365 tomorrows

Author : Clint “Father Goose” Wilson

How did I start all this falling? I can’t even remember anymore. It would seem that I’ve been dropping through blackness for a couple of months now. But that would be impossible. How could I have survived that long?

I stopped screaming a long time ago. Except for the odd gust of warmish wind now and then I can almost imagine that I’m merely suspended in the centre of nothingness. Floating in the black void I strain through the fog of my mind. Was I pushed from a precipice? Clipped from a cliff? Mayhap a cyclone sucked me from a Sikorsky. That’s odd. I don’t recall ever having ridden in a Russian rotary powered aircraft.

My mind is starting to wander off and play practical jokes on me. I keep seeing things in the dark.

One day for instance I was falling along through the black like I usually do when I swear a dead body flew by. It was as though it was falling as well but I was falling much faster, so it quickly flew up past me and out of sight, its loose clothes flapping in the wind. THAT made my fuckin’ skin crawl!

But now I am seeing mushrooms, thousands upon thousands of brightly colored mushrooms are all around me. I know with my heart that I am still in blackness, yet my eyes tell me that I am now falling down an endless well with funky fungi covering nearly every square inch of its curved walls. My god the mushrooms are dancing!

Day two-hundred and something I think, maybe. Now the well is lined with long probing lizard tongues. The slimy forked tongues try to reach me as I plummet past. Once in a while one brushes against my arm and I let out a yelp or a whimper.

Day three or four or five-hundred perhaps, who gives a shit? My imagination is so worked up into a lather now that I no longer see the blackness. My mind puts on brilliant displays of color and light. Sometimes I am surrounded by waterfalls, sometimes by tumbling kitty cats. I can even eat whenever I want and have whatever I want. Turkey pot pie anyone? Coming right up! It even tastes real.

Today I am sipping a martini and watching reruns of Hee Haw as I fall through eternity and it occurs to me. Why must I continue to fall? I mean, I can do and have anything I want now thanks to my super developed imagination. Endless months of sensory deprivation have made me into a master at creating my own surroundings. I toss the martini over my shoulder and allow the glass to break upon bricks which are not there. Well that is that. I am no longer falling. Wow, I’m actually walking down Main Street! It feels great to put weight on my legs again. Why didn’t I think to think of this sooner?

But I still have a problem. I still know in my own mind that none of it is real, and that I continue to fall into the pit of eternity. Well, say then, all I have to do is imagine that I forget that I am falling into the pit of eternity and then I will truly be free to live my life once more. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

About what? What was I just thinking?

Author : Andrew Hawkins

The meeting was in a small stale office of the Pentagon, the two crisp suits shifted in their seats as I came in. I was tall clean shaved in a comfortable cream jacket, silk shirt, tie and custom leather shoes worth more than minimum wage makes in a year. They looked at me with uncertainty, no doubt I defied their expectations.

I opened with confidence, catching my interviewers on the back foot “Good afternoon, I am Mr Ross, you would be Agent Adrian Cole and Agent Maria Fernandez, shall we begin?”.

Adrian was hesitant but to her credit Maria took me in her stride, she must have been a few years older than her partner, clearly the more experienced of the two.

“Of course Mr Ross, now I just want to make certain you know what’s involved here. Your duties will include…” I cut her off with a wave of my hand, damn I love freaking out these Yale types.

“Agent Fernandez, I am perfectly aware of what is involved, the documents on the project were quite comprehensive. You are already aware of my previous employers, so let me cut to the chase. Finding highly trained government agents with high level access is easy. You can throw a brick in DC and hit a dozen. I have Graceful level clearance, two grades above your own. I am certified to know national secrets that would start wars if they got into the wrong hands and I have 20 years with a flawless record for my tact not to mention intensive torture resistance training with the US Marines and the British SBS, I am a rare commodity.”

I slid a crisp white sheet of paper across the table with a 6 digit number on it and relished the looks on their faces.

“Finding janitorial staff with the same clearance is significantly harder, hence my fee. Trust me Ma’am none of those suits will be willing to clean up alien substances off the laboratory floor or unclog the toilet that the Head of Project 12 was using yesterday and your average cleaning staff won’t be able to keep sufficiently quiet about the work involved or be able to spot a class 1 bio-hazard leak. I think you will find my services and record for discretion are well worth my fee.”

Agent Cole scowled in silence, but Fernandez simply nodded.

After a long pause staring at the number she met my gaze “Your fee will not be a problem, It will be a pleasure to work with you Mr Ross.”

Author : Fred Coppersmith

He calls her beautiful but he doesn’t mean it. He is in love with someone else.

He feels his hand stroke his wife’s back, hears himself whisper I love you, you know that, go back to sleep. He rolls over on his side towards the window. Through the half-opened blinds he can see the moon, full and round and orange, in the night sky.

He thinks of her, the woman in his dreams, waiting at the station, eyeing the watch he gave her as a birthday present. He imagines her there, waiting for the shuttle that will take her to Tranquility. She will be going on holiday to visit her mother. She has talked of almost nothing else for several weeks. The gray lunar mountains are just visible through the opaque shielding behind her, and the Earth, if she can see it at all, will hardly register: just another gray speck in the sky. No one lives there anymore where she comes from.

He feels himself fall asleep then, and when he wakes he does not tell his wife about the dreams. He does not tell her about the Earth, dead for centuries, or about the woman he is meeting at the station on the surface of the moon. He does not tell his wife how beautiful this other woman is, or how this world has become more and more like a dream. She would laugh, and then he would have to smile and say, you’re right, of course, I was only joking, what’s for breakfast? He would have to say, you know you’re the only one. He would have to say he loves her.

And he is growing tired of the lie.

Author : Jake Christie

While they made love, the world ended. Bombs dropped. The earth shook and split open. Tornadoes flung nations to pieces, and then tsunamis swept the land clean. By the time they were finished, everyone else was dead.

They lay there for a while without saying anything. She rested her head on his chest. He picked pieces of plaster out of her hair. The apocalypse had opened a small hole in the roof. Clouds of black smoke rolled by, occasionally revealing a patch of deep red sky.

She turned to look at him, her chin fast to his ribcage. “What do you want to do now?” she asked.

“Just lay here with you,” he said.

Somewhere in the distance something rumbled. Thunder, maybe, or more bombs. It was all the same now. She put her ear to his chest and listened to the smaller, more comforting rhythms of his heart. The earth shook once more and she dozed off as it rocked her to sleep.

She dreamed that the world hadn’t ended. She dreamed of plants growing in time-lapse, seasons changing. Children being born. The people of the world laughed and held hands and sang. She saw her family standing in a field, waving to her. The sun rose and set and everything was green and beautiful and alive.

She skipped through this world with the sun warm on her face, looking for him. But she could not find him. She stopped skipping and began to run. She ran through the green fields, over the cold rivers, faster and faster, always searching. Her feet left the ground and she flew through the clean blue sky, over the people, over the families, and she screamed his name but he did not answer. She could not find him. He wasn’t there.

She woke to the sensation of rain on her cheek. He pulled them aside wiped the water from her face with his thumb. It was gray from the smoke and the ash.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. She pressed her body closer to his, out of the rain. “I was just having a nightmare.”

Author : Peter Woodworth

I found them. Nobody else wanted to believe it, but I found them. It’s my truth.

Well, maybe not mine. But not theirs either!

After the Act was signed and the last of the satellites went live, the corporations assured us the link would be continual. But I started twitching. I never twitched before. I’d have these little blackouts. I told people it had to be the satellites, but they said I was wrong.

So I parsed the stream. They let you see it if you want, but nobody really looks. And that’s how I found the gaps. They’re small, much smaller than the human mind can register, so small our technology can barely detect them.

That’s right. Our technology. Not theirs.

I started talking to the technicians who worked on the upload, and they all denied it, until I got angry and used the battery. One finally broke their vow of silence. He told me that they knew about the gap, but insisted it was for calibration.

This I knew to be a lie.

The human brain can handle the link, everyone’s seen the science that proves it. It’s like humming a tune you don’t even hear, they said. You don’t even know you’re doing it.

“So why are there still gaps?” I asked, but he couldn’t answer. I showed him the pictures I extracted from the blackness in the gap. When you look at it long enough, you can see the eyes, the places where the black gets darker than the rest. They’re slitted, the eyes. Like a cat’s.

He had tears running down his cheeks as he looked at the picture. That’s a sign of guilt. There are all kinds of signs of guilt, if you know what to look for. I’ve always been very attentive.

Those eyes kept me up at nights for weeks. I hate cats, always have, but I never knew why until I saw those pictures. Like they were an advance force, or something. Maybe I’m psychic. You see a lot more articles about psychic ability since the link went active. One says that we’re using parts of the brain that have never been touched before. Why shouldn’t psychic ability be hidden there? It has to be somewhere.

