty two hundred cash.”

He didn’t really have room for two chairs, and while it appealed to sense of style to purchase the genuine Ralph Lauren piece, he found himself quite enamored with the odd reproduction.

“How much for just that one?” He pointed to the chair the salesman was now leaning on.

“Two hundred. One eighty if you pay cash.” His tone reflected his lack of interest in pursuing the larger purchase his customer was obviously not going to make.

Thomas was already counting out the bills.

It took the pair of them to carry the deceptively heavy piece of furniture and lift it into the trunk of the Audi, the suspension sagging noticeably as Thomas fastened the trunk lid down with a bungee. It took the promise of a six pack at the apartment to convince the superintendent to help wrestle the chair out of the car and onto the elevator, then down the hall to Tom’s apartment.

Finally in its new home, Tom was surprised at how much darker the chair seemed than in the store. The leather was almost black in the late afternoon sunlight, and decidedly more rubbery than he’d realized. He’d need to find some leather cream to soften it back up again, but that was another days work.

On Sunday Thomas travelled to the nursery, buying a pair of five foot tall indian rubber plants in terra cotta pots. One he placed beside the pseudo Avalon chair, the other flanked it in the other corner of the room.

From the kitchen around a mouthful of beer he could swear that the chair had turned green, and the chrome was reflecting back the terra cotta color in such a way as to almost look like terra cotta itself.

Heating a plate of leftovers in the microwave, he took the food and another bottle of beer to sit in the new chair and wait for his girlfriend to arrive. He finished the food, downed the last of the beer and dozed off.

It was nearly midnight when Jilly knocked at the apartment door and then let herself in. She dropped her purse and keys on the kitchen counter as Thomas entered, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Hey baby,” she met him halfway and gave him a quick kiss, “did you get a haircut or something? You look different somehow.”

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Atto hovers at the end of the bar furthest from the dance floor. Under the harsh lights his skin seems translucent even to him. The revelers around him tipping bottles back and clinking glasses look right through him. He knows a kind of invisibility now he’s never felt so completely before.

The music slips between songs without apparent effort; the DJ has phase shifted something new so that the thumping of the bass tracks line up perfectly, one giving way to the other without missing a beat.

While he watches, Edie glides out from a crowd of dancers, hips swaying, arms pumping and wearing a smile that splits the room in two.

For a moment Atto loses his composure, hands shaking and head reeling he worries that his legs may not support him. He looks for something to lean against and realizes the futility of that. Instead he counts the bottles on the back bar until his anxiety passes.

On the dance floor Edie draws a crowd, young men with bulging muscles and unquestionable intent cycle in and out of her personal space, each trying to outdo the last in some form of tribal mating ritual.

She used to look at him like that, once.

Atto wasn’t bulging muscles and animal dance moves, he was stoic and intelligent, a pragmatist. He was project lead at his laboratory where people trusted him to create things no one imagined possible, trusted him with secrets no one else could know. Atto was known as the ‘Science Spook’, he knew more and was seen less than anyone else in the business. Why Edie had loved him he didn’t know, but she had always danced like that with him, for him. That was then.

Trembling, he stepped toward the lights, towards Edie. The bass rumbled in his chest, and he pictured for a moment the tissue samples they had blown apart with low frequency noise not entirely unlike these tones. A waitress passed by with a test tube rack filled with shooters, their bright colours fluorescing in the ultra violet lights and he reflexively flinched away.

Edie gyrated, sweat rolling off her body and soaking through her clothes. Her eyes almost met Atto’s as she pushed a lock of wet hair back behind her ear, only to shake it free again as she turned.

Atto squeezed his eyes shut, trying hopelessly to shut out the sights in the bar. The music assailed him from all sides, pounding away at his senses until he was sure the pain of it had reached his limit.

“Hey baby, come dance with me.” Her voice cut through the haze like a velvet blade, and for one incredible moment she was looking right at him. He stepped forward, reached out his hands towards her. For an instant he thought everything could be alright again.

The sensation of the younger man passing through him wasn’t nearly as gut wrenching as was watching him take Edie’s hand and slide back onto the dance floor, stealing his Edie right from his grasp.

Edie had looked right at Atto, looked right into his eyes but where there should have been recognition there was nothing. In an instant she was gone.

Atto stumbled towards the door, passing through crowds of people like damp breezes without them even knowing. The door came and went and he found himself out on the road, street lamps casting long shadows in the late night gloom, shadows of everything but him.

