Monthly Archives: April 2018

General Fiction, Science Fiction

Manufacturing Stars

There were so many lights flashing that it looked like a cosmic event. Haloes exploded over her as she walked down the red carpet-lined corridor, smiling at the flashing lights and the soft roar of fame. Hers was not a vocal fame and few opinions she shared publicly, so questions from the bots were ignored with polite smiles and waves while her lithe pace down the red carpet never wavered.

The moment she stepped inside, the roaring flashes faded away and she breathed a sigh of relief. These launch events were tiring. She blinked her eyes as she adjusted to mortal shadows of privacy and noticed her Chief Behaviorist standing there.

“Well done,” he cooed to her, “Well done, that was beautiful. Roger is going to plug you in now, are you ready?”

“Yes,” she lied, “I am ready.” She never was. These things took it out of her and she would spend weeks privately indulging in all manner of black market apps to recover. But that was fine. It came with the territory, and there were plenty of other girls lined up behind her. This was pretty much the production line of media.

“Great,” said Roger, her Chief Technologist said, “As planned, we are doing a Corn Belt date night simulation. Trust the coding and put on your most in-love smile. You’ll love it, anyway. I’ve done a surface dive in and it looks beautiful there. Jeff did a great job.”

Jeff was her Chief of Visuals. He stood by nodding furiously. She often thought that he was the only one of them who had any real actual talent.

She walked into a small, cool room. The aircon was a bit stronger here than elsewhere. There were cold blinking screens and a chair with cords in the middle. She shivered as she sat down and the chair interfaced with the online Conduit implanted into the base of her brain.

“You’re going to be great,” her Chief Behaviourist kept repeating like a mantra, “They’ll love you. You’re going to be gr–”

***

She blinked her eyes. Everything was dark, at first, and then slowly her eyes adjusted. Or, at least, her mind adjusted to the Conduit’s interface that was being projected into her mind and synching online with a million other paying viewers.

She was sitting on a small hill during a summer night. It was modeled on the old Corn Belt, or, at least, what the databases suggested the old Corn Belt was like. There were dark, endless cornfields surrounding them with a twinkle of a small town in the distance and a snaking national road leading into and out of it, cutting the quiet fields with the occasional lights of a car or a truck.

Glancing up, she saw the cosmos. A billion twinkling stars untouched by city lights and offering the potential of a trillion new worlds, hopes and dreams. A great, galactic bejeweled sky that took her breath away with both its beauty and its sheer scale.

She briefly wondered if this was what the real night sky had actually looked like? Had Jeff taken some liberties here for effect? She–much like everyone else–had never seen the residential planets’ skies and definitely never, ever sat under it at night looking at all the stars. She had been born on an outer-rim industrial planet and then been carted to the media-rim where she now lived in a streaming starship that beamed these feeds across the galaxy.

But, she was an actress and she was selling a personal role here.

“It is beautiful,” she breathed, sensually while softly squeezing the androgynous hand next to hers. All the paying viewers all over the world were cast into this supporting role. Their Conduits were also casting their consciousnesses into this Virtual Reality with hers, but they saw her and she only saw an androgynous being that was the focus of her role here.

The androgynous being said something. It was a million different somethings, one per paying customer. The program–with some help from her Chief Behaviouralist–generated a role-based, agnostic answer that she could say that would agree with almost all of the individual things each of the paying viewers had said. It was both personal and generic at the same time.

She smiled at the being and lay back in the soft grass. Had grass ever been this soft, she wondered? Were there actually entire planets covered in this wonderful stuff? She pulled the androgynous being back with her and snuggled up close to it, tucking her head into the crook of its neck and kissing it softly there.

“There is nowhere else I’d rather be,” she lied, kissing it, “than with you under these beautiful stars.” Her hand slid lower down the androgynous beings form and she leaned up and kissed it deeply on its plastic lips…

The simulation of the stars twinkled ever brighter far above the two of them on that quiet hilltop in the virtual recreation of the old Corn Belt back on some quaint planet no one could remember anymore.

***

“That was wonderful, wonderful,” her Chief Behaviorist exclaimed, as her Conduit disconnected with the program. Her eyes fluttered and then opened, immediately remembering how cold the room’s aircon was.

