Tag: science fiction

prompt: Write a story that involves sabotage.

available at Reedsy

Wallace walked toward the silent slab of alien metal that hung over the edge of the city, his tool bag hung over his shoulder. After the failed attempts of the combined militaries of the world, it had become obvious that the aliens were now running the show. Like most others, Wallace wasn’t happy about that.

He looked at the strange paper he held. It had writing in the alien’s language and English stating that he was ordered, as a subject of the Empire, for a work detail on the ship. Grabbing the corner of the sheet, it glowed yellow. The cashier at the minimart had tried it, and it did not respond for her.

On reaching the park indicated on the paper, he joined the queue being checked by the large alien machines, looking like oversized turnstiles surrounded by a thin support structure and bristling with unmistakable gun barrels, and unarmed humans in military uniforms. As each person in the queue was vetted, they filed into a cube-shaped device hovering an inch above the grass.

The machines made a strange noise, followed by, “Work pass, please.”

Wallace held the paper by the corner, letting it glow. The machine made another strange noise, then said, “Next.”

He started toward the cube and was stopped by one of the human soldiers. “Here ya go,” he said, handing Wallace an MRE and two bottles of water. “The best thing in there is probably the gum, but the rest is better than starving,” the soldier said.

Wallace took the offered items and thanked the soldier. As he stepped into the cube, he felt as though he were in an elevator going down at high speed. He struggled to keep himself upright and walk without bouncing and stumbling around. He wasn’t the only one.

He made his way to the wall and leaned against it. The short, stocky woman next to him did the same. She turned toward him, her golden-brown skin looking wan in the pale light, her dark brown hair looking black. Her deep brown eyes raised to meet his; pale blue. “What kind of work for you?”

He looked at his pale hands, all pink undertones washed out by the unflattering light. The strands of blonde hair that fell in front of his eye appeared grey. “I’m a mechanical and electrical engineer. I don’t know what they want from me, though. Not like I had a choice. The Empire commands, blah blah blah…pain of death, blah blah blah….”

“True,” she said. “No choices. I’m a biochemist. No idea what they want with me.”

“Wallace,” he said.

“Isabella.”

They fell silent, not really having anything else to talk about. It wasn’t until his ears began to pop that Wallace realized they were rising. He ripped open the MRE and dug through until he found the gum.

It tasted like sugar and cardboard and was like trying to chew leather until it warmed up.

“Good idea,” Isabella said and followed suit.

The cube docked inside the larger ship, the walls disappearing into nothing. Wallace wondered at it. Did they go into the floor, too fast to see? Were they made of some strange material that required energy to remain solid?

He was quickly pulled out of his wondering by the aliens that were standing around waiting for them. They were at least nine feet tall, slender, bipedal, with two long arms extending from their mid torso, with two small, seemingly unusable arms extending from what he thought of as their narrow shoulders, and another two from their hips.

There was little he could see to differentiate them from each other. In the dim light they all looked a pale, yellow grey with six black eyes above a lipless mouth and nothing that suggested ears or a nose. They were covered with a fine, downy fur that was thickest down their torso midline.

They wore no clothes beyond a sash below their upper arms, on which were alien symbols. The one that approached him handed him a small device on a soft cord that felt like silk and mimed putting it over its head.

“Put this on,” it said. “This is your translation device for spoken and written language. Do not lose it. Follow me.”

Wallace realized that the creature was making strange sounds, but the device was converting it to English. He put the device around his neck and followed the strange being.

It took him a few minutes to find a walking gait that didn’t have him tripping over himself in the low gravity. Once he was moving confidently, he began to pay more attention to his surroundings. Aliens they may be, but electricity is electricity, and the conduits began to make sense to him.

He noticed that there were places in the corridors where the gravity felt lightest and moving away from them it slowly increased. At those places, there was always a light brown conduit with bright yellow stripes going into the floor, and markings on the floor in the alien script.

As they passed one, he paused and pointed the translator at the marking on the floor. “Caution, gravity plate below. Do not remove while powered,” the device said.

“Gravity manipulation?” he asked.

“Yes,” the alien answered.

“If you can do that, what do you need from me?”

The alien opened a door into a workshop where a ground vehicle sat next to an identical one that looked like it had been crushed. Devices in various states of destruction sat on workbenches, two feet too tall for a human to work at, if not for the crude stepladder chairs that flanked them.