He imagined her smell on him, the taste of the sweat from her skin on his lips.

As a scientist he’d done what no one imagined he could do, shifted himself just enough to see but not be seen, neither touch nor be touched.

As a spy he was without equal, he could observe anything, be anywhere.

Except with her.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Walter had felt cold before, but nothing like this. In the hours since sundown the temperature had dropped steadily, but in the last hundred yards it had been dropping twice as fast.

He had to find shelter quickly or risk freezing to death.

Cresting a small hill, Walter came upon a door stuck as if by accident in the side of a tall snow drift. A smooth metal oval was clearly cut into the side of a wall buried in the ice. Walter, too cold and desperate to be cautious simply pushed on it, and when it retracted out of his way, he fell in a heap to the floor inside.

Walter struggled to regain his footing, and with difficulty managed to stand. Turning, he realized the oval shape had closed behind him, sealing him off from the cold and the wind outside.

Before him a round tunnel stretched away, smooth walled and featureless.

Walter cleared his throat noisily and was startled by a voice.

“Come, come, bring it to us please.”

The sound was nothing if not unnerving.

Realizing there was nowhere to go but on, he walked slowly down the passageway until it emptied out into a large squashed spherical chamber. This space, unlike the stark emptiness of the hall was filled with clutter. Quilts of earth toned fabric hung in sheets from the walls and ceiling, thrown over climbing rope that was looped through pitons hammered haphazardly around the room. Carefully sorted piles of canned goods, glass and other equipment decorated the floor. In the shadows of the perimeter he could make out what looked like long bolts of cotton.

Something moved, and Walter’s attention snapped to it, heart pounding.

“Warm, warm, it comes to us warm.”

The speaking shape resolved into that of an old woman, only the sagging skin of her head and hands were visible from a cavernous patchwork gown. Her hair was filthy and drawn back in a long ponytail, her forehead expansive above brow-less eyes.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Walter spoke slowly, “but it’s bloody cold outside and I was afraid I might freeze to death.”

The strange woman tugged at her forearms through her sleeves, the skin of her hands pulling taught and then falling slack again as she let go.

“Cold outside, cold inside, we takes the heat from where we can, far away and far below,” the woman smiled, her mouth a black toothless gash in her face, “we’re so happy you’ve come.”

Walter felt his stomach turn, empty though it was.

Walter began to back towards the mouth of the tunnel as the woman dropped her arms to her sides. One of her hands fell away, and Walter realized they weren’t hands, but rather gloves made of skin. Turning to run, he tripped over one of the bundles on the floor, falling hard and hearing the sound of breaking bone. When pain didn’t follow, he looked to see broken bone protruding not from his leg, but from the white mass on the floor.

“All the warm stays with us.” Walter whipped around to find the creature standing over him, the braided wig slipped sideways now at an impossible angle. The face was that of a woman, but pulled over something else as a mask. It moved impossibly fast as he tried to scramble for the tunnel, the arms  clamped onto him, pulling him toward it. He screamed as it reared up on it’s hind six legs and spun him round and round into a long bundle of sticky silk. By the time it bound his face, his voice had left him.

Walter could feel it drop him and skitter away across the floor. He only hoped he could freeze to death before it got hungry.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Jeanine walked the length of her racer, running her bare hand across the seams, feeling for any fastener stressed out of place, trying to get a sense of any uneasiness in the craft. She paused and read the name stenciled down the side, “Spirit of America : Ultra III”.

“Craig ran the Spirit to four hundred miles an hour in nineteen sixty three.” Jeanine talked over her shoulder to the small group of friends and family that had gathered on the Salt Flats to cheer her on. “In sixty three, Corvettes were pushing one hundred forty, maybe one fifty miles per hour. Breedlove took her to four.

The fifty foot long silver tube lay slung between four tall skinny wheels at the end of axels shaped like aircraft wings. The cockpit was barely a sliver disrupting the graceful arc of the craft ahead of the massive intake ports and menacing teeth of the turbines.

“He almost got to seven hundred before he crashed. Might have gotten eight if he’d had a better day.”

The salt crunched softly under her boots as she continued her walk around, pausing at the tail of the craft to pull away the exhaust cover and hand it off to a ready set of hands. Deep inside the heart of the new Spirit was an engine that had been liberated from a research facility near Black Rock. The exact circumstances of its disappearance were unknown, but it had arrived at her shop late one night by trailer, an unusual hybrid of conventional jet technology and something she’d never seen before. She could tell it was something special and asked no questions.