That’s when I realized what the gaps had to be. We’d spent all these years beaming messages out into space, and now our satellites are picking up their replies. We’ve got more satellites in orbit than any other time in history, and they’re more sensitive too. We’re finally hearing them.

But they’re being subtle. Tricky. Communicating through negative space, testing our link, seeing what they can insert without our noticing. So far, just their eyes. Understand? It’s like a joke. They’re watching us, so they put in their eyes. They want to see if we’re paying attention.

Nobody is. Nobody but me.

It took weeks and another technician, but I finally figured out how to make gaps of my own. So tonight I’m going to talk back. I’m going to insert my gaps into the link and show them we’ve noticed. And they will spread. The companies clean the link for carriers, but not for anything this size. I’m as clever as they are.

My gaps won’t just watch with black on black eyes, either. No. I’m putting images in my gaps, sounds, and they will be plugged right into the feed. Wars. Disasters. Primates howling. Metal grinding metal. They’ll see what we’ve survived. They’ll know we won’t go out without a fight. They. Will. Respect. Us.

Because I own the gaps.

Not them.

Me.

Author : Ellen Couch

Dr Siward’s Journal, 18th April

Another interview with Mr Renfield. I wonder whether he shall ever recover from the psychosis- his fantasy world seems so complete. One cannot help pitying the man. He is such a gentle soul, particularly compared with some of the others under my care. If I were to meet him outside the asylum, I imagine I should think him perfectly sane. But despite my best efforts to persuade him, he refuses the treatment. He is still a threat to the public.

I feel that we are at an impasse. Unless he becomes violent, I cannot force him to accept the therapy, and without it, he cannot be released to rejoin his family. He presents his ideas so rationally that I cannot help but be drawn into arguments, for all their insanity.

It began as usual- “You still want me to have that thing transplanted, don’t you, Doctor?” he announced.

“The genetic therapy would be for the best, Mr Renfield. Everyone else in your family has had it. Haven’t you seen how contented they are?”

“That’s because they’re slaves. You’re all slaves. You don’t know what you’ve done.”

“How can it be slavery when we choose to submit to the operation freely?”

“What about those of us who don’t accept it? Do we all end up in places like this?”

“It’s for your own good. You might endanger other people. You’re not sane. Some of you have tried to forcibly remove the implants- do that, and you end two lives! Don’t you respect the unborn child?”

“And when that…that thing reaches maturity? Do you know what happens then?”

“It’s not a thing, Mr Renfield. We’ve discussed this. It’s a child. It has a right to life.”

“Well, I have a right to choose. And I choose not to let those things use my body as a breeding tube. I don’t believe all that rubbish about us being under threat, anyway.”

“We’ve been through this, Mr Renfield. I’ve shown you the footage they send us. Our protectors are constantly battling threats from all kinds of terrorist beings. By allowing them to use our spinal fluid to grow their offspring, we help them continue to keep our great nation-planet safe. Don’t you care about national security, Mr Renfield?”

“I care about our freedom. I care about our future! Haven’t you ever asked yourself what happens once your implant reaches full maturity? Have you ever seen what happens? I have. Where are your friends, Doctor? What about the Doctor who came before you?

He got very agitated at this point. We had to restrain him again. But my Guest tells me all will be well. I must be vigilant, and not let the emotions of this body cloud Our judgement. Imagine! If it wasn’t for my Guest’s good sense, I would release him- I would even agree with him. Foolishness! Renfield must not be allowed to corrupt anyone else. We were lucky that his family discovered his experiments in time. He was close to perfecting an operation to remove the implant without harming the host. He planned to force his wife and children to be test subjects- and they were so close to being fully grown.

Author : Evan Kayne

Right foot.

Tom Jenson remembered his uncle once told him “the hardest thing to do most days is to put one foot in front of the other.”

Left foot.

Of course, the topic was depression…and his uncle did kill himself, eventually. Tom shook his head and cleared away that last thought. He was starting to drift again. Time to lower the pain meds for a while.

Right foot.

The enviro-suit protested; but in this, he had some capacity to override its commands. He brought up the time remaining, just as the pain started tickling his feet. 3 days, 15 hours, 21 minutes 12 seconds. That’s how long until the AI controlling his ship The Far Reach calculated it could hold orbit and still have fuel for the trip home.

Left foot.

The pain leveled off at a tolerable level for a moment. Tom wondered what shape his feet were in. He understood now what his uncle meant – every fiber of his being screamed “lay down…let it stop…just stop”. He had been walking non-stop for 1 week. Or rather, the suit had been walking for 1 week. He gave up controlling his body 3 days into the march.

Right foot.

The trick was balance – not just the walking, but the time in the suit. He could have programmed the suit to run to the drop zone. It would have taken 5 days, but he’d be dead, beyond anything the suit could revive.

Every few hours he wished he was dead.

Left foot.

He had locked the commands into the suit itself after consulting with the on-board AI. He understood now why it recommended this action, when at least twice daily he screamed at the suit to let him lay down and rest. That’s usually when it pumped up the meds. Quite the achievement – in theory the suit could provide him with everything he needed from the existing resources on this planet.

Right foot.

Except he’d have wear the suit until the next time a survey ship is sent out this way – which could be months or years. Assuming he didn’t go mad from the loneliness, with only the primitive lichen on this rock to keep him company. I may go insane even before I reach the drop zone, Tom wondered. The repetitive movement was grinding away at bones, skin and muscles.

Left foot.

The suit kept his damage at a minimal level, only slowing to fix and repair flesh and bones. He’d reach the drop zone with about 23 hours to spare. That was better than the original estimate of a 3 hour window, but as every second dragged by, the hours ahead of him were like an endless ocean of time.

Right foot.

“The hardest thing for you to do most days is to put one foot in front of the other.” Tom Jenson remembered his uncle telling him when he was only 12 years old. His uncle thus described his depression, hoping to illustrate the depth of his sadness.

Left foot.

Tom didn’t understand at the time what his uncle said – how the everyday activities wore a depressed person down, how it took a colossal effort to perform these activities.

Right foot.

He understood now, but knew unlike his uncle, Tom had no avenue of escape. He felt the scream bubbling up in his mind and his body just as the suit increased the medications, and his consciousness washed away.

Left foot.

Right foot.

Left foot.

Right foot.

Author : Clint Wilson

I was in the best place a boy could be when the end of the world came, except for being dead maybe. We knew about it almost three years before it arrived. And while most of the world went insane, my family built the vault. In my case it definitely helped to be born into the upper crust.

And speaking of the upper crust, that’s where we sunk our vault deep. My dad was the project’s top investor, so many people we knew came inside with us.

Of course he was gone now, well protected from the certain ravages of dwelling topside, only to be killed in the impact nevertheless. In fact almost all of them were dead now, save for the handful of us who had had the fortune to be in the sensory deprivation chamber when Hand of God had struck. Our oxygen masks had kept us from drowning while the chamber’s half million tons of water had thrown us around in our hammocks like rag dolls.

No one really knew what the effects of a comet the size of Texas smacking into the planet at almost a million and a half kilometers an hour would be. But my family had nearly every possible contingency covered. Fear of the atmosphere being completely stripped away had caused them to install the giant oxygen tanks and supply enough pressure suits to outfit ten times the people we had left.

Still Dr. Fraser, my dad’s top advisor, couldn’t explain, beyond the certainty of an extreme and cataclysmic change to the earth, the reason for our weightlessness.

We were getting used to it now though. We were mostly children save for a few teachers and the doctor. And with the aid of ropes and makeshift climbing gear we made our way around the facility with ease.

But today was the day we had decided to go topside. Most of the adults had disagreed initially, but they lost in the majority vote, plus we had the doctor on our side. He had explained quite clearly, “We are well equipped with pressure suits, aerosol cans for propulsion, plus our ropes and grappling hooks, and both airlocks show to be in perfect working order. I will only take these selected few who have shown great agility in maneuvering in the weightlessness. We will be back before you know it.”

Together the six of us crowded into the airlock. There was no window in the three-foot thick outer hatch. We all made one last check of our suits and then Dr. Fraser emptied the chamber.

As soon as the outside was exposed one thing became apparent. There was light. We dug in with crampon boots and axes and made our way out.

And there we clung to our tiny perch, looking down at the half exposed steel and concrete survival vault, jutting from the side of a six kilometer-high wall. And then I felt the freezing cold pierce my suit as the sun dipped below the horizon alarmingly fast, revealing a sparkling field of stars against an ink-black curtain. But within minutes it would be back again, to taunt us with a minuscule hint of warmth for its short visit.

Dr. Fraser maneuvered his body around to face us. Through his helmet visor we saw a look of most dismal despair. He addressed us all, “I have no idea how we now continue to survive on this tiny rock hurtling through space, but I know we will not live long. Who’s with me for jumping off right now?”

