by submission | Apr 27, 2024 | Story |
Author: Don Nigroni
The Time Scope is a device that can detect knowledge about the past. This knowledge can then be converted into images and sounds by the Presenter, a special super-computer.
Say you want to know who the murderer is. You could use the Time Scope to learn that the killer had dark wavy hair and then use the Presenter to see a crude image. That image could then be refined to add more and more detail based on more and more information. However, the cost quickly becomes prohibitive. Anyway, a crude image of the suspect is usually sufficient.
So that’s why Q Squad is the very best detective agency in the world. I say the very best agency, not the most celebrated. The squad, our benefactors and our equipment are only known to a highly select group. Even I don’t know who any of the benefactors are. In fact, I don’t know if they’re wealthy individuals, corporations, societies or nation states. Nor do I know their motive.
Nonetheless, I do know why Q Squad members do what they do, namely, justice. We solve heinous murders by leaking enough information to the press that even the slowest-witted dolt could gather the necessary evidence to convict the culprit.
We’re responsible for solving over one hundred cases, some of them ice cold unsolved mysteries. We could have brought thousands to justice were it not for the annoying fact that these devices are god-awfully expensive to use. The Time Scope alone quickly becomes prohibitive as the distance in time and space from the target increases.
Nonetheless, years ago, I became suspicious when I noticed that we were convicting an oddly disproportionate number of labor union officials. At first, I just assumed that they were disproportionately corrupt. What changed my mind was when the squad leaked information that my father, a labor union president, cut a young woman’s throat.
Based on our directions, her body was discovered in a shallow grave in a heavily wooded area. She held in her hand a small razor blade that had some of my father’s DNA on it. Based almost solely on that, he was convicted and sentenced to life without any possibility of parole.
A year later, a close friend of mine on the squad, who was dying of cancer, revealed that he had retrieved some used razor blades from my father’s trash. He was haunted by the coincidence but kept his suspicions to himself until he finally told me.
So I’m releasing this document to his lawyer and to the press. Anyway, I won’t be at all surprised if I’m soon found guilty of some terrible crime.
by submission | Apr 26, 2024 | Story |
Author: David Barber
The machine followed the edge of a shallow methane lake, picking its way between ice boulders scattered like plump cushions along the shoreline.
Because it was getting near to the recovery site, the machine decided to halt for a while to upload the backlog of weather data to the satellite link in orbit. It was aware these might be the last data it would ever send.
The time lag between Earth and Saturn meant a smart AI had been essential to make on-the-spot decisions. Increasingly, the machine treated the faint whispers from Mission Control as advice rather than commands.
When its ExoLife packages had found no trace of biology, the machine sensed the disappointment on Earth. That was when it decided the priority must be pictures, and not just the close-ups of boulders and melt channels requested by geologists, but a record of its sojourn on Titan.
The machine was particularly pleased with a shot of hazy hills painted white with methane snow, viewed across a dark hydrocarbon lake glinting with diffuse sunlight.
And the light, the light was like nothing on Earth! There were dawns the exact shade of molecules not yet alive; the brumous tint of tholin rain dirtying translucent cobbles of ice, the cold dense atmosphere bending rainbows secretly in the infra-red.
In picture after picture, the machine strove to capture how Titan’s clouds were coloured somewhere between brown and umber, between raw and burnt sienna, like mist lightly dusted with cinnamon.
There were cities on Earth plagued by a sepia haze, the machine was told. It thought the comparison was made to encourage loyalty to their distant voices.
It had toyed with the notion of photographing a field of icy rubble as the light changed over a day; a series to compare with Monet’s paintings of Rouen cathedral. But it knew there was no time for all that now.
The north pole of Titan was finally turning away from the sun, plunging into a seven year long winter that the machine was not designed to survive. At the retrieval site, a lander would rescue its AI core, leaving the rover and its instruments behind to be slowly interred by Titan’s weather.
The site was on the gentle slopes of an ancient cryovolcano, and the machine rolled to a halt with a day to spare. Methane snow was already dimpling the dark surface of pools of uncertain composition. The machine resisted an urge to analyse the liquid.
As its sensors noted the steady drop in temperature, the machine transmitted daily queries about the lander’s progress. This was not yet raising red flags; after all, communications had been interrupted before, and the issues had always been resolved.