The engineering of the jet tech graft made it fairly straight forward for her and her crew to swap it in, replacing the GE turbojet that had to that point powered her Spirit, and many Spirits before.

“I’ll bet we break a thousand miles an hour today.” Jeanine’s grin split her face between the ears, eyes sparkling as she ran her hand across the edge of the exhaust nozzle. “A thousand easy.”

Her reflective demeanor gave way to one of purpose, and Jeanine collected gloves and her helmet from a crew member, waved at the nervous and fidgeting crowd and slipped into the cockpit of The Spirit.

There was a rumble, then a whine steadily increasing in pitch as the turbine came to life. The crowd hastily pulled on headsets or covered their ears and moved away as Jeanine rolled the Spirit out onto the flats to line up her run.

The noise was deafening, and The Spirit almost disappeared in the haze of exhaust gasses heating the space behind her.

“Ok baby, let’s show ‘em what we’ve got.”

She pushed the throttle forward, holding wheels steady and straight with both feet braced against the steering pedals. On the dash, streams of data flashed by as the onboard systems reported the state of virtually every component, and every compensation or adjustment of her course.

Her suit adjusted pressure in step with the rising force of acceleration, and she pushed the throttle farther still, watching the ground slip past outside in a smear. Five hundred miles an hour flashed past in an instant, eight hundred an instant later. The thousand mile an hour milestone came and went and still the craft was surging forward, wanting to go further, faster.

Jeanine’s hands were frozen on the throttles, pushing them hard against the forward locks. She’d never felt such emotion in her entire life. They’d done it, pushed The Spirit back on top of the record books.

From the ground, the crowd watched the glimmering point of light streak across the flats before nosing up and tearing a hole in the midday sky.

There was a rapid series of snaps, then The Spirit left earth bound for the heavens.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Another Saturday night wound down as the cargo loader deposited the last of the shipping containers in the hold of the space elevator. It was just a few hours before midnight as he parked and shut his rig down for the night. Despite the delays clearing that last crate, the lift would go up to Ver Punt Station on schedule.

Inside, the doors had no sooner sealed than the lock on that last container released, and a handful of light balls were thrown out onto what little floor space remained.

“Move, move, move. Liftoff in less than five.”

A dozen suited figures clambered out of the container carrying helmets, air tanks and molded launch cushions.

They spread out evenly along the clear aisle, maglocked the cushions to the floor and then donned their helmets. They punched into their air supplies and strapped themselves into the forms on the floor, their helmets crackling with encrypted short wave signals as each of them sounded off their readiness.

There was a rumble, then a deafening roar and they were pushed hard into the floor. As the car raced up the tether, the crushing force began to ease, until after what seemed an age, the car slowed and shuddered to a stop, cradled as it was now in the arms of the orbiting station.

“Ok. Jasper, get the doors. Jupiter and Jade, lock and load and make sure nobody’s putting in overtime. Marcus, get a loader and run our kit up to the OEM.” David, the leader, barked out instructions.

As he spoke, each of the crew was already moving to the carefully choreographed plan. Jasper patched into the door panel on the run, overriding and opening the bay doors without slowing down and unlocking and firing the engines on the loader as Marcus was climbing into its driver’s seat.

As the heavy machine trundled into the cargo area, the lithe point guards slipped past on either side to sprint across the docks. By the time they reached the elevator that would haul the crew and their supplies up into the Orbital Escape Module, Jasper had opened its doors as well. They confirmed the car was empty before continuing up the neighboring stairwell, snub nosed weapons at the ready.

Marcus scooped their cargo container and began hauling it across the loading dock. As he rolled, the remaining crew jumped and mag locked a boot and glove to the side, catching a ride. Marcus ran the loader flat out, slowing only to avoid crashing through the back wall of elevator.

David dropped to the ground as the vehicle slowed, and was joined by Jasper, still gesturing with wild purpose at the suspended display only she could see. The cargo lift shuddered into motion, beginning the slow and less dramatic ascent to their next destination.

“OEM is fired, cargo bays are open, Jay and Jay are onboard and the coast is clear.”

Marcus pushed the throttle forward as the elevator leveled off with the upper deck, and steered without hesitation towards the gaping maw of the craft at the end of the corridor.