Author : Don bagley

Alex pulled the coffee mug from under the drip spout and raised it to his lips.

“Agh,” he groaned.

“Is something wrong, Alex?” the house asked with its kind, asexual voice.

“The coffee, hot,” said Alex.

“I’m sorry, Alex. I’ll adjust the percolator temp.”

“Thanks, House,” Alex replied. He didn’t know how to address the sentient home, other than to call it House. This was his first morning in the place; he’d won it in a regional lottery, and he was still overwhelmed by it.

“House?” he asked.

“Yes, Alex.”

“Are you alive?”

“I am not programmed for life.”

“I mean, you think, don’t you?”

“I simulate thought, yes.”

Alex sipped at his coffee, which had cooled to tolerably hot. He padded into the life room, his bare feet slapping at the simulated hardwood floor. A recliner chair made a whirring sound as it tilted back and pre-adjusted itself for his weight. Alex sank comfortably into the Herculon cushions.

“Why simulate thought?” he asked.

“In response to your needs.”

Was that an evasive answer? Could a house, of all things, even be evasive? It’s rooted to its foundation, helplessly stuck right where it is.

“House?” Alex said.

“Yes, Alex.”

“You do function automatically.”

“All my functions are automated.”

“So in my absence, House, you would continue to process information.”

“Only at a maintenance level, Alex.”

“Then without me,” said Alex. “You lose your awareness, to some extent?”

“Not exactly,” said the house, an edginess creeping into its voice.

“It’s like a part of you dies when I leave,” said Alex, immediately regretting it. He jumped up from the chair and spun around toward the front door. The deadbolt clacked in the doorjamb.

Author : Scott Angus Morrison

In the end, the planet’s defence hinged on a single man armed with a stick. There had been limited resistance so far – there seldom was when a planet was targeted for reorganization- secure the air, neutralize any radiation weapons, and then we jet- pack in to clean up the politicals. Standard fare, really, a colonized planet reaches the stage of emergent technology and thinks they can control their AI. AI cannot happen. We’ve learned that lesson.

Six-nine and I work well together. She’s one mean mother, and that’s a compliment. We were assigned to begin a “prejudicial reorganization”. That usually meant locating whatever palace the local politicians and generals were holed up in and getting messy. But when we touched down, there was nobody here, and the building was empty – except for the old guy in hood with the stick.

The Citadel was a large round building of columns and arches and a funky floor with swirly markings on it. I’ve organized a lot of buildings, but this was weird – and empty. No seats, offices, rooms, or even doors – nothing but the swirly floor and the old guy.

Six-nine and I are Pointers – we take point on most live encounters. As soon as we flew into the building and touched down, Six-nine looked over at me and tapped her helmet, “Can you hear me?” she said.

“Yeah,” I replied, “But I think we lost Mother.” The silence that filled our earpieces confirmed we were out of touch with the mother ship.

Six-nine shrugged it off and we swept forward. After 100 metres of empty arches and columns, we neared the centre of the building. There was a large sphere that swirled like the floor, except the swirls were … swirling.

A man stood in front of the sphere. He gave the appearance of being elderly without being frail. In his right hand was a stick that was something more than a cane, yet less than a staff. He was dressed in a brown cotton tunic with a hood knit onto it.

“Darius.”

“What?” I whirled on Six-nine. Pointers don’t go by name, and she didn’t know mine, unless I had told her that time we got drunk on Tara-4.

“I said nothing. You gonna start this or what?” Six-nine was always a little touchy before the fireworks.

“Yeah.” I turned back to the man. I was close enough that when he blinked, I saw it.

“Relax, Darius. Your killing is almost done.” His lips didn’t move, but somehow he was talking to me. I had a seen a man go down with space sickness. It started with voices.

“I’m not sick!”

“Then shoot him, One-Seven! Just shoot him!”

“You’ve only arrived, and already the truth is terrifying your poor friend. I think Marion’s ready to shoot you.” The voice sounded serene as he spoke in my head, but my pulse continued to race.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Science … science …science… I pointed my weapon at the swirly floor and turned to Six-Nine. “Marion,” I said, “He knows your name.”

“DON’T CALL ME THAT!” She screamed and I watched her chamber her juice cube, level her barrel and hold the hammer down.

As the blast of energy ripped through me I was hurled back against a nearby column. In my head I heard a wistful sigh, and as I could see that the old man was glowing … orange, and as my soul was disintegrating, I heard him once more, “Relax, Darius,” as the swirling and the glow increased, “the truth has set you free.”

Author : Kent Rosenberger

The vidphone at the other end picked up on the second ring. “Family Affairs, how can I help you?”

“Customer number 26337NS-24.”

The attendant typed in the numbers in her computer. “Ah yes. Mr. Johnson. How can I help you?”

Johnson gave a wan smile. “Look, I’m glad you’ve been working with me at that end, but I just can’t keep up with the payments anymore. Tough economic times and all that.”

The attendant nodded. “I understand, sir. Did you want to downgrade to a cheaper program? Just until you get back on your feet?”

Johnson shook his head. “No. No, I think at this time I’d just like to cancel my subscription, if you don’t mind.”

More typing. “Of course, sir. Did you need some time, or should I make this effective immediately?”

Johnson had already made up his mind. “Immediately would be best.”

“Of course, sir. You’re paid up through the end of the month. I’ll backdate to today’s date and we’ll send you a refund directly to your account for the difference. We will inform all of your contacts on our end; work, school, church and so forth. Will there be anything else?”

“No. No, I don’t think so.”

“Alright then. If you ever want to re-subscribe, just give us a call. And sir, I am sorry for the loss you are about to suffer.”

“Thank you. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, sir. And have a good day.” The screen went blank.

Johnson turned away from the video viewer just in time to see his wife and two children, gathered in the living room with him, wink out of existence in a static-filled blue haze. The artificial family he had come to know and love for the last twelve years was suddenly gone, more victims of the crumbling economy.

In less than a second, Bruce Johnson was no longer a husband or father. As he sat in the abrupt loneliness of his home, he wondered if he would now be considered a bachelor or a widower.

Author : Chris Amies

Mewi Lupa suli sat and inspected the heel of one boot, which had come adrift revealing an odd honeycomb pattern in the structure. With her tongue she dislodged a small piece of carrot between two teeth – the relic of her morning’s teethcleaning. On Hydris the only use of carrots was to clean teeth. Mewi had never known it otherwise. She was shipborn, a daughter of the ‘Long March’ who had never set foot on a world until she was three years old.

Her work was to produce books for the community. The new language had taken root like a plant aboard the ‘Long March’ and all books previously aboard – in English or in Chinese – had been used for fuel as soon as their tongues’ last speakers were too feeble to protest. Instead the 120 root words of Toki Pona were used, spoken, written down in various combinations; you could say most things in them. Mewi had originally been called Mavis, and her surname ‘Lupa suli’ had been ‘Trench’: ‘Lupa suli’ was literally, ‘big hole’.

In the new language you had to weigh words very carefully. The elders remembered the old tongues and how dangerous, how imprecise they had been, and they told Mewi and her age-clade all about them.

Mewi’s hair was spiky and orange. She washed it in the null-grav washer in the ship – an affectation, but she had few others and she was still young. The null-grav sphere was fun and the power that drove it wasn’t about to run out any time soon. Those who were shipborn gravitated back to it time and again.

That evening as the orange and violet sky of Hydris was darkening, Mewi and her friends Luka and Ewani regretfully left the null-grav sphere and stepped out into the echoing grey space of the ship. Ship was home for the elders; Mewi and her age-clade, a foot in each camp, slept in bunkhouses down below on the planet’s surface. But the ship drew them back, especially now they were becoming adult and their games had changed.

The oval door of the ’Long March’ led to a ramp, and the three walked down, hand in hand.

The scents of the night-blooming trees filled the air and some strange creature – a scaly thing that in ten million years might evolve into a bird – shrieked.

There was a small knot of children at the bottom of the ramp, nine-year-olds or less, planet-born. As the three said ‘hello’ to them, they chattered curiously. Mewi thought their eyes glittered yellow but it must have been the light of the setting sun.

The children followed Mewi and her friends, talking between themselves, but although Mewi tuned in -

“Listen to them,” she said, “can you understand what they’re saying?”

“Not a word,” Luka agreed.

“Me neither,” said Ewani.

The children streamed past them, strange words hovering in the air and fading away.

Author : William P Sanders

The man trod the dusty, broken path, poorly-shod feet disturbing the detritus of a hundred years of decay and rot, sending up small plumes of filth as his heels impacted with the grime and rose again, each step propelling him onward into a future full of uncertainty and doubt and the weight of the knowledge that whatever lay beyond the next rise, it was as cold and uncaring as the earth he traveled.

