Video: Final Landing of ‘Atlantis’ Space Shuttle
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Category Archives: Planet Magazine
Kasha Chatham, Alien Fighter-Person, by Katherine Sanger
Illustration (c) 2011 Romeo Esparrago
Oh my god, let me tell you, it was so totally drama! One minute we were just sitting there at the café, drinking our non-fat sugar-free French vanilla lattes, and the next, wham, it was total alien invasion! And Bruce was just vaporized, like he wasn’t even there. Just a puff of smoke. Not even a bone left. And, really, I could have used a bone about then. It had been ages since my last hook-up, and Bruce was just so going to be the next. He had a good job at the Y, a nice Honda, and was totally a hottie with those pecs.
But what was I talking about? That’s right -– total alien invasion or something. I mean, those silver cigar-shaped ships with the flashing red and purple lights appeared, and then those lasers just came blasting down, all kapow and zap zap, and the next thing I knew, I had dived under the table. No joke, under the table! And the wait staff so should have been fired, if they hadn’t all been turned to smoke and stuff, because there was all this gum stuck under there, and the floor was sticky and wet all at the same time. My hands so needed decontamination after that. But, of course, I had to take cover. I mean, even I could tell that coming back out from under that hidey hole would be bad for my health, so instead I just suctioned myself up to the table’s leg and hoped that no breeze blew that cloth into me. All that dieting and all those workouts really paid off because the tablecloth wasn’t even touching me -– totally another reason not be a fat chick, right? I’m sure all of them must have completely perished in that initial purge, not being able to hide and all.
After a while, though, I realized that I so obviously had been spared, whether through my brilliantly quick thinking or the aliens’ knowledge of a superior form when they found one, I wasn’t entirely sure. But I went ahead and unwound myself and peeked out.
The whole balcony was all smoky because of those dead people –- if they could be considered people anymore. I guess they were more like puffs of ex-people. It was all over, like some big cosmic bad date that suddenly realized it just wasn’t going to work out and no one was getting laid that night.
I made my way back through the café — lots of food was left on plates, and I thought about taking some of it, but even if it was about to become the apocalypse or something, I figured a calorie was still a calorie, and I would need to watch my weight. It would be awful hard to get the human race restarted if I gained 10 pounds and couldn’t get a guy interested in me.
God, I have the best willpower.
Giving Thanks, by Katherine Sanger
Illustration (c) 2011 Romeo Esparrago
When the ship crash-landed
on the blue and green planet,
we thought,
at first,
that a terrible tragedy
had befallen us,
and we
had failed.
* * *
But
then we learned
that our mission
was
complete.
* * *
Like the youths of Athena
sent to the mighty Minotaur
we were to be the feast
for the aliens’ yearly tribute.
* * *
Here, though,
there is no maze,
and we merely wait
in a caged yard.
* * *
Turkeys,
waiting for Thanksgiving. *
About the Author: Katherine Sanger has had poetry published in Star*Line, Beginnings, and That Thing You Do. She won first place in Byline’s “Autumn Poem” contest and Sol Magazine’s “Lucky Thirteen” contest. She has had fiction published in Baen’s Universe, Black Petals, and others.
Email: ksanger@fromtheasylum.com
Website: http://katsanger.wordpress.com/
About the Artist: Romeo Esparrago draws stuff.
The Witness, by James Steele
Illustration by Romeo Esparrago
The dying star above me is surrounded by luminous, red gas. I sit down and gaze up at it. The star flickers as it spins, and slowly, gradually, the red cloud spreads. Its shades of red deepen and eventually fade into the blackness of empty space.
I lie down and watch. The star throws off another ring of material, creating a wave in the cloud. It ripples through it in slow-motion crests and troughs that take hundreds of years to reach the edge. The star spins and flings another wave of material out in another direction. A new series of slow ripples push through the nebula.
After a few thousand years, the star calms down into a white speck surrounded by a slowly dissipating cloud. The nebula sets on the horizon of my moon and the sky momentarily goes dark.
The darkness lasts only a few moments, and then the stars begin passing by. They careen silently over my head, casting me in yellow light. Then blue light. Then red. Orange. White. Dull red. So many are going by right now that their light mixes together.