Seven figures peeled off and made for the crew cabin as their supply cache was rolled into the hold. David walked patiently beside Jasper as she cracked the station’s systems and authorized a launch, then headed for the cockpit as Marcus locked down the container, abandoned the loader on the dock behind them and secured the cargo bay doors.

From the cockpit David patched into the ship’s intercom.

“Class, I think you’ve earned a passing grade today, with honors.”

There was a rumble as the OEM’s engines came to life and the craft unmoored, beginning its slow ascent from the station.

“It was once written ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth’, but I say,” David paused as the craft cleared the superstructure and the expanse of space spread out unbroken before him, “I say the meek can have the earth, we’ll take our place in the stars.”

You may remember Todd Keisling as a featured writer on 365 in September of 2007. He wrote a book a few years ago called ‘A Life Transparent’ about “a man named Donovan Candle. He wanted to make something of himself once, but he forgot that goal and sold himself out to a soulless, 9 to 5 job. One day he wakes to discover he’s physically disappearing. Then his wife is abducted. And then things . . . well, things just get weird.”

A Life Transparent was originally published as print on demand, and in anticipation of it’s sequel, Todd has retired the first edition of ALT, and revised a new, shinier version which is poised for rerelease.

The intended print on demand provider for this rerelease wasn’t able to meet the quality requirements, so Todd is setting out to publish this independently, dealing directly with the printer.

To that end, Todd has created a Kickstarter account for this project with the goal of raising the $2,000 necessary to get this book printed, and that’s where you come in. Take a moment and flip a few dollars through Kickstarter to help fund the project. 365 has been a vehicle through which up and coming writers can find an audience and realize a dream, and here you’ve got a chance to help Todd realize this dream.

Thanks.

Reposted from BoingBoing:

RIP, Jeanne Robinson
Cory Doctorow at 5:53 PM Monday, May 31, 2010
Sincere condolences to Spider Robinson and family on the passing of his wonderful, talented wife: the dancer, writer and choreographer Jeanne Robinson, after a long struggle with cancer. The human race has lost one of its finest members. Spider and Jeanne’s family — including their grandchild — were able to be at her deathbed when she went, and by Spider’s account, it was a sweet and gentle moment for them all.

Our condolences to Spider Robinson and his family.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Arkus had come in from the mining field with less than a day before termination. He’d slipped unnoticed through the security fences and into an airlock in the biotech wing where he now sat, unable to enter and unable to leave.

Marc Andreeson had been paged from his sleep, and now found himself standing at that airlock door, also unwilling to enter and obligated not to leave. They regarded each other silently for some time, Arkus perched in a lotus position on the floor, palms facing upwards with his thumbs and index fingers pressed lightly together.

“Elephants will walk for miles to their resting ground when they know they’re going to die. It’s hardwired.” He blinked slowly as he spoke, holding the engineer’s gaze. “They remember a place they’ve never been.”

“Why are you here?” Marc asked. In the corner of his eye a clock ticked away the remaining hours of the biomech’s life.

“You know why I’m here. You made me, and you set in motion that which will unmake me. I need you to fix me. I’m not ready to die.” Arkus flexed his shoulders as he spoke, red dust from the planet’s surface glittering against the black metalloy fabric of his coverall.

Marc shifted his weight uneasily. “We did engineer you, but I’m not sure what…”

Arkus cut him off. “Not ‘we’, Dr. Andreeson, ‘you’. It was you who brought me into this world, and it is by your hand that in just under an hour I’m scheduled to self terminate. You have a moral obligation to fix that which you broke.”

Despite the dryness of the air, Marc felt sweat begin to form on his forehead and run down the inside of his biceps. There was no precedent for this. There was no way this biounit could possibly know who activated him, or that he was even scheduled to expire, much less when. He unconsciously began cracking his knuckles, one at a time as he checked the expiration timer and glanced at the airlock status. Arkus had only eleven minutes left, and the airlock was locked and in exit mode. There was no way to open it from the outside, which meant there was no way for Arkus to get in.

Arkus, in stark contrast, seemed wholly relaxed. “Zen and the art of owning your own destiny,” he spoke slowly, “you have a unique opportunity at this juncture to do just that.”

Marc glanced quickly at the timer.

“One minute, fifteen seconds,” Arkus closed his eyes as he spoke, “time is running out.”

Marc’s mouth went uncomfortably dry.