Night came with a sense that nothing was different, that no changes, good or bad, were in the making, and that the dawn would come, grey and pitiless as always, a bright and yet dull point on the eastern horizon, if only he’d wait for it.

He did.

That morning, he pushed himself into a crouch and then stood, loose dirt falling from the sleeves of his coat and back to the shape he’d left in the scummy earth, that of a man curled up as though a child, a shape that would likely lay undisturbed until changed by the wind and the rain, the rain that never seemed to come, and the earth would once more forget his passing.

He trod onwards, down the same broken road, over gently rolling hills topped with brittle vegetation and the scarce whispers of a time long gone, pieces of metal or other materials shaped specifically for tasks that none were able to perform anymore.

Minutes went to hours and they in turn were lost to the vast infinity of time. He’d no notion of whether he’d covered inches or feet or yard or miles and when he thought maybe he would turn to look over his shoulder, to see if the hills were still visible, his neck ached and he stopped thinking about it.

The dull bright point hung low in the silvery western sky when a time came that he’d reached a great divide in the earth where once a bridge had spanned from one side to the other, and it came to him that this had been a river but he didn’t know how deep or wide, and anyway it didn’t matter because he couldn’t see the other side or the bottom and every muscle and fiber in his being hurt and the idea of trying to cross this, now or ever, made him physically ill.

The man sat down on the road, slender, aching back against the metal ribbon of a guard rail long gone into rust and all full of holes, and closed his eyes.

The night passed in silence with nary the chirp or chatter of even the smallest creature, and when the dull bright point rose slowly and lazily in the east after the passage of the hours, the earth found its population reduced by one.

Author : Daan Kogelmans

Harry has wrapped a tentacle around his inner lobe, which means he is thinking deeply. Two of his cigarettes have gone out, he squints in the orange smoke. Then he coughs.

“You smoke too much,” I say.

“I know, I know,” he extinguishes the cigarettes in the hole and scratches his lips. “It’s just that… I can’t stop thinking about these poor things. He points at the glass dome.

I bend over and peek inside. The aliens crawl around in the mud. “You have two of them?”

“Yeah, a couple… They mate sometimes, but without success.”

“They are active though,” I say.

“I gave them some sokaputty to see how they would react.”

“Oh,” I say. One should never expect too much of sokaputty. “Two eyes,” I say looking at them, “let’s see… that’s only three dimensions, isn’t it? Which makes them…”

“Practically blind,” Harry says nodding and lighting a few more cigarettes, “that’s what I worry about so much. Because with two eyes… Man, I would die with loneliness.”

“No contact?”

“Not a flitch, not even a flicker.”

“Than how can they live?”

Harry shrugs, smoking. “It makes me so sad, you know. To be so lonely, all your life crawling around in darkness.”

“Maybe their species doesn’t need any contact?”

He spits on the raster. “No man, they crave for contact all their life. I’ve seen them mating man, they try to touch, they try to lick, they look each other in their two eyes, but they just can’t do it, man, they are lonely as hell. A rock has more contact than these wretches.”

I shake my head and look at them crawling in the mud. “Poor things.”

“Yeah man,” he puts his cigarettes in the hole, “I should quit smoking.”

Author : Jake Lane

You’ve never been the most outgoing person, Sam. It’s not your fault, I’m sure, but that doesn’t stop it from being the truth. As wonderful as you are now (I love you, Sam, you know that), you could be so much more wonderful.

From the moment we met I could see that you were a slave to your own insecurities. When you spilled your coffee all over my briefcase you self-consciously apologized to me for hours. You apologized for hours and then we dated for months because, well, a flawed diamond is still a diamond. I married you.

Even now, I’m just barely able to see beyond the sheen of your sun-speckled surface into your concealed depths. But what depths! Oh, I have no doubt that you are as magnificent as you are repressed. Peel away your cocoon of complexes and you would become the perfect person, the person that I met, briefly, after you returned from your mission.

As you strode out of the starport terminal I could see a confidence in your swagger that betrayed the extent of your transformation (or should I say “emergence”?). As you strode out of the starport terminal I knew that everything would be different. I was standing face-to-face with the hidden person I always knew you were just dying to let out. When your friends come by to fry fish and crack beers and stargaze, they talk about being transformed out there in the void. The dusty amber dye-drop hurricanes of Jupiter are said to be unparalleled by our terrestrial standards. At first, I thought that was it: That you’d seen the silent, stormy beauty of the outer planets and it had changed you, Sam. You opened up, you calmed down. Sure, you’d occasionally drop plates or stumble on the stairs, but you maneuvered around these minor slips with wit and casual grace. The Sam I’d always loved, the Sam I married, no longer felt the need to hide behind awkward apologies. You had this inebriated joviality and this nonchalance and this debonair aura that just turned me on. You had fire and you had edge and you had sly humor and motivation and nosebleeds…

Those damn nosebleeds.

The doctor said they were superficial, not necessarily a sign of any permanent damage. But those nosebleeds gave us away, or gave you away. Gave it away, the goddamn stealthy little helper curled around your brain stem. When the doctor pulled the needle-thin, noodle-thin parasite from your skull, I knew I’d lost you. The moment you blushed and kneaded the back of your neck and awkwardly told me it must have, ‘Uh, climbed in there while I was down on the surface, I guess, I don’t know, weird huh?’, I knew I’d lost you.

I wonder if you miss that uninhibited, charismatic self? In fact, I’m almost sure you do. You’d have to. Because for all the nosebleeds and the twitching and the fumbling, that worm was the best thing to happen to you, Sam. Well, this fight isn’t over. As weak and insecure as you may be, you’ve always looked out for me, and nothing in this world or others is going to keep me from looking out for you. There’s a parcel in the mail, hermetically sealed, atmosphere regulated, temperature monitored, express-shipped from the frigid planes of Io. I’ll see you soon, Sam. I love you.

Author : Alec Ow

“When are you going to get a new body?”

I ping my guildmates, “I’ve got girlfriend aggro, this might take a while,” and sheathe my sword. They only manage a cursory glance and a quick “later mate” before they and the dragons’ den dissolves away into a white room with Cerise standing in the middle.

“It’s been a month since the accident,” she continues, “you need counseling. There’s more to life than working a menial number-crunching job and wasting your day away in VR you know.”

“I don’t need counseling-”

“You THINK you don’t need counseling,” she interrupts me, “first deaths are a big deal, John, you don’t have to hide behind that tough exterior.”

“Times are tough right now Cerise, being an infomorph for a while can save us some money on living expenses. I can’t afford to buy a body right now and you know I don’t want to rent. What if I get a smoker’s body? Having to deal with the nicotine withdrawal-,” I stop myself. I know I can’t win this argument so I try to change the subject, “Where are you right now?”

“At work, on break. I just got off chat with my mom. They want to take us to the Bahamas this summer. Even if you rent a synth it’ll be better than bringing you along in a harddrive. I miss the feel of your touch.”

“But we-”

“VR’s not the same. Please, I know you don’t want to be hurt again, but think of all the things you’ll be missing out on.”

A lull in the conversation. I let out an audible sigh, “My promotion should be coming soon. I’ll go schedule an appointment for counseling and we can shop for hybrids when you get home. I just hope your parents don’t sneer too much for not going full-organic.”

“They won’t judge,” a smile slowly creeps across her face.

“Oh right, your dad in his ‘all-natural olympiad body, the blue-print cost a fortune you know and fabricated from the finest biomass money can buy’,” I attempt my best impression of her dad.

She lets out a giggle and plants a kiss on my lips, “I’ll see you when I get home, babe.”

Cerise and the white room dissolves away and I’m met by my guildmates standing over a dead dragon, arguing over who gets the spear.

“Anyone know any good hybrid models?” I ask and grimace as I’m met by their sneers.

Author : CJ Bergin

Tom rolled over in his sleep and felt his arm fall onto cool skin.

“Careful honey” a whisper in his ear said. “Unless of course, you’re trying to start something.” A smile crawled up Tom’s face as he moaned playfully.

“No” the word resounded through the room clear as crystal, and was followed by a much more muffled “at least not right now”. Warm breath passed by Tom’s ear, as the response came.

“Of course, honey”. Sarah gave her husband a quick kiss, then closed her eyes, and fell still. Satisfied, Tom’s smile melted away, his eyelids sank, and he let reality fall away, at least for a little while.

When he opened his eyes again, Sarah was out of bed. The smell of bacon and eggs wafted through the bedroom door teasing Tom’s taste buds. His smile quickly returned.

What a wonderful wife, he thought to himself, I can’t believe I’m so lucky

Tom crawled out of bed, put on his slippers, walked out of his bedroom, through the hallway, and into the kitchen, which was neatly hidden away in the corner of the house. Sarah’s back faced Tom as she tended to the bacon on the stove. She was already dressed for the morning in a flowing white sundress. On the kitchen counter a small TV displayed the news.

