* * *
Will I live again?
Dino said I would in his paper, just before I sucked him up into my anus. Now he’s no more than one of my occasional farts.
Do I believe in reincarnation?
Dino argued that, once he had gone, and after the Big Bang, the whole world, and each particle it contains, will be me. Therefore, when it’s reassembled, he said, I will live again.
I fervently hope so. I’m scared. I can feel my greatness, at the apex of its totality, paradoxically and terrifyingly, shrinking into a sheer point of total pointlessness. I will burst, one last mega-explosion of unimaginable enormity, and be no more.
Once the Big Bang has occurred, Dino said that each particle of shattered, careering existence will in fact be my very own fragmentation, and so there will be in each particle a genetic memory of me. I will live on in each blob’s devotion to me. Sounded convincing, too.
Now, as my end nears, I’m not so sure. The whole process will begin again, he said, and will conclude in my magnificence. The cycle of shivering, puking, itchy speck of putrid, rancid humanity evolving into the one source of light in the universe. Evolution will tread that same path again and again. I hope so. In fact, I do have a folk-memory of it having already happened. Or is that just wish-fulfilment?
And Dino did give me a name. An identity. He gave me the name of the last three universes I devoured. He made an acronym of them. Ghue. Orth. Dino. Or, in short, GOD. And they will worship me when I’m dead. And I will be brought back to life. That’s my prayer. I’m so afraid. My disintegration is upon me. I feel it coming.
Before I go, though, I have another mantra to mumble.
Dino, I promise you, if I am remembered, you will be remembered. If, in each speck’s agglomerated worship of me, I return, then I will remember you, Dino, even if you will forever remain but a fart in my universe.
The End
COG
Bryan P. Clark
I.
It was a long way down from window 7R3.
Cog didn’t look down. He wiped the counter and took a deep breath and pulled the ropes and lowered the platform until he was safe on the ground floor and ready to take his pager off his wrist.
As he ran his finger around the black band to find the clip to unclip it from his suit sleeve, he felt it pulse. The red light was shining and buzzing.
Cog was finished with his shift and he had the right to pass on his incoming page, but he couldn’t do it. He needed to answer the customer’s page, because it was important to him. It was important that he answer the call of his fellow neighbor.
He looked up.
He pulled the rope to let his platform rise back up, off the ground floor, to pass window 7R1, then 7R2, to stop at his window at 7R3.
He took the earpiece off its cradle and clipped it to his helmet, pressing the blue button.
“Thank you for calling Odyssea Banking Service, This is your teller, Cog.”
“I need to make a wire deposit…” said a fast female voice in his ear piece.
“I’m sorry, our services are closed for the night,” Cog said.
“I need to make this deposit. You have to make an exception…” the woman said.
“Hold on,” Cog said.
Cog hit the yellow button on his earpiece and looked out his window to the ground floor, where Brim was sweeping the black boot dust. He surveyed and spotted his supervisor Hef walking out from the hall at the far right. Cog clicked the notch on his wrist pager to get Hef’s attention. Hef stopped in his tracks, looked at his wrist, looked up and met eyes with Cog at window 7R3.
Cog tuned his voice box to a high enough volume to project, so that he would be heard, and addressed Hef. “I have a customer who would like to make a last minute deposit.”
“All databases are locked,” Hef answered from below.
“It sounds like an emergency of sorts…like she really needs the deposit in her account…”
“We’re closed down for the night,” Hef said. “All banking databases are shut down.”
Cog pressed the yellow button on his earpiece.
“I’m sorry, my supervisor informed me that databases have been shut down.”
“Can you type my number into your own file, and make the deposit in the morning?”
“I could lose my job, if I have a client’s account number in my personal file, and I can’t get into the bankhouse files because we’ve shut those down.”
The woman on the other end of Cog’s earpiece didn’t respond. He wondered if he had pushed the red button on his piece by mistake, but he looked at his wrist and the light on his band was a steady green.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Cog said. There was a loud pulse in his ear and the light on his wrist blinked and went out.