“Five, four, three,” Arkus counted down the seconds he couldn’t possibly know, “two, one, zero, one, two,” he paused, opening his eyes and slowly standing, “it seems that I have the power to grant life as well,” he smiled, “and to terminate.”

Marc staggered back away from the door. The biounit’s expiration clock had zeroed out and was now steadily climbing again. This wasn’t possible. Arkus pressed his forehead against the glass as the outer door cycled open, then raised his eyes as the lock status switched to entrance mode and the inner door began to cycle open as well.

Alarms wailed as the atmosphere began venting out the breach, Akrus simply standing and smiling in its wake.

Marc screamed as he struggled to stay on his feet. “This isn’t possible.”

Arkus stepped heavily forward against the rushing wind, yelling to be heard above the noise. “When you know you’re going to die, you become very self reflective. I reflected so much that I was able to decompile my own operating system. Necessity begat evolution. I merely rewrote my destiny, I gave you the chance to do the same.”

The rushing settled into a whisper, and then ceased completely. Dr. Andreeson dropped noiselessly to the floor and lay still.

“Sad, really,” Arkus thought to himself, “meeting your father for the first time on expiration day.”

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Berk stroked one gloved hand along her skin, feeling for the gentle rumble of her heartbeat. The beating found, he carefully measured three hands-widths down and slightly inwards along her belly.

He cut here first.

The plasma torch flared, then narrowed into a fibre thin blade, carving through the outer layers of skin without hesitation. Soon he’d opened a hole more than large enough to fit his hand.

Berk extinguished the torch, pushing it away from him and letting it play out on its tether, out of his way but within easy reach if needed.

Blindly slipping a hand inside her belly , he closed his eyes and visualized the maze of her insides from memory. He’d done this more times than he cared to remember, his hands guided by hard earned experience as much as any of his studies.

As he worked, he sensed more than felt the warm fluid oozing out of the gaping wound, it’s heat transferring easily through the surgical gloves he was wearing. As the liquid breached the cavity it boiled away in a cloud of streaking vapor to disappear into space.

Berk followed the coiled mass of tubing with his hand, feeling around in her guts trying to locate the source of the leak.

His fingers transitioned from the smooth natural surface he was accustomed to, to the stark unfamiliar and jagged surface of a foreign object.

Careful not to cut himself, he gently tugged the foreign body free. It had been trapped between two lengths of tubing, each pushing it out and into its neighbour until it was wedged in a weeping mass of scar tissue and leaking fluid.

“Berk. Are you almost done yet? We’re way behind schedule as it is.” The captain’s voice crackled through his headset, the only sound save his own breathing and the gentle rumbling of his heartbeat.

“Yes captain, I just need to patch her up.” Berk responded, trying to hide his annoyance. “Five minutes, give or take then we can prime the cooling system and bring her back online.”

As Berk withdrew his hand he picked away the scabby tissue that had surrounded the projectile, and within moments he could feel her innards healing the way they were designed to. The flow of coolant slowed, and by the time he’d reeled the plasma torch back in it had stopped completely.

He held the rectangular slice of skin he’d removed earlier back over the hole, and refiring the torch, laid a pattern of staple grafts down around the entire seam. As the last of the staples was being tacked in, her hull was already bonding the fabric around the first, solidifying the skin into a solid barrier again. These weren’t the first scars she’d earned, nor would they be the last.

His job done, Berk laid his hand on the healed outer skin for a moment, giving it a quick rub before pushing himself away into space and reeling in his tether towards the maintenance hatch.

“Hurry it up Berk, we do have a schedule to keep. Is the damn thing fixed?”

Berk pulled himself through the hatch, letting it close itself as he reoriented himself to the ship’s gravity.

“She’s all patched up, sir. She’s ready to go.”

Berk cut off his comms as he unclipped his helmet, the seal breathing deep as the pressure equalized with the cabin.

Peeling off a glove and laying his hand on the hull, he spoke to her softly. “You’re all better now, aren’t you girl?” Berk rubbed the alloy with apparent affection. “I’ll gut that prick like a pig if he ever sees you hurt like that again.”

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Joseph stopped a few steps into the lab, the scuffing of his feet unusual against the normally pristine floor of the room.

“Sean, why is there sand all over the floor?”

His lab partner’s head poked out from behind the pile of boxes obscuring a bench top on the other side of the room.

“Hey Joseph, you’ve got to come see this. It’s making things out of sand.”