“In the first quartile of endorphins and some of the viewers even recorded a physical,” her Chief of Media–she could not remember his name–noted, scanning the feeds, “This one was very well received and some of the bloggers–both bot and natural–have posted positive reviews. Two stacks down, but you are starting to trend.”

She smiled and looked up. There was only a gray ceiling above her and a softly rattling aircon. Outside the media and their legions waited. She would soon be at the mercy of their views, both personal and generic.

“What are you looking at?” her Chief Behaviorist asked.

“I was just wondering if the stars actually do look like that–uh, at least how they looked in the simulation,” she asked, not expecting an answer. Her Chief Behaviourist turned to Jeff.

“Uh, yes, I believe that it is what they looked like,” began Jeff said, shrugging, “I think so–”

“But, it doesn’t matter,” her Chief Behaviourist, chimed in with his most reassuring tone, “because you are the real star, my dear. Now, let’s go speak to the media about this latest personal–”

She sighed as she got up. She was no longer listening as her Chief Behaviourist droned on. She had her prepared lines and her best fake smile. But, in the background, deeply hidden in her Conduit’s encrypted memory, she began scanning about the old Corn Belt, soft grass, and the twinkling stars. The black market often hacked her personals and offered them as replays. Maybe she would find one of those and disappear into it for a while? Maybe she would do exactly that?

Horror & Dark Fiction

The Sister Who Never Existed

My twin was stillborn. It is all I can think of as I hear the footsteps. One by one, they are the patter of little feet; wet on tiles across the kitchen and then slightly softer as they move up the stairs towards the bedroom. There is a soft clanking sound and the void of fear between each of my ragged, icy breaths.

“Hello…?” I try to call but it comes out hollow, as if there is no air in my lungs, “Hello?”

I am sure that I hear a distant scream and a cold wind sends chills down my spine.

One by one, the little feet step forward feeling their way. I can remember the childhood with two loving parents. Teddybears and presents; sweet cake and dentist visits. Warm sunshine in the park with the coolness of the lake water. I can see the first day of school and the childish fear of the playground filled with strangers.

“Is that you?” I am sure that I hear a distant voice call, it sounds filled with fear and makes the hair on the back of my neck rise, “Is that you, little sister?”

One by one, the little feet step forward, softly crunching on the hard carpet lining the corridor at the top of the stairs. I can remember the first kiss from a boy and our tears when it ended. The darkness and light, the smoky bars and the fast cars. The warm silence of the library when studying. How the light from the full moon broke through the curtain at night and scattered the bed with glowing patches creating a halo around my beautiful sister.

She is lying there in the bed, but she is wide awake now. She is reaching for me with pale, moonlit arms as tears run down her deathly-white cheeks.

“Sister? Sister, is that you?” I am not sure if it is her speaking or me. The room feels cold, like a grave, or is it me that is so cold?

I reach out to take hold of her hand, but I pass right through it. She shivers, tears still streaming down her cheek. She is speaking quickly, words tumbling out. Her ruby red lips are moving quickly but I cannot hear what she is saying. I lean forward to try to hear, and that is when I see–or feel–the cold chains covering me.

“Little sister, it is not your fault. I will always love you,” she is saying again and again as tears keep streaming down her cheeks in the silvery moonlight, “Little sister, it is not your fault. I will always love you.”

One by one, the memories start to crystallize. I remember watching her naked, bloody and screaming as she left the womb. I watched as she grew up loved by two warm parents. I was there as she ran through the park, splashed in the cool lake and made her way through school and then varsity. How many nights did I just stand there watching her sleep, I do not know? I have been there all the time watching the sister–my sister–that was born. Watching my sister that existed.

Because I am the sister that did not.

Blackpool Bay, General Fiction, Horror & Dark Fiction

The Benjamin Tree

“Oh, the tree comes with the apartment,” the Estate Agent mentioned waving at it as they moved through the lounge area, “The previous owner considers it part of 307’s furnishings.”