I’m leaving the galaxy. I’m sure of it. After so long I’ve become able to tell where I’m moving to, and if I’m right I’m just now leaving the edge of this galaxy. This must mean there is something I need to witness from the outside.
The moon turns. I wrap my fingers behind my head and prop it up. A swirling mass of blue and red light with twelve arms spinning around a core of pure white is rising on the horizon. The galaxy I just left. It’s shrinking rapidly as the moon speeds away from it. Another galaxy flies over my head into view. It enters the sky next to the galaxy I just came from. The new galaxy has no arms, but is merely an unformed mass of red and white.
The two galaxies soundlessly swirl closer and closer. I can tell from the star orbits that they are perpendicular to each other, with the blue and white galaxy horizontal and the red blob vertical from my point of view. The two swirl closer and closer. The red galaxy cuts into the blue and white galaxy’s paper-thin edge. Stars are pulled from their fixed orbits and flung above and below the blue galaxy’s disc. Red stars are also ripped from their orbits.
Stars collide and explode. The gases collect, condense, and form new stars. Some of these stars explode and release more gas, which condenses into yet more stars. The galaxies grind and cut into each other. Debris stars curl around both galaxies and fall into wide orbits. The cores just barely miss each other, and as the red galaxy reaches the edge of its victim, it slows down.
The red galaxy is pulled backwards. The blue galaxy pulls toward the red one. The two galaxies orbit each other. Stars flail about, orbiting far and wide. Many collide and explode, giving birth to hundreds of new stars. They gradually settle into new orbits, and form new galactic arms. The two cores orbit each other a few hundred light years apart.
Thousands of years pass. Millions. The galaxy has just settled down again. The two galaxies have formed a single galaxy of dark dust swirling between and around clusters of stars.
Then, the two cores collide. The sudden deepening of the gravity well sends a shockwave across the universe. Stars nearest the new black hole are instantly consumed. The core glows brighter with the sudden surge in feeding. The galaxy’s core changes from bright white to bright yellow. It oscillates from white to yellow to red, then to white over the next few million years.
Hard Suit Lock, by Sean Monaghan
Illustration (c) Romeo Esparrago
Andreas smacked into some tubes on the Donkicong’s fuselage, then clipped the edge of the airlock and bounced away slowly. It reminded him a little of watching Willard’s buckled and broken ship tumbling towards the Martian atmosphere.
“What’s the problem, A?” Bayliss said.
“My arm is jammed. I spun out. And I can’t fit into the airlock.”
“Jammed? I’m not reading a suit malfunction. Did you reach the wrong way?”
“I told you I’m used to soft suits.” Andreas used his free hand to adjust the jetpack and realign. His right arm stuck straight out, pointing at Enceladus. The elbow and shoulder rings had locked up and he couldn’t shake them back.
“You’re rated in the suit,” Bayliss said. “You showed me your certificate.”
“He’s always complained about it,” Madeline said. “And now I’m going to have to go out and drag him inside.”
“Hey,” Andreas said. “I’ll get it back. I’ll just reverse the sequence.”
“If it was that easy…” Madeline said.
“Quiet down.”
“I told you he was reckless. We should never have let him on board.”
“Quiet down,” Bayliss said. “But get suited up just in case.”
“Yeah.”
Bayliss wouldn’t fly with handlers in fabric, not since she lost two soft-suited crew to ring particle punctures. Andreas thought she was over-cautious, but he needed the work and she was willing to take a chance on people. He tried to shake the arm loose again. A hard suit was so different from the cloth suits he was used to. It was easier to move, no stiff pressurized layers to press against, but you had to move in sequence and that was the trick, remembering the sequence. Body memory, Madeline said, but she’d been in hard suits for years. You couldn’t just reach for something, you had to move a little left, a little up, a little right, just to get the rings to slide right, even for the simplest movements. That’s what he’d screwed up. Reaching for the Observer crate and the arm had locked. No amount of shaking was going to shift it.
'An Alien's Love' by LB Knowles
"Saphi" (c) GaiaGear / Leo Lin
The Jacques Richarde Building shook. Students and teachers alike considered their escape route, but before they had the time to follow it, the shaking stopped.