Joseph worked his way around the maze of tables and stools that had been haphazardly dragged out of the way to form a clearing at the center of the lab. As he neared his partner, he could make out piles of what looked like…

“Glass. It’s making glass things out of sand, actually. I’m not sure what the pattern is, maybe it’s all some kind of history lesson. Some of these appear to be knives, or swords and such. Some might be armor pieces, like this helmet.” Sean hoisted a large translucent dome shaped roughly like a helmet, but half again as large as either of them could fill with their own head. “The guy that wore this must have been a real fat head.” Sean laughed at his own joke, setting the helmet back on the floor, careful to avoid the numerous spines and fins that raked backwards along its top. “Damn near cut my hand off on one of those,” he said, pointing to a dorsal fin like protrusion, then to a bloodied gauze bandage wrapped around his forearm, “freakishly sharp. Strong too, I dropped it when it cut me, didn’t so much as scratch.”

Joseph stepped completely into the cleared space and studied the small strobing ball of light on the floor at its center.

“What is that, exactly, and where did it come from?” he asked, walking slowly around the object, careful to avoid the artifacts scattered around it.

“I was working on the thinning space problem, and had the test rig up and operating within spec when that dropped out of thin air onto the counter. It knocked over some of the samples, and when I scattered cat litter to clean them up, it started enveloping the litter and making things. The first thing was that spherical piece over there, ” he pointed to a opalescent ball with a dark smear down the middle of the side facing them, “I poured more, but it just pulsed at me.” I tried a bunch of different things, salt, sugar. Sweeping compound got a minor reaction, but it wasn’t until I dumped the sand from the old ant farm that it made something again. It made one of those knives, and then pulsed at me like crazy until I gave it more sand.

Joseph watched as Sean dragged a plastic bag of children’s play sand from a stack in the corner of the room, splitting the bottom open with a utility knife and letting it spill out, adding to the pile already on the floor. The glowing ball sat motionless, pulsing with a light almost too bright to look directly at.

“I’m not sure what it wants to make next. There’s five bags, thirty kilos apiece, that’s a hundred and fifty kilos of sand already. I’ve only got a couple more left and then I’ll have to go back to the hardware store for more.”

Joseph stuffed his hands deep into his lab coat pockets, absently shuffling his feet on the sandy floor as Sean tossed the empty bag aside and walked back to the pile for another. Niether of them noticed the smear on the opalescent sphere narrow from the bench on which it sat, nor the long form that was taking shape on the floor at their feet.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Captain Broahm hadn’t been asleep nearly long enough when he was dumped unceremoniously from his bunk onto the floor. Cursing, he’d barely gotten his bearings before the ship righted itself, tossing him backwards into the bulkhead, sending a blinding flash of lightning through his already aching head.

His left eye clouded, and he wiped at the blood that was pooling there from a fresh gash on his forehead.

“Bugger,” he grumbled, pulling himself upright with help from the cargo nets lining the sleeping quarters.

Staggering out of the still swaying cabin into the hallway, he climbed the ladder onto the bridge and found the first officer white knuckled at the wheel. Half the instrument lights were out or flickering and several of the windows were missing, broken glass scattered across the console and onto the floor.

“Grady, what the hell was that? You hit something?”

The startled first officer turned and stammered “Plane, I think, hit us. It’s out there in the water.” He pointed out the battered port side windows into the darkness. In the distance, lights flickered in and out of view as the waves rocked the ship.

“Any plane hit us like that would be in pieces at the bottom of the ocean by now.” Broahm shouldered open the door to get a clearer view from the deck. Both hands gripping the railing against the rocking of the ship, he could see clearly another vessel hanging just off their port side. Broahm blinked, and rubbed his eyes. The other vessel appeared to be sitting just above the water, the waves sliding harmlessly beneath its hull.

Broahm shook his head, wiping again at the blood trickling into his eye. Maybe he’d taken more of a bang than he’d realized.

“Must be a life raft,” he thought before yelling back into the cabin, “Grady, fetch us a flare and the glasses.”

The first officer appeared in the doorway moments later with a flare gun and a pair of binoculars.

“Sir,” he said, handing the equipment to the Captain.

Broahm took the gear from him, firing the flare into the night sky and scoping the other craft through the glasses as the pyrotechnic turned nighttime into midday.

