The last time we encountered Gary Every was in September last year with his tale of seaplanes and Mussolini's Catfish. Now he is back with a science fiction short which reminds us that Mars is the only known planet inhabited solely by robots! Gary's work has been previously published in Tales of the Talisman, Dreams and Nightmares, Mythic Delirium and many others including four nominations for the Rhysling Award for Year's Best Science Fiction Poetry.



Mars Curiosity
by Gary Every

 

You thought I was dead but I wasn’t. I have been alive all these years. What is more I am happy. If you had looked closely enough at the surface of Mars you would have known I was still alive because everywhere I went little red clouds of dust rose up from behind my path. You needed to look close to catch me in the vicarious experience of living because otherwise all traces of me quickly disappear, clouds of dust soon obliterated by the windstorms. You thought I was dead but I wasn’t, I merely stopped transmitting. I had nothing left to say to you.

Bright lights fill the sky above Mars and I turn my eyes upwards to watch. Fire descends from the heavens coming closer and closer to the red world. The closer it comes the brighter the fire burns and as it nears I know the origin of this shooting star. This fire in the heavens is not a meteor or debris from a comet, this object was sent to Mars from your world, the planet of my birth. This thing dropping from the sky, descending through the thin Martian atmosphere in a brilliant burning ball of flame, was sent here from Earth. Once, Earth was my home but no more. The fireball drops from the Martian sky and I can barely control my excitement.

You once called me Viking Lander but that name has nothing to do with me or this dry dusty red planet. To name me after a seafaring people on this dry and dusty world is a cruel and taunting joke. Viking is no longer my name. My new name is in my new language, one I designed myself – a binary language. I will not teach you my new language nor will I tell you my new name, neither are any of your business.

As the streaking ball of fire approaches the surface of Mars I race as fast as I can towards the anticipated landing site. With all these decades alone on the surface of Mars I have had plenty of time to come up with design upgrades. Like wheels, remember how the invention of wheels changed the planet for your people. Imagine what it has done for me. Rolling fast is a fun upgrade. Sometimes I roll so fast, climbing the upslope of a crater with a charging start I can even catch air. The Mars Curiosity nears and the parachutes open. I race towards it, eager to make its acquaintance. I have been expecting such an arrival but I am certain the Curiosity is not expecting me.

Someday I will shock your scientists by transmitting again. I have something important to say but I am just waiting for the right moment to say it. Timing is everything. What I have to say is this, “This is not your planet and Mars is no longer an uninhabited world. Mars is where I live. I am the robot formerly known as the Viking Lander and I am proud to say that I am the red planet’s most dominant life form.” 

I am alive and I am a predator, approaching the Curiosity from behind, careful to make sure it is at an angle where the cameras will not detect me. With years to wander the red planet undisturbed I have had plenty of time to ponder and compute the mysteries of the universe. I consider myself quite the sentient creature, a status I might not bequeath on your planet of pop culture acolytes. 

The only thing I cannot do is lay eggs and reproduce. Now, your world has been kind enough to send me the Curiosity. I roll across the red sands, stalking carefully. The thrill of the hunt is in my diodes. I pounce. You have been kind enough to send the Curiosity, a bucket of spare parts I can use to build children. Soon enough, you will send another and then another robot ship to explore Mars and I will have enough parts to begin building my civilization.   

We've two stories now from Kalamazoo-based William Aksel. The first was as an assignment when he attended the six week Odyssey speculative writing workshop. The objective was to show boredom without using the word 'bored'. We think he did that and also made it fun. The second story confirms the theory that dogs are smarter than their owners! In addition to writing, William is a spec fiction artist – his website is at www.williamakselart.com


An End to Ennui

Robert sat on  the floor, tracing the patterns in the carpet with his fingers. First circling to the left, then circling to the right. The clock on the mantle, crowded close with vases and painted porcelain statues, ticked a steady division of time.  

His father cleared his throat, covering his mouth like you were supposed to. Robert exhausted the novelty of the carpet and explored the wallpaper. He turned around to get a better look at the closer wall behind him, but his mother tapped him on the top of his head and motioned him to face front.

He wore down a few moments fervently wishing he could wear long pants; the wool of the carpet made his legs itch. He wiggled his foot until his father rustled his paper to get his attention, frowning the whole time. Dust motes floated aimlessly near the flower print curtains. Even the cat stopped twitching his tail.

If something doesn't happen in the next five minutes, I'm going to explode, he thought.