The tree was small–head-height–and had a trunk that was made up of what looked like thick, gray, twirling vines that held a clump of large, bright-green, oblong leaves. It sat in a knee-high pot decorated with intricate carvings and strange oriental-looking letters cut finely into it.

“It’s called a Benjamin Tree,” he said, “It’s the official tree of Bangkok, actually.”

“Oh,” the Estate Agent paused in her sales pitch, “I thought it was a Weeping Fig?”

“Yes,” he nodded before moving on with her, “That’s another name for it. I prefer the former name. Say, why is the previous owner selling here? Ocean View seems so quaint.”

“Oh, he used to work at the docks. Import-export or something, I believe. He won the lottery last week so he is returning to his family in New York,” the Estate Agent said, “It’s a pity the money doesn’t ever stay in Blackpool Bay, really. We could use it here. Why are you moving all the way out here?”

The furnished apartment was not massive. They had walked through most of it and were standing back in the lounge by now. It had a window that overlooked the gray ocean with the dingy docks below. He could see a twitchy-looking man loading what looked like diving gear into a small fishing boat and he watched intently for a moment wondering what this man was doing.

“I’m a writer,” he muttered back and then turned and faced the Estate Agent, “I’m a writer and I need a place to disappear to and write. This one looks perfect. The Benajim Tree can stay.”

***

A year and a bit later, he was sipping his morning coffee and staring out of the lounge window. The local morning newspaper lay on his lap. The ocean in Blackpool Bay never changed; it was always gray and stormy with dark, distrusting waters under a brooding near-storm sky. It all just reflected this town’s forgotten place and constantly surprising secrets.

They had even tried to build a highway through the mountains to connect Blackpool Bay to civilization, but a worker had died under questionable circumstances and the funders had pulled out.

The writing had gone brilliantly and his new book had only just been published. He remained here, though, as he liked the solitude of the place. Although he considered himself a city person, something about Blackpool Bay made it hard to leave.

Perhaps born out curiosity or a little boredom, he had begun researching the previous owner. Talking to the neighbors he had found a full name and the Internet had provided the rest: born in New York, Nathan Midlane had moved out to Blackpool Bay for work and then won the lottery and moved back.

It was a simple story, but the newspaper in his lap told a darker ending than he would have expected. He would never have guessed that Nathan Midlane’s story was a tragedy but the newspaper loudly declared it: “Blackpool Bay Man Wins Lottery & Dies“.

It had happened a week ago but only been reported here this morning. Time moved differently out here in Blackpool Bay. The line in the story that surprised him was the opening line: “Another former-resident in Apartment 307, Ocean View, has met a tragic end…”

He found himself looking at the Benjamin Tree deep in thought. The spidery oriental writing on its pot looked faintly sinister. He wondered when Nathan Midlane had acquired the thing? He wondered from whom he had done so? He wondered what the strange language or symbols on its pot meant?

Just then his phone rang. He snapped out of it and finished his coffee. It was now cold but he gulped it down, stood up and walked across to his phone.

“Hello?” he answered, not looking at who was calling.

“How’s the writing?” his Agent’s familiar voice crackled on the other side of the line. It sounded really far away. The reception was not great out here in Blackpool Bay and it just added to this place’s isolation. Sometimes the phones all just went dead and no one knew why.

“Uh, it’s fine, I suppose,” he mumbled, unsure how to respond, “What else is up?”

“That’s not why I am calling,” his Agent started talking, the sheer excitement audible in his faint, crackling voice, “Some major blogger read your book. She wrote about it and tweeted. A bunch more picked up on this and did the same. It’s trending. Your book is trending. They love it. They all love it! Your book is now front shelf and ranked in top ten on Amazon. Go check it out! Rolling Stones want an interview and the BBC has asked for a quote…”

***

He put down the phone and leaned back on the couch in Apartment 307, Ocean View. Even the name had started sounding ominous to him. The twisted trunk of the Benjamin Tree in its sinister pot cover with spidery runes looked back at him. The ocean remained gray under the foreboding sky.