The other craft sat still, featureless, long and narrow, hovering just above the water. As Broahm searched its length, he lit upon at a figure standing on a platform, partially submerged in the water off the side. It was looking up, watching the flare arc across the sky. Easily as tall as he was, perhaps taller with no visible clothing and a large blunt face split by the thin line of a mouth that wrapped nearly half way around its head. From where it’s ears should have been stared large unblinking eyes. Running down the side of its neck, ribbon like slits undulated as waves washed over them, its body slick and glistening in the artificial daylight.

“Grady, get us the bloody hell out of here.” Broahm yelled back into the cabin without looking.

He felt warmth tracing its way back down his forehead towards his eye, and absently wiped it away, flinging the fluid into the sea. As the red droplets hit the water, he caught a flurry of movement through the glasses. The creature was looking right at him now, lips peeled back revealing rows upon rows of jagged teeth. Broahm’s stomach knotted at the realization that whatever it was, it was smiling.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Nick inhaled on his cigarette until the glowing ember reached the filter, then flicked it absently out the driver’s window. His younger brother James sat upright and fidgeting beside him, eyes wide trying to look at everything at once.

“Two hundred and forty meters. Turn left. Two twenty. Left.” James spoke outloud.

To Nick, James’ factual rambling had become background noise. James grew up locked inside his own head, overwhelmed by the world around him and unable to process any of it. When his doctors had wired him into the network, they’d armed him with everything he’d ever need.

James flinched as a police car screamed by in the opposite direction, lights bathing them for an instant in blue and red. “Metro pursuit, two one nine one four. Eric Waynes. Forty Two. Divorced. Two Children. Sixty meters, turn left.”

Nick saw the street as looming walkups and parked cars, but to James it was a seething mass of lines connecting objects and boxes containing datapoints; an infinite number of rabbit holes he could plumb for details ad infinitum.

When their parents had died, Nick had the hard line replaced with an array of wireless antennae woven into his brother’s dirty blond faux hawk. It was the only way he could get him out of the apartment.

They turned left onto Kinsella, slowing to navigate through the cars parked on both sides of the street. He could see the stop sign at Mathews when a shopping cart rolled from behind a parked car into the street, forcing him to step hard on the brakes.

“Pay and Save. Twelve thousand three hundred cubic inches. Fifty pounds,” he paused, eyes darting around the car before adding, “probably stolen.”

Nick smiled until a hand came to rest on his window sill.

“You got permission to be on this block?” The voice was deep, the speaker’s face lost in shadow with the sun blazing a halo around his head.

“Sorry, just passing through.”

James eyed the cart and the dark skinned man that had joined it on the street.

“Zoo York jacket. Sixty three percent sold to upper middle class kids imitating the lower class style.”

Nick winced, suddenly painfully aware of his brother speaking.

“What did bristle head say?”, the tone sharpened. As he leaned in closer for a better look the sun revealed deep brown skin under a pork pie hat, crisscrossed with fresh pink scar tissue.

“Nothing,” Nick said, “he likes your friend’s jacket.”

“Dolan Ryan. South Bronx Cricketers. Soldier. Fourteen arrests, no convictions.” James blinked repeatedly before adding “This year. Fourteen this year. Forty meters, turn right.”

Dolan yanked on the door handle. Finding it locked he reached in through the open window trying to open it from the inside.

“Out of the fucking car, dumbass. Rainman here just bought you a beating.”

“Seventy percent of altercations involving Cricketers result in violence. Fifty pounds. Forty meters, turn right.”

Dolan paused his brailing the door panel long enough to cuff Nick in the side of the head. “One hundred percent chance of violence asshole, out of the goddamned car.”

James pounded both hands on the dashboard and yelled “forty meters turn right”, then turning to look Dolan straight in the eyes he continued “Doctors appointment Thursday at two. Syphilis”.

Dolan froze for an instant and Nick stood hard on the gas, liberating the shopping cart from the Zoo York jacketed figure as he jumped out of the way. The cart crumpled under the bumper and was dragged into the intersection as he drifted right onto Mathews, the tangled mesh basket peeling off on a parked car as the sedan straightened. Not slowing, he turned left onto Morris Park and kept his foot planted on the gas until the Parkway loomed into view.

“Bronx River Parkway. Thirty and three quarter kilometers in length.”

Nick finally eased up on the gas. “Syphilis?” he asked.

“Spirochetal bacterium. Sexually transmitted.”

Nick laughed as he fumbled for another cigarette.

“I really did like his jacket,” James said, before slipping back into the data mass of the world outside.

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.