Cog felt bad for the client on the other end. There wasn’t anything he could do for her, but he knew she needed to make the deposit. He knew by the tone in her voice.
She might have needed the scohrs to fuel her hovercart,(I would italicize this phrase.) Cog thought as he pulled the ropes, his eyes closed, landing safe back on the ground floor.
She might have needed to fuel her hovercart to see if a loved one was safe and maybe something terrible had happened, and what had Cog done?–Cog thought as he opened his eyes, stepped off his platform, removed his wristband and walked down the dark hall.
He turned to drop his band in the box, after he slid out his scohrs chip and slid it into the arm of his suit. The scohrs number on his suit blinked, but he didn’t pay notice to it. He knew it was not enough for him to manage.
Somewhere out there a lady was helpless, without her bank deposit, unable to fuel her hovercart, unable to find her loved ones, unable to make the emergency trip, possibly. It was only Cog’s hunch, but he knew, by her voice, that the deposit was important. He had let her down.
It wasn’t the bank’s fault, Cog thought. It wasn’t Hef’s fault. It was Cog’s fault. (I would italicize the thoughts.)
Cog met Brim at the front of the bank and followed him out to his hovercart, so that he didn’t have to glide home on his boots. Brim attempted to make conversation with Cog, but Cog couldn’t help thinking about the woman, whatever her name had been, and her emergency, whatever it had been; and the fact that he couldn’t and didn’t take the risk and punch her code into his personal files. He might not have been found out and he might have saved that woman, but he was weak and he obeyed Hef, and so he told the woman he couldn’t make the deposit.
The feeling of guilt that Cog was feeling was even more powerful than his feeling of terror of heights.
II.
Cog couldn’t sleep. He sat up on his cot, pulled his lamp chain and turned the dial on his helmet to a talk radio program.
“…we’re hearing these stories everywhere, listeners. People in need of jobs, that can’t get them, living in the ghettos and starving with only allowance from the high command, that has debts from the higher sectors it can’t pay. We are in a crisis…”
Cog turned the dial to find a symphony recording and stumbled on a piece by the Calliope symphony. He relaxed, listening to the rising strings while the pounding blocks kept rhythm. He imagined if he were suspended, looking over at his fellow neighbors, without fear, knowing he would not fall--not like when he worked mail-call duty at the bank and they hung him from the belt. If he were a cloud in the sky he would not have any worries, any problems; he would just breathe and have fresh air.
Life is a struggle, Cog thought, but I endure.
His dues were paid, he had fresh air and nutrients, to get him through the next calendar set and he had shelter. He had one more day to make it through before he would have a labor break.
Letting the soothing sounds of music comfort him, he pulled the lamp chain above him and rested his head. He closed his eyes and as drowsiness began to set in, he turned the sound volume dial on his helmet. He turned it down gradually until he was ready to sleep and then he turned the radio o
ff.
Cog dreamt he was strung in the main hall of the bank, as if for mail call, and the customers in line were looking up and cursing him.
“Can’t you get them to move this line!?”
“Don’t you have more cashiers at this establishment?”
“I need this deposit now! My kids are starving,” a crying woman exclaimed. “It’s your fault! You wouldn’t bend the rules for me! It’s your fault!”
An alarm resonated in Cog’s ear and reverberated, once more and then once more. Disoriented, Cog opened his eyes, sat up from his cot and clicked the button on his helmet.
It was morning. He was awake.
He clicked the pad on his arm to check his scohr level and then clicked the tab on his chest by his heart, for morning feed. He bit the feed tube and drank the nutrition fluid as he watched his scohr level go down. Once he had taken in what he was able to afford, he hit the tab on his chest to stop feeding. He powered on his hover boots and waited. Once they were charged, he felt himself rise.Cog shuttered, as he always did but he took a deep breath.