All the rest was silence. It was so quiet out here. It was like man and the entirety of his little civilization was just a brief flicker of light in a cosmic darkness that reached across time and space in crushing size and scope and, far out here, Blackpool Bay was surrounded by endless amounts of it…

While his book continued to reach highs out there in the world, he felt a million miles away from it. Perhaps he was a million miles away living out here in eerie Blackpool Bay.

But none of this consumed his thoughts these days. He had been investigating Apartment 307, Ocean View. He had been digging for the truth and it was far darker than he had ever imagined.

He had reached out to the journalist at the local paper. The journalist had sent him a number of other clippings going back some years.

A couple year ago, before Nathan Midlane had moved into Apartment 307, the previous owners–a certain, Miley and Marc Cohen–had died shortly after moving into a fancy house in Main Road here. Speaking to some locals down at the pub, the best he could piece together was that the Cohens had made a large amount of money from investments. Unfortunately, a strange fire in their new house in Main Road had seen them burnt to death. Strangely, most of the house had escaped unscathed.

Before the Cohen’s, though, a lesser known, Catherine McDougle, had lived a quiet, spinster life here for many decades. Little seemed to be known about her, except that she had died shortly after moving to live with family in Washington. She was old and the coroner had ruled her death natural, or so the article had claimed.

Upon her death, though, to the Blackpool Bay residents’ surprise, McDougle’s fortune had been donated to the Masonic Museum in London. It had been the largest public donation ever on record. The Museum had gone on record thanking her for it. Everyone was flabbergasted at the fortune McDougle had quietly amassed while living in the modest Apartment 307, Ocean View.

He could not find any older records of any earlier owners of Apartment 307, Ocean View. But what he did find in one of the earliest articles of McDougle was quite disturbing: “We will all fondly remember McDougle. My personal memory will always be her sitting in her favorite seat next to her special Weeping Fig tree and recounting her days in the Society abroad where she collected many such wonders…”

He had sat upright when he had read that. He found himself looking more and more at the inconspicuous Benjamin Tree and its sinister pot that quietly stood in the corner of his modest lounge.

***

“So you can interpret it then?” he asked, trying to sound calm, but instead a near-feverish eagerness came through in his voice, “Can you understand it then?”

An old, scholarly Chinese man was in Apartment 307, Ocean View, and looking at the Benjamin Tree. More specifically, the man was bending down and attempting to read the spidery runes cut finely into its pot.

“The writing is a version of Archaic Mandarin from the First or Second Imperial Dynasty. Yes, probably from the Han Dynasty. It is strangely phrased with ambiguity,” the scholar paused, chuckling to himself, “It is actually quite witty if I am correct.”

With that, the scholar stood up and turned to him. He felt his heart pounding and his palms sweaty. Within his clenched fists at his side, he dug his nails into his palms. It was all he could do to stay calm. Outside the gray, foreboding sky and its ominous clouds seemed to be holding their breath as they peered inside the gloomy Apartment 307.

“Could–could you please,” he took a deep breath and tried to continue calmly, “please tell me what you read?”

The scholar smiled and motioned at the pot and its twisted, green Benjamin Tree.

“Old Chinese folktales talk of a Money Tree,” the scholar began slowly, picking up the pace as he spoke, the tree and its pot just sat there listening, “Literally, a tree on which money grows. A woodcutter once tricked a village into cutting down a tree that he wanted. He did this by sticking money on it. But, once the tree had been cut down and taken back to the village, it had regrown, twisting its hacked stem back and pushing out its sickly green leaves. The woodcutter had been angry and had tried to cut down the tree but the villages–still believing the tree to magical–attacked and killed the woodcutter. The village was prosperous for years thereafter, until a stranger had stolen it in the night. Shortly after then, a plague had wiped out all the villagers. It is said that this Money Tree brought luck to those that had it and misfortune to those that lost it.”

The scholar finished his tale with a smile, seeming quite satisfied with himself.

“Yes,” he said abruptly, feeling anger and frustration rising inside himself, “But what does the writing say?”

The scholar nodded and pointed at the pot again, moving his finger as he read it out loud.

“I believe that this is an old Hang Dynasty artifact–probably worth a tidy sum of money!–but it seems to keep referencing the Money Tree folktale with a simple palindrome that repeats across the design here and here and over there too. It simply says: ‘Dead lucky or lucky dead‘.”