“Was that an earthquake?” Madeline Mullaney asked the attractive blonde next to her.
“I think it was an alien landing on the roof,” Maria replied, to the surprise of everyone in the room.
“Just being a cheerleader and a blonde doesn’t give you the right to be a total ditz,” Professor Kottonen told Maria Mulcahy.
Maria hung her head.
“When I was growing up in Lapland, far in the North of Finland, we didn’t have cheerleaders. We only had reindeer. Oh, what a better world that was.” Professor Kottonen smiled to herself.
“Are you kidding me?” Madeline muttered. “We just had an earthquake, and all you can talk about is reindeer?”
“It wasn’t an earthquake,” Maria protested. “It was an alien landing on the roof.”
The Finnish woman at the front of the class, clad in an austere, academic outfit, sighed and shook her head. All of the students knew what was coming next.
“Miss Mulcahy…” she looked at the ceiling thoughtfully. “You are a senior in an American university. You should be proud of how smart you are, but unfortunately…” — she turned her gaze to the startled cheerleader — “you are a total moron.”
“I know it’s…” Maria stammered.
“And how do you know?”
Maria knew that resisting would only get her into more trouble.
“That’s what I thought. Now let us get back to the lecture. Oh, where is my brain today?” she commented with a self-appreciating laugh.
“Faaaarrrr in the North of Finland…” Maria snapped, imitating the accent.
“Maria, Maria, Maria…” the professor said with a sigh. “Get out of my classroom if you are going to be a racist.”
Maria wanted to say more, but she thought of how it would affect more than just this class if she were to continue rebelling. Ultimately, she gathered her books and walked out of the room.
She had not gone far when the sound of a howling wind resonated through the hallway, and yet, she felt no wind at all. She had just walked past the stairway to the third floor when she felt, somehow, wanted.
‘Brain Break’ by Kris Knapp
Corrodel stepped through the telepod, fumbling with his mug and briefcase. He tripped, and hot coffee splashed on his white shirt.
Jobe swiveled in his hover chair and chortled. “Bravo.”
Corrodel sighed and set down his mug and briefcase.
Jobe hovered back around. “Thirty seconds late. Old man Lipston’ll have your head.” He sipped a fizzy drink.
Corrodel wrung out his tie. “Don’t care.”
Jobe shrugged and gnawed at the end of a choco-stick.
Corrodel sighed and tossed his tie aside. “I miss anything?”
“Petunias are in the Garden.” Jobe pointed with his choco-stick. “Your turn to clean out the fertilizer.”
They stared at each other.
Corrodel sighed and pulled on a rubber suit. He went to the cells and the laser bars disappeared.
“Why do we bother with these?” he muttered.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
The human-blob inmates were arranged in uniform rows. Wires and cords ensnared their boneless limbs from the ceiling like strands of a spider web. Fluids pumped into their brains and into their gelatinous arms. He changed out their waste collectors, grumbling.
“Wouldn’t it just be cheaper to execute them?”
Jobe cackled. “Think so? What costs more? Fluids and our wages? Or lawyers, courts, appeals, more appeals…”
Corrodel rolled his eyes. He finished cleaning the collectors, walked through the disinfector and plopped down in a chair in the control room.
Jobe passed him a choco-stick. “See what they’re up to.”
Corrodel kicked his feet back and flipped on the vidscreens.
* * *
Wallach stared at the slice of pizza. Melted cheese bubbled around red saucers of pepperoni. He took a bite.
And spit it out. He shoved the plate away.
“What’s the matter?” Earl sucked on a giant rib. “You love pizza.”
“Tastes grey,” he said.
Earl barked, laughing. “How’s that?”
Wallach looked at the other inmates. They sat around in luxury chairs, eating filet mignon and lobster, drinking champagne and fancy booze. A diamond chandelier hung from the ceiling. Bombshell women and men muscled like Greek gods walked around, serving everything.
“You’ve just eaten it too much,” said Earl. A serving girl walked past. He grabbed her by her apron and wiped sauce from his face and spanked her. “Every day you eat the stuff.”
“Pizza used to be my favorite.” He shrugged. “Nothing tastes right to me.”
Earl shrugged. “Get drunk.”
Wallach stood and walked down the hall to Cell 18. He opened the door.