He looked out from the entrance to his house. It was one window above his neighbor. He leapt and his heart pounded with fear, which ceased as he landed softly. He stepped forward and glided along the trail leading to the bank. For two miles he glided, and then entered the bank and pressed his finger to the tab at the entry. As the doors slid open for him, he stepped in and glided toward the box where his wristband was. Hw put his wristband on, pushed the button, and stepped onto the platform lift to be taken up to window 7R3. Cog clipped his earpiece to his helmet, waited for the pages, and then waited for the line to form at 7R3.
Hef floated up to his window. “How long have you been on our clock?” Hef asked.
“I’ve just arrived, sir.” Cog answered.
“Have you done mail call duty yet?”
“Well, I cannot,” Cog answered.
“You must. It is mandatory.”
“But I cannot. We’ve discussed this and you said you would talk to your superior.”
“Hm. Then I will talk to him today. Until then, you need to pull mail call duty. No excuse.”
“Yes sir.”
Cog had his first customer of the day, just several moments after his conversation with Hef. Cog recognized and remembered Ang. He wondered if she had been the woman from the previous night, but Ang only approached the window with her regular deposit.
A few customers came within the sixty mark timeframe and Cog avoided mail call duty. But once the line formed at his window, he became nervous, knowing that he had to visit every window, including the higher floors and deliver files, according to policy.
After Cog took care of several customers at his window, he knew he had to perform his duty. He took care of his last customer in line, took two more pages, disabled his earpiece and declared his window ‘not in service’.
Taking the platform down to the main level, he turned and glided to the hall leading to the mail room. Cog had to take a breath and hold in his true fear, as he took one of the hanging straps and clipped it to the back of his suit. He took the most recent mail chip from the slot and plugged it into the palm of his right hand. The belt pulled him up and as Cog was pulled he closed his eyes, trying not to think about how high up he was being strung; but even with his eyes closed, he could imagine how far up he had gone. He felt the belt elevate him and was afraid of it snapping and afraid of falling. He held his tears, though. Since he was elevated up several floors, Cog had to open his eyes so that he could see where he was to be led. He looked at his palm and a number flashed. He pushed it and the belt lowered and took a turn until he stopped at his destination.
He placed his hand on his first colleague’s mail receiving plate and after the transaction was completed, he dropped down to a lower level to deliver mail to one of the ground windows. He was then thankfully only pulled up two windows, and lowered back to ground; but then he was pulled up several windows and Cog didn’t look down. He went about his business, earning his set scohr rate.
Cog didn’t know how long it had been, but once he had finished his duty, he unstrapped himself from the belt and returned to his window. He had three customers waiting for him to be in service.
He returned to his cashier duties and took his three customers. There was a page left on his earpiece.
“I’m sorry to bother…” said a gentleman. “I really need to make a wire deposit, and all lines have put me on hold; but since I was able to leave recorded message on this line, I have to speak up and it is important that I am able to put in my deposit, however necessary. Thank you, ma’am or sir.”
The customer had wired his information via database and Cog was able to find his urgent deposit request and approve it.
Cog took care of several customers, before a familiar face walked in.
“Hi, Pam,” Cog said with a smile to the middle-aged woman standing in front of him. She had a look of dread on her face.
“Hi, Cog,” she answered back.
“How may I help you?”
“I need this deposit,” She said handing him her payment card.
Cog typed out Pam’s personal digits on the pad in front of him, and as he slid her payment card, he asked her, “What’s troubling you?”
“I had to turn off Opie’s oxygen,” she said in a soft, hoarse voice.
“Your pet mouse?” Cog handed her card back to her.
“I called you last night! I know you have to follow policy, but I couldn’t pay my fees, I had nothing and then I noticed the levels on his cage becoming low.”
“I am really sorry, Pam. I really am. I’m…I feel so bad.”
“It really isn’t your fault. If I had noticed sooner.” Pam turned slightly to walk off.