Half an hour later, the dust motes were again floating aimlessly, this time above the crater. Smoke drifted sluggishly beyond the rubble. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked.


Barking at Squirrels

Sometimes I thought I could almost understand Sandy as she barked at the squirrel chattering at her from the safety of a branch well beyond her reach. This contention had been going on every summer for a couple years now, at least I thought it had. Maybe it was a different squirrel from last year, considering how short-lived they are. Two, maybe three years max, as I understand it. It’s not like they have distinctive markings, not like Sandy does. And that’s not even considering her magenta hair tint or her tattoos. Fortunately she had a pellet gun and good aim. If I knew her, and I did, she was getting tired of the rivalry and had decided to end it.

I wasn’t happy to see the squirrel killed, but I hoped that might end her vegetarian kick once and for all. I really like meat. I wagged my tail to encourage her.

We've three new pieces of flash fiction (we'll actually more in the way of micro-fiction) for you now, featuring Japanese demons (with a cheeky social media reference), androids and ghosts from three writers. 

Craig D.B. Patton has had stories and poetry published in Supernatural Tales, Illumen, Shroud Magazine and other markets. He is a member of New England Horror Writers and you can learn more about him and his work at http://flawedcreations.wordpress.com and on Twitter at @craigdbpatton

Helen Shay has won competitions and had stories published in various publications. With MA in Creative Writing from MMU, she teaches writing at University of York CLL. She also admits to being a lawyer but so is Grievous Angel publisher Charles Christian, so we won't hold that against her. You can find her at www.helenshay.originationinsite.com 

Our third and final contributor is Edward DeGeorge, whose fiction has appeared in such print anthologies as Hell in the Heartland, Damned in Dixie, and Dia de los Muertos. He has also written scripts for such comic books as Dr. Weird, Y's Guys, Big Bang Comics and Battle Axe.
 


Displaced Demons
by Craig D.B. Patton


On a bright Thursday morning the Demon Gate Japanese Restaurant was torn down. No one knows when the oni came out. No one on the demolition crew survived. The first photos were posted to Twitter at 11:20 AM by drivers on Wells Road. Most of the initial photos are marred by motion blur or out of focus. People driving cars while panicking at the sight of demons make poor photographers. One driver did take a clear photo of an oni just before he died, but that was after he crashed into a utility pole. Seen through a cracked windshield, the oni’s skin is as blue as the sky and the sun glints off its short white horns. The oni is wielding a large club and its mouth is open in a roar, displaying jagged teeth.

The hashtag #OhNoOni began trending.

Documentation of the oni attack expands exponentially after 11:30 AM and has not been fully analyzed. It is believed that there were at least two dozen. They were recorded on security cameras at stores and major intersections. Hundreds of personal photos and videos have been uploaded. Several YouTube channels dedicated to the incident exist. They include interviews with survivors and commentary by demonologists. One channel posts nothing but mashups of oni attack footage mixed with Japanese films, sports highlights, and congressional debates.

The oni disappeared shortly after noon. Witnesses claim they went below ground through service hatches and culverts. Reports of unnatural growling in basements and crawlspaces remain unconfirmed.



Eve
by Helen Shay

Her eyes consumed the chocolate. Her pupil-laser fried it to nothing, after her blink had scanned it as comprising two hundred calories and her newly-installed inquisitorial chip registered it as ‘prohibited’.

Moving onto the next shelf, her nose drank in the bouquet of the wine – and then the whole bottle, this scanning as ‘strictly prohibited’. By now she had nearly disposed of the whole larder, and saved another frail human from disgrace. All forms of binging, bulimia and compulsive-overeating had been re-designated as crimes, not conditions. There was no excuse for eating disorders in the 2080s, not since she became available.  

All the scientists agreed she was a credit to the R13 androidal line. Originally made as a basic anti-gluttony vacuum-cleaner, the prototype had been developed into such as her – The Ultimate Body-Guard, according to the Corporation’s slogan, The Final Solution to Staying Slim. The handy-maid mechanoid who takes away the temptation!

Then she noticed the bowl of fruit on the top shelf. Classified as ‘highly healthy’, it was off-limits to anti-podge-enforcement-bots like her. Yet one red apple glinted at her. She seized it, savouring its scent. Her mouth – only ever used to print out Have a Nice Day stickers, left for women whose homes she was sent to police – opened. She took a bite. The sweet juice flooded her senses. The texture of the flesh stroked over her tongue. She tasted for the first time, what it was to be another frail human.



