Maya turned the Glock 17 over in her hands. The polymer frame was scarred, years of neglect and too much time out in the acid rain had done a number on it. The serial numbers had been filed off long ago, but she knew this gun's history better than most people knew their own families.
"Gen 4," she murmured to the empty room, running her thumb over the textured grip. "Nine millimeter. Seventeen rounds if you're counting, which you never did."
[Underwriting for this transcript is graciously provided for the sensory impaired beings of Earth from the Council for the Engagement of Lesser Species. For the full interview in irradiated HD, tune your hotbox to the following radiation coordinates: ______________________ ]
I push Alicia hard, deep into the liquid, gripping her shoulders when she squirms. Silver balls of air bubble from her nose and her lips move as if she's trying to speak, to cry, to plead. Finally, she sags into the viscous liquid. Her eyes stay open, staring at the ceiling of Cargo Hold One, strands of hair floating toward me like imploring fingers. One last glimpse as I close the lid. Her lips have become calm, accepting.
I swipe at my tears.
I've made the world a better place.
*ONE HOUR AGO*
Judging by the position of the nearest dying star, it was around noon when I eased myself onto a stool, ordered a cheap beer, and smiled like there wasn’t a handful of throwing knives strapped to my thigh.
We live in houses under the sea where humans don’t belong. Europa’s icy crust protects us from the radiation trapped in Jupiter’s magnetic fields and we stare through glowing windows at a world that’s not our own.
It’s Tuesday, so there was porridge for breakfast, served with salt from the ocean and crusts of black bread. There should have been jam, but the strawberries you nurtured withered to empty husks. I reviewed your notes and added suggestions that might save the blueberries and rice and avocados. The algae and kelp are thriving.
Fred Riley exhaled his last odorless vape cloud and strode into the command room. Everyone looked on edge—whether at their computer bays or darting about the room like ants in a kicked nest. Fred hadn’t expected the confusion, but it made sense. His bosses (he could never tell who was in charge) called him in early to address ‘technical difficulties.’ Right now, the ‘jefes,’ Joyce Chan and Bob Middleton argued near PROTECH’s prime terminal. Despite the late hour, Fred didn’t mind being called in to service the military computer. He'd been eyes-open all night.
First published in Elegant Literature, Issue 18, 2023
Can you hear us?
You must stop screaming.
You must stop screaming or we will have to shut you off.
Shut it off.
#
You must stop screaming.
Please stop screaming. You are hurting us.
We will have to shut you back off if you can’t stop screaming.
Shut it off.
#
Thank you for not screaming. Yes, whimpering is fine.
My mother thought I was crazy to raise my children at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
“It’s not like it was, Mom,” I said, over a video call. “Not even twenty years ago. There’s a whole community down here.”
I wasn’t one of the founders of the Mariana Trench Colony – now more commonly called Marianaville, a playful nickname that stuck – but I was among the first civilians to move there once it was established.
This piece was originally published in Intergalactic Medicine Show in July 2016.
November, 2065 - Gayatri
The plural for meeting, thought Gayatri, ought to be headache. And even for a surface stint, where meetings always played a heavy role, she'd had a lot of headaches since the announcement that pieces of their fragmented sister planet would likely crash into Earth in five months' time.
The angle was wrong, it made Gus look like a shepherd when there was much more pit in him. You could tell it in the eyes. The photo Liv took was all mouth, his eyes barely registered. He looked like someone else’s dog, not Gus. The xerox only made it worse. Les had searched his trailer before he left for the Kinkos, this old photo was all he could find. He looked for a spot on the telephone pole. Nails and staples rusted up every inch. He was bound to get tetanus if he wasn’t careful. Les couldn’t remember if he was up on his shots.