“How is it you know exactly how to make me happier than anyone else?” Tom came behind Sarah and slid his arms around her waist.

“Easy” She chuckled “You told me how, bacon and sex.” She turned to face him, “Except, this morning, somebody wasn’t in the mood” Tom’s smile didn’t falter an inch

“You’re forgetting its bacon, sex, and sleep. Sleep is just as important.”

“Well you didn’t seem to think so last night” He smiled at his bride, and with no other diplomatic option available, he kissed her, and she kissed him back. Tom completely lost himself in the moment. He blocked out all other thoughts, even the entrancing smell of bacon on the griddle. None of it could compare to this. After what seemed like a wonderful eternity Tom slowly returned to reality, to the sound of the TV blaring.

“Protesters have stormed D.C. demanding the repeal of the population control bill, or what has become known as the “control clause”. Protesters insist that the right to reproduce should be shared by all, not simply by government appointed breeders…”

Tom’s smile didn’t falter an inch. In fact, it grew. It grew until he couldn’t contain it anymore, and he began laughing. He laughed until tears started streaming down his face.

“Can you believe those people? Who the hell would want to have children? Do you realize it takes $100,000 to raise the things till their 18? Yea right” Sarah looked at her husband, turned around, and continued tending to the bacon. “Aw, honey whats wrong?”

“Nothing” the reply came

“Aw c’mon, Sarah you don’t want to have one of those things…do you?”

“You know that I can’t”

“But do you want to?” Tom’s question was answered with silence. “Oh Jesus, not again” he muttered. He grabbed Sarah violently by the waist, and began reaching up her dress. Sarah panicked, she began screaming and flailing her arms.

”Stop!” Tom shouted, and so Sarah did. He reached Sarah’s abdominal control panel and hit reset. Sarah’s eyes closed for a second, and then opened again.

“Hello, I am Sarah, serial number 942621137 what is your name?”

“Tom”

“Oh, Tom I’m so happy to be your wife! How can I make you happy?” Tom’s smile returned.

“Lets go upstairs”

Author : Dale Anson

Seventh Contact

The ship was nothing but a bit of gossamer, wrapped in a smallish chunk of spacetime and plasma, elongated to impossible dimensions. Krista’s thougths, stretched by relativistic time, traveled from synapse to synapse in mere seconds. Ahead, the red star grew from a suggestion to a dot to a period to a disk to an orb to a sphere to an overwhelmingly large object that dominated all thought to absolute brightness bending her course slightly to the right to merely large to not so large to diminishing to what was that, anyway?

Krista looked outward, considering the trigonometry of the center versus the reddish star disappearing rapidly behind her versus the nebula at 9 o’clock versus the smallish galaxy below versus the leftish edge of the spiraling arm directly ahead. It would be at least a quarter turn, she decided.

She napped.

She blinked. She heard it now, low level, but distinct. She heard the sound of organization, of civilization, of thought above the slime level. Hours later, fully aware, she triangulated. She had entered the second arm, her journey across the void had been successful. Krista backtracked the signals: correlation, confirmation, origin. She ran pattern matching routines, deep archival retrieval processes, and bounced everything against her last known intelligence registries. She ran her data through the subspace routines, then through the species identifier, then through the spacetime geometry stacks, then through the hyperspace stacks.

It fit.

The bluish star pass to port, then she aimed toward a yellowish star down and to starboard.

Krista passed a small planet, then an orange gas giant with a ring, then a small white planet, then she contracted, swelled, and slowed to visibility. As she rounded the yellow star, she saw the blue marble from ancient days. She angled toward the equilibrium point trailing the orbit of the blueness, and set up her defenses to repel the incoming nuclear warheads.

Contact was never easy, even when it came from home.

Author : Christopher Booth

The life support system wheezed. Not that it made any difference. Yahwee could barely hear. Eons in space and the ability to communicate without making a sound made Yahwee’s ears barely usable.

His big black eyes wanted to cry, but the ability to cry had been lost some time (time? A concept he never really got comfortable with) ago.

“And Jesus wept”.

Yahwee remembered he had heard that somewhere. Or written it…or something.

A pale white figure slumping in the chair, long white fingers pawing the panel in front. The damage to the ship will not be repaired. That knowledge was lost. The ships never need this kind of repair. Five light years away from where Yahwee is suppose to be. And Yahwee will never make it back…

Yahwee’s eyes drifted. With the first contact with the race they were primitive. Yahwee had seen this a thousand times before. Take a primitive race. Teach them and let them teach themselves. Watch them, love them, nurture them. Never hide, but never be seen. Give them language and morals. Give them the freedom to grow and the guidance to grow straight. Give them an occasional “Miracle”.

This planet was exceptionally bright. They were difficult to lead. As they entered into their middle ages they resisted to being led. Their creativity interpreted Yahwee as a god…more than once. Their lust and brilliance led to their wars. Their learning made them dangerous. The ease in which they learned made them bored. Yahwee has dealt with these civilizations before.

But they were such beautiful creatures. No one creature’s skin was the same color. The soft subtle hues delighted Yahwee every time he saw them. They were tall and strong. They had physical love which Yahwee never got to experience. Their eyes were different colors. Rare for any race.

And they built glorious temples to Yahwee. By themselves. Pyramids and domes and spires. The fashioned their meager resources by hand and later by the machines they built. They wanted to please Yahwee, and he was pleased. When they join the cosmos, they will bring a beauty to awe most races found.

The key is to reveal one’s self before the civilization destroys themselves. Some civilizations allow themselves to be led into Yahwee’s bliss. It was the ones that did not want to be led that blessed the cosmos the most.

At times Yahwee considered what it would be like to be a part of this race. He was comforted to know that one day they would become a part of his.

Yahwee’s heart broke. Yahwee knew the Yahwee would not be there. The souls he committed to ashes were the souls he was supposed to save. He would not be there to save them. What would they become when their god does not return. They will destroy themselves. The flower will bloom and wilt. Never to be frozen in the cosmic time as it was meant to be. Their beautiful skin, their puzzling eyes, their strong bodies, their art and their architecture. Yahwee had heard of it before, but never one of his civilizations.

Yahwee was dying. The ship is lost and will not be repaired. Yahwee lived 10,000 lifetimes…but no more. Where will they be without their god. Yahwee wanted to cry…but not for Yahwee.

Author : Daniel Fuhr

“The concept is simple enough. We send a very powerful telescope out faster than the speed of light to a calculated area, then zoom in to the Earth at a specific location and hopefully we can watch past events.”

“What you’re talking about is time travel?”

“Nonsense, were talking about a simple process. We make calculations based on the curvature of light. We account for the alignment of planets and other bodies that could get in the way. Then we send the telescope out to the location, take some pictures and bring it back. If I were to say something to you, move faster than the speed of sound next to you and hear myself speak, did I just travel through time? No, I just went from point A to point B, however time remains a constant.”

“So you are claiming these pictures are authentic, taken from your telescope.”

“Completely valid. In a few years, we will have a telescope powerful enough to go further out into the universe and we can see as far back as the dinosaurs.”

“This is astounding to say the least. The questions we can have answered. The history we can recapture. The possibilities. Now, what’s this one here, the blank sheet?”

“That’s the flashback. As I said earlier if I were to say something at point A then travel faster than the speed of sound to point B to hear it, I would never hear myself speak due to the sonic boom from breaking the sound barrier. That blank sheet is a flash from breaking the speed of light, we call it flashback. And that brings up the problem.”

“What problem?”

“The reason I contacted you. The faculty can calculate where to place the scope and improve it to see clearer images. From those pictures I handed you, you can already see our capability to zoom in to read the cover of a book.”

“What does that have to do with flashback or with the clergy?”

“Ah, you see, that picture wasn’t flashback. Neither are any of these, or these. They look similar to flashback, but when we start to zoom out dramatically we see something else.”

“What is it?”

“The question isn’t what; it is a Papal Bull, sent directly in front of the telescope for all years before 700 A.D. For all purposes our telescope is being censored. The question I ask you is why?”

Author : Credentiality

“This is our in-system debugger, for when we want to get really close-up. It isn’t necessary for setting up hurricanes, but it’s a good excuse to go down and play.” Bar helped Nim set up his avatar and load in.

“Heya Phil, how’s business?” asked Bar, stepping into the tackle shop.

“Good, Steve! Haven’t seen you for a while. Ready to break last year’s record?” said Phil, obviously pleased at the prospect of business.

“Yes I am. Bill here thinks I got that mounted marlin at a swap meet. So I told him to come get one for himself. When can we head out?”

“How about right now? I’ll start loading up.”

The fishing boat pulled out of the harbor and sped into the gulf of Mexico.