“I wish there was something I could do,” Cog said.
“Well, you can’t! You can’t do anything.”
Cog understood when he looked at Pam that she had forgotten that although he was part cybertronic, he was also part human, and he was genuine in saying he had been sorry.
“I apologize greatly. You have no idea,” Cog answered.
“I just…I…I’m just really upset.” Pam walked off in a rush, overwhelmed with emotion.
Cog felt his heart drop. He saw in his mind the grey mouse, in its oxygen cage, sleeping, and breathing, until the turn of a dial. Cog understood how it felt to feel little. He understood what the mouse felt. He wished he could have made it clear to Pam that he understood.
It was Cog’s fault Opie died--but he was human enough to know how Pam felt, more than she realized. Pam didn’t have any children. She was a loner, unmarried, like Cog, but far older. Opie was all she had. Cog’s sympathy for her was strong and genuine--and strong enough for him to stand up for himself.
III.
The end of Cog’s shift would come soon. He took care of his regular customers, made sure their deposits were run through the database so that they could live and breathe, and have shelter; and so their pets, their grey mice, or golden haired cats, were taken care of. Cog’s town neighbors lined up to process their scohrs earned from labor, while Cog earned his schors, so that he may live and breathe and pay for his shelter and nutrition.
Hef floated upward and stopped at Cog’s window just as Cog was finishing a transaction on his earset. Cog detached his earset from his helmet, once through and listened to Hef.
“You need to perform mail call duty again before you leave.”
“I won’t,” Cog answered.
He subjected himself to the pains of being strung about varying altitudes, once in the day already, and once more than he would have preferred and he would not allow himself to face it again.
“It’s mandatory,” Hef explained. “You have to perform mail duty twice within your shift.”
“And yet we talked about it and I told you, Hef, I told you explicitly of my personal objections.”
Cog understood that it was important to follow policy, for protection; but somet
imes instincts were important. He was still human. He had human instincts. He should have disregarded policy for the sake of Pam and Opie.
In this case Cog was disobeying policy for the sake of his own well-being. It was important to him that he take a stand as he imagined being forced, regularly to be swung about like a pendulum or puppet. He’d go mad.
“But I’ve seen you make mail call.”
“I wanted to prove I could do it! But I’ve had enough for today and for the next few days.”
“We’ll have to have a talk with the branch chief.”
“I’ll talk to him; that’s fine with me.”
Cog had always been timid. He wasn’t a small grey mouse like Opie, though, and no one was going to silence him with the turn of a dial, even though they could. He knew he shouldn’t be quieted without a fight and he knew he had it in him to speak up.
When Cog’s shift ended, he pulled the rope to lower his platform, without hesitation, without giving any thought to the fact that he was being dropped downward. He stepped off his platform and did not break or utter a word to Hef on his way out the door. He turned in his wristband, confident that it would be there for him when he took up his next shift. He would only be terminated after a discussion with the branch chief and if compromises could be made, he would still have work and even if he didn’t, he’d find a way to survive. No one was going to turn the dial on him.
Cog floated on his boots, along the side streets home, and sprung up to his door, imagining that he was flying. Flying was much different than being dragged by ropes. With flying, you are in control.
Cog took of his boots, unfolded a chair, opened up his supply cabinet, took out a handful of colortips from his bin, and placed them on each of his fingers on his left hand. He reached with his right hand for a canvas screen and stood the canvas screen in front of his chair. Cog accessed his database on his left arm for his water supply. He had worked hard and had enough water supply in his suit to moisten the paint in his colortip. He began to stroke the canvas screen.
He poked with his finger and poked again. He made a muddy brownish smudge and around the smudge, he drew a circle. Then he drew a circle around the circle, and another and another. He flicked his fingers, and specks of colored smudges and smears splashed, splattered and ran. Among the world he created--the world of circles--red, yellow, blue, green dots, purple dots-commotion-all of the people in the world-and overlooking it was Cog in a web. Black streaks-black strings he drew, meeting the big black smudge in the center, which was Cog.