Scott was lying on a white sand beach. Muscled cabana boys served her drinks and fanned her with huge palms. Her heavy breasts bulged against a scandalously small black bikini. Her black hair was a salty tangle. Her head lolled and she looked at him. “You look pissed, Wally.”
“Want to sex?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. For God’s sake, go have Marilyn Monroe or Cleopatra or whoever.”
“It wouldn’t be real.”
She stretched like a cat. “Like I’m real.” She sat up. “I’m a blob on a chair somewhere. So are you.”
“We’re alive,” he murmured.
“No bones. No real brain. No eyes or teeth. We’re a sack of organs.” She stood and snapped her fingers. The cabana boys moved off.
“I’d rather live like that.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” she said, walking to the water’s edge. “You’re just a little stir crazy. Happens to everyone. Want to build a sand castle?”
He shook his head.
She shrugged and walked into the crystal water. “Some people would kill to have this,” she said.
“So you won’t sex.”
She threw her hands up. Hundreds of naked women appeared on the beach and surrounded him. “Knock yourself out,” she said, and dove beneath a wave.
Wallach pushed through the throngs of women and followed her into the water. She surfaced and he floated beside her. “I’m going to try it,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Lee did it.”
“Lee died.”
“We don’t know that.”
“You don’t know it. The rest of us do.”
“I mean it, Scott.”
She kissed his cheek. “Best of luck.” The water surged all around her. A huge black fin cut through the water. She grabbed it and sped off on the back of a huge whale.
He swam back to shore and climbed back through the orgy of naked women. He went to his room: four grey walls. He snapped his fingers. A leather jacket appeared on his shoulders. A wide-brimmed hat appeared on his head. A pistol appeared in a holster on his belt. He took a deep breath and left his cell.
* * *
“A runner!”
Techs filed into the control room, waving money. They interfaced into the prison computers.
“Two hundred says he doesn’t make it past stage one!”
“Double or nothing says he makes it past stage four!”
“Five hundred on stage three!”
Corrodel put fifty creds in the pot that the runner wouldn’t make it past stage one. Any more and his wife would kill him.
“So what happens if they get past stage five?” said Sendak. He was a new tech with squirrelly cheeks and a big forehead.
“They don’t,” said Jobe, collecting the bets.
“But in theory. What if they do?”
Jobe rolled his eyes and belched. “The prison computers are all wired to the government processors. The ones that run everything on Earth and work at below 1% total capacity. It runs traffic, warrants, strategic defense, interplanetary travel, the economy, shopping lists and business accounts, and Christmas lists. It controls the interface chip installed in babies at birth, for God’s sake. Even though it’s literally impossible to get past stage five, if someone did I’m sure the computer has a stage six.” He looked at Corrodel. “Stage two. Loser cleans out collectors for a month.”
“You’re on.”
* * *
“Don’t do it,” said Earl. He carried a bottle of booze in one hand and his other was draped over an Amazonian woman’s shoulder.
Wallach stood at the brink of the long, black cavern. A sign above read:
POINT OF NO RETURN
He glanced back. Only Earl had come to say goodbye.
“Goodbye, Earl.”
He stepped into the cave.
The wall transformed behind him. The entry closed and become a wall. He touched it and muttered. He turned and took a step forward.
The stones collapsed underfoot. He slipped down into the chasm.
His hands caught the edge and he held on by his fingers. A black chasm loomed below like a waiting maw.
He scrambled for a grip. The stones gave way.
Two hands grabbed him by the wrists and helped drag him up.
Scott grabbed him by the belt and pulled him back up.
“You came,” he said, wheezing for breath.
“Jesus, Wally. What are you dressed up to be?”
He smiled up at her. “You came.”
“Yeah. Now let’s go.” She dragged him back to the wall. “How do we get out?”
“What’d you think the sign was for?” he said.
She touched the rocks. “You mean…”
He dusted himself off. “It’s okay. I’ve got it figured out.”
She grabbed him. “You mean we can’t go back?”
He walked over. He tapped a rock with his foot and it gave under his weight. “We’ve got to run across, Scott.”
“No. No. We’ll just stay here and they’ll let us back in.”
“They won’t.”
“I’m staying here.”