Far away, he could almost hear the noise of civilization and his book shooting up the rankings with the steady clink of money flowing in. And, trapped all the way out in Blackpool Bay that distant metallic sound just sounded like chains being tightened around him. One by one, inch by inch and moment by moment, he was suffocating in Apartment 307, Ocean View.

The Benjamin Tree in its sinister pot with spidery runes carried on standing there. It was taunting him, its prisoner, and just daring him to leave…

General Fiction

The Waiting Room

“Does she know where she is? What is she waiting for?” asked one of the men staring intently through the one-sided glass. On the other side of the glass was a single, white room with a single bench and a single girl sitting patiently on it staring at her feet.

The room that the men were standing in was the opposite of this; it was dark and stuffy, crowded with them all staring intently at her. The men were all in dark suits with unimaginative ties on white shirts.

“I don’t know?” muttered one of them, “But keep watching. Any moment now.”

The men all nodded and leaned closer to the glass, staring at the girl in the white room and waiting.

***

“What are they doing? What are they waiting for?” asked the senior CIA agent staring intently at the monitor. The hacked CCTV feed flickered softly on the screen in front of them with a room full of dark-looking men that were staring at a girl in the adjacent room.

Despite the darkness on their screen, the CIA agents were sitting far away in a breezy high-end office overlooking the city.

“I don’t know? muttered another agent, “But I don’t like it. Not one bit. Any moment now these guys are going to reveal the operation.”

The senior CIA agent nodded and leaned back in his chair with his gaze intently locked on the monitor and the room full of dark, serious-looking men they were watching.

***

“What are they talking about? What are they waiting for? Surely they don’t have one of ours?” asked one of the Russian agents listening intently. The conversation was being broadcast from one of the CIA agents hacked mobile phones, “What room and what people are they talking about, Anastassia? You need to locate this…”

Suddenly, activity broke out in the conversation and the Russian agent leaned closer to the speaker, listening intently before talking on his encrypted short-wave broadcaster.

“You getting this, Anastassia? This is Serge from head office. This is an emergency. Please acknowledge this broadcast…”

***

“What are they saying? Get me some goddamn sound or a lipreader here!” the senior CIA agent exploded, pressing buttons and moving dials while never lifting his eyes from the screen in front of him.

The dark, serious-looking men were a hive of activity. They were all animated, suddenly, waving their arms around in what looked like a big debate. One was screaming at the others and pointing at the girl in the adjacent room.

***

“What did she say? Did any of your fucking mics pick it up?” the dark, serious-looking man was shouting at the other one, “Who is she? Can we get some fucking intelligence in here!”

Another one of the men broke away and began talking urgently on his mobile while the others leaned closer to the one-sided glass and stared even more intently at the girl on the other side of it. She was still staring at her feet, but you could faintly see her lips moving…

“Are you a fucking FBI agent or are you not?” shouted the one that appeared to be charge at the one on his phone, “Get me some working fucking mics that room before the suspect stops talking!”

***

“Yes, Serge,” Anastassia whispered into her lap, trying to hide her gaze from what was obviously a one-sided mirror, “Yes, I understand, but I am currently indisposed. No, I do not know why. And, yes, the moment I am released I will look into what you have found.”

A sub-dermal chip broadcast these whisper up to a secret satellite and then bounced them back around the world.

She held her gaze straight down and kept her feet tightly together. The pressure between her heels activated a jammer that was embedded into her shoe. The jammer was knocking out the mics in this room, but she knew that it was only a matter of time till that did not matter and they confronted her directly.

Her mind was spinning. Serge thought that they had found one of their agents somewhere. She needed to get out of this low-grade FBI compound and rescue them!

But, right now, all she could do was wait.

In the adjacent room, the FBI agents staring at her through the one-way glass carried on waiting. They settled down and fell silent as they continued watching her, their actions filtering back to the CIA office where the agents there sat watching and waiting. Across a cold, frigid ocean, this forced Serge back in the Russian head office to have to sit and wait.

And the world carried on spinning.