The color, the light, the commotion and noise below charged upward at him.
If they cut the ropes from him, he would fly away and once free he would find a way to breathe, to live, to survive. No one was going to turn the dial on him without a fight; and even if he lost the fight, he’d find a way to live on. His life would become a struggle, but he’d endure.
The End
SHIMMER IN THE DARK: BRIDGE BUILDER
Ceri London
Nantosuelta admired the girl’s aura. Its blue coloring complemented the pinkish tones of the gaseous planetary rings visible beyond the observation window. Plucking a name from the child’s poorly-shielded thoughts, Nanto masked her growing anxiety behind a beaming smile, and her own impenetrable privacy wall.
“An interesting question, Haran!” Haran’s aura darkened and Nanto shifted her focus to the class. “What happens to a time traveler in-between? Haran asks a simple but perceptive question, full of charm, and intrigue.”
Amused tolerance rippled through the minds of Nanto’s audience. Many had not met their fleet’s Chief Navigator before and they obviously found her odd. Nanto didn’t care what they thought, but the general lapse in mental discipline across the Asterean space worried her immensely. The fleet had stopped to replenish dwindling supplies and Nanto had gathered together the brightest telepathic talent from the other five ships. She hoped to identify future Navigators with the bridge-building talent needed to guide the fleet on its long search for planet Earth.
It appeared she had much work to do.
Nanto wiggled her ring-covered fingers at her class. “We could discuss boring Shileky equations on space time shift, but,” she smiled at the general sigh of relief, “much easier to show you.”
Her mind searched out the specific link she needed—the nebulous beginnings of a bridge through space-time. She then drew on the dark energy all around them. A fist-sized portal appeared in the middle of the room. Usually, her portals straddled worlds and solar systems, sometimes galaxies. Not this time.
“Here we have an interesting conundrum. An object that is currently ‘in-between’—a neat label Haran has given to a dimension that continues to perplex even those who do profess to understand Shileky.”
The class crowded closer to get a good look at the spherical capsule visible inside the portal. Feeling a mental nudge, Nanto let Sorel through her privacy shield.
Sorel chuckled in Nanto’s mind. You make it look so easy.
Your gift is healing. I build bridges, Nanto thought back before addressing the class. “Niall’Kearey showed me this link to Earth. Now this orb . . . Yes, Haran?”
Haran dropped her hand. “If this is a link to Earth, why can’t you take us there now?”
“Bridging a universe requires a vast amount of energy, an amount beyond my ability—we must journey in smaller steps.”
“So why didn’t we go to Earth with the others?”
“The Asterean High Council conceived of this fleet when Niall’Kearey lost the bridge evacuating Paladin. We could not know if he would return, and there was always the possibility that his efforts to evacuate our people to Earth might fail. We embarked on this journey to help ensure our survival.”
Nanto glanced at the data-orb containing but a fraction of the Asterean’s knowledge. The flow of energy around the orb caught her attention, a quiver of awe cascaded down her spine. Some particles pressed into wavy lines etched into an impervious barrier until the concerted draw of other particles dislodged them back into the continuum.
She spoke softly. “This data-orb gives hope that Niall’Kearey did evacuate our people to Earth, or at least made the attempt. If he had not, this orb would have been destroyed on Astereal. Still, finding it here—outside time and space—raises the possibility that, someone, maybe Niall’Kearey, has taken the orb to a different point on the timeline. We surmise this because we see it here, in the in-between.”
Haran raised a timid hand. “But this orb is three-dimensional, implying a time dimension.”
“Good, Haran. Its presence in-between is a paradox that has defeated our finest minds. We must resolve the mystery. It may help us contact Niall’Kearey, discover what happened to our people.”
“How did you find the orb, Nantosuelta?” Sorel asked.