“Then you’ll starve to death.”
“Starve…”
He took her hand. “Come on. Run as fast as you can. Don’t stop! Here we go. One. Two. Three!”
He broke into a run and dragged her by the hand. Rocks plummeted down under their feet, falling into the chasm below.
“Jump!”
They hurled themselves forward, landing on a solid edge. They lay panting on the ground.
“I’ll kill you,” she said. “Let me go back.”
“How?” He stood and helped her up. The path was gone; now only a gaping pit stood between the cliffs. A long cave stretched before them.
The walls rumbled. Iron spikes emerged and began to close off the tunnel ahead.
“Come on,” said Wallach. They took each other’s hand. “Come on, run!” They bolted down the cave as the walls began to close in. Closer, closer.
Scott broke free. A spike pierced Wallach’s leather jacket and stopped him in his tracks. Scott turned and yanked him out of his jacket and they leapt free. The walls slammed shut. Boom.
* * *
“Damn it.” Corrodel wiped his face. “What am I going to tell Lori?”
Jobe ate a swizzle cake. “You’re only out fifty.”
“She’ll know. She checks.”
Jobe stifled a yawn.
Corrodel looked at the screen. The two runners were spelunking down into the third stage. “What’s the point, anyway? Why even have the stages?”
Jobe swallowed noisily. “Inmates rejected the program without a possibility of escape and woke early from stasis.”
“We should keep them in a hellhole then. Why treat them like royalty?”
“Costs us the same either way. And no activist groups are banging down doors for prisoner treatment this way.”
“What’s this guy in for anyway?” said Sendak.
Jobe pressed a button. “AWOL on Titan. Triple homicide. Stole three police skiffs. Jesus.”
The techs all stared.
“One thousand he makes it!” Sendak shouted.
* * *
Wallach slid down a gravelly slope.
Scott followed, cursing. “If I’d known I was going to die in the temple of doom, I would’ve changed.”
He looked at her bikini and grinned.
She pulled a switchblade from her bikini. “Back off.”
He raised his hands and backed up a step.
“So what now, Flash?”
He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it to her. “We keep going.”
She looked at the sweaty shirt and slid her arms through. “What happens then?”
He pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit it. “I don’t know.” He pushed through some cobwebs.
They stood at the verge of a large, open chamber. Stone tiles lined the floor and torches lined the walls.
He waved Scott back and took a burning torch from the wall. He tossed it forward. It clattered against the floor.
He shrugged and walked forward. Scott followed. “No explosives? No tricks?”
Wallach felt something drip on his hand. He sniffed and looked up. Nozzles carved into the stone ceiling sprayed down fumes. He coughed.
Scott began coughing. “Oh God. I can’t breathe.”
“Cover your mouth!” he said. They ran.
Blades and guillotines rained down from above. They danced through torrents of razor-sharp daggers and swords. They rolled beneath two giant pendulum blades and into a hall just as a giant stone door slammed shut.
Wallach coughed and shook his head. His eyes cleared.
Scott climbed up. “I could be anywhere. Doing anything.” She sobbed.
He offered her his hand. She slapped it away. He shrugged and looked around. Strange hieroglyphics and paintings covered the walls. He ran his fingers over them.
“Where are we, anyway?” said Scott.
“Inside the computer-generated maze.”
“What happens if we get out?”
“These prisons are all built with a five-tier system. They’re connected to the government databases and supercomputers.” He flipped open his lighter and cast light through the tunnel. “See, the human brain rejects the program without possibility of escape. Keeps us in line.”
“How do you know so much?”
He smirked. “I used to work for the government. A long time ago.”
“But you didn’t tell me what happens if we get out.”
He shrugged. “We might not. Stage five is supposed to be impossible. No one’s ever gotten past it.”
Footsteps padded behind. Wallach turned. His hand went to his holster.
Scott snorted a laugh. “I think you can put the gun away, Tex.”
Shapes moved through the darkness. Strange voices.
Wallach cocked the hammer on his pistol.
“Wally. What is it?”
Wild shouts through the cave. A human shape ran at them with a spear. Wallach shot him and he fell dead.
“Go!” he shouted.
They ran.
Arrows and darts skittered across the floor, nipping their heels.