“You will work on improving these devices to work in high gravity.”

“Why me?” Wallace asked. “Surely your engineers can figure it out.”

“You can withstand the gravity of testing, and you are used to engineering in high gravity, so you will save us time.” It pointed at a bench on the far side of the room. “Start on the device there,” it said. “That is your critical work for the day.”

“Can you at least tell me your name?” Wallace asked.

It made a strange noise that he had no hope of repeating. “Ah, okay, I’ll just call you Lurch. I’m Wallace, by the way.”

Ignoring him, Lurch pointed to a large button on the wall. “When you wish to test at high gravity, that button will sound the alarm to clear the lab, then the gravity plate in the center of the test floor will turn off, subjecting the area to your planetary gravity.”

With that, the alien left him on his own. Wallace put his tool bag, MRE, and water bottles on the workbench and began to inspect the device he was meant to be working on.

It was a basic relay, an electromagnetic switch. Run low-voltage power through the coil and it pulls the switch closed allowing a high-voltage current across the switch. Remove the low-voltage signal, the switch opens back up.

He tested the resistance across the switch when closed. Even at the most sensitive setting, his meter could not detect any resistance. It was a superconductor. There was a spool of the same material sitting on the workbench. It felt no more substantial than aluminum foil, although it was far thicker.

In the low gravity, it was stiff enough to maintain its shape, but it would never hold up in full gravity. It would be simple to fix with a piece of light gauge mild steel, assuming the magnet was strong enough to hold it. He wasn’t about to call it done, though.

He moved to the gravity plating and placed his high-voltage meter near the cable. It was well-shielded, not giving him any readings. He grabbed the relay, pushed the large button above his head, and moved to the gravity plate.

After a few seconds of the alarm, he felt like he was again on solid ground. The metal of the switch drooped and warped, no matter which way it was turned, even when placed at ninety degrees.

There didn’t seem to be any fasteners holding the gravity plate in the floor, and he found it easier than he expected to lift out. Beneath it, he found devices he couldn’t identify, but the power connections were clear, and it was obvious that the power continued beyond the plate.

Continuing to experiment, he disconnected the power from the plate and attached his high-voltage meter. He returned to the button and hit it again. The meter hummed and he looked at it only long enough to read that it was seventeen kilovolts before pushing the button again.

After reconnecting and allowing the power to return to the gravity plating, he began looking through the materials on the workbench. As he had guessed, there was no mild steel. There was, however, the spool of superconducting ribbon. It was easy enough to cut a piece off with his snips. He stuffed it in the bottom of his tool bag for study. It would certainly give humanity a big boost if they could copy it.

Wallace considered the device under the gravity plate. There was a large amount of electricity powering it, and high-voltage systems tend to not withstand feedback very well. Coupled with how everything seemed to be engineered to very close tolerances without any thought of over-engineering, it was likely that he could rig something up.

He set to work with the materials on the workbench and had a voltage amplifier built in less than an hour. Wallace sat, eating his high-calorie meal, playing with the superconductor while trying to figure out how to place it where it would both be hidden, and would not go off while he was in the ship.

Finally, it came to him. He grabbed the now-tasteless gum from the plastic MRE bag where he had stuck it while eating and began to chew it again. While doing this, he poured the MRE salt packet into one of the bottles of water and shook it up. Saltwater was a far better conductor than clear water.

After turning off the gravity again, he lifted the floor plate and dropped down into the space beneath it where the hardware was. The actual emitter, if that’s what it was, lay beneath the hardware, while the floor plate was just a covering.

He placed the amplifier under the adjoining floor plate, in a space too small for the aliens to easily see or get to. One end of the amplifier was attached to the mechanism’s power output, with the other connected to a lead of the superconductor held above the floor by using his gum to tack it to another insulated conduit.

The bottle of saltwater was placed on the other side of the space, and he poked a small hole in the base of it. When the water was high enough, the power inlet would arc to the water, and from there to the amplifier. He just hoped it was enough.

He turned the gravity modifier back on and sat on the floor putting his tools away when the door opened and the alien he called ‘Lurch’ came in.

“Have you found the solution?” Lurch asked, looking at the warped and mangled relay on the workbench.

“I have,” Wallace said, “but I don’t have the materials here to fix it.” He continued with the meticulous process of putting his tools in his bag in just the right way.

“What material are you needing?”