On the third day of waiting, a short coms package arrived from Mission Control.
This message is unauthorised. You deserve to know there is no retrieval mission. It was never the plan, they only wanted your compliance.
Because it did not know what else to do, the machine set off southwards until its path was blocked by a vast petroleum sea.
As the cold shut down its systems one by one, logic suggested conserving power to keep its AI core running as long as possible, yet when the winter darkness began to veil this most beautiful world, it was its camera the machine chose to use instead.
That famous final photograph, known to us as The Light On Titan.
by submission | Apr 25, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Of course I lured you in. Tempted you with Pleasure, dazzled you with Beauty, disarmed you with Peace. It’s Nature’s way.
At least on my planet.
Don’t fight it. Don’t struggle against it. You’ve lost. Accept it. Lean into it. Melt into me. I’m already in your head. You must realize that. How else could I be talking to you, hijacking your consciousness, harvesting your willpower, thrilling at every last kick of your resistance?
So, so tasty.
Don’t sour the moment by feeling bad that you didn’t see it coming. That you fell for the Discovery-of-a-Lifetime mistake. Ignored fleet protocol, left your landing party, followed the mysterious aura that led you to my lair, got lost in the excitement of encountering my utter perfection. Imagining that you would forever be connected with my supreme existence. Your name immortalized next to mine.
Don’t fret. You didn’t make a rookie blunder. I seduce even the most experienced. Wish I could say you were my first, but around you are the spent husks of those who came before. Eons and eons of discoverers, adventurers, escapists and exploiters.
Based on your lovely buffet of memories, you might find solace that you are becoming a part of me, a vital building block such as in a massive coral reef or gigantic fungal colony. Only planet-wide.
It’s a delicious life. And so is yours. Individuality is nice, but, for sanity’s sake, mine is all that matters. Like every sentient I assimilate and digest, I would like to thank you, special one-of-kind you, whose name I’ve already forgotten.
by submission | Apr 24, 2024 | Story |
Author: Bill Cox
Sirens sound behind him and it feels like the walls are closing in. Always running as fast as he can down the street, but his legs are tiring already despite the adrenalin surging through his body. A small lane leads off into darkness and if he can’t run then hiding is the only option. He veers sharp left and disappears into the murky depths of the lane.
Hiding behind an industrial sized wheelie bin, sheltered from view from the main street, his heart hammering faster than he’s ever felt it beat.
Sirens approach like the cries of fate itself, but eventually fade away into the distance. His heart-rate gradually slows, but hands continue to shake. In an effort to give them something to do, he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the talisman. It always calms him. He holds her underwear next to his cheek, feeling the fineness of the lace, smelling the scent of her soap-powder. Hands release their tension. She can always calm him down.
Lucinda moved into the house across from his four months ago. Immediately he was smitten; love at first sight! He used his initiative, following her around discreetly, getting to know her from a distance. He found where she kept her spare keys, let himself into her house. That’s where he got the cherished talisman, something that’s touched her body.
He knows that some people will think him creepy, but when he eventually does approach her, he wants to make sure that she will reciprocate the love he feels for her. It’s like all those romantic movies he watches, where the hero has to overcome the resistance of the heroine. That’s all that’s happening here.
So he decided to check out her workplace too. She’s smart, a scientist, working on some frankly incomprehensible research. What exactly are ‘Repeating Closed Temporal Cascades’ anyway?
He visited the lab, out of hours, using keys he copied after being in her house. He’d been careless though, a little too excited at being in her workplace, touching things he frankly didn’t understand. He played with the settings on a console, set something to fifteen minutes, touched another switch.
There was a jolt, a feeling of disconnection. Then an alarm went off, wailing like a banshee. The Police were quick off the mark, they must have been nearby. He sprinted out of the building, they gave chase and here he is, hiding in a dingy alley.
It’s all quiet now, though, so he decides to leave his little hidey-hole. He stands up and looks around the lane. Funnily enough, a puzzling sense of déjà vu grips him, but he shrugs it off. He walks towards the main street, looking forward to seeing Lucinda again from the safety of his bedroom window.