“Don’t look back!” He shouted. He shot backwards as he ran. Smoke and the smell of cordite filled the tunnel.
Hundreds, a thousand voices screamed for blood behind them. Drums sounded in the deep. A thrown javelin whistled through the air and took off Wallach’s hat and stuck in the ground, quivering.
A grey-skinned creature dropped down from the ceiling and screeched. Spittle sprayed from its fanged mouth. Wallach put a bullet between the creature’s black eyes and they ran.
A lighted chamber waited ahead. Scott began to slow and stumbled as she ran. Wallach shoved her forward. They dove through the portal. A stone door slammed shut behind them.
Wallach laughed and stood. “We made it! Scott, we made it!”
Scott sat on the ground, staring at the wall. A dart protruded from her neck. She ripped it out and threw it. He picked it up and sniffed the end.
“Wally,” she said, falling limp.
He cradled her in his arms. “You’re going to be okay. We’ve only got one more stage. We’ll get out and get you some help.”
“We should’ve stayed.”
“Scott. You’re poisoned. Hang on, okay?”
“Look. It’s Lee.” She said pointing.
He followed her finger. A shriveled corpse lay in the corner. Its face was dry and its limbs were emaciated. “He made it all this way,” said Wallach. “What happened?” He laid Scott carefully down and searched the room. The walls were blank. He walked around. “That can’t be it. There’s something else here.” He paced.
A stone tile sank under his weight. A wall slid open. Pure white light flooded the room from the door.
“Look! There it is!” he said. He ran toward it.
The wall slammed shut and the tile surfaced.
He looked back and forward. “It’s weight activated? That’s so simple! No wonder no one’s ever made it past this. Someone has to stay behind and hold the door open. . .” He ran over to Lee’s corpse and tried to pick it up but it crumbled into dust.
Scott dragged herself onto the tile and sat. Blood dribbled from her lips and she moaned.
He went to her. “No. [[Let me use Lee's body, and we can both go."
"Forget it. He weighs nothing now," Scott said.
"Then I’ll hold it down, Scott.]] You go. Get help.”
“I never.” She gasped for breath. “Did. Much like you.”
“We’ll stay together. We’ll get a huge pepperoni pie. How about that? You and me. First thing.”
She smiled and went limp.
The wall slid open as the tablet sunk into the floor. Light flooded the room.
Wallach wiped his eyes and stepped into the light.
Weightless. He floated into the white void. Colors wheeled about him. His body dissolved. Yet he remained. Corporeal, formless.
* * *
The vidscreens exploded. The shockwave threw the techs back and they sprawled across the control room. Smoke sizzled from monitors.
The techs all pulled themselves to their feet. Corrodel helped Jobe up. They stared at one another.
“Jesus,” said Corrodel. “What happened?”
Jobe hopped back into his hover chair and leaned over a sizzling monitor. He tapped it a few times. “One of them is dead. The woman.”
“What about the other?” said Sendak. “I had money riding on that bastard!”
“Uh…” Jobe flipped through a few screens. “It’s weird. His vitals are there. But brain activity’s dropped off.”
“So he made it?” said Sendak.
“Shut your hole, man; you know the guy didn’t do it. No one’s ever done it,” said another tech.
Jobe scratched his head. “Well. Something shorted the computers. His vitals are there. But he’s not in prison. So I guess he made it.”
The techs all moaned. Sendak leapt up and down and squealed. Corrodel rubbed his temples. Techs doled out money. Sendak ended up with a few thousand.
“Pizza for everybody!” he shouted.
Jobe tossed away his choco-sticks. “Pizza sounds good.”
“Yeah, it does,” someone said.
“Pepperoni,” another droned.
Corrodel scratched his head. “Pizza.” He looked at the sizzling screens and shrugged.
an author living in Jacksonville Florida. I’ve been published at DemonMinds, Allegory ezine, Moon Drenched Fables, Aphelion, and other publications
(c) 2009 Romeo Esparrago
Corrodel stepped through the telepod, fumbling with his mug and briefcase. He tripped, and hot coffee splashed on his white shirt.
Jobe swiveled in his hover chair and chortled. “Bravo.”
Corrodel sighed and set down his mug and briefcase.