As Phil settled into a movie in the cabin, Bar/Steve and Nim/Bill made a show at the stern of sorting out their fishing rigs. As they did, Bar explained: “The interface is pretty nice. Each component of the simulation has an identifier you can reference when you need to tweak something. The system will try to make it look natural, but there’s only so much it can do when you move a mountain or part a sea. They tend to write down stuff like that, and that can ruin thousands of years of simulation in some categories. You really want to avoid angry anthropologists knocking on your door.

“We have to be especially discreet now, given the humans’ sophistication. But weather is chaotic enough that we can get away with almost anything. And you’re looking a little green, so let’s calm down these swells,” said Bar.

Nim only nodded, inwardly grateful. Seasickness was indeed making it hard to concentrate.

Bar stood, raised his hands, faced the expanse of the ocean and commanded “Mits’vah yam galit schluffen!”

Nim waited expectantly, arm wrapped around his stomach to quell the unfamiliar nausea.

“Crap, I forgot. They changed the policy last semester. People were careless with the true names, and the humans started catching on. Developed a whole mythos about it, even guessed some of the names. And I had just gotten the major ones memorized,” said Bar, annoyed. “The new names are a lot less impressive.” His avatar sat unnaturally motionless while, in the real world, he fished for the cheat sheet.

“Quasar sickly pillow, seven semicolon flatly. Waves off,” Bar said, with much less grandiosity. “Just doesn’t have the same ring to it.” The swells immediately calmed, and within a few minutes the sea around them was smooth as glass. Nim was duly impressed.

“Let’s get the hurricane set up for next week and get back to shore. I have papers to grade this afternoon.” Bar went impassive again while he found the appropriate invocation. “Pink flatiron spittoon comma nineteen geese.” He sighed, dejected. “New tropical storm. 8E20 joules, 14 days. Random start, landfall in New Orleans.”

Above them, the sky flashed twice in the ultraviolet region that Bar and Nim could see but which the real humans could not. Then ultraviolet clouds gathered across the sky at what were surely hypersonic speeds, swirling and gathering. Nim watched, agape. They gathered purpose, driving northwest, and then were gone. Nim realized he was seeing a fast-forward preview of the storm’s path.

“Pretty neat light show, huh? Let’s cast out, and I’ll show you how to catch a marlin while we head back. If I can find the fish password.”

Author : W. Kevin Christian

The room was not cold. It was not wet. It was not noisy or colorful. It was quiet and white. No pictures on the walls. No carpet on the floors. There was just a table with a man on it and a black-and-white digital clock hung from the ceiling directly above his head.

The clock read: 9,999 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 58 minutes, 11 seconds…12…13…

The man felt no physical pain, no fatigue nor hunger. In fact, he was perfectly comfortable because he felt very little. It had paralyzed him. Though he could breathe and move is eyes, he could not blink. Not that there was much to see.

The man wiggled his eyes back and forth. He wanted to see how many times he could do it in a minute, a game he had invented.

9,999 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 10 seconds…11…12…

He set a new personal record.

The man tried to picture the Earth, his home, his childhood. The vaguest shadows flickered in the back of his mind, but all he could really picture was a bright white ceiling and a black-and-white digital clock.

9,999 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 45 seconds…46…47…

The man had been trying not to get his hopes up for 10,000 years. He had been disappointed before: at 1 day, at 1 week, at 1 month, at 1 year, at 10 years, at 25 years, at 50 years, at 100 years, at 500 years, at 1,000 years, at 5,000 years. But still there was that hope. He waited anxiously.

9,999 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 57 seconds…58…59…

And then he came out of it. He was back in the bald man’s basement. Reminders of distant memories flooded his senses: a leaky pipe dripping into a small puddle, the smell of mildew and wet wood. They burned his mind like no fire could. He had muscle control! He was hungry! He hurt! There were so many possibilities! The feelings overwhelmed him like boiling water overwhelms an ice cube. And somewhere deep within, the cube cracked.

The man howled.

A perverse grin crossed the bald man’s face, his mouth letting out a slow, toad-like chuckle. The feeling of power intoxicated him. The look 30 seconds with the program could put on a person’s face! It tickled him in the darkest of ways, as if holding something young and innocent at the edge of a cliff overlooking hell. The power! The suffering!

“Are you ready to talk?” the bald-man asked.

“Anyyy…thing…,” the man said shakily, “…juuuusss ett it down…”

The bald man placed a chrome-colored metal box about the size of a deck cards on a black, homemade-looking table.

“So where is she?”

“Phoenix. Thaddriss…in…my wallet.”

The bald man chuckled again and grabbed the chrome box. He poked at it with his index finger and turned its backlit screen towards the man.

“How does 10 minutes sound?”

The man screamed and fought against the metal cuffs that bound him, blood streaming from his wrists as he did so.

The bald man rumbled with laughter. “Hmmm, I don’t know if I can wait that long. Better just make it five.”

Author : Andy Mee

It would be easy to say that they had disappeared, but that wasn’t quite true. What was once a row of Victorian terraced houses still lingered in the cold swirling air, now just a choking dust, like a visible air-borne virus. An hour before sunrise, as she trudged through the dusty remnants of the quarter, Eve impulsively guarded her eyes from the waltzing smoke and dust circling above. She couldn’t re-route. She’d be late.

This wasn’t an excuse to miss Lockdown. According to them, these bombings hadn’t happened.

Eve looked up at the star-poked violet-plum sky. In the eastern corner of the night sky a reddish-purple haze was spreading into the darkness above.

Lockdown had begun, she’d have to hurry. She gazed to the heavens and felt a slither of fear run the length of her spine as the stars started to disappear.

She remembered the clouds. At least, she thought she did. They had gone when she was very young. Yet, even now, she still pictured them, still drew their individual white shapes in her mind. No two the same. Not like them.

Her pale grey standard issue overalls were now a heavy brown of incinerated brickwork and slate. Maybe she’d stand out a little in the Vault.

If you listened carefully, you could still hear the elders whisper of ‘rain’, tales pouring from their mouths; storms of a time before. Echoes of an age before the sun burned away the clouds. They saw it coming, but they let it happen. That’s what they couldn’t understand.

The elders still talked of the colours of dawn, the star-poked violet-plum sky, a million shades, oranges, reds, purples – dawn’s tapestry. Nowadays they waited for the blackness of safety. She believed they missed colours the most.

Eve finally arrived at the checkpoint, seven minutes after Lockdown, fifty three minutes before sunrise. It was folly that she would beat herself up about later as she slept through the day.

She handed her pass to the guard.

She noticed (or perhaps it was just her over-active imagination) a different expression in his face today. What was in it exactly, she couldn’t tell. Anger? Disappointment? Relief? She was, after all, later than usual. His face soon fell back to default: blank, glazed. The black-metal gun was placed back into its holster to rest, while they went through the daily routine: her spreading, him scanning. The hand-held detector ran over her rigid body but, obviously, remained mute. She knew the rules. He detected the chip in her left forearm, opened the gate, and she entered.

The darkness swallowed her as the warmth of the coming day wafted into the open wound of the vault’s concrete tunnels.

Author : Aaron Henderson

“It’s going to be a kick-ass weekend,” Gus thought to himself as he maneuvered the ratchet and claw, carefully removing a panel from the dusty robot that lay a few feet in front of his maintenance pod. He was looking forward to watching not one but two great games and spending some quality time with the wife.

He was about to finish up the last procedure in his monthly check on Spirit and Opportunity, those two Mars-roving robots that seemed to live forever. Usually he just had to knock loose some of that coarse Martian sand from their servos, or give their batteries a little more juice. Most of the time he didn’t even need to leave the relative comfort of the pod. Today was going to be a little different, as he could see by the caked-on dirt on the inside of the panel.

Those NASA boys had pushed Spirit a little harder than usual this week, and some of that red grit had collected in the rover’s main arm control unit. Gus let out a heavy sigh as he grabbed his helmet and outer boots. He shook his head as he sealed his suit and picked up his toolbox. “Delay of game!” he shouted and chuckled to himself, stepping onto the Martian surface for the first time in several months.

Gus cocked his head as he approached the robot, planning his repair and dreading the tight spaces he’d have to tackle. He had nothing but respect for the guys who designed and built the tough little rovers, but they sure didn’t leave much room in ‘em for a grease monkey to turn a wrench or solder up an abraded power line.

He dismantled the control unit as much as he dared and started cleaning it out with a microvacuum. There was no maintenance manual for these things, and if he screwed something up he was about 78 million kilometers from the manufacturer. He could fabricate almost any part he needed back at the shop, but he was entrusted to preserve as much of the original equipment as possible for the sake of history.

He was in luck: the dust hadn’t bound up the servo unit yet. Gus put down the microvacuum and pulled out his finest brush, then cleared the visible dust from around the servo. He gently put the control unit back together and sealed it in its compartment on the rover. After a quick diagnostic check on the robot, he climbed back into his pod and took off his boots and helmet.