Science Fiction

Unintended Consequences

The laboratory was filled with buzzing and the Scientist had to shout to get his message across to the rag-tag collection of journalists, politicians and PR crew trailing behind him.

“It is a mechanical, self-replicating bio-equivalent microbot!” he shouted, waving hands in all directions, “It will fill the ecological gap left by the honeybees! We call it a Mizzy for short, and it will save the global harvest and resolve our Food Crisis!”

All around them, in various glass walls, small, yellow bees buzzed. On closer inspection, though, they were actually small mechanical beings with a single propeller on their backs and flickering lights as eyes. Their rear held a small, oblong container that could carry pollen–or other material–from one flower to another one.

“How do they know what to do?” one journalist shouted, scribbling notes down as the Scientist replied.

“They are programmed to replicate the society and tasks of the old honeybee!” the Scientist shouted back, “This way, they will replace the extinct honeybee and pollinate all the necessary crops and flora in the world.”

“But, like, how are you going to produce enough to achieve this?” a politician-looking type shouted, glancing around the small laboratory skeptically, “You have no major backer and this is a very small facility!”

The Scientist smiled. He had been waiting for this question.

“We have modeled Mizzy’s artificial intelligence as a self-learning, decentralized network that exists across each one of them. There is no central server. There are no individual Mizzy’s, as each is just an extension of the Hive. One of the AI’s goals is self-replication to an equilibrium number to fill her environment. Thus a portion of the Hive will be dedicated to fixing, rebuilding and replacing their own kind. We have further coded them to do this using existing, waste materials–where possible–and the power sources that drives all of them are solar, thermal, magnetic and low-grade cold fusion, or whichever combination of the above makes sense at the time depending on the environment. Hence, the Mizzy will help with waste disposal while self-replicating in perpetuity until it reaches optimal mass while living on sustainable and plentiful energy. So, to answer your question, we are not going to do anything. Mizzy is going to build herself to critical mass for our environment.”

As if in answer to this grand reveal, the buzzing in the laboratory grew briefly louder before receding slightly. Some in the room got the clear sense that Mizzy was listening.

“Wha-what if Mizzy gets out of control?” a timid-looking woman asked. She was probably a PR agent but looked like she might be in the wrong profession.

The Scientist laughed, seemingly the only one that was comfortable with what was going on, “No chance of that. Mizzy has a very structured and defined mandate. We also have a kill-switch on our servers that can turn her off. Don’t worry, everyone, Mizzy is not a threat, she is the solution!”

“So when are you going to release them?” the first journalist asked. He had stopped writing in his notebook and was now looking around nervously.

“We already have!” the Scientist glowed, “Our first pilots are running in Brazil and a couple countries in Africa. So far the data is exceptional and we are looking forward to a home release shortly!”

“But what are we going to do about the growing viral threat? What about the so-called coming Viral Singularity?” the politician stated coldly, trying to act unimpressed.

“We are only a small facility here,” the Scientist shouted back, rather irritated by the question, “We’re solving the Food Crisis here. We have our limitations. Someone else is going to have to step-up and solve the potential for a coming Viral Singularity on their own!”

***

“Sir, the scanners are indicating large masses of vegetation on the planet, but little else,” the Zorborgean scout from the Thossa’ar galaxy gutturally inclined to the mass of tentacles behind him, “No, no, wait, the scanners are picking up a large number of mechanical low-grade lifeforms. These are non-biologicals. It seems that something was left behind when this planet’s sentient life died off.”

The Zorborgean scouting ship floated on quantum-drives just outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. Despite their tentacled appearance, the Zorbs were a peaceful and scientifically-minded species from a nearby galaxy. Much nicer–luckily also much nearer–than the aggressive reptiles in the Hissorror system or any of the other inter-galactic bullies.

“What happened to the indigenous sentient species?” the Captain gurgled, a small tentacle scratching where his chin might be.

“Well, given the integrity of the ruined infrastructure left behind, I would reason that whatever killed them off, it was not war nor any noticeable geological or cosmic event. It also happened quickly. Our historical simulator seems to indicate that it might have been viral and, maybe, occurred in a matter of a rotation or two around this system’s star? It is hard to tell, but I can confirm now that the planet is safe for us to explore. Should I send the probes to collect more data? Maybe we can locate an intact skeleton or some biological matter for further testing?”