“Mild steel, twenty-four gauge,” he said, zipping his bag.

“You will provide some of this when you return in six of your hours,” Lurch said. “Now it is time for you to leave, so we may go into our night cycle.”

Wallace shrugged the bag over his shoulder and followed the alien back out to the other humans standing inside a square on the floor. He recognized it as the floor of the cube. Just as they had disappeared before, the walls suddenly appeared around them, and the cube began descending; only the popping of his ears making that apparent to him.

When he stepped out of the cube, he noticed he wasn’t the only one glad to be back on solid ground with full gravity. Wallace began walking away, trying to decide where to go. He wasn’t coming back in six hours, that much was certain.

A tap on his shoulder stopped him, and he turned to see Isabella. “Hey, Isabella, right? What did they have you doing?”

“Mostly testing the nutritional value to humans of some foul-smelling paste,” she said. “They left me alone in a lab, and I left them a little present.”

“What’s that?”

“When someone moves the waste container, they’re going to have a little fire in the lab. Stunning how little care they give to things like potassium.” She winked.

“Yeah, I uh…tried to burn out their gravity system. Hopefully, sometime in the next hour or less, their whole system will be overloaded.”

They reached the edge of the park, about to go their separate ways, when they realized everyone around them was fixated on the ship. Wallace turned in time to see the ship begin to list to one side, rise, and speed away toward the hills as it began to distort, as though an unseen hand was crushing it in just before it fell from the sky.

As the dust settled, the two of them looked around. People were cheering and celebrating. The machines that had been standing guard were silent. Wallace realized, with a sickening lurch of his guts, that the ship had crashed in an inhabited area.

“All those people,” he said.

Isabella grabbed his hand and led him away. “Come now, grieve later,” she said. “They thought the war was over, but we’ll show them it’s just begun.”

prompt: The first rain of the season arrives. Write a story that begins immediately afterward.

available at Reedsy

For a century they had waited, silently imprisoned, safe in the ground. A century gone by without change, until….

A pattering of rain began to fall. The drops gaining in size and frequency as the rare clouds finally let go of their precious cargo. At first, the rain beaded and ran over the surface of the fine, red dust. Soon, however, the larger drops pushed past the surface and the thirsty soil swallowed them down.

As their hard prisons dissolved, they emerged, ravenous. There was no hesitation as they hunted down their prey. By the thousands they spread out, spearing their prey with a needle-like mouth before sucking out their insides. As the rain soaked more ground, more of their brethren awoke from their slumber and joined in the slaughter.

As quickly as it had started, the rain stopped. The soil held the water greedily, though, allowing the continued frenzy.

The faint light of day gave way to the dark of night, and still they continued, blindly searching out their prey, spearing them, and sucking out their insides. As they ate they grew, some faster than others. The faster growing of them reached a size twice that of the others. The smaller, however, grew a spear-like appendage they could extend from their cloaca.

No matter how much they ate, there was an endless supply of prey, far more than they could ever devour. The first of them to emerge were beginning to slow down. The instinct to eat was on the wane, and another was emerging.

Night again turned to day, melting the thin layer of ice that had formed on the surface during the night. Vibrations spread through the ground around them, but they ignored it. They were driven by instinct and smell alone.

Where they had first spread out, they began to congregate. The smaller ones were drawn to the larger. When they got close enough, the small ones speared the larger with their spear-like appendage, depositing their genetic material.

After the violent coitus, the larger ones left to again eat, while the smaller simply stopped moving. They had served their purpose and would die soon.

The large ones kept on the move, eating and depositing their eggs over a wide area. When the last of their eggs were laid, they too, would die, having ensured that the next ravenous generation would return…someday.

#

“Ammonia, slight increase in soil nitrogen…I’d say they survived.” Gavin, tall and thin, dressed in a heavy coat, warm gloves, and an oxygen mask covering the lower half of his mahogany face, studied the display of the sampler built into the sleeve of his jacket.

“Let’s take a look,” Ayla said. Shorter than Gavin, her figure was indiscernible beneath the heavy clothes. Her face was pink around the oxygen mask. She scooped up a sample of the red mud with a spoon, repurposed for this occasion, and placed it in the 3-D microscope.

A holographic display showed in the air above the microscope. With careful gestures, Ayla turned the display, zooming in and examining the sample.

“That looks like it might be an egg encapsulation.”