When he arrived at home, Jan had the main viewscreen tuned to Spirit’s main camera. “Spying on me again, darling wife?” he asked jokingly. Jan was the mission coordinator for preserving the two rovers, and she watched with interest any time they were being worked on. “It’s always nice to see a professional at work,” she replied. He kissed her cheek on his way through the kitchen to the family room. Gus had commandeered the couch, kicked off his workboots, and was about to change the channel to something more interesting. “But even professionals sometimes make mistakes,” Jan said.

Gus was confused. The robot worked perfectly. It had passed all the diagnostics… Jan knew the look on his face. “The rover’s fine, dear. Your craftsmanship is not in question at all, but I think you might need to check your toolbox.” She pointed at the main screen. Gus watched as Spirit’s main camera tilted down to reveal his microvaccum laying in the dust next to the rover’s front wheels. “I’m sorry, I didn’t spot it until you landed just now.”

“Oh, no…no, no, no!” He knew what this meant. Gus pleaded, “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“The Earthlings are already starting to wonder why those two rovers have lasted this long. They need to discover life on other planets, but we’d rather not have them do it by finding your misplaced gadgets. If you hurry you can be there and back before the game starts,” Jan said firmly.

“I’m tempted to put a certain bacteria-laden present in their sample scoop!” Gus grumbled as he put his boots back on.

“Well that would certainly be a discovery,” Jan chuckled. Gus kissed her on the cheek as he headed out the door.

Author : Liz Lafferty

Life insurance was easier to write now that Sovereign Earth had established a predestined day of death. I’m not saying that everyone died on the predestined date, but some politician with a mind toward the future had discovered that incentives and tax credits went a long way toward getting a perfectly healthy person into a TC.

A trained actuarial could calculate the value of human life over said fifty-six years, factor in the benefit of wages and tax payments, subtracted out the costs of food, medicine, wear and tear on resources and — there you have it — a TC incentive payment.

The trouble with TC payments was that they didn’t go to the individual being valued. It did, however, go to the individual’s designee. Someone else would get the benefit of the forfeiture.

Sovereign Earth said it was a voluntary program for conscientious worldview citizens who knew they would be a drain on the planet at some point in the future.

I never thought I’d be one of the many lining up for the benefits. I’d considered myself above Sovereign Earth’s progressive model for the future. In fact, had protested and ridiculed the proposal thirty years ago.

I think it was the soothing water, blue sky and green grass of their advertising program that finally won me over. The building size ad was in perpetual playback on the science center walls that I could see from my office window.

Things were bad now for the average citizen, and that was most of us. Once I set my mind toward the possibilities and the actual money involved, the decision was simple and my family complicitly happy with my choice.

So, here I stand at Termination Center Forty-Seven. Don’t be fooled by my sanguine attitude. I’d thought long and hard, but the truth was, from here on out, I’d cost Sovereign Earth more than the benefits of my labor. I had nothing else to give.

My actuarial calculation was astonishingly high because my mother’s side of the family had cancer genes but my father’s side had longevity. I guess they figured the cost of my cancer treatments over my natural lifetime, and the huge amount of resources I would use, made me very expendable and they dangled the tempting carrot until I gave in.

My fifty year-old wife and my only son would have a more comfortable life. My wife had already decided she was going to do the same thing on her birthday.

Author : Andrew Brereton

Now he understood what his master had meant when he said that some people come here only to never leave. The place was truly magical. Even as he watched, a man and his assistant walked by carrying two strange skulls with long ridged horns curling out the back. His imagination was captured by thoughts of strange beasts and the distant past. He wandered in body and mind.

His thoughts were interrupted as he just barely missed colliding with a man holding a rope attached to a strange hairy animal, rushing ahead with its nose to the ground. He put his head down and tried not to attract undue attention. He still remembered his master’s endless rambling about caution.

He thought to himself, “How am I supposed to find the curator of this place, if I am to forever keep myself from looking around?” It was thoughts like these that made him slowly veer off the path. It was thoughts like these that reduced his feelings of guilt. Slowly at first, he submitted to the wonders that drew his curiosity.

***

When he found the machine, he could barely contain his excitement. He had thought that the dragon bones had been the best, or the picture screen from the ancient times, but as he listened to the ceaseless patter of the operator, he knew he had to try the machine. He was reminded of the vendors in the market-town where he lived.

“Yes that’s right, just sit down and gaze into the “TRU-LENS” goggles, wear the “HI-Q” ear covers and grasp the controllers. You will be taken, lifted into another world! You want to go see the Dinosaurs? Easy! My machine can do it. You! Yes, you there, the small boy. Yes, that’s alright now, just step up and sit down here, hands here… yes! Good! and look into the goggles now…”

As the strange headpiece wrapped around his skull, the sounds blocked out the voice of the salesman. He wondered when he was going to see the dinosaurs, when strange lights and colors began to swirl in his vision. They mixed with the ticking and screeching sounds and made him feel slightly uncomfortable. He was sweating now. He tried to sit up, to stop the machine, but he couldn’t move. His head began to ache, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t block out the disturbing lights and sounds. He began to panic, and his vision began to fade. As he blacked out he got a strange feeling of déjà vu, then, nothing.

***

He was stacking strange objects into boxes, and a tall loud man was yelling at other children doing similar tasks. He couldn’t remember how he got here. Hesitantly, he called out to the tall man for help, and as he turned, recognition dawned. It was the operator-salesman. Quickly it all came back to him, and just as quickly was replaced by an odd feeling of déjà vu. He panicked. This time, the last thing he remebered was the disturbing grin on the tall man’s face. Seeing that, he understood what his master had meant when he said that some people come here only to never leave.

Author : Rob O’Shea

Too little time. Too many meetings. I turn on the Transmit and zimmed out of office and back to home. In the wardrobe there is a skin I put on. Have to look fresh. The girl — blonde, cancer free, young — cries. I detach her body from the hanger; unhook her skin from the base and peel. Slowly. Artfully. I do this without breaking skin. I put it on. It fits. I get perfume, my purple shimmer suit. My iFiles are attached to my cornea. I am ready. I Transmit back to the office.

The door opens. Graceful enters and hands me papers.

‘All you need to do Miss Kane is sign. Then it’s legal.’

‘Take me through it.’

‘The long or the short version?’

‘I’m busy Graceful. Give me the short and I sign the dots. You lie or breach contract you know the consequences.’

‘Sure do.’

Graceful takes a sphere out of his pocket. The sphere glows, expands, floats; it becomes the image of a planet.

‘Terra Dorma. Population at 3.2 billion. Environmental–’

‘– cut the history lesson. Your company wanted the planet. You spoke to our lawyers, you made your bid. The transaction occurred?’

‘Yep. At twelve Z hours we had Vapo-Robots fill their air and water with sedatives. Magnotoch used alpha signals to wipe out their minds. The brains of the Terra people are blank. Bodies are functional; they will be conditioned, sold. Most will go to meat farms; some will be used to spread the sex virus to Canto. The rest will be recycled.’

‘Their language?”

‘I copyrighted. Two big companies are currently bidding for it.

‘History?’

‘Wiped out. Didn’t want the historical society sniffing. There’s a lot of anti-genocide riots in the homelands at the moment.’

‘Damn liberals.’

‘Yep.’

I looked over the contracts. They looked in working order. Nothing breached policy. I signed them and gave him the money shot. Nobody sees me smile often. I don’t like to wrinkle the skin I wear.

‘Well then,’ I toss the documents back, ‘looks like it’s in order. You got yourself a planet to play with. Now get the fuck out of my office.’

Author : Waldo van der Waal

“Don’t worry,” she had said, “I’ll be there to take the straps off once we come out of stasis.” She had smiled at me. A pretty smile. She was pretty all over: Dark hair, pixie-like features and perky breasts. I could see her nipples through the thin fabric of her jumpsuit. I just smiled and nodded. That’s what men tend to do when they’re confronted by perky breasts in a tight jumpsuit.

She’d carried on explaining how the Pursuit of Pure Knowledge had no real passenger seats on board. So our stasis chambers had to double as acceleration couches. Made sense at the time, but I did get a bit worried when she started cuffing me to the ‘couch’ inside my chamber.

“It’s just to make sure that you don’t flail about once you go under. You don’t want a limb out of place once the acceleration starts. Quit worrying.” Again, the smile. She was one of a hundred stasis techs on board. Each of them had twenty chambers to look after. And her own chamber was right next to mine.

All of that happened nearly seventy years ago. I was twenty then, and figured I had a shot at her once the Pursuit reached Sirius. But now I know she won’t be interested in me. Mainly because I’ll be dead more than a hundred years before she even wakes up.