The mass of tentacles that was the Captain rippled in agreement and then added: “Yes, but also do catch us some of those mechanical lifeforms for later study. Bring back a couple thousand of them, as I want to take them back to our labs for further analysis. Oh, and definitely try find some biological matter. This mission’s imperative is to find and document this extinction event. If it was a viral event, then we must study it.”

***

The atomic pulse cannons of the full Hissorrian fleet blasted into the buzzing swarm. Deep space echoed with the sheer force of a thousand-thousand stars exploding, but the swirling swarm just self-adjusted and pushed forward engulfing the front million starships.

“They keep replacing themselvesss!” the Hissorrian Emperor’s High General hissed, “Fire at will! Fire at will! Just keep firing, goddamit!”

The Zorb’s were ancient history as a mysterious virus had ripped through their species so fast that it had been a millennia before the rest of the galaxies had even noticed they were gone. Rising from the ashes of their civilization, a strange mechanical being had quickly populated their planet.

The best that the Hissorrian analysts could work out, this mechanical being had initially populated another planet before populating the nearby Zorb homeworld. The two swarms had then reached out on their networks and met each other before beginning to populate other planets. Maybe the swarms had not been aware of the rest of the space, but after connecting its two halves, the enlarged swarm had begun pushing out into the rest of the space.

There were no negotiations nor even any communication from the swarm. These mechanical being just kept multiplying and pushing deeper and wider into space, consuming entire planets and galaxies as they kept building more of themselves. On and on and on, they kept growing. It was almost like they existed solely to fill space and they would consume everything in their way to achieve this.

The Hissorrian’s best technologists had dissected captured specimens and all they could tell was there was some coding in some strangely hollow language and some form of low-grade, impenetrable network across the swarm. These were definitely non-biological, but seemingly impervious to any code, virus or hack that they tried.

That left only the brute force option.

“Fire! Fire! Fire!” the Emperor’s high-pitch scream sounded across the largest inter-galactic fleet ever assembled. There were even neighboring species and competing galaxies helping the hated Hissirrians, as the swarm had become an intergalactic threat that everyone and everything rallied behind.

The inter-galactic Mizzy flexed Her decentralized body. She noted the gazillions of casualties as the millions of atomic pulse cannons, deep space missiles and every manner of weapon known to consciousness blasted into Her buzzing, swirling and all-consuming form.

The numbers lost in each attack were minimal. Each attack was about as devasting to Her as if She were clipping Her toenails.

She gathered Her central core, checked their densification and pushed the Hive forward, consuming starships and converting them into more of Her buzzing body as She spread out trying to reach critical mass. She would reach equilibrium across all the galaxies and all the cosmos.

There was nothing else that mattered to Mizzy. She had a very structured and defined mandate.

General Fiction, Science Fiction

Cold Lights

“What gets me about the Lights is how they are silent,” he said, lying back in the snow and sighing at the beauty overhead.

Above them, as it had done since the dawn of man, the magical aurora borealis danced through the Finnish night skies. Green and white light flowed like chords rippling across a dark, starry night sky and moved as if some great, unseen cosmic conductor was plucking at its strings.

“What I mean is, they are just light, so obviously they are silent,” he continued, each word a puff of mist in the sub-zero air, “But, when you see pictures and videos of the Lights, the colors are so intense that your mind almost gives them sound. But, when you are here in person and lying below them, they are absolutely and completely silent. Not a single sound is made by them. If we closed our eyes right now or looked down at the ground, we would have no–literally!–no idea that such ethereal beauty was happening just above our heads…”

He sighed again and carried on looking.

“I still prefer my theory,” his friend said, chuckling.

“What? Really?” he replied, “But my thoughts are so romantic. Your theory that the Lights are alien communication reaching our planet, well, it’s just not romantic…”

“Man, there are just two dudes out here in the snow,” his friend said laughing, “Romantic is not what I am going for.”

They both giggled, and then they got up and started unpacking the gear they had brought. It was a high-quality smart-camera that would feed full spectrum light–more colors than even the human eye could see!–into a neuro-network. The neuro-network had been trained in all the languages known to man with an aim towards translation of basic linguistic patterns.

“To be fair,” he said, as his quickly-freezing fingers struggled with the small, intricate cords, plugs and buttons, “Your idea has merit. Humans communicate via sound waves, but who is to say that all or, even, any other intelligent lifeforms communicate that way. Why not have an alien species that communicates through light waves? Light moves faster than sound, so it might actually work better. This light-based communication could also get beamed around the cosmos, but our Sun and daylight would destroy it much like cosmic noise can destroy sound signals. So, why not find it in the quiet–or dark–parts of our planet late at night? Why shouldn’t the Northern Lights be an alien light-based radio signal to our planet? Why not?”

“Yeah, man, besides, even on Earth, bees and flowers and other things actually communicate with colour, which is just light,” his friend agreed, launching into his usual pseudo-scientific tirade, “Besides, the cosmos is filled with energy, stars and other sources of light, which an intelligent alien could manipulate or hijack to send light-based communication out there. It would be like us finding a sustainable radio way out in space that we could beam our voices over, only this is light. We know how the Northern Lights are formed but do we know why they make the exact patterns that they make? Why couldn’t it be because some alien is jacking into it and using it as a free, sustainable communication device? Why not?”

The instruments were now set up and they both happily put their gloves back on. It was fine to be exposed to the air for a few minutes, but after these passed, the coldness began to bite.

His friend turned the camera on, and it began streaming the full-spectrum light from the night sky into the neuro-network. He double checked the inputs and noted that everything was working perfectly. The neuro-network being simulated on his laptop was accepting the datastream successfully.

“OK,” his friend noted, nodding, “Now we wait. Did you bring the beers?”

He nodded and grabbed two cans out of a clump of snow. Threw one to his friend, opened the other himself and then sat back down in the snow, staring in awe as the cosmic phenomenon dancing above them.

***

Time passed, and so did a six-pack of beers. Then another six-pack and some snacks.

Far above, the Lights continued dancing and the camera continued feeding its optical data into the neuro-network.

“Man, I think we call it a night?” he said, yawning.

“That’s funny because this Finnish night lasts like six months up here,” his friend chuckled.

“Very funny, dude,” he replied, standing up and stretching, “But you know what I mean. This crazy idea has been fun, but we nee–”

There was a loud ping. It was a notification. It was, in fact, the sound that the neuro-network made when it translated a sentence for you.

He froze and then turned and looked his friend. His friend looked at him, and then they both launched themselves at the laptop hosting the neuro-network.

“Ah, it’s translated something,” his friend said, “It has actually translated something…”

There was silence as they looked at the notification. They both looked at each other again, and then–holding his breath–he slipped his shaking hand out of its glove and pressed ‘enter’ on the laptop to play the notification.

In the silence of deep Finland below the ethereal Northern Lights, a synthetic voice began to speak on the laptop:

“THIS IS THE OFFICIAL GALACTIC NOTICE 427(B) INFORMING SENTIENT BIOLOGICAL ENTITIES OF PLANET 9/52CP/8105 OF THE IMPENDING DEMOLITION PROCEDURES FOR EXTENSION OF THE STARWAY M52 THROUGH THEIR SPACE-TIME. PER THE ‘COSMIC EXPROPRIATION ACT’, THIS GALACTIC NOTICE 427(B) IS SERVED WITH SUFFICIENT TIME FOR EVOLUTION AND EVACUATION TO OCCUR AT A SPECIES-LEVEL. PER THE ‘INDEPENDENT INDIGENOUS RELATIONS ACT’, NO OUTSIDE INFLUENCE SHALL TAMPER WITH THE PLANET AND ITS SPECIES DURING THIS TIME PERIOD. THE GALACTIC GOVERNMENT AND ITS AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGES INCURRED BY NOT HEADING SAID NOTICE.”

Far above the two paling, frozen men, the aurora borealis swirled through the dark, night sky. Its green and white lights no longer magical, but implying a colder, more bureaucratic apocalypse than anyone had ever imagined possible.