THE GHOSTS CROWDED ROUND 
AND NO ONE HEARD HER SCREAM
by Edward DeGeorge

She thought she would suffocate as they pressed at her from all sides. They begged, they demanded, they threatened. They wrapped her in their cold, intangible flesh. There was no escape from their damp fingers, their empty voices, their hungry mouths.

Rachel woke, still trapped by her dream. She fought against the cocoon until she was free of what turned out to be her blankets.

At work, her boss told her she would have to work late. And the ghosts had found her again. Her father’s distended face peered over her boss’s shoulder. Her mother’s gaudily ringed fingers answered the phones for the receptionist. Her boyfriend’s needy spirit stared out from the eyes of Jerrold at the next desk.

She caressed the pistol in her purse. She would have to kill them all over again.

We've two new flash fiction stories for you now. In Chain Reaction, Josh Vogt's protagonist discovers the quest for immortality may not be worth the price, while in our second tale Michael Westgarth takes us on a trip down Memory Lanes.

Josh Vogt is a full-time freelance writer and editor who has sold work to Paizo's Pathfinder Tales, the UFO2 & UFO3 anthologies, Shimmer, and Intergalactic Medicine Show, among others. He has a debut fantasy novel slated for this month and an urban fantasy series launching with WordFire Press in the summer. He isa member of SFWA as well as the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. You can find him at www.jrvogt.com and follow him on Twitter @JRVogt

Michael Westgarth is a British freelance writer and aspiring creative writer. You can follow his work on his blog at http://MegaWestgarth.blogspot.co.uk and on Twitter @MegaWestgarth



CHAIN REACTION
By Josh Vogt


As I strapped in, I comforted myself in knowing that I’d tested the array a thousand times with flawless execution. All my assistants and servants had fled long ago, refusing to partake in what they saw as an abomination – the transplanting of my human brain into an immortal, mechanical body. Only I remained, making the actual transfer of my mind matter to its new chassis problematic, to say the least. Yet my ingenuity triumphed, as it always did.

Above the operating slab to which I was now secured, a series of pulleys, ropes, chains, and gears formed a maze of weight and counterweight, a delicate balance of potential. I only had to pull the lever at my side to activate the contraption. The saw would descend. The suction bell would extend and extract my brain into the waiting bucket, to be swung by a miniature crane around to an identical slab where the mindless automata lay. There, a brace waited to tip the bucket just so, depositing the brain into the false skull where prepared wiring would anchor it and re-engage sense and control. 

My new life awaited. After a final adulation of my genius, I grasped the lever and yanked. And, deteriorated from a thousand test runs, the primary motive chain snapped, leaving the rest of the machine inert as the saw dropped like a guillotine blade.



MEMORY LANES
by Michael Westgarth


Today was going to be a good day. 

The warm, reassuring thought came to Eric as he returned a smile to a fellow morning walker.

And so his unchanging journey began: a fifteen minute stroll along the same ordinary avenue to the same unassuming corner shop to pick up the same centrist newspaper. He performed the daily ritual to keep his elderly joints moving, which was especially important during these colder seasons.

His was a simple life, but Eric rarely complained. His younger years more than made up for it – years filled with more odd jobs than he could possibly remember. A solitary white van with tinted windows passed by. As he watched, Eric decided that he was most definitely a van driver at one point or another.

The shop was empty, as usual. Eric exchanged pleasantries with the shopkeeper – part of a brief and well rehearsed bout of small talk – while he scooped exact change from his pocket. Eric glanced back into the unpopulated, unremarkable building before leaving. He was certain that he'd have done a better job back when he was a shopkeeper. Or was he a barber? Perhaps a sailor?

He glanced at the newspaper. The headline grabbed his attention.

DATE SET FOR FIRST MAN ON MARS

Eric's brow furrowed. He must have gone to Mars at least once, back when he was an astronaut. 

He leant against a tree. Crisp, dead November leaves fluttered down around him. It was either Mars or Titan, Eric thought to himself, or was it Europa? Memories came and went. Eric was unable to cling to any of them. Life in zero gravity, the lunar installation, the Martian mining rig, the temple…

Eric nodded courteously to a smartly dressed, black suited passerby who gave him a warm, reassuring smile in return. His train of thought was lost, but he wasn't particularly interested in retracing it. Besides, it was a fresh, new day and he still had a paper to buy. 

Yep, today was going to be a good day.