Nanto opened a black box that lay on a raised pedestal revealing a second orb. “I touched this one. I suspect Niall’Kearey’s mind activated the in-between orb, creating a signal that resonates with the others—” A rude wailing made her heart jump.
Everyone stilled.
A distorted voice sounded through the ship’s comm-broadcast. “Nantosuelta, report to Navigation.”
Several brows furrowed. Worried eyes searched a growing shadow as Nanto closed her portal with a visible flash.
“There’s something out there,” Haran whispered, pointing to an overhead porthole to the stars.
Nanto looked up and made out a dark metallic body encroaching their view of the star system—an alien ship, dark and ugly. A band of dread constricted around her ribs. Hoping to glimpse the alien’s intent, her mind reached out. Something latched on to her mental probe, a searing attack that shattered her privacy shield and dropped Nanto to her knees.
She screamed as something hot and insidious wormed into her memories.
“Nantosuelta!” Sorel sounded strained, distant.
The ship-wide communicator barked again. “Nantosuelta to Navigation!”
br /> Nanto tried to answer, but a command from a mind—cold and alien—hammered her brain.
Noc run.
In her shock, she nearly missed the command from ancient scripture. Noc Run. Reveal. Nanto grabbed at her head, needing to rip out the thrashing white-hot stick behind her eyes. Relentless. Cruel. She couldn’t fight it. Her nails dug into her scalp. Drew blood.
Noc Run.
Reveal what?
Ailne Balor seeke. Reveal.
“Nanto!” Hands gripped her upper arms. “What’s wrong?”
Nanto clutched at Sorel’s tunic. “In my head,” she croaked. “There is something . . . in my head!” Memories darted through her mind. The thing invading her thoughts skidded down her neuron paths leaving chaos in its wake. “Something . . . powerful . . .”
“Inform Captain Drese that the aliens have compromised Nantosuelta—” Sorel’s voice died away, drowned out by the intruder’s.
Join with us.
Who are you? Nanto asked. What do you want?
Her mind blurred, light and sound fading in and out. Only the thumping of her heartbeat connected her to reality. Her pulse raced, faster and faster, until whatever gripped her mind released its hold. Nanto stared at the floor in shock. She tried to move, but her long skirt was tangled around one foot. People were shouting. Pandemonium raged.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Nanto, thank the Lir!” Sorel answered her. “I was worried. Captain Drese is on his way.”
“No,” Nanto gasped out. “He needs to be at Command.”
Too late. Nanto made out the captain’s voice.
Drese knelt down beside her. “Nanto, the fleet is under attack. We need you to bridge us out of here.”
The ship’s-comm announced, “I have visual on a portal dead ahead, sir. The bridge formed out of nowhere!”
Drese raised his voice. “Lieutenant, get us out of here, now!”
“No, wait! Belay that order!” Nanto grabbed his sleeve. “Captain, I didn’t create a bridge—that portal’s not mine.”
Drese flashed her a glance of alarm. “Full Reverse,” he ordered. “Do not enter the portal. Get a visual down here!”
He helped Nanto up. She studied a holographic image of a spatial bridge that appeared. The shimmering dark void was like no bridge she had ever seen before—this bridge had the power to move, and its portal was approaching them rapidly.
Drese cursed. “Full reverse!” he ordered. “Nanto! We need that bridge!”
Nanto extended her mind, searched for a viable link, but her thoughts were in turmoil. Terror gripped her—the fleet would never evade the portal in time. The black jaws of the enemy bridge opened up the bowels of space before them, an alien trap threatening to swallow the fleet whole. She reached deep for the inner calm she needed to throw up a mental shield. If she could somehow cloak the fleet, prevent its capture. Give Captain Drese time to formulate a plan. As her mind wrapped around the ship, the monstrous portal passed overhead, a silent, deadly predator that chilled the blood.
Pure fear spurred her into a last ditch effort, but a telepathic roar of fury knocked her off balance as psychic claws plunged into her mind, and sent her spiraling into darkness.