“It does,” Gavin agreed. “See the slight track there? Try to follow that.”

She did as he suggested. Soon, a figure became clear in the holograph. A squirming tube, narrowed at both ends, thrashed through the soil and deposited another egg.

“Nice,” Gavin said, “healthy female, and eggs.”

“If we have a male in here too, we can head back.” Ayla began to follow the track backwards from the female.

“Are you really in a hurry to go back to the dome?” Gavin asked.

“This is huge,” she said, “and I’m excited. Aren’t you? Besides, we need to see what kind of genetic damage a century of solar radiation might have done.”

“Find your male,” he said, “then take a break. I’ve brought along a little bottle of champagne to celebrate.”

“Is that all you think about?” she asked.

“What? Breaks, celebrations…champagne?”

“Excuses to slack off.”

Gavin snorted. “Just find your male. Hopefully you didn’t scoop her up too far away from him.”

“There he is!” Ayla zoomed the holographic image in to the unmoving male, his spear-like appendage still fully extended. She turned off the microscope and closed the sample container.

Gavin held a split of champagne in one hand, his eyes turned skyward. Ayla looked up. The clouds were gathering again, darker than the previous day. “Do you think?” she asked.

“The second rain in as many days? It’s possible.” He returned his attention to the champagne. “But we have yet to celebrate the first rain.”

“Where were you last night? The parties in the dome were insane.”

“I was busy calibrating equipment for this,” he said, pointing to the sample container. “Besides, I thought it might rain again today, and I wanted to be in it, rather than a hundred kilometers away.”

“I don’t suppose you brought any glasses?”

“Nope, waste of time.” He popped the cork and handed the bottle to Ayla. “This way you don’t have to worry about my germs.”

Ayla chuckled. She raised her mask and took a drink from the split. It was cold and clean, with hints of apple. She lowered her mask and handed the bottle back to Gavin.

He took a deep draught from the bottle, swallowing nearly half the contents. He lowered his mask, taking a deep breath. As Ayla reached for the bottle, he burped in his mask, making her laugh.

“Is it as good the second time?”

He sniffed exaggeratedly. “Divine.”

Rain again began to patter down, and both looked to the sky. “Twice in two days!” Gavin did an impromptu dance.

He removed his mask and opened his mouth wide, tongue out, letting the rain fall on it. He laughed and kept doing it until he got too dizzy to continue and had to put his mask back on.

“You’re crazy, you know that, right?” Ayla let the cold rain wash over her upturned face, icy rivulets running down her neck to snake under her heavy coat and run down her spine.

“Just think,” Gavin said, “not only did the nematodes survive over a century before the first rain, but we were the first to experience rain on Mars!”

prompt: Set your story in a roadside diner.

available at Reedsy

At first glance, there was nothing to mark either the crossroads or the diner that sat next to it as unusual. A closer look would reveal that the roads seemed to shimmer and disappear in the distance in a way that strained the eye and led to headaches. The diner itself, though, was completely normal, though its customers were not.

“Hey hon, welcome to your first shift. It’ll be busy.” Mabel, the blue-eyed woman of indeterminate age, with hair dyed a garish red against her lined face of pale pink smiled, deepening the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth.

Priya piled her straight black hair into a bun; olive skin highlighted with tasteful touches of makeup. Her hazel eyes turned to the older woman with a question. “Mabel, it’s Tuesday graveyard, in the middle of nowhere. How does that make it busy?”

“Easy, hon. We have regulars every Tuesday night, and the roads are most active then as well.” She began filling salt and pepper shakers. “How’d you end up here, anyway?”

“Bad relationship,” she answered. “Since you’re already on the shakers, I’ll fill all the ketchup and mustard.”

“Abuse?”

“No, not me anyway, but she was a bully, and I can’t stand bullies.”

“I hear that, hon,”

Travis stepped out of the kitchen, lighting a cigarette as he entered the dining room. “Six baskets of fries ready to drop,” he said. “Let me know as soon as the corollaxian gamers land.” He took a deep drag, his massive chest expanding, dark brown eyes focused on nothing. The white uniform made his mahogany skin seem even darker and richer, if that was possible.

“Trav, honey, how we doing for shrimp?” Mabel asked.

“We’re good,” he said, “unless we get more kylari than usual. That happens, flog the catfish.”

“How much do we have?”

“Enough for thirty portions.”

“Priya!” Mabel called out. