Afterburn SF - Science Fiction Feed

The Steadfast

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:20:10 GMT

"Clockwork," Smythe said for the benefit of his two co-conspirators. The semi-auto buggy carrying the three and their precious cargo crawled on the roughly-surfaced road down the mountain, keeping itself between the weld-stapled cables which served as guides, carrying the three away from the looted Citadel of the zR's and toward the makeshift spaceport on the plains below. The Citadel and the dead men there were behind them; before them was the setting sun which was the reddish-orange face of Dellinger's Ember, a non-descript dying star here in the galactic hinterlands.

Romalgo nodded, the micro-metallic plates of the reconstructed half of his face contorting into a satisfied smile. "Did you expect anything else?"

High Lord and Grand Hivemaster Greb Shi'daoub of the epsilon Eridani Shi'daoub -- whom Smythe and Romalgo called "Bigbug" when he couldn't hear -- nodded his boney-plated head and made his multifaceted eyes sparkle.

"Compatriotz," Shi'daoub hissed through his hard palate, "we are on the townhill zide -- literally. Tiss caper iz almozt over."

"Almost," Smythe said. His heart was racing. He wished it to slow down. It wasn't good to feel so exerted up here. A human could breathe the mountain air around the zeta Reticulan Citadel, but it wasn't easy. Smythe rooted around for the oxygen pack at his feet, took up the mask, put it to his face and took a few quick draws.

"We three," Romalgo said, looking over his shoulder at Smythe.

Smythe offered Romalgo the oxygen mask.

Romalgo shook his head. "I won't need any. Help yourself, friend. You deserve it. You did magnificently up there."

Smythe felt a little better. He allowed himself to sit back in the rear seat of the buggy and look at the deep blue bands of the Orion Arm which wer...

The Battle of Ganymede

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:26:03 GMT

2541 C.E.

Captain Robert Olsen of the Martian cruiser, Defiant, scrutinized the alien ship via long-range sensors. Twelve hours ago, the ship, the size of a small moon halted a quarter of an AU out.

She was a globe fifty kilometers in diameter, with no portholes, access ports, or any other visible breaks in her hull. An energy-field surrounded her imparting a glowing, pearl-like luster to her hull.

A year ago, Martian observatories on Mons Olympus spotted the alien coming in out of the Oort cloud at fifty percent the speed of light; decelerating. The Central Martian Council sent the Defiant and her escorts, the destroyer Wasp and two scouts out beyond the orbit of Jupiter to meet her. The Martian colonists were gnats confronting an elephant.

Captain Olsen, Commodore of the small squadron, was Martian to the core, very tall and thin with a barrel-chest. In one-third G, the domes of Mars pressurized to only a third of an Atmosphere, an over-sized heart and lungs were a physiological necessity, as well as reduced muscle and bone.

"What a monster," said the Executive Officer. "If that thing is hostile and ever gets to Earth or Mars..."

"Yes, it's big," Captain Olsen, said. "But it's still only a ship. Every ship has its limitations - power, supply, maneuverability... something." There was always hope.

In addition to being beleaguered by phobias, Anthony Marston was also mildly obsessive-compulsive. Though his anxiety disorder could be a liability, obsessing over minute details served him well at his post in Telemetry, where his work consisted primarily of verifying a checklist of items to ensure the safety of the crew and their ship. The screeners who certified him fit for interplanetary exploration had chosen to overlook his panoply of fears. People weren’t exactly lining up to volunteer for deep space missions.

Running his fingertip across the control panel, he noted the contents of every display and the state of every indicator. He repeated the process three times before logging his status report—exactly on schedule. Wargrave would relieve him soon, though she was usually at least two minutes late.

Leaning back in his seat, he uncurled the fingers of his right hand one at a time and curled them up again in reverse order as he enumerated his phobias in alphabetical order. Being aware of them was the first step toward conquering them. Besides, there was nothing irrational about respecting heights, for example—though an astronaut with acrophobia was mildly ironic. Fortunately, Marston never had the sense of being high above anything out here in the void of space.

When he reached the end of his list, he repeated the final entry aloud. Xenophobia. That was one to make a space traveler sit up and take notice. So far, though, no expedition had ever encountered any indication of alien life.

Surveyor 10 and its crew of ten had been charting Sector AC-4047 for eighteen months. Another six and they’d head home. They’d mapped planets with abundant mineral resources, endless supplies of methane and water, and a whole lot of empty space.

Dark, empty space.

Achluophobia—fear of darkness. Marston knew the word, but it wasn’t on his list. Darkness couldn’t hurt you—though what was in the darkness might.

The airlock whooshed. Without turning, Marston recognized Captain Armstrong from her reflection in one of his monitors. He lowered his fist onto his leg as she entered the chamber.

The door closed automatically behind her. “Logged your report yet?” she asked, then shook her head. “Of course you did. Sil...

Milk-Toothed

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 07:56:40 GMT

“That’s her. Hsst! Don’t look! She’ll see you.”

“How do you expect me to know who you’re talking about unless I look?” Kadrid said, but turned his head to face front as demanded. “Any-path, she’s quite a magnum huntress, I’ve heard, Shuraken,” Kadrid eyed his friend and grinned. “Rrr-rr, fine looking too, as I scope it, with that red under-color and dark gray camo-splashes. Nice wavy black mane…” he went on until Shuraken jabbed him with a finger-talon; then he mock-yelped and danced away laughing.

“Stuff it, Kadrid. That’s torn it; she probably heard us. Come on,” and Shuraken hunched his shoulders and stalked off as fast as he could make it look natural. “We’ve got a hunt to run.”

The two young tautschen or Hunters, civilized carnivores, had come to this world of Cherlais 2 with a small pack of others eager to find some new trophies. They were shepherded by one elder, who was taking them out for “practice,” as he put it, to help this new settlement take down enough food for its first cold season.

“Killing one beast fills two gamebags,” he told them before he sent them out. “Now go, and remember Hunt Law!”

As if they could forget, Kadrid thought. They were Master Hunters now. They had earned their medallions, yet sometimes the old one still treats us like children.

Except that yesterday they’d seen the other Hunt ship, and Shuraken had seen her, and they’d talked of nothing else since.

“Milk-toothed, you are,” Kadrid told his friend, now that they had left the freehold hall behind.

“What of it?” Shuraken snarled so savagely that Kadrid fell back, stunned

“Nothing, nothing,” he muttered. “Have you thought of any way to impress her?”

Family Tree

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:39:10 GMT

It seemed that over the past month, the higher power of the universe had it in for Curtis Stoves. Big Jake, the crook he’d borrowed money from, had finally found him and was threatening to remove his lungs and sell them to pay the debt if Curtis didn’t shell out what he owed. And his twit of a boss was making Curtis take the rap for a recent customs blunder that had resulted in an infestation of Blue Diving Beetles whose larvae were destroying the islands that Curtis called home. Finally, there was his girlfriend Sharla – a sweet, doe-eyed thing fresh off the transport from Earth – who had informed him that she was pregnant.

Curtis didn’t know what he had done to piss off the higher power. Every day he assured himself that things would not get worse, and yet every day they did. So right now, as he sat behind his cluttered desk in his grubby office, he was doing what he figured any man would do if his life was reaching a crisis point.

He was taking a nap.

When the intercom box squawked, it woke him with a jerk which made him fall out of his wheeled office chair and land feet-over-ass on the floor. Cursing, he scrambled onto his knees by the desk and slapped at the box’s control pad. “What?!”

“You don’t have to shout,” the voice said sulkily. It was Lola, his new assistant and his boss’s niece; the girl who would be taking Curtis’ job once the boss man got him fired over the trumped-up beetle charges. Yet one more part of his stinking life to be thankful about.

Curtis took a deep breath and said more calmly, “What can I do for you?” He wanted to add, ‘sweetheart’, but resisted.

“There’s something in hangar one that I need your help with.”

“I trust you to deal with it,” he said.

“There’s a passenger here who’s demanding to see my boss,” she answered impatiently, “and that would be you.” Though Curtis had the spy screen turned off, he could just imagine Lola’s angry frown and the way her arms were tightly...

Forgive Men Their Trespasses

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:44:01 GMT

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.”

The words echoed in Nikki’s head. He’d heard them before, but always in the heretical translation, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you,” or some equally disgusting translation. How anyone could be so presumptuous to think they could translate the word of The Lord or the word of The Grand Patriarchs, he couldn’t begin to fathom.

Still, as the words continued to echo in his mind, he was troubled. The sermon had been given by one of The Grand Patriarchs in the flesh. It was probably the greatest honor his congregation could ever hope for, but still, the man’s words didn’t seem to carry the power that the normal priest’s did. Maybe it was the fact that they’d used holo-candles instead of the real thing because his congregation’s candles weren’t good enough for the Grand Patriarch, which seemed ridiculous to Nikki. Did God really care what kind of candles you used?

Was that blasphemy? He looked around as if he’d spoken the words aloud, but he hadn’t, and he knew that no matter what the rebels might say, The Grand Patriarchs and their enforcers, the Charismatics couldn’t read minds.

Nikki had only been a small child when the Ascension occurred, but his parents had told him about it repeatedly. The near miss of a comet, the overthrow of the immoral totalitarian government of America; and its replacement with a government dedicated to peace, love, and order. A government that only wanted to bring the word of God to the people of a once decedent nation.

The fact that The Bible they used was not the same as the Bible of history didn’t seem to matter to people, and it didn’t really bother Nikki either. After all, God spoke to the Grand Patriarchs as much as he had to the Apostles. It was quite believable that in the new enlightened age, man could see the truth of God’s words better.

Enemy of My Enemy

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:43:21 GMT

The Gorgon Truigar came to awareness on the third bounce.

Awakened, his augmented brain cycled rapidly through its warm-up phase as he hit the surface of the moon repeatedly. The scratching sound on the outer skin of the bubble, coupled with the haphazard ascent arc after each bump, revealed to him a coarse and uneven surface below. Not a fitting way to make landfall on the world of the Ancients, the Gorgon noted. However, the softskins had their protocols and safety measures. Like hatchlings before being fitted to their first pieces of tek, the pouches were designed to keep the humans secure and protected in their pliable bodies during freefall.

But Truigar did not come to this forgotten corner of the once-Empire by request of the softskins, although it suited their primate vanity to believe otherwise. His commands had been received, encrypted and through secure channels, from the High Council itself. An important discovery, they informed him. One that presented a great opportunity for their diminished race.

After the tenth bounce, the pressurized sphere slowed to a stop and deflated. The Gorgon spilled out of his harness in a fluid roll and sprung upright into a brisk walk without losing momentum, instantly alert. His internal calibrations reported gravity at eight tenths standard g, while ambient air temperature registered twenty-two point eight degrees higher than was ship norm. He scanned his surroundings and found the human dig site nearby. As he headed for the perimeter, Truigar raised his eyes to the binary stars burning low in the heliotrope-hued sky. Then he settled on the oblong edifice rising in the distance.

He paused and allowed the organic half of his brain to reflect for a moment.

At last I come to the resting place of our long-ago enemies, Truigar thought as he took in the sight. What secrets shall I find hidden in thy bosom?

The softskin warriors he had been ordered to liaise with waited near the outskirts of the dead camp half a kilometer away. They needed him to interface with the advanced tek littering the site, tapping into its secrets with his specialized Gorgon link. He would sift through the clues and tell the recon team what they needed to know. But, remotely, Truigar had already beg...

Gargoyle

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:57:48 GMT

I wish I remembered why we broke up. The man beside Ara in the cargo hold, spindly like a too-tall sapling, could be the long-lost twin of her old college boyfriend. He even had the same iron-flat hair dusting the tops of his eyelashes. In her mind, she had already given the stranger the same name: Jared.

“How much longer do you think the repairs will take?” she murmured to him.

Jared’s eyes flicked over her face, then resumed their rigorous scanning of the cargo hold. She didn’t expect a reply, but it made her feel better to fill the six inches of quietude between them. There were a handful of passengers who, like Jared, couldn’t talk. A conduit of noxious gas had broken in the crash, leaving chemical burns in the throats of those closest to the rupture.

There had been a lot of other passenger injuries, too. At least a dozen people had been taken to sickbay on stretchers. Bandages and bruises covered just about everyone. Ara had scabs and bruising around her waist, where the safety restraints had cut into her.

Jared didn’t sit, but crouched on the balls of his feet with his fingertips lightly brushing the metal floor. His eyes never stopped roving the room. Whatever the reason, she found comfort in his silent presence; much more comfort than in the whimpering people huddled in loose piles all around them.

“May I have everyone’s attention?” A crewman, hair like an oil slick, stumped into the cargo bay. Grime smudged his blue-and-white uniform. “We have a status report.” Dogging his heels came two more crewmen in matching besmeared uniforms.

At the sight of the flight crew, several people started to their feet, hurling questions:

“Who’s in charge out there?”

“What caused the crash?”

“When—?”

“Where—?”

“Why—?”

“Listen up!” His voice shrilled like a stalled engine. He paused to clear his throat as nearly two hundred pairs of eyes fixed on him. “I’m here to give you a report. Our FTL drive malfunctioned. The failure flung us out of hyperspace and into the atmosphere of planet CBX90 in the Corinthian System.”

Ara narrowed her ...

Twilight on Phobos

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:53:44 GMT

Diego fingered a pill into his mouth and sat on his trembling hands. If there had been a flight attendant aboard they might have mistaken his affliction with nervousness and offered him some Methacalm. He glanced out the window, peering down at Phobos. From that distance it looked like an elongated pockmarked skull, and the dome itself resembled an overturned fishbowl.

The skiff barreled toward the skygate, passing through it and touched down in the terminal. A hatch rotated open and Diego stumbled out. He straightened his back, stretching his arms and legs, and held up his hands. The tremors were barely visible. The pills worked fast. He was just glad they still worked.

The ship blasted off the ground, in a hurry to get to Mars, and then back to Earth. It wasn't scheduled to stop at Phobos and the diversion had cost Diego most of his savings.

Diego stomped toward the terminal building, his G-boots adjusting to the gravity. He had to check in, as per the procedure, and the terminal gate blocked access to the colony. He strode into the building, glanced around. A desk sat in the middle of the room, a computer and monitor on it. Fake plants lined the walls.

"Hello? Anyone here?"

A security guard shuffled in from down the hall, his uniform disheveled. "Sorry, wasn't expecting anyone today," he said, tucking in his shirt. "You the holo-porn trader?"

Diego chuckled. "Afraid not."

"Can I see your documents?"

Diego held out his travel authorization and passport.

The guard studied them. "Impressive." He glanced up. "Excuse my curiosity, but what business does someone like you have on Phobos?"

"I'm looking for my daughter. I heard she was here. Can you check your records for me?&q...

Time Tracker

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 08:52:55 GMT

The footprints led off into the thicket, but Ryder Darvish stopped at the edge of the beach and sank to the ground. He wanted to rest a minute before plunging into the unfamiliar jungle. Damn, he was good, but he wasn't that good. The trip always took a lot out of him, first of all, and, furthermore, this forest primeval was hell to wrestle with. The towering canopy and overgrown marshland were all right for the brontisauri and the rest, but the puny human animal had a little more difficulty smashing a trail into the greenery-gone-wild.

If Ryder could pick one thing about the job he hated, it would be having to occasionally come back this far. He didn't mind being out of his timeslot, generally, but diving into the Paleolithic, or whatever they called it, was downright spooky. The thing was, there weren't any other people around--except for his target. No matter when in time Ryder was, for the most part, he could imagine himself getting along quite well--adjusting--should he have to live there the remainder of his life. But Ryder Darvish was a sociable man who said hello to strangers in the skyriser and always inquired after the door guard's family. He didn't think he could hack it with only large-sized carnivores as friends.

Oh, he would make it back to his own time all right. He had no reason to doubt. He always did, and, counting on the odds, he always would. He knew guys who had been at this job thirty years or more and they had never mistaken their way through the time strands yet. Of course Roger had heard of some trackers who'd simply disappeared and others who had returned and refused to travel into the past again. Ryder wasn't going to wind up like that, he promised himself; a little worry was normal. He wasn't the type to lose his nerve.

The thought of getting stuck in this timeslot put Ryder on his feet again and he dodged flapping branches and insects bigger than his toes as he followed Derick Wiley into the dank tangle of overambitious vegetation. Derick was a bad, bad man who deserved to be hunted down like a dog. Ryder would find him and bring the fugitive back to his own time to face the consequences of his horrific deeds.

Where the hell was Derick, though? There was no sand here and consequently no footprints... only trees so overbearing Ryder couldn't spot the heavens above, and the ground-level thudding of some mammoth dino seeking its dinn...

Gliese 581

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:52:19 GMT

Fact:

Gliese 581 is a red dwarf star located twenty and a half light-years from Earth. It’s situated in the northeast part (15:19:26.8-07:43:20.2, ICRS 2000.0) of Constellation Libra.

On April 25, 2007, astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope announced the discovery of additional planets in this system. They are the most Earth-like planets found outside the Solar System to date and may be capable of having liquid water on their surface (European Southern Observatory news release).

February 6, 2122.

The spacecraft crash landed on the planet’s surface, the antigrav jets failing at the last minute. The crash made a roaring sound and sparks flew across the cabin. Alarms lit up the control board.

“Status?” Jackson yelled.

“Captain, the landing gear’s damaged,” Matrix, the onboard computer said. “Also, we have a cabin air leak.”

“How serious?”

“We have approximately one hour before we lose all cabin oxygen.”

Captain Jackson turned to his pilot. “Get a crew out to work on the repairs, ASAP.”

“Yes sir,” Stevens said.

Jackson looked out the ship’s view screen and took in the planet’s dimly lit, reddish surface. From here, the landscape looked like the Grand Canyon, only redder. On the horizon he saw Gliese 581, the massive but dim red sun.

He turned on the intercom, so all the crew could hear him. “Listen up. We’re sending a unit to start repairs ...

The Ambassador

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:03:29 GMT

2541 C.E.

Captain Robert Olsen of the Martian cruiser, Defiant, scrutinized the alien ship via long-range sensors. The ship was the size of a small moon. Twelve hours ago, the alien had halted half an AU out.

She was a perfect globe fifty kilometers in diameter. There were no portholes, access ports, or any other visible breaks in her hull. An energy-field surrounding her imparted a glowing, pearl-like luster to her hull.

Lieutenant Jacqueline LaBrosse fine-tuned the tactical board on the bridge.

A year ago, Martian observatories on Mons Olympus, spotted the alien coming in out of the Oort cloud at tremendous speed, fifty percent the speed of light and decelerating. The Central Martian Council sent the Defiant and her escorts out beyond the orbit of Jupiter to meet her.

Captain Olsen was Commodore of the little squadron. He was in his late forties with short-brown hair, and a round face. He was Martian to the core, very tall and thin with a barrel-chest.

Jacqueline was quite the opposite. Unlike most Martians, she had a lithe, compact, Earth-type body, a throwback to an earlier time. She appeared younger than her twenty-five years with thick, straight, black hair sculpted in a stylish helmet cut. Her hands trembled visibly on the touch pad.

Captain Olsen glanced at her and flashed a tight smile. "At eas...

Vigilant

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:28:28 GMT

Val sprawled across the flat rooftop. The stench of weatherproofing tar was thick and dirty. She didn’t move, didn’t want to look over the ledge and see the broken body of her nemesis on the street below.

This is all wrong, she thought.

Quiet Man had tried to kill her. Instead, she had killed him.

This is murder.

Val pulled her battered body up onto the weathered crown of brick gable. Tears dampened the cloth of her crimson mask. Her mouth opened to scream but only managed a hoarse whisper.

# # #

Glory Swenson parked her subcompact in the driveway and waited, listening to the tick of the cooling engine. It was Friday afternoon, her shift at the power plant was done for the weekend, and she had plans. Only one hurdle barred her way, and he waited inside the house.

“Coward,” she said as she checked her face by habit in the rearview mirror. Dark liner accentuated her green eyes. Like an evergreen in shadow, Terry had told her years ago when their love was new and exciting. She thought her eyes were too close together and her face too long. She tried using her auburn tresses to best offset her features. Terry said she looked great, but what fashion sense did he have? Her face had always been a lost cause. Her body was another matter and she always caught her fellow male workers checking out her athletic lines.

If they knew all that she could do, their lecherous smiles would contract to lines of fear.

She smiled at that thought and, grabbing hold of her insulated lunch bag, exited the car.

Live Free or Die

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:36:01 GMT

The explosive impacts of the high-density shells brutalized the launcher’s hull. Primary drive, axis controls, long-range comms and the targeting computer all registered inoperative. Damaged armor plating formed a debris cloud around the craft. The Launcher Chief knew the fight was over. He peered out of his tiny window into the cold vacuum and down at the ocean of breathable air. He gave the order to dump their remaining munitions, hit the retro thrusters and bug out of Low Earth Orbit. The pilot didn’t hesitate.

“The past is a prison from which you have been released. Your sins and your disease have been washed away. Today is the first day of your new life. You will remember it always as day one. In the years after your term of service, as you dwell among the free citizens of Earth, you will look back upon this moment with pride and honor. Yesterday does not exist. Today you stand before the world Freeborn and ready to become tomorrow’s heroes!”

     Sam 032-945 could feel the icy claws of fear digging through the wall of her chemically induced calm. The braking system fail light glowed in angry red on the panel as their launcher hurtled into the atmosphere.
     “Re-entry louvers locked down,” reported Sam, double-checking the vent fan settings.
     Chief Theodore 041-466 tried the radio again as plumes of fire engulfed their shattered hull. Everything shook and groaned as gravity ripped them down through hell.
     “No response. Radio’s shot; anything on the wings yet?” asked Theo.

Sam shook her head. “Zero grab and the number two brake still read bingo fuel. I don’t think Lydia’s going to make it.” Lydia was a twenty-nine thousand pound, missile spitting armored ballerina in free fall. Inside a gravity-well, she was an obese death trap.
The emergency glider wings finally bit air. Sam started the slow process of leveling her off, bleeding velocity into distance.

The navigational co...

Hideout

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:23:27 GMT

“Keep that light down!” Jack’s furious whisper sliced the desert night. Sweat dripped down his forehead, stinging his eyes. No time to wipe it away.

He kept a steady rhythm with his shovel. Thrust-lift-sling. Thrust-lift-sling. Jack focused on his task despite the searing pain in his shoulders.

“Point it here, man. Can’t see what I’m doing.”

Fool can’t even hold the light steady. Damn. He shouldn’t have brought Phil here tonight. Too late to worry about it now.

Jack tossed his shovel aside. “Okay, get your gloves and help me lift it out.” He pulled on his own stiff leather gloves.

“Fucker’s heavier than it looks,” said Phil as he struggled to lift his end.

“Yeah, but the big ones bring more money.” Jack raised his end with practiced ease. “Makes it worth the effort.

“C’mon, heave it up and in.” Jack adjusted his stance for the next move. “Careful not to snag it.”

They both grunted with the effort of hoisting the heavy object into the back of the Chevy van. Jack flung a tarp over their prize, then threw in the shovel and closed the windowless back door.

“Let’s go.”

Jack started the engine and drove slowly along the off-road trail until he reached the main road. Then he scrupulously observed the speed limit as he headed for the nearest park exit.

“Remember. If a ranger stops us, we’re here to camp. Got in late, got lost. We’ll haul ass once we’re out on the interstate.”

Phil swiveled his head back and forth, as if expecting rangers to dart out of the shadows on all sides. “You ever been stopped before?” he asked, a little breathless.
“N...

Zero Hour

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:06:47 GMT

Most kids, as they approach high school graduation, are faced with hard choices.

Should I go to college? A college near home, or one in another state? Or maybe some kind of vocational program would be better. Or should I just go get a job?

Michael Mace was approaching his high school graduation, too. But in his mind there was a different question.

Should he continue to do battle against aliens, werewolves, nameless horrors and nightmares? Could he?

You’ve probably never heard about the Dover Demon. How about Springheeled Jack -- do you know much about him? Didn't think so. The Crawfordsville Monster? Doesn't ring a bell? The Beast of Exmoor? OK, how about mokele-mbembe, or the dreaded tatzelwurm of Scandinavia?

No?

Well, maybe you've heard something about chupacabras -- there were some strange stories out of Puerto Rico in the mid-70s of a bizarre fanged creature that could fly by vibrating a row of back spines. And Nessie; didn't they just show that the famous photograph was a hoax, or something?

Why don't you hear stories about these creatures outside of late-night radio, tabloid newspapers, and saucer-fanatic literature?

The Secret Committee, that's why.

They'd rather these things weren't discussed.

They are the truths that none of you are equipped to handle. The truths that would freeze the blood in your very heart if you even suspected them.

Yeah, those.

They're not your problem.

Air Lock Four

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:51:53 GMT

Roger sat drinking coffee and watching Terran news, when a pulsing red light bathed the ERT lounge.

The Emergency Response Team’s computer technician, Banky, choked on his soup and said, “Not again.”

Parker, the rookie, scrambled to his feet.

Roger raised his hand: “Wait for it, kid.”

The three men listened.

Billy Johnson is stuck in air lock four!

“Holy hell,” Parker said, and rushed for the door.

Roger said: “Parker, hold it—have you worked on an air lock emergency?”

“No sir.”

“Have I?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then wait for me.”

Parker stopped, but you could see his eagerness: eyes blinking, fingers twitching. He looked ready to burst from his blue ERT uniform. Banky, on the other hand, scratched at the stubble on his chin and groaned while getting to his feet. “Let the kid get himself out of this one,” he said. “I’m tired of saving his life.”

Roger took another look at the screen on the wall, and stood up. “Wishful thinking,” he said.

They hurried out of the lounge and down the hallway past a series of windows. Outside, Agua’s blue sand blasted the glass. Roger saw his reflection rushing past, arms swinging. His hair was growing shaggy; too much grey showing.

“All right,” Roger said, dismissing the thoughts and getting professional. “Let’s work the problem. Parker—”

Outside Chance

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:11:43 GMT

Jacob watched the future fade from view as he triggered the relay. He was not sad to see it go; it was a bad one, like a Beckett play come to life. It wasn't hard to imagine Vladimir and Estragon bickering in this wasteland, or Hamm and Clov playing tug-of-war at the end of the world.

Outlines were like that, often as not. It was his job to find out how they got that way, what chain of events had led to the particular doom each future embodied, and to bring back anything that might help ensure the survival of the present. He did not, as much as possible, talk to the people. They didn't really exist, after all; that is to say, they wouldn't.

The cool white of the forecasting room opened up in front of him as the cage finished reeling him in. There was a momentary sense of dislocation and he stood still for a moment, trying not to let the chaos of the room pull him off balance. Displays were holocast onto every wall, giving reports from the forecasters; the line men who tried to pull it all together were running from display to display, synthesizing the data into a recommended path of action, to be whispered into the ears that could make things happen; the dispatchers were deciding to which lines the next wave of forecasters would be sent. Jacob glanced at the display in front of him:

*** -342/3h/+7 POLAR COOLING OPERATION LEADS TO MASSIVE TSUNAMI IN PACIFIC -- APPX 13M RIP *** +479/8l/+2 ENERGY SHORTAGE DUE TO INTERRUPTED GROWING SEASON IN MIDWEST NA -- APPX 2M RIP ***

None of that would be felt down here, of course, even if it was allowed to happen; the forecasting facility was insulated, both by its location and its routines, from the chaos that had made life outside so unpredictable. Jacob unhooked his datapad from his belt and coded it to send his data, expecting out of habit to see it come up on the display. The displays, though, showed only the Probables, lines weeks or days away. A Probable that looked good was nurtured, steered to carefully; Outlines existed only to be looted. Ten or more years in the future, Outlines were so far away on the probability curve they were always shifting, as insubstantial as soap bubbles. You could go into the cage a hundred times and not reach the same Outline twice.

A fresh-faced man in what passed for normal dress outside passed by on the way out of the next cage ov...

Refugee

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:16:32 GMT

The Hunter-Beasts have found her.

She holds the phone away from her, cruel laughter on the other end of the line still reverberating in her brain. Through the kitchen window, she sees the wooded, landscaped grounds surrounding her suddenly spring into sharp focus. Fractal shapes of bubbling orange, blue and red cohere into the topiary-like foliage, garden statuary and poplar trees bordering the mile-long entry lane into the estate--all of which, she realizes, will soon become an abattoir

How strange, she thinks as she stares stupidly. I... I remember. She has been safe and comfortably ignorant these past five years, it seems. How could she not have known?

This wasn’t supposed to happen, she recalls faintly. At least not so soon. Yet, strangely enough, one part of her mind realizes the warning signs were there. Her dreams were the first harbingers...

...visions of flying and hard, scaled flesh; of windswept, alien landscapes and gleaming cities of metal and glass; falling, falling, spinning out of control...

“No!”

Timera lurched awake. God, she thought, gasping for breath and hugging herself tightly. What the hell? She staggered out of bed as if drunk, stubbing her toe on the dresser as she groped for the open window. She gulped cool, night air, the slight breeze chilling her throu...

Call Signs

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:14:08 GMT

Gamer dove the CA-100 gunship toward the target. The altimeter readout on the heads-up display blurred while the features of the unknown planet's terrain sharpened. She tapped in commands with her left hand. The dive broke just above the blue-leafed trees; the craft slowed. The targeting reticule centered on her objective: a Consociation supply depot. The crosshairs shifted from green to pulsing red as the system locked on. Gamer glanced at the airspeed indicator on the HUD; her right thumb tapped a key on the console, nudging the gunship a little faster.

“Gamer! We’re being deployed!” Book shouted.

Gamer ignored her sister and the incoming ion cannon fire. She continued her approach to her target.

Five kilometers from the depot, she pushed her thumb down. The gunship’s rapid acceleration shoved her back in her seat. The reticule’s pulsing increased. Gamer regulated her breathing despite the adrenaline flooding her system. Her index finger pressed the munitions release. Her fingers tapped more keys and she soared into a climb as the HUD announced: “Kill!”

“Gamer! Shut that damned thing off. We’re going to fly a real mission. No more games.”

Her sister’s voice barely registered as Gamer selected another target and maneuvered

the gunship around to target the cannons and troops massed around them.

“Hey, Gamer, shut it down; you’ve already earned your call sign with all the hours you spend practicing,” Joker said, laughter in her voice.

Gamer’s attention flickered to her other sister. In that brief moment, the threat AI scored

a hit on her. Her gunship went down in flames. The ...

Barrier

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:51:42 GMT

     The tiny ship drifted, powerless in the void. The star-shaped transfer point rotated in stately silence one hundred thousand kilometers off its starboard side.
     "Well?" Myrna asked, already sure they were screwed.
     "The reactor core is frozen. We're on battery power," Stol said, trying not to look scared. He was fourteen years old. "Should I try to restart?"
     "Don't bother. They'll be here soon." The Guard- Captain Myrna had bribed had either given them up or had been discovered himself. The small window in the Barrier had closed around them as they made the dash for the transfer point. Now their ship was an easy target for the Guard ships that patrolled the system looking for smugglers.
     "We've got to do something." Stol put his hand on his holstered pistol.
     "We are doing something." Myrna reached over, pushed his hand aside, and drew his sidearm out. She walked over to the garbage chute and dropped it in, then drew her own weapon and flushed it out into space. Myrna looked out the observation window. The chrome barrels of the pulse guns sparkled against the backdrop of stars as they drifted away. "There are worse things than prison," she said.
     "Like what?" Stol asked. "I can't believe you just spaced our weapons!"
     "Like being dead, Stol." She put her hand on his cheek and he shrugged it away. "If we fight, we'll die. Better to wait and see what happens."
     "What's going to happen to us?"
     "Don't worry. I'll take care of you."
     It took the better part of an hour for a patrolling Guard ship to come along and see what was caught in the Barrier's web. Myrna remembered looking forward to Barrier duty when she was in the Guard. It was easy work.
     The fusion-dampening field around the transfer point made it simple. Without the proper code, a ship's reactor was rendered useless. No one came in or out of the system without the codes. If an unauthorized ship tried to enter or exit the system, they ended up with a dead reactor and a few years of hard labor on a mining colony.
     But smuggling was a fact of life. Every Guard Commander took a little something on the side to leave a window of opportunity for ships smuggling various goods. The brass turned a blind eye, the buyers got their product, and the smugglers made a decent profit. Everyone was happy.
     From time to time, though, someone decided to make a show for some politicos. Myrna thought there was a good chanc...

Twenty-One

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:24:17 GMT

Wednesday, January 6th, 2009, dawned bright and clear for the twenty-first time.
"Are we ready?" Aaron Burnett asked the group surrounding him, all of them cold and shivering in the pre-dawn light.
"Yeah, yeah. We can do this." Thomas Pinchly said. The short, thin teenager chewed nervously on a plastic straw.
Aaron's older sister, Sharon, gave him a reassuring smile. "We don't really have a choice, do we?" The smile on her plump face widened. "And if we screw it up--"
"We start over at December 23rd and take another crack at it," Sharon's friend Teri finished.
Aaron nodded grimly. "It's just that's some of us might not make it if we do succeed, that's all. Those guards are going to be playing for keeps, at least until we get out of their sight and they go back to their original day. Some of us are probably going to die."
Lukas Witt was three days shy of his fifteenth birthday, a birthday he desperately wanted to see. "We can't keep living like this. We know the risks."
Aaron turned at his sister. "Are all the other groups ready?"
Sharon frowned. "Yeah. Everyone knows what they have to do."
Aaron gave the group of over a hundred teenagers and pre-teens, several of whom were his friends and schoolmates, a long last look.
"Okay, then. Time to save the world."

#

The first time the world came to an end, fifteen year old Aaron Burnett did not notice.

#

Aaron checked his watch. Nine hours left.
"We've got almost five hundred waiting to storm the White House," Sharon said. She was coordinating communications as best she could with a handful of cell phones, email, and instant messenger.
Aaron nodded and looked back down at his map. "I'm more concerned about our friends overseas."
Teri took a long sip of her herbal tea then added her opinion. "Any number of things can go wrong. Our job is stopping those bombers from taking off."
Aaron nodded, his face grim. "Yeah, I know." He glanced at his sister. "How many more kids do we have?"
"At least a three dozen have shown up since dawn. Others are coming from the outlying countryside."
"Tractors?"
Sharon smiled without humor. "Several of them are coming into town on tractors and any other heavy equipment."
"What about Lukas and Kyle?"
Teri smirked. "Don't worry: If Lukas says he can get it, he can."
Aaron sighed. The tanker full of jet fuel Lukas promised to steal from the airport would be their last line of attack.
"Fine," he said. "When all the heavy equipment gets here, we'll form up, assign tasks, and hit the base full-out with everything we can."

#

The third time the world came to an end Aaron had a very strong sense of having been here before as the first blinding flash destroyed his vision.

#

"Patience," Aaron...

These Arms, And Her

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:22:47 GMT

Monday, February 22nd 07:44

ON

Katie’s on the phone to him, the Doctor, on his emergency number, so I must keep my voice down. Of course, she’s worried. Isn’t it bad enough that I’m a fraction of the man she fell in love with? If Katie leaves me then my life really would be over. There’d be no use for these awful fake mechanical claws then.

What was it? The dream before I woke? We lingered beside a fast flowing stream, Katie and I, vibrant green nature all around us, kissing at first, my hands, my real hands, caught up in the luxurious red curls of her hair.

And then what? She pulled away and was saying something to me I couldn’t hear over the deafening rush of water. Over and over, her delicate mouth formed: “A real man. A real man.”

In the dream, my hands grasped her throat. My old hands. My real hands of muscle and bone not fibreglass and wires.

I awoke straddling her, these things, these prototypes, these experiments, trying to tear her head off.

Maybe if I think hard enough I can strangle myself.

Maybe I’ll take the hero’s way out and do it in my sleep.

Wait, she’s coming back in.

OFF

Monday, February 22nd 18:36

ON

Despite what happened at the end of the session, I’m a touch happier now. Good old Doctor Pliener, my saviour, or so everyone tells me. Ha! No, I do appreciate this chance in a lifetime. And I do believe him when he says that one day, one far away day, when I come to hold Katie’s hand, or when I wash them and actually feel the warm embrace of the water as if it was real skin, experiencing the sensations as if they were the hands I was born with, then it will be worth it.

At the clinic, the good doctor peeled up the plastic coating of my right arm, revealing the circuitry meshed into the flesh of my real elbow. Still I marvel at the technology. Lifting a long, thin screwdriver, Dr Pleiner jabbed around between two short black scansions in my forearm, and these humanesque fingers whirred and jerked to attention. He nodded and stared at the screen as a block of green numbers scrolled up and disappeared. A modulating graph appeared at the bottom, and he nodded some more. He repeated this on the left arm then pinched his thin lips together in a smile.

Katie, my wondrous Katie, sat quietly beside me, her hand resting on my leg the whole time. She’s an angel. Looking at her, so young still (as I am too, but what is youth to a cripple?), so beautiful, her meadow green eyes, the way her cheeks pink up when she laughs. She could have her pick of men, and still she stays with me.

“So, James,” said the doctor, his voice so soft there’s only a trace of his Austrian accent. “Do you have any recollection of the events leading up to this incident?”

Oh, just the usual. Dreams of strangling my wife.

...

Joyriders

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:16:23 GMT

'So, Petey, think ya can, can ya?'

'Uh huh. No problemo. If you think you're man enough, I'll let you come along for the ride. 'Course, it only counts as a score for me. Passenger ain't worth jack.'

'I'll gladly concede the point if you can hotwire that baby's ass.'

'Like I say. No problemo.'

Seventeen to eleven, Petey led Dreggo on scalps this year. Looked capable of making it a round twenty if he didn't get slammed by the pigs. And that was only on weekends. Petey had an actual job, while Dreggo ‘worked’ in the monotone world of daytime TV observation, though that could be pretty hard sometimes. Dreggo held his friend in a certain high regard, but of course hid his envy for credibility's sake.

The Datsui Markus 11GT. The supercar. The ultimate prize.

Dreggo treasured his Mondo Alti 4R scalp. That had been a tough one. Central locking system, computer controlled disabler, an inbuilt alarm linked to local pig radio. A whole world of hurt for the would-be thief.

He'd taken a few turns, revved that baby to max down the deserted high street after the bars had finished kicking out, and taken out a few garbage cans, but he jumped ship when he heard the first of the sirens, and had gone a couple of streets via gardens and alleyways before the scum had even got close. A good ride, by no means perfect, but good.

Respectable.

So, despite holding an almost unassailable lead going into the end of year awards among the underworld, Petey had to go one better. Tradition demanded it.

Rumour had it that the 11GT was unbreakable. That its locking and immobilising system couldn't be undone by the manufacturer, let alone a common car thief, however good the likes of Petey and Dreggo thought themselves. Rumour had it that the 11GT couldn't be broken into with a sledgehammer.

'We'll see about that,' Petey muttered with a smile, as they turned a corner and the French wrought-iron gate of Katie Burn’s mansion came into view.

*

Katie Burn, 27 years old and already an internationally acclaimed actress, had only moved into the neighbourhood six days before. With a few million in the bank and a handful of awards surely awaiting her over the next few years, she had made it. She had nothing left to prove. The 11GT was merely an indulgence on her part and her prize possession (after her cheekbones of course, and her cleavage was also pretty damn good, she didn't mind to say), the car at the absolute height of the market. It had set her back going on two big ones. Even someone with her money was paying that back in installments.

Don't worry, the manufacturers said. It can't be stolen, it won't rust, its rarity will make its value rise, and that three hundred and fifty click top speed is only an autobahn away.

And it certainly looked good into the bargain. Low h...

Forever Underfoot

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:11:49 GMT

At the loud thump, Gavv and Zax poked their wizened heads out of their hole. A rolling beer bottle just missed hitting the two tiny humanoids. Teenage laughter disappeared into the distance as an empty pizza box and more beer bottles rolled onto the side of the highway.

"Look what they have done to this place!" Zax fumed, turning violet. "Just a few hundred years ago there was nothing but trees and peace and quiet. Now it's roads and cars, pollution and noise!" He shook his wrinkled head, floppy ears flapping about.

"And you thought we'd leave this all behind when we left the old world," Gavv said, calmly staying blue. He was even more wrinkled than Zax, with even bigger ears and a longer nose. They wore matching outfits--today was "green" day. Gavv looked forward to tomorrow, which was "stripes" day.

"I can't take this anymore," Zax exclaimed. "We have to find another place. I can't concentrate with all this. We don't want to mess up the universe again."

Gavv shuddered, remembering the last time he'd fixed the settings on the gravitovitor. The variables have to be set precisely, or there's havoc throughout the universe. Last time he'd been careless and everything's mass had tripled for an hour.

He'd had to change the time flow on the chronovitor, move back in time, reset the gravitovitor, and start time all over again. The havoc he'd caused--death and destruction on a galactic scale – had no longer ever happened, but it left a scar on him that never went away.

"We just moved here three hundred years ago. I don't want to pack up and move again," Gavv said. "It's such a hassle." Another car zoomed by, leaving behind a cloud of smoke. Zax shook his fist at it. Gasping and coughing, the two grangs disappeared back into their hole.

It was time to adjust the settings and it was Gavv's turn. One by one he went over the instruments carefully, as he'd and Zax had been doing for 15 billion years. Someone had to keep the wheels of the universe turning, and the Master had taught them well. They were conscientious about their work. He adjusted the entropitor, the chronovitor, the photonovitor, and others. When he had entropy, time, light and most of the other instruments working smoothly, he worked on the force instruments, adjusting the electro-magnetic force, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. He saved gravity for last.

The gravitovitor was always the tricky one. With great care he typed in the proper queries, pushed the proper buttons, turned the proper dials, and calculated the proper settings. Then he input the settings-

CRASH!

Startled at the unexpected noise from outside, Gavv hit the wrong button and once again it was havoc throughout the universe as gravity disappeared. Gavv shot toward the ceiling as his face turned violet. Not again! He felt sick.

The two grangs, floating in their hole, worked t...

Eee

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:07:09 GMT

A hundred feet beneath the Atlantic's storm-tossed waves, a pod of bottlenose dolphins followed the mud-covered expanse of the continental slope. They squeaked and called out, sonically probing for danger in the surrounding ocean. Conversation had come quickly in the protected confines of the human harbor, but now, facing the Atlantic alone, they clustered into a loose formation and stayed alert.

Adair swam in the middle of the pod, and tried to avoid disturbing the others. He didn't have their size or strength. They often crossed his path at random, as if oblivious to his presence.

A low whistle-pop from the lead dolphin, Tungsten, drifted back to Adair's ear bones. In human speech, it might have been: "Stay sharp."

Adair couldn't tell if Tungsten approved of him being along for this mission. The request had been human, not dolphin, so obligation had birthed it and not respect.

Occupied, the larger dolphin analyzed the information streaming in from his own echolocations...and the human instruments hardwired into his nervous system. The streamlined instrument packet, a short-barreled weapon beside it, sat atop the padded harness wrapped around his body. Beneath his belly two small, metal manipulator arms folded across each other.

"Scared?" asked Tungsten. It surprised Adair when he spoke.

"No."

"You can admit it. But the humans are scared of everything: losing their pod, losing use of the oceans, of seeing the malea spread to land. After what it has done to the ocean's life, who knows what it could do there."

Tungsten's bravery impressed him. But Tungsten hadn't grown in the womb of human servitude.

Adair risked a question: "Why don't we stay on the coasts, where human ships hold control?"

"Because Eee will not be confined, slowly sapped away by the malea," said Tungsten. "You, more than most, should respect freedom, what we must do, what we will build."

Eee. A word used by dolphins and humans alike. Dominion of the seas, promised to dolphins by the terrified governments of humanity, if only they'd fight. Eee was the war fought by every wild and captive-born dolphin. Eee was human desperation and terror. Eee was dolphin hardship...and hope.

Adair lived a sheltered existence before Eee. Before the alien malea, the genetic weapon-virus, spread into the world's oceans. Before it entered his coastal pen, brought more intelligence, made him recognize the sanctuary's confinement.

The sea bottom dropped away, and fell fast down the edge of the shelf. For a moment, Adair almost wanted to be back at Aqua Planet, ignorant again, performing back flips for fish, dancing through the air, his skin lit by flashes.

He followed the pod down, each dolphin a speck of gray reality framed by black infinity. Cross-shimmers of light stabbed vertical, died in fu...

Three Perspectives on the Role of the Anarchists in the Zombie Apocalypse

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 13:39:32 GMT

I.  The Protector

     As far as General Jamieson was concerned, 2012 represented the lowest point in the history of the once great United States of America. Things happened that year that he wouldn't have believed possible.

     Where the fuck could you even start?

     In mid-January, there were coordinated uprisings against the U.S. and coalition forces occupying Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan.

     On January 16th, CNN's viewers saw the U.S.-appointed Interim President of Iran lynched on camera, dragged through the streets by a Tehran crowd. That same night, those tuned in to CBS got the first sight of hordes of Iraqi Shiites swarming through the streets of Baghdad's Green Zone, burning down office buildings and engaging startled soldiers in close-range gunfire. By the end of the night, all four networks were replaying Al Jazeera's footage of Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-backed President of Afghanistan, being shot in the head after a forty-five minute trial by an Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal.

     Those first news reports compared it to Hugo's Friday in Venezuela in 2009 or even to the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968. The General hadn't been around for the Tet Offensive, but he'd studied it at West Pointe, and he knew the comparison was ridiculous. Before he went to bed for the night on 1/16/12, he was well aware that the events of that day made the Tet Offensive look like a college football riot by comparison.

     If the Tet analogy was ridiculous, the analogy with Hugo's Friday was absurd. This was bigger by orders of magnitude than a few cities being seized by the last die-hard Chavez loyalists in the Venezuelan countryside.

     No one quite knew how 1/16 happened all at once like that, since everyone took credit for setting the wheels into motion. Every piddling little terrorist group, “national liberation movement”, or fire-breathing Islamic cleric in the Middle East issued some kind of statement, denying each other's claims to have orchestrated 1/16 and asserting their  own eternal glory. Even Bin Laden put out one last tape, but for once it got lost in the noise of declarations and manifestos and communiqués.

     None of that mattered.

     Like the Tet Offensive, it was easier for the rebels to take the cities than it was for them to hold them. After a couple of months of carpet bombing and guided missile fire, the terrorist sons-of-bitches had been routed and the stars and stripes were flying from military headquarters in Baghdad and Tehran, Damascus and Kabul, like nothing had ever happened.

     The problem was; something...

Zaftig The Magnificent

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 13:36:17 GMT

     Armed with a plan to get a salary increase, Rhonda Minestra marched into the office she shared with Sid Glower, her uncle and boss. She started to voice her demands but stopped when she spotted a fish tank near Sid`s desk. He hated pet fish. “Why`d you buy that?”

     “I didn`t. It was here when I opened up this morning,” Sid replied.

     She walked closer and examined the fish tank. It sat on a rectangular metal stand equipped with wheels. A round gadget looked like an automated feeder and bubbles came from a coral reef. The bigger fish, about six inches long with gold and white coloring, maintained a position and stared at her. The other fish had gold and red markings and did laps around the tank as if exercising. “I think the big fish expects me to do something.”

     The gold-white fish swam to a corner of the tank and brushed some sand away from a control panel. It lipped a button. Rhonda`s mouth dropped open as she heard the humming of an electric motor. “Ohmygawd!” Rhonda shrieked. “We’re havin` one of those days, aren’t we?”

     “It seems that way.” Sid walked to the windows and pulled up the blinds to let in some of Manhattan’s pollution-filtered sunlight. His office overlooked Eighth Avenue and 33rd Street, diagonally across from Madison Square Garden. Even on the tenth floor, the raucous sounds of traffic could be clearly heard.

     Rhonda and Sid were physical opposites: she tall and slender versus his short and rotund. She also had a full head of hair arranged in random spikes. The color du jour was orange.

     The fish hit another button and the tank moved forward, made a left turn and rolled to the wall that held framed diplomas. The tank stopped under Sid`s Liberal Arts diploma and the fish floated at the top of the tank as if reading it. The tank motored over to check out Rhonda`s diploma from junior college.

     Rhonda hesitated. She wanted to implement her strategy on the raise, but she didn`t want to miss out on the adventure that was about to start. From previous experience, she knew they could be called upon to save the world from the vicious thuggery of aliens. Or, from the historical mayhem caused by time travelers trying to improve their family tree by changing ancestors. She decided to stay with her plan. “Well, I’d like to stick around and help, but I have a job interview.”

     “What?” Sid blinked in surprise. “With who?”

     “My father got me an interview with a sleazy lawyer who does work for the Brooklyn mob.” She smiled at him. “The job pays a lot of money. To buy my silence, I suppose.” Her father worked as a ...

Of Kate, and Love, and the Faraway Door

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 13:30:50 GMT

The mechanical spermatozoa met the polyvinyl ovum towards the top of the steel fallopian ducts. The female felt the heat of the fusion within her titanium womb. The male dripped perspiration oil down upon her from his rusted brow. When, moments later, the female felt the Newly Created suckling upon her energy, she signaled to the male that he should retract his metallic proboscis.

‘Is it done?’ said the male.

The female nodded. She knew the male had no need to breathe, yet still it seemed he panted the words. The oil glistened upon his brow. She sighed. ‘And so soon. Who would think mating might be so… efficient?’

The male frowned. ‘Twenty-three-point-two-nanoseconds is not enough for you? No other female has complained.’

The female stood to retrieve her box-plates from the mating booth table. She fumbled with their fixing-nuts. ‘The timing is sufficient for procreation, yet perhaps there should be something more.’ Her optical lasers scanned the vacant expression upon the male’s face. He was already busy cleaning and rearming his proboscis in preparation for the next impregnation. And she could hear the queue of impatient females waiting beyond the mating booth curtains. ‘Have you never heard of love?’

She saw the male shudder. ‘An urban myth,’ he snarled. ‘Do not speak of such things. Love is not a subject best brought to the mating table.’ He drew back the curtains and motioned her out with a metallic hand. ‘Next!’

‘Is love something to be feared?’

The male stroked his proboscis, protectively, she thought. ‘There’s nothing to fear because there’s no such thing,’ he said. ‘Now, return to your toil house; can’t you see I’m busy?’

Later, as the female stood alone and silent in the recharging pod, her thoughts wandered strange pathways.

She dreamed she walked in meadows. Real sunlight washed over the upturned, golden faces of wild flowers. The air was alive with the rasp of insects. Smells – oh, the wonder of such a sense – the perfumed, spring air so real she could almost believe she had olfactory circuits. The lush grass brushed cool upon her feet.

She felt him stir.

He took her hand in his. His grip was strong, warm, comforting, sensual. She did not know who he was. She never saw his face. He pulled her down amongst the flowers and loved her until the sun dipped and a moon rose and a myriad of stars shone in a cloud-free sky. Imagine, Stars! Together, they lay exhausted, his skin darkened but for a hint of moonlight sheen, the metal of his shoulder misting as she breathed gently upon it. Imagine, breathing! She tasted the oil of perspiration upon his neck and felt the thud of the clock in his chest. And he turned his head to whisper into her aural chamber.

‘Do you know your name, little one?’

‘Name?’ she said, the idea as shocking and alluring to her as what they had just done....

Firestorm

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 13:27:18 GMT

     Kja Port/Sub-Surface Launch Bay 9/Quad 66-Zora:

     “...repeat Aurora 10, your launch is on mandatory standby so power down your engines and idle those stabilizers now! Pilot, this is your final notice.”

     Kendra slapped her visor up. What was the blasted delay here? She was already running late with a hold full of perishables. Fingers twisted around the control sticks. She debated lifting off anyway, buzzing the overhead doors until Tower gave her topside-access.

     But after a moment’s heated contemplation she finally switched off the mains and cycled down the stabs. Sure, she could annoy the Tower enough to get her way – wasn’t that her trait? - but the second she landed Airspace Administration would rain fines upon her. Like she needed that headache. “Kja, this is Aurora 10. I am in full compliance. Now would someone mind telling me why in Hades I’m sitting here blowing smoke out my...”

     Tower cut her off. “That information is classified.”

     She swore in her native Gypsy tongue. “On whose vshdykii authority?”

     “Admin Security. You are to maintain present status until further instructions. Any attempt to override will result in immediate forfeiture of license.”

     “Yeah yeah yeah.” No sooner had she slumped back into her chair when a warning light went off on the console, instantly straightening her spine. Someone had overridden the airlocks and was playing around in the hold. She switched on the rear monitors and saw, incredulously, Tower had them all blacked out.

     Kendra keyed her mike. “Um, Tower? Somebody better start telling me what’s going on in the back of my ship before I rev this pad right into the red.”

     Dead air. She imagined the controller she’d been speaking to scrambling to the shift manager, who in turn would go fetch the quad supervisor, fast. They might keep her bay doors shuttered tight but they couldn’t keep her from overheating the launch site she was sitting on with a prolonged idle.

     Finally: “Aurora 10, there’s been an interruption of flight plan due to alteration of present cargo load.”

     “What?” She turned in her seat now, trying to catch a glimpse of the loading dock out the cabin window. “Are your circuits fried, Tower? This is a Level One Flight. I’m hauling foodstuffs to Shaft 9! Look at the manifest, you m...”

     The comm went dark, the conversation terminated. Wonderful. Now on top of desert travel and the threat of firestorms, she had to contend with hauling Administration goodies, which of cours...

Taming KItty

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 08:05:03 GMT

     Truth be told, I loved them.  Their long front legs, short back, elongated spine, their intelligence, but most of all I loved their hate.  Oh how the little monsters could hate.
     I’m a molecular biologist.  Actually that’s not right.  A molecular biologist spends his or her time in the lab developing new ideas, discovering things, hopefully making the world a better place.  The better name for me would be genetic engineer.

     But don’t let anyone tell you I’m not creative, no-sir-ree. You wouldn’t think that if you saw my latest creation.  They were beautiful, perfect and performed exactly as required by the specification.  It isn’t my fault the specification was wrong.

     They had to pin it on someone though.  Told me I had to make it right.  "What was right?"  I asked.  I got no answer to that question.  Just like they couldn’t make a decent specification, they couldn’t tell me what I had to do to fix it.  They did say I had to go in and try to figure something out.

     "Alone?"  I asked.

     "Of course not," they said.  "That would be suicide."  They gave me a SWAT Team to protect me while I worked my magic.

     I suppose if you wanted to blame anything, it would be the so-called super rat.  Products of twentieth century urbanization and chemistry, the super rat was nothing more than a typical Norwegian rat that had evolved to a larger size and was resistant to most poisons.  They bred fast and soon became unstoppable.  The little beasts practically took over lower Manhattan.

     The City tried poisons, diseases, parasites, nothing worked.  The creatures evolved around whatever the Department of Sanitation could throw at them.

     Then someone came up with the bright idea of natural controls.  Lady bugs are used to control aphids; why not a predator to control the rats?

     At first they went to nature.  Some idiot tried Peregrine Falcons.  That didn’t work.  Falcons eat other birds.  After a couple of months most of the pigeons in the city were either dead or gone.  It was a great idea but not exactly what the doctor ordered.

     Then they tried Red Tail Hawks.  I’m convinced that someone in the Department had a raptor fixation.  That same someone apparently wasn’t terribly interested in reading any books about bird beha...

Red For Revenge

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:08:13 GMT

     She looked over her shoulder at the gathering gloom and pulled her cloak tighter around her body, juggling the light load of shopping she carried.  She knew the deep red of the cloak made her more visible to the predators that roamed the road between the town and small cottage, but it was the warmest garment she owned and her bright red hair would have given her away as well.

     Her steps quickened as she approached the small stone cottage.  There were no lights coming from the windows.  She frowned and pulled a heavy brass key on a string from under her blouse.  She found the door unlocked.  She stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

     "Grandmother?" she said in a hushed voice.

     "I`m afraid your grandmother can no longer hear you."

     She shrieked and jumped, nearly dropping the basket.  "Who`s there?"

     A lamp flared to life, revealing a thin, wiry man with glasses sitting on the couch.  His brown hair was slicked back, his white shirt nearly glowing and buttoned fully up the neck.

     "Mr. Garou?"

     "Good evening, Miss Redmond.  Bringing food and medicine to your poor old grandmother?"

     "Y-yes, s-sir," she said, trembling.  Red had been warned away from the town banker by several of her schoolmates, boys and girls both.

     Mr. Garou stood and stepped toward her.  The smile on his face failed to reach his dark brown eyes.  "Unfortunately, you`ve come too late, my child."

     "W-what have you done to my grandmother?"

     The man`s eyebrows lifted up. "Whatever makes you think I would do anything to harm your grandmother?  I came to discuss your future with her.  Everyone knows she`s been very ill since you arrived here.  I wanted to insure you were provided for in the event that she should pass away.  Since you have no other family, I came to offer to make you my ward should something tragic happen.  We wouldn`t want you to be an unfortunate orphan cast out on the streets, would we?  Life is so uncertain here in the outlands."  He peered over his glasses at her.  "It seems I was too late.  She passed away in her sleep."

     Clutching the basket of shopping close to her body, Red slipped past Mr. Garou into the small bedroom.

     A still form in a thin housecoat lay on the bed...

Amnesty

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:03:47 GMT

     "Amnesty."

     Sjkeet did not understand the word, but it was what everyone said when they mentioned how her father was coming home.  She was ten now and it had been six years since he left.  If this amnesty it brought her father home from the war, it had to be a good thing.

     She was at the station when his transport landed.  An ice storm was raging outside in the Rhean atmosphere.  It made the landing tough, but any regular Rhean transport pilot had to navigate the ammonia winds a dozen times each month.  A series of bone-rattling clicks and thumps signalled the arrival of the mag-rail that ferried every shuttle from the runway on the surface to the airlocks beneath the ice.

     The doorway was surrounded by anyone of any importance from the station.  The Rhean Chief Engineer Likal stood by the terminal, nervously rubbing his chin while his wife held a fresh stack of nutria-rations.   To their left and right were lines of well-wishers that folded together when the door opened.  Jkako, whom Sjkeet called uncle, stood near the door, but his head slung low over his chest.    The crowd formed a long gauntlet of handshaking and hugging folk the likes of which Rhea had never seen.

     Sjkeet stood on her tiptoes and craned her neck, but could not see in the crowded tunnel. The lock slid open with a hiss, greeting each of them with a blast of cold from the ship's hull.   She jumped as high as she could and stole a glimpse of the top of her father's head when he stepped out.  She tried to cut through the crowd, but it was too thick.  Instead she raced to the back of the line, jumping in line at the end.  She leaned in and looked down the long tunnel filled with people.  He had been twice her size when he left, but now he seemed smaller.  He was wearing the same miner's uniform he wore when he left, but it seemed a few sizes too big now.  The sleeves of his jumpsuit, once ready to burst from his muscles, now hung loose from his shoulders.  He moved slower and stiffer than she remembered, and favored his right leg a bit.

     Her father shook every hand he could grab and took more than a few hearty slaps on the back and shoulders.  He was a hero, just like she remembered. Before he left, he promised to make her proud.  He had been her hero, a premier ice engineer at the station.  When they asked for strong, brave men to join the service, she knew his answer.  She had beamed with pride when he walked onto the shuttle so long ago and now her face glowed twice as bright.

  ...

The Price of Possibility

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

Fulmo and Staab finished the knots on the rope binding the woman's hands behind her back. She'd fought until they'd got the blindfold on, then settled down, only whimpering sometimes.

The man with her wasn't so easy. Fulmo's other two men, Keeg and Lite-Oh, had finally got him bound and gagged and carried him into the dark woods. Staab followed them, dragging the woman. Fulmo turned to face Angles, his mouth grim and his eyes challenging.

Nausea still squirmed in Angles' belly. "I'm sick of this."

Fulmo peered at him through the dusk. "So? You out now?"

Angles kneaded his temples. He couldn’t leave Fulmo, he owed him more than a human being could repay.

Fulmo flapped a hand. His grimy face shined like pewter in the failing light. "C'mon, Angles, you're not going to strike off alone out there."

Angles groaned. "Out there": Beyond the protective woods encircling the dead university campus. Out there the darkness made you ache for lights, but if you saw any, you ran for cover. Out there the River City gang were closing in; they knew that from radio chatter. Angles' shoulders slumped, and he nodded. "Let's get it over with, then."

Fulmo led the way back to the center of campus, through their secret access into the old Engineering building. They tramped through the echoing, pitch-black halls by memory to the “Alternate Universe” lab wing. Fulmo swung the interrogation room door open and sauntered through.

Keeg stood behind the tripod-mounted video camera fiddling with its controls. The low-watt light from a rack on the wall threw his bony face and wild, spiky hair into startling relief.

Sky Shadow

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

Ocean waves writhing beneath him, Damon steered his skybike upward. Slicing through the clouds, he soared up toward the floating city of Aeropolis.

He raced past the circular towers of fibersteel and plastiglass to Osland Worldwide. A circular door on the building’s side blinked open like an eye and Damon glided into the docking bay to land.

Pulling off his silver, bullet-shaped helmet, he hung it on his bike’s handlebars, then grabbed his package satchel from out of the trunk. Before rushing off, he proudly looked his skybike over.

It resembled the classic land motorcycles people had ridden for centuries. Aerodynamic and thin, it gleamed all silvery-gray but for the white seat and handlebars. Where there should have been wheels at the front and back, twin anti-gravity thrusters stuck out.

Damon knew he hardly looked like the stereotypical daredevil skybiker. With short, black hair and startling blue eyes, he stood tall and lanky with a deceptively lazy haze to his face.

Between college semesters, his father had given him a summer courier’s job. It paid well and gave Damon a foot-in-the-door at Jandrek Air, the company his father owned.

Almost everyone expected Damon to run the company himself someday. Right now though, he couldn’t imagine being trapped behind a desk and a never-ending mountain of paperwork when he could hit the skies.

Brushing off his short, silver flight jacket, package in hand, he checked in with the secretary. Then he took the elevator up and stepped out into the penthouse office.

Monitors dominated the walls. Stock market updates, world news, and a bevy of statistics flooded their scr...

The Roaster

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

The pale rings of the blue/white gas giant stretched across a cloudy blue sky, half-lost in the white glare of a flaring sun, adorned by the crescents of three moons.

The Skraal broke the icy waters, roaring as it rose majestically, the midday sun gleaming off its smooth indigo flanks. Gene 47 gaped down from the hover platform. By the Void, what a titan. 30 meters from maw to tail. The harpoon gun lurched in Gene’s hands. He saw the harpoon strike its mark, just behind the beast’s fourth tentacle, dark purple blood frothing on the waves. He shouted the Skraaler’s cry as the harpoon line played out. He braced himself as his harness tightened, pulling him from his perch. He flipped the switch at his belt, and his glide wings snapped open. He sailed high above the glacial ocean in the moon’s low gravity, the icy wind cutting through his thermal suit, and into his bones like a laser. He snapped open his harness and free-fell the 10 meters or so toward the choppy waters below. The sun glittered off the distant ice flows. He tucked his legs and hit the water like an ice boulder.

He swam to the surface and whooped with joy, the hunt like fire in his blood. Suddenly, inexplicably, the Skraal turned. All eight of the monster’s clawed tentacles reared up, reaching 30 feet into the air. Gene's eyes froze. The harpoon lines of the other Skraaler men in Gene’s crew tangled about the tentacles as men tumbled from the air, some falling to their deaths on the Skraal’s razor-sharp claws. He heard their screams of pain over the radio link, and it sickened him. The creature let out a bone-rattling roar as it turned toward Gene. His marrow turned to ice as the Skraal’s maw yawned to its 5-meter width, twelve rows of crystalline fangs sparkling blue with static electricity as all four of the monster’s titanic jaws closed over Gene’s head.

He dove, gunning the water jets, and made for the rapidly closing crack of open sea in front of him. The fangs closed in on him like twin beds of steel spikes. Artemis, don’t let me die before I’ve scored with that luscious concubine on T-4 station, his thoughts raced. A plan quickly formed. He drew his siphon and triggered the spring, the pole snapping open to its full two meters. He felt an electrical tingle through his glove as the animal’s fangs clamped down on the s...

One Man's Paradise

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

When John Kilgore finally crested the steep hummock, he dropped his heavy pack and leaned against a smooth, silvery tree trunk to catch his breath. Mopping the sweat from his face, he surveyed the area. Tough, sharp-edged grasses had blocked his view while he’d been hiking below, but now he could see that he was perched on a tiny island of firm ground that rose like a wart from the surrounding marsh.

He marveled at the swamp’s immensity. It spread in all directions, a vast green-colored space, nearly featureless save for a scattering of trees that stretched above the grass. Take a wrong turn from the trail, Kilgore thought, and you’d never find your way back.

That thought was immediately followed by concern for Dr. Sanchez. He had thought she was right behind him, but now he couldn’t spot her. He shielded his eyes against the sun’s glare and scanned the area below, concerned that the doctor might have strayed from the trail and was now wallowing through the thigh-high muck. Though it seemed inconceivable to him that the psychologist could have lost her way, Kilgore had worked with her a few times before and knew better. Like most people born and bred on space stations, she found on-world navigation frustrating and disorienting.

To his relief, Kilgore saw the grasses below him tremble and glimpsed the turquoise clip Dr. Sanchez had used to fasten her hair. A moment later she was stumbling up onto the rise.

Dr. Sanchez dropped her pack and sat on it. Her regulation khakis were already rumpled and mud stained. “God, I hate this place.” She took off her boots and peeled down her heavy socks. Her calves were speckled with angry bites. Since leaving the shuttle, she and Kilgore had passed through clouds of insects that rose like fog from the marsh. “The repellent they gave us at the station doesn’t work worth a damn.” She took a tube of medicated lotion from her pocket and rubbed it into her skin.

“No,” he agreed. He lightly touched his sweaty neck, feeling the rising welts from his own insect bites. “Instead of chasing them off, I think it sends up a signal ...

Anonymous World

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

The truck swerved, barely missing my car, its driver mouthing obscenities.

"What a grotesque caricature of a human being."

"Newark is full of them," I agreed.

"How do you account for that?"

"What do you mean?"

We parked in our usual spot in front of Charles Pascal's 2-D theater, an anachronism among the super-multiplex-aramas and their hordes of wanna-be-hip teenagers, like the ones lined up at the new theater across the street. There was no line for the 2-Ds. The marquee announced two films: "Replacement Killers" and "Risky Business." We bought tickets for "Replacement Killers" even though we’d seen it four weeks in a row because Tom Cruise made Cyril question his sexuality. Inside, stale popcorn formed puffy mountains behind a glass-paned booth and a carnivaleque sign. I got an extra large with artificial butter that squirted sickly from the machine. I shoved a stack of napkins in my pocket and added a soda to my order. The theater darkened as we entered and found our customary seats. I waved to Steve Compen, a fixture at Pascal’s and the only other patron. Cyril coolly ignored him, the residue of a partially remembered argument.

"I mean, why have we become a nation of churlish savages?" Cyril asked, as always picking up the thread of conversation exactly where we’d left it.

"You presume we have."

"Is there evidence to the contrary?" I didn’t answer. "I didn’t think so," Cyril said.

"Well, maybe your social mores are outdated. Maybe you can’t recognize the pattern of politeness today."

"You presume there is such a pattern."

I hated when Cyril threw my words back in my face. I never knew whether he was baiting me or just entertaining himself. The two were not mutually exclusive: Cyril loved to argue. "There always i...

Hanging Out Weightless With Jake

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

I hung weightless in the void. Swirls of brilliant color and dazzling pinpoints of light appeared in the darkness, trying to awaken me. Failing, they vanished, receding into the dark gray mass of nothingness that comprised my universe. Sounds of distorted whale-song echoed through the tunnels of infinity and toyed with my senses, wrestling with my attention, trying to grapple with my consciousness.

I was having none of it. Instead I drifted away, gliding effortlessly through the emptiness. Waves of happiness flowed through me as I laughed at the ease of my escape. Stars and planets were born, lived their quasi-eternal existence, and expired before my eyes. Entire galaxies unrolled before me, playing out their long, slow cosmic story.

I giggled, thinking it pretty damn funny.

An explosion of light and fury confronted me, then slowly dispersed into swirls of color that danced before my eyes. The colors swayed to and fro against the backdrop of absolute darkness, then came together into shapeless forms. Intrigued, I studied the forms, trying to force them to resolve into a discernable object.

My efforts were rewarded as the brilliant colors coalesced, adhering to one another, becoming a shape that flirted with the edges of my memory.

Then I had it. I knew the answer. The shape was a shirt. A Hawaiian shirt, to be precise. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, trying to make it disappear. When I opened them, though, I beheld tan girls wearing hula skirts surfing on white boards through swirls of bright blue ocean, all against giant orange panels of sunlight.

My giggle broke into open laughter.

“IIIIISSSSS HHHHHHEEEEEE OOOOOKKKKAAAAAYYYYYY?” I heard a distant voice query.

I lost all control, laughing hysterically. The thought of someone wearing a Hawaiian shi...

Identity Theft

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

Jason Norton loved Paris, but he was bored, again. He swallowed the remains of his Tanqueray and Tonic and slid off the barstool. Saluting the bartender, he said: "Au revoir, mon ami." Then he walked out of the Paris Hotel Ritz and into a crowded street in Mexico City.

Suddenly, he was on a safari in Kenya.

And then, he was strolling along the Golden Coast of Alagoas in Brazil. With each step he passed through another possibility of himself. That was his gift.

He paused on his journey long enough to be the Jason Norton who was about to make love to Dahlia Todd for the first time. This version of himself had met the redheaded beauty while ordering a cappuccino at the upscale cafe in Soho that she managed. She was nearly the same as the Dahlia that he had met, for another first time, last week in Kansas City. All the first times with Dahlia were special. In any reality.

When he was done with New York, he took possession of an aspect that had an apartment in London. He pulled open the door and found a brightly painted yellow brick wall barring his entrance. He reached out and ran his hand down the coarse bricks. The yellow paint felt curiously warm as it began to ooze from the wall onto his fingertips. He gasped and snatched his hand back.

Then the wall began to pulse and shimmer and creep forward. Jason nearly tripped stepping backward to avoid another contact. Reflexively, he shifted through waves of possibilities until he found himself walking down the Ginza in Tokyo. He turned to cross the street, but the yellow brick wall suddenly appeared, blocking his path. It was the same wall that had appeared in London, only now the shimmer was brighter, the pulsing more rhythmic. It was growing.

And nobody noticed, but him.

He shifted possibilities to Cleveland where, as a 4-year-old boy, he pedaled his tricycle up the driveway to his parents' house. He looked over his shoulder to see the wall darkening the sky with its height. ...

MasSiv

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

The grinding of siv-wheels and the decaying alley urged Jimel to sprint faster. His running figure could be seen only from the greasy restaurant windows and the deserted fruit stalls, but thermal sensors, could still find him in an instant. Causeways shadowed the alleys while the Foundation buildings blocked out direct sunlight, turning the light around him gray. If the situation had not been so dire, he might have remembered a science vid he had watched as a child. It had explained that when century-old scientists wanted to gather certain biological data, they sometimes used a furry white animal called a rat. When they wanted to see what made the rat tick, they would force it to run a maze. But that was hundreds of years ago, and Hive wasn’t a maze; it was a labyrinth.

As sweat poured down his brow, he cursed his ancestors. Why hadn’t they remained in the Farlange Province? Why did they have to set up shop in this scumhole?

But before he even asked himself this, Jimel had known the answer. His ancestors had moved in hopes of the prosperity that Hive would bring. Prosperity! What a sick thought. There was only one life for the miners, and it was down on the streets of Foundation.

Absorbed in his own thoughts, he’d almost missed what he had been looking for. Skittering to a stop, he threw open a latch to the easternmost part of the Osham. It was either this or the sivs. He hoped the gangs were doing all right.

Hive was the biggest city in the Sho’oh Province, and it was famous for three things: gangs, mines, and mutants.

Expediting Bob's Cargo

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

I really should have known better, even back then. It’s not like I was some bright-eyed cadet, straight out of the academy, anymore. Heck, It wasn’t even like I was still a corporate pilot, my head full of regulations, blindly believing in the system. Not, at least, since I had been court-martialed, cashiered, bankrupted and fired by OmegaCorp, anyway. The four years since the trial had taught me plenty about the seamier side of things, about how life really worked. I really, really should have known better.

The thing was, I needed the extra money, badly. I was working on the docks, at the time, and living in the station’s public dorms. Have you ever seen the public dorms? More importantly, have you ever smelled the public dorms? I am not the most fastidious person in the world, but it’s really scary when foliage grows on the plasteel deck under more than half of the bunks. (and no, it wasn’t some hydroponics experiment, it was just gross) I won’t even go into how many things are wrong with open bay showers. It’s okay for young kids, out on their own for the first time, I guess, but I was over thirty. I had to get out, so I was trying to save up enough money to get my own place.

Since my recent promotion to foreman, my salary would cover the rent on a small one room unit in the run down sector near the docks, theoretically, at least. The problem was, I needed the first and last month’s rent, plus a damage deposit. A damage deposit, when the walls and floors are bare plasteel! I mean, what was I going to break? So anyway, I needed the money badly, otherwise I would never have agreed to Bob’s little deal.

Plus, there was this girl, Dixie. She had long blond hair, a really nice smile, and a pair of really beautiful, enormous, uh, eyes. She was the sexiest waitress at the Blue Water Hole, a dockside bar in Blue sector where I liked to stop for a drink or six after work.

“Hey Jake, want another one?” she asked, as she leaned over to take my empty glass, giving me an excell...

Lava Runners

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

The digital clock on Foucault’s desk blinked: seventy-eight minutes until race time. The Frenchman sat behind his desk, rocking gently in a cushioned recliner. A large, muscular man in a pinstriped suit stood to the right of him, watching behind dark glasses. “Pay,” Foucault said.

Vernon Mathers, standing in front of the desk, shrank back from the one word verbal assault. “I don’t have it.”

Increasing the haze in the office, Foucault puffed once, twice, and again on his Turkish cigarette. The haze added to Foucault’s mystique and obscured his already dark features, his mass of thick brown hair, his tweed suit pocked with burn marks from dropped cigarettes he dismissed as hazards of the hobby. “Then we have a problem,” Foucault said. The smoke irritated the tic in his left eye, yet he puffed away.

Turning his head but not escaping Foucault’s gaze, Vernon said quickly, bunching his words together, “There’s no problem, Mr. Foucault. No problem at all.”

“And why is that?”

“I can get the money. Soon. Very soon. After the race.”

Foucault reveled in the groveling of washed up gamblers. He found the persistent begging of one who could not pay when the collector called erotic--perhaps the pools of sweat dampening the underarms of Vernon’s teal Surf Hawaii T-shirt awoke the urge, or perhaps it was the one lone sweat bead caught in his right eyebrow threatening to dislodge and streak down his cheek. If it was anyone else, Foucault would be tempted for an exchange, but not for Vernon. Definitely not. “This is your last race.”

...

The Stages of Healing

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

Karen’s first thought that night was of murder, as it had been every night since. This was the third time she had awoken, but the first that she deemed it finally dark enough to chance leaving her shelter. For a full ten minutes she lay silent, not daring to move until completely convinced nothing was stirring nearby. When she gained enough confidence that there was no immediate danger, Karen slid gingerly out from beneath her tarp, careful not to dislodge its camouflage coating of dirt, dust, and shattered stone.

It had rained while she slept, so a rancid, sour smell assaulted her nostrils. Her hovel boasted three walls still standing beneath almost half a roof, but the heat of a summer’s day still hung out in the dead evening air like an unwanted guest at the dining room table and it strengthened the scent of her thriving mildew.

Karen thought this place might have been an office building, before, but now it was just a burnt and battered wreck. Like everything else left in Mayfair.

She crawled quickly over the crumbled wall and, dropping down into shadow, scanned for movement amidst the scattered debris littering the alleyway. Finding none, she crept cautiously and quietly along the building’s edge until she reached Broad Street. She sprinted madly across and dove head-first and panting beneath some shrubbery on the opposite side, thinking how a woman really shouldn’t have to do this sort of thing in her forties. What she found odd was the continued urge to stop and look both ways before crossing. As if she’d encounter any traffic that obeyed the rules of the road.

When nothing reacted to her passing, she took

A small section of her mind suggested that if the New Plan played out as well as the Old Plan had, she’d almost certainly be dead before morning. She paid it little heed, however- the New Plan had to work- she was sure she’d taken everything into account this time.

Regardless of her desires, she would need to

Once she had been lucky enough to stone a stray dog that had been ostracized by its pack, but it had been old and stringy, and provided much...

Terrible Forming

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

As soon as he saw Arturo’s face, Erewant knew that the news from Earth was going to be bad.

The Ambassador, seated in a containment tank so that the impure empathic residue from his trip to the mother world would not contaminate the others, had never looked so careworn. Erewant had known Arturo all his life and for the first time he realized that the diplomat was an old man. Undoubtedly the ordeal of visiting Earth, interacting constantly with the Earth people and their uncontrolled minds, had taken its toll on the Ambassador’s strength.

They observed the social proprieties and didn’t speak of the Ambassador’s mission until the arrival of General Hilyard and First Science Advisor Maddox, at which time Erewant in his official role as head of the governing Triumvirate commanded Arturo to report.

"There is nothing to report," said Arturo, and they shuddered at the wave of despair that emanated from him, so strong that even the containment tank could not fully shield them from it.

"Nothing," repeated Hilyard, as if struggling to grasp the import of that solitary word.

"My mission was a complete failure. Abraham Diktor’s terms remain unchanged and non-negotiable. Unconditional surrender and the dismantling of all our defenses. Reversal of all genetic changes. Compulsory sterilization where reversal is not possible and confinement to the planet Erebus."

"That mud ball!" spat Hilyard. "It will mean the extinction of the Kind within a generation."

&...

Killing Myself Has Changed My Life

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

It has been almost a year since I killed myself. I've been through some tough times since then, as you might expect, but I'm feeling much better now. Hopeful.

I first met Elaine at a resort in Idaho that our government operates for those of us who need a secure place to blow off steam. I was unwinding from negotiating a treaty with a Liberian company that claimed to own clear title to Saturn's outermost moon, Pan. The bank they'd built there had quickly become the money-laundering capital of the entire solar system.

After two days of meditation and meals of organic sawdust and leaves, I'd taken to spending most of my time in the bar. The alcohol made short work of the knots in my back, and I was relaxed and ready for companionship by the time she walked in, between my fourth and fifth drink, or maybe it was the fifth and sixth.

Elaine could have been beautiful, in the same way any decent chunk of marble could become the Pieta. Her severe haircut and baggy jumpsuit concealed her potential, but I was taken by the graceful way she moved. Being no Adonis myself, I kept my eye on her as she crossed the room.

She took a desultory route to an empty table in the back, well removed from the rest of us. Before the waiter could reach her, though, she moved a table closer. A minute later, she moved up another table. I felt like I was watching the tide come in.

Having been lonely most of my life, I've always been drawn to women that appear adrift. "Would you care to join me for a drink?" I asked when she reached the table next to mine.

She seemed taken aback. "Me?"

I shoved an empty chair toward her with my foot. "Just until your friends show up? I'm Stu, by the way."

She nodded and sat down, stiffly, as though facing a court-martial.

"I'm harmless," I assured her. "What would you like to drink?"

"Alcohol?"

"Yes, alcohol. What's your pleasure?"

"Alcohol. I'm sorry, but I don't know anything about alcoholic drinks."

"You're in luck. I happen to be an expert. Let ...

How Lonesome a Life Without Nerve Gas

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

The first thing I remember is my master, Mickey Halstrom, picking me up from the heap of other smart-helms. I activated at the first touch of human skin and imprinted within seconds to his genetic signature. A rough voice barked out a series of commands and Mickey pulled me over his head. I expanded to meet the shape of his skull and tightened my pads over the base of his neck. My filters hung like a beard over his chest.

Finally, active duty. A soldier who breathes is a soldier who lives, and it was my job to keep Mickey breathing no matter what foul toxins those spineless Martian rebels put in his way. Oh, the children of the empire are marching. . . .

Yes, your honor. I know your time is valuable.

Sergeant Pinsky ordered the soldiers to stand in rows. They looked sturdy as tanks in their metallic c-boots and gleaming smart-helms. He drilled them in the use of their new equipment and I showed off my repertoire with style. Flexible-spectrum viewing, check. Long-range directional hearing, check. Search of surroundings for airborne projectiles, check. Pinsky went through the ranks, testing to see if every soldier’s mask was tightly fitted, then pulled one on himself. He hit a switch on the wall and I heard the hiss of gas. I tested the air with my sensors and found something that made my mass spectrometers quiver with delight.

Nerve gas! I activated my seven layers of microcentrifugal filters and sucked every molecule of poison from the air. I then rendered it inert by mixing it with alkaline compounds and extruded the inert mixture from an orifice on the back of my carapace in the form of a chalky pellet.

Meanwhile, I dusted the clean air with oxygen and a hint of pine forest. Nothing but the finest for my master. Or, that’s how I felt at the time. One never knows in the beginning just how one’s feelings for a person will blossom or wilt with the passing of the hours.

But what a soldier he was. Mickey Halstrom is the only person I have known in the intimate way that a smart-helm knows the one whose head he protects. He had a long, flat skull, the partial baldness of which only displayed its smoothness more clearly. Its shape reminded me of an old wooden box that might contain unknown treasures.

Really, your honor? I thought it was a fine metaphor. Simple, yet evocative. Mic...

Herald's Destiny

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

"Other than a lot of localized debris fields, there's not much out there, Sir," Commander Jason Drake reported. "The Interdiction Zone is, as far as we can tell, empty of any discernible threat. We're now re-calibrating for high-res scans, which should be initiated by 0600 hours tomorrow. We'll know more once those start coming in."

Captain Lassiter steepled his fingertips. "I should hope so, Commander. There’s a reason we keep losing vessels in this quadrant. It's up to us to find it."

"Yes, Sir," Drake replied tightly.

With a sigh, the Captain leaned back in his chair. "Don't misunderstand me, Commander. You're doing incredible work in mapping this quadrant - no one's come even close to the comprehensive job you're doing. This mission will go a long way toward securing our borders. Keep this up and you'll be sitting in your own command chair very soon."

"Just doing my duty, Sir."

"Nevertheless, I have no doubt that you'll have a long and honorable career in command of your own vessel."

"Thank you, Sir."

"Dismissed."

Drake saluted crisply and left the Captain's office, the hatch sliding smoothly shut behind him. He headed down the narrow corridor toward his own quarters, exhilaration momentarily overcoming his exhaustion. He'd long dre...

The Cartoonist

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

For as long as he could remember Danny Swerdlof's life had revolved around Comic books. He learned to read from them as a child, his senses of form and of color and even his attitudes toward truth, justice and the American way was Comics Code Authority approved. What the buffalo had been to the Native Americans, comic books were to Danny.

It was little wonder then that Danny's chief goal in life was to be a full-fledged comic book artist.

High school notebooks that should have held multiplication tables were filled with tiny caped figures that fenced, or fought, or flew from one spiral hole to the next. He chose art school as a natural course for his budding talent, but comic books filled his head and his drawing pads beyond the endurance of his instructors, which forced an early, if strategic withdrawal. It was never line or shadow that moved Danny's brush, only his comic book characters. He left his mark on the school, however, in the form of a full color five foot high cowled avenger inside the last stall in a second floor bathroom. Pratt would never be the same.

Parental disagreement over the wisdom of Danny's untimely departure from the world of Academia led to the single greatest change in young Danny's life; he moved out of their quiet Brooklyn apartment into a noisy East Village one. From then on his chief concern was depriving the neighborhood roaches of his complete set of Mac Raboy's Green Lama Comics---a tasty morsel by any insect's standards.

At nineteen Danny was awkward, acned, underfed, and lining alone. His East Side apartment would have made most shudder at the rampant decay. There was every reason in the world he should have been depressed; but he wasn't. He wore his dreams like a coating of Rustoleum.

He knew he would draw comic books one day, without a doubt he knew it. All he had to do was save his money and improve his style until he could afford the Kubert School of Comic Book Art's tuition. So the apartment was a little shoddy, he reasoned, it was only five hundred bucks a month.

For Love of Humanity Not

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

The recessed lights in the curved ceiling flickered as Kalin Duval made his way through the murky corridors, heading for his cyclic nightly duty as bartender in the dingy lounge of Asteria. He shook his head in disgust at the ineptitude of the techs—how hard was it to keep the power at a constant level? Of course, if you believed the brochures, this hollowed out rock had been in operation for over 100 years and at least a quarter of that time it was practically deserted. Until the AI war was over, no one felt safe on any facility not protected by the military. Despite the constant fear of destruction, Asteria had survived with minimal maintenance and crew and it was still in operation. It would take a lot of work to get it back in shape, but still…

Turning a corner his left knee locked up again and his off-kilter forward motion spun him into the rough-hewn wall. Crap! He despised techs in general—couldn’t fix a simple power supply problem or a malfunctioning servo! This close he could see the striations and air pockets in the rock wall of the asteroid. Too low of a power setting on the mining lasers, Kalin mused to himself, reaching down to massage his knee joint. Another mark against dim-witted technicians—can’t they do anything right? Abandoning the gentle massaging that didn’t seem to be helping, he resorted to several solid thumps to the affected area. His knee loosened up and he was on his way again. In the dim light he passed door after door to so-called ‘luxury suites’ that should have been painted years ago, and would probably wait for years more before seeing any. What a dump!

Entering the lounge from the hallway he saw Julio talking animatedly with a customer over the chipped and gouged antique bar. Kalin was a little jealous of Julio and his apparent ease with social situations. He had yet to see a creature that didn’t take to Julio immediately and treat him as a long lost friend. Why couldn’t he get along with people like that? It would sure make a difference in tips. Julio more than doubled his pay with the tips he brought in. Kalin was barely able to survive on the paltry wages and the few tips he earned. He shook his head in grudging admiration as he made hi...

The Invaders

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

         Fifteen year old Trent Hansen awakened and slowly opened his eyes. He didn’t know what time it was when he had finally drifted off to sleep. It was hard to get any sleep when you lived in fear. His head hurt from the feeling of just getting enough sleep to make you want more. He focused his eyes on the strip of light peeking through the curtains. They had survived another night. How much longer would they be able to? Everything was different now, ever since “they” had arrived. People now lived in constant fear of being taken.
         Trent jumped out of bed and began getting dressed. There was going to be a town meeting this morning to discuss what could be done. The cities had already been hit. How much longer until they came to Rhode Island? How much longer until they came to the small towns? “The Invaders,” as they had come to be called, were slowly taking over the Earth. They brainwashed humans and claimed them by simply placing a small silver bracelet around their wrists. The significance of the bracelet was unknown, but it was clear that anyone who wore it had “crossed over” to the Invaders.
         Trent went downstairs to find his parents. They needed to get to the town hall. As he made his way down the stairs, he sensed something was wrong. An eerie silence pervaded the house. He could hear no sounds from his parents and yet he knew he was not alone. He reached the bottom of the staircase and turned to enter the kitchen. The sight that met him there made his heart drop to his stomach. His parents stood in the kitchen staring blank eyed ahead, both of them wearing the thin silver bracelet of imprisonment around their wrists. The bracelets were a hideous reminder that the Invader’s brainwashing techniques were too strong to fight and Trent knew that his parents were now with them. A shadow suddenly passed over the doorway. The next thing Trent knew an Invader had silently glided through it and was now facing him. For a split second he stared into its blank, expressionless face. Its large eyes were like two chasms of infinite darkness. It’s thick, gray skin, and hideous nose with slits for nostrils, made it devoid of human qualities. It was tall and strong, filling the entrance in which it now stood. Trent quickly turned away from the dark chasms and bolted through the house to the front door. It was locked and his fingers shook as he flipped the lock and opened the door. He turned before leaving and saw the Invader moving towards him. He dashed out the door and ran across the yard, not daring to look back. What would he see if he did? Would th...

Skinner

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

   From the moment Martin Bracken disembarked, he disliked Volare 5. What he

could see confirmed what he had heard about the planet: dark, rocky, barren. Uneasiness

filled him, tightening his chest, constricting his breathing. Volare 5 was one of six of its

type scattered around a quadrant of the galaxy, with an unstable core that moved tectonic

plates around at an alarming pace, accompanied by frequent tremors. The Central

Planetary Union hadn’t been sure what to do with these strange, ugly little worlds, so

finally made them recreational destinations, where members of humanity went for

unusual games and sports.

   Martin didn’t want to be there. An operations inspector for the CPU, his specialty

was financial auditing. He didn’t know anything about games or sports. And didn’t want

to know. He had just barely heard of Skinner, the one he was supposed to examine.

   None of that mattered. He had gotten the assignment by default because

someone else couldn’t make it. With no related expertise, he knew he’d have to

feel his way carefully. He just wanted to get the damned thing over with and go home.

# # # # # # #

   “Why ‘Skinner’?” Martin said. “Where did that name come from? What does it

mean?”

   He was talking to David Shael, general manager of the facility. The man was

younger than Martin, probably mid-thirties, and Martin didn’t like him any more than he

did the planet itself. Shael was too confident and smiled too much.

“The name came from the PR unit,” Shael said, “so it doesn’t carry a whole lot of

significance. All it means is that people get skinned. Mentally, emotionally. Their

secrets are stripped away and laid out for everyone to see. The viewing audience,

anyway.”

   “How does that happen?”

   “A person goes into a booth. Skinner takes control, mentally and physically.

First, it creates a replica of the person. That’s a full-size exact replica. Then it extracts

information from the person's mind and plays out a series of scenes, using the replica.

These are normally scenes from the person’s past life. Whatever one prefers to keep

hidden, gets revealed. Maybe traumatic incidents that have been blurred in conscious

memory. Or embarrassing moments. All in graphic de...

Dreaming of a Gray Enemy

editor@afterburnsf.com (AfterburnSF.com) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:17:50 GMT

I think I always knew it would end like this. In the end, they win. They always win. Still...this was worse than I had imagined. Some of that was the darkness and the terror, but most of all it was the cold. I had to concentrate so hard to keep my teeth from chattering while I hid.

I was huddled in a damp nook in the cave wall when I heard the second scream echoing from the darkness behind me. That meant that those things had found another one of us. Max? Jenny? It took a long moment for rational thought to penetrate through the layers of grief and panic. That means they’re following the path towards me. I’ve got to get the hell out of here.

This seemed like such a good hiding place. Just ten minutes ago, I thought I was so clever, so lucky, for having found it. Now I was just trying to stop my hands from shaking while I re-loaded the gun.

There were wooden torches maybe every 15 yards or so, good enough to re-load the gun by, but not particularly useful for seeing what was ahead of me or behind me. Saying a silent prayer, I stuck the gun back in my jacket and bounded away in what I was still pretty sure was the direction leading away from the thing that had killed Peter and Max - or was that Peter and Jenny? Please God, don’t let it be Jenny.

I never found out what I stumbled on. I never even knew that anything was in front of me before I felt the stab of pain coursing through my leg. By the time I could think straight, I was nursing the leg in my arms and trying to remember which shots seemed to slow them down. Killing them didn’t seem to be a possibility, at least not with what I had.

The creature came into my field of vision, as if on cue, just as I was standing up again and trying to see if the leg would support my weight. It seemed to be floating a few inches into the air instead of walking, but in this light there was no way to know if its feet ever actually made contact with the ground.

While it was still maybe ten yards away, I pulled my gun out and clicked the safety. I had fired off six or seven shots before the creature waved its strange four-fingered gray hand, and the gun flew out of m...