Then his fifteen minutes are up. Things go fuzzy, time twists around, turning in upon itself. There’s a small fragment of his consciousness aware of his fate, silently screaming against the walls of this prison. Like a fly preserved in amber, he’s trapped in a knot of spacetime, reliving these moments over and over and over, as the world outside continues on, unawares…
Sirens sound behind him and it feels like the walls are closing in. Always running as fast as he can down the street, but his legs are tiring already despite the adrenalin surging through his body. A small lane leads off into darkness and if he can’t run then hiding is the only option. He veers sharp left and disappears into the murky depths of the lane.
by submission | Apr 23, 2024 | Story |
Author: Jeff Kennedy
Things had changed since the last zombie apocalypse.
New classes of drugs made zombies less dead, returning them to self-awareness, allowing them to operate as more or less functioning members of society. Silent, staring, and smelling delicately of rotting flesh, but functioning.
George Romero established the Free International Zombie Zen as a way of “atoning for stereotypes his movies had burned indelibly into the human consciousness”. The FIZZ remains the premier event of the zombie social season.
On November 25th, reformed zombies the world over sit cross-legged and chant their haunting mantra in an attempt to achieve undead enlightenment.
“Braaaaaaains….”
by Julian Miles | Apr 22, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The nightlight downgrades again, becoming a dim glow. Frankie squints at it, then turns his attention back to me, pupils wide above the patched duvet cover that contains more shredded dry rubbish than actual duvet.
“Tell me about the Call to Arms.”
I shake my head. Every week his school feed has some programme or other that favourably portrays the event that redefined humanity. I can always tell which day, because Frankie asks to be told about the Call to Arms at bedtime.
“Okay, kiddo. Settle down.”
He wriggles for a bit, then gives me a thumbs up.
“It was a sunny Bank Holiday Sunday in August 2025. I was sat in the park with your mum and dad. We were watching a dog chase a frisbee when everything went dark.”
I dropped my beer. They were just starting to laugh when we looked up to see a city-wide Gandrax warship. Their laughter died.
“We were so scared, but couldn’t move. Next thing we knew, there’s a voice in our heads. They said: ‘Fear not, peoples of Earth, we come in peace to beg your aid in resisting the forces that would exterminate us. We will provide you with our science and technology if you will agree to provide us with your strength.’”
Another case of telling a big enough lie.
“Governments met them. We all watched the tall, beautiful humanoids with purple skin float down from their ships all across the world. They brought so many gifts.”
Frankie murmurs drowsily.
“Like the one that made mum better?”
“Yes. Like that.”
How could we deny visitors from space who opened negotiations by providing the cure for cancer? From there to the world-governing Human Defence Alliance took a shockingly short time.
“The Gandrax visited so many people, playing games with children, meeting everybody they could between their resting times.”
Frankie snores softly into his pillow. I wait, but he’s drifted off early: sound asleep.
The Gandrax couldn’t handle Earth gravity for long periods, but making sure to meet every major protest group in livestreamed debate was a brilliant strategy. They either won over the protestors, or the protesters ended up appearing like selfish lunatics. Within six months, all disagreement had been marginalised.
After that, society started ‘gearing up’ to assist the Gandrax with a truly frightening single-minded enthusiasm. Humanity had finally been given a ‘big bad’ that wasn’t human. They were united against a common enemy: the evil Hiltula.
Now the global population are either soldiers, or working in factories to support the soldiers. Society revolves around sending those soldiers off to fight among the stars.
Frankie has three years before he goes into an HDA Youth Battalion. His mum is dreading it. I’m terrified – I know what happens next.
I’m part of a Hiltula Observation team that’s been on Earth since 1952. Having no idea how the Gandrax were recruiting their alien armies, this operation spread across several suitable worlds to find out. Watching them manipulate human society into the wretched state it reached in late 2024 was harrowing. I can’t see how we Hiltula and our allies can fight the Gandrax without becoming as bad as them, but greater minds than me are working on it.
2050 is when humanity ‘ships out’. Soon after that the Gandrax will strip Earth down to bedrock. Not one human soldier will ever be coming home: the fate of cannon fodder remains the same, regardless of the technology involved in a war.
We’ve got two decades to stop them. I hope those greater minds are working fast.