I would’ve been dead long ago, if this sodding machine hadn’t kept me alive so well. And anyway, how do you kill yourself when your hands and feet are tied to a slab inside a sterile chamber? I’m pumped full of nutrients each day. Ha! I still think of days, when all I have is endless night. But I can’t seem to fall asleep at all anymore. Hopefully my body fails me soon.

I wish I could lose my mind. Somehow make myself go crazy. Reminds me of the joke about the kid who asked his gramma if she’d seen his “pills” with the letters LSD printed on them. “Screw your pills, sonny,” she had screamed, “I’m more worried about the dragons in the kitchen.” The things you think of when you have decades alone in the dark…

Oh, don’t think I’m coping well with this. God, no. I’ve gone through the entire gamut of emotions: Hate, rage, desperation, sadness… I’ve cried and screamed and tried to get my hands loose. But in the end, I always end up the same: Alone in the dark.

Anyhow, if there’s one bit of wisdom I’d like to pass on to you, it would be this: When they ask you, during the pre-stasis check if you are allergic to anything, try and tell the truth, never mind how pretty the tech might be. Ain’t no use to try to be a man when you end up like this. ‘cos God knows, this is no way to die.

Author : Leland Stillman

Dustin is dusting off the cutting-torch. I am pulling on my space boots. It is odd to think that we are farmers, the true first profession, now done only on space platforms.

“We’ll be cuttin’ a while,” he says to me.

Space hooligans have mangled our dairy equipment. They come up from the surface, wielding crow bars from fumbling space-suit hands, and laughing lonely in the silence of space. But their friends in the waiting orbit cars laugh with them when they return, so I can understand why they do it.

It doesn’t mean I’m not pissed as hell that hundreds of gallons of milk aren’t floating out into oblivion, to burn up in atmo or hit some hapless spaceman who will wonder who is masturbating out the airlock.

“I’ll prime the second tank,” I say, and I reach over to open the valve on our reserve oxygen tank. I pull on my helmet, and tap Dustin’s face plate to signal I am ready. He hits the red button, and the airlock hisses shut behind us, the air sucking through to leave us in our vacuum. And then the front door starts to open. We hung a wreath on it, for a joke, and it now flies wildly as the door judders open.

We crawl out, careful not to launch ourselves into oblivion, and edge toward the hemorrhaging milk tanks. I swear inside my helmet. My microphone is off, and I do it for my own satisfaction. Few spacemen abstain from talking to themselves. We are the best company around.

He flies past me, and before I can radio Dustin the space hooligan has knocked him off the platform roof and into space. I swear as Dustin’s oxygen cord snaps. Precious gasses spew out into space, until his fail safe kicks in and it stops. His air will last thirty minutes. His transponder is already flashing, and he has wisely stopped all motion, knowing it will conserve oxygen. But there’s no reason to worry. These are not the crazy days of early space farming, where a bad jump could send you to your grave on Mars or Pluto, your bones to be puzzled over later, after being scoured by wind into something unrecognizable and so, the scientists will say in ecstasy, possibly alien. The space patrol will home in on his transponder and rescue him.

The hooligan is climbing back into space using a belt mounted jet pack, towards the waiting orbit car, where I can see his friends pumping their fists and slapping each others’ shoulders, and laughing.

I feel my own cutting-torch in my hand. If I throw it, the planet-siders will just send a new one to their brave space farmers. I am a pretty good shot with these things. We spacemen have competitions, every so often, sending broken equipment slowly spinning into space and we send tools hurtling after it, to be picked up by the magnetic fields of scrap-metalers that we call beforehand.

I think of throwing my cutting-torch, a lonely riposte that I alone will enjoy. I wish Dustin were here. Then I’d throw, or we’d both throw, and laughing we would scamper back inside to grab more cutting-torches, because milk is still billowing at four dollars a gallon into space.

I crawl toward the milk cloud, cutting-torch still in hand, wondering where I will need to fuse the pipes shut.

Author : Matthew Callaway

Leaving for work Chip noted that this day, like every other held about a 98.3% chance of tedium. The prospect was as oppressive as the permanent lighting that lines the streets, serving for the unseen sun below a sky full of buildings, their upper levels in the clouds.

The air is nearly ionized with the signals and information flowing through it. If so desired Chip could glean volumes from every street corner, but he had seen this street too many times to care. The short walk still contained enough time to think about the general drudgery and automation of life.

In the intersection before Chip’s destination all the pedestrians and ground vehicles are being stopped by a group of human soldiers and six G.R.U.N.T. and two R.I.O.T. class, combat droids. The droids are doing the bulk of the crowd control, one gets rough with a mouthy human but things defuse before getting interesting.

Standing in a group of thirty or forty confused and stalled individuals, a familiar droid shoulders up. Chip recognizes him as one who works security at the place across the street from Chip’s office building.

“Any idea what’s going on?” The security guard is in uniform, must be on his way in , probably late now too.

“I hear it’s the revolution,” Chip quips, “Droids are rising up to take over. Metal ? Meat.” An old slogan, a joke these days. “No, your guess is as good as mine.”

“That’s a laugh.” The guards smile fades, “Seriously though something like this happened a few years back, a friend in Section 4 told me about it, nearly the whole block was destroyed. He said it was two competing…” Rising above the commotion of the crowd, and interrupting the story, the R.I.O.T. droids loudly assume their full stance. It’s an intimidating sight, the nearest one dry-spins its chain guns to get attention before addressing the grumbling crowd. The metallic whirring takes a moment to die down, heightening the suspense.

“Civilians.” The droid swivels its head as it speaks, making eye contact with the unarmed masses. “This street is closed and we ask you to disperse, your timely compliance is appreciated.” The politeness sounds sarcastic coming from three meters of titanium and ballistic-ceramic, known to be generally bad tempered and used strictly for combat. They seem bored while the G.R.U.N.T.s look on edge, pushing people and droids around, clearing the area just to be jerks. The human soldiers on the other hand seemed occupied and serious, crowding around the entrance to the Proxycorp building. Chip started wishing he was at work, as boring as it usually was, it seemed to be the center of the action now. A blast a hundred and fifty stories up abruptly cuts into Chips thoughts, the fire ball adds orange hues to the perpetual glow, glass and steel appeared to hang in the air above the crowd. The G.R.U.N.T.s storm the entrance and a human officer approaches Chip. He points to the Proxycorp logo on Chip’s uniform.

“Intelliverse just assumed control of your outfit, this building, and all Proxycorp assets. That means you.” He switches on a command console and adjusts the settings. “Check for yourself.” Chip knew it was true, the background hum of info confirmed it. “We’re going to clear your corporate data and put in some new scripts. Open up… uh… Chip is it?”

Chip happily opens the port in his head, allowing the nano-wires to connect and go to work.

“Ready for new parameters, Sir, I do so love new beginnings.” Chip gleefully feels the tedium and monotony begin to melt away.

Author : Andrew Hawnt

I didn’t look back.

The explosion tore through the upper floors of the building first, raining white hot debris onto the street below. It was late enough for the streets to be empty, so no harm was done beyond a few damaged cars and scorched pavement. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed. Nothing really important.

I ran outside without looking up. If I had tried to dodge anything that was falling from the chaos above, I would no doubt have put myself at risk of being hit by something else. Best just to run as fast as I could and hope for the best.

The police and fire brigade would already be on their way. A building so heavily guarded by secrets and covert technology would no doubt have a fail-safe trigger for getting the emergency services out to it. They would be here soon, but they wouldn’t find anything.

There would be nothing for them to find.

As I got to the corner of the street I finally turned and risked a look upwards at the madness that had consumed the top half of the building. I had to. I would never get another chance to see something like this, something so pure.

The structure was in flames now, and orange tendrils of fire worked their way throughout the whole place, plumes of thick smoke twisting from them into the night sky, obscuring the devastated upper floors. Debris continued to fall like molten tears from its ruined concrete face. Windows exploded. Columns of flame leapt from the new spaces in roaring protest.

Where there had once been a government-designed hangar hidden within that seemingly inconspicuous office block, now there was a massive blossom of flame and smoke and dust, opened up and forced out at terrible speeds by the power of what had been held captive inside.

I watched the ship emerge from the blinding furnace, the heat oppressive against my face even at that distance, but it didn’t matter. The craft ascended on a column of shocking blue light, which almost looked tangible in its glory. The building had begun to crumble under the repeated shockwaves pummelling it into nothing, sending massive chunks of masonry and steel girders into the street before me. Still I could not look away. Danger be damned.

The ship’s engines kicked in, and the sleek vehicle sped over me in an arc of glowing thrusters and strange metals. There was a glimpse of the crew as it passed, freed from their cages, just as their craft had been, by my own hands. They had no idea who I was. They never will, either. I wish there could have been some contact, but I wouldn’t have changed the way things had happened.

The ship was gone in seconds. Sirens grew in the distance as flames destroyed evidence.

I ran. Home was calling me, just as their home had called to them for so long.