Jobe hovered back around. “Thirty seconds late. Old man Lipston’ll have your head.” He sipped a fizzy drink.
Corrodel wrung out his tie. “Don’t care.”
Jobe shrugged and gnawed at the end of a choco-stick.
Corrodel sighed and tossed his tie aside. “I miss anything?”
“Petunias are in the Garden.” Jobe pointed with his choco-stick. “Your turn to clean out the fertilizer.”
They stared at each other.
Corrodel sighed and pulled on a rubber suit. He went to the cells and the laser bars disappeared.
“Why do we bother with these?” he muttered.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
The human-blob inmates were arranged in uniform rows. Wires and cords ensnared their boneless limbs from the ceiling like strands of a spider web. Fluids pumped into their brains and into their gelatinous arms. He changed out their waste collectors, grumbling.
“Wouldn’t it just be cheaper to execute them?”
Jobe cackled. “Think so? What costs more? Fluids and our wages? Or lawyers, courts, appeals, more appeals…”
Corrodel rolled his eyes. He finished cleaning the collectors, walked through the disinfector and plopped down in a chair in the control room.
Jobe passed him a choco-stick. “See what they’re up to.”
Corrodel kicked his feet back and flipped on the vidscreens.
* * *
Wallach stared at the slice of pizza. Melted cheese bubbled around red saucers of pepperoni. He took a bite.
And spit it out. He shoved the plate away.
“What’s the matter?” Earl sucked on a giant rib. “You love pizza.”
“Tastes grey,” he said.
Earl barked, laughing. “How’s that?”
Wallach looked at the other inmates. They sat around in luxury chairs, eating filet mignon and lobster, drinking champagne and fancy booze. A diamond chandelier hung from the ceiling. Bombshell women and men muscled like Greek gods walked around, serving everything.
“You’ve just eaten it too much,” said Earl. A serving girl walked past. He grabbed her by her apron and wiped sauce from his face and spanked her. “Every day you eat the stuff.”
“Pizza used to be my favorite.” He shrugged. “Nothing tastes right to me.”
Earl shrugged. “Get drunk.”
Wallach stood and walked down the hall to Cell 18. He opened the door.
Letter to the Editor: Atomjack e-anthology 'Butterfly Affects'
Dear Editor:
Atomjack has just published its first e-anthology, Butterfly Affects*. The theme is alternate futures, where some changed event in our past (as recently as Gary Hart and the Berlin Wall) has affected our future in drastic and dramatic ways. I would like to invite your readers to have a look.
The anthology begins here:
http://www.atomjackmagazine.com/Butterfly_Affects/index.html
Adicus Ryan Garton, editor of Atomjack
*As in what the butterfly affects
Website: Starship Modeler
Starship Modeler is an information resource for the science fiction, factual space, fantasy, mecha, or anime scale model builder.
Visit:
http://www.starshipmodeler.com/index.htm
'More Blood' by David Such
Illustration (c) 2009 Romeo Esparrago
The girl sitting next to him was hot, but damn she could talk. Jes was Sam Blood’s latest potential new girlfriend. She hadn’t quite separated from her current man, but Blood had a feeling that this was imminent. The uComm beeped in Blood’s ear. He activated it on silent while pretending to continue to listen to what Jes was saying.
“Blood, we have another tasking order,” his partner spoke in his ear, “it’s a worker’s comp case, a back-injury claim. The insurance agency hasn’t been able to prove it, but their AI has indicated that this perp is a faker. I’m uploading the file now, have a squiz and I will pick you up in 10.”
Blood considered this and took a swig of his He-Man 9000 Super Strong Ultra Beer. It tasted like crap but what the hell, he had an image to uphold. He focused back on what Jes was saying: “… I can’t believe it, he was such an arsehole. Don’t you agree?”
Blood thought that he was pretty safe in going along with this, “Yeah — a total tool. Who is this again?”
“I just told you, my ex-fiasco! Were you even listening?”
“Of course, Babe, I’m just a little distracted at the moment. My partner and I have this big case that we are working on. We need to catch a cheater.”
“A cheater! I’m an expert on that.”
“Is that right? Tell me everything. I’m here for you Jes, I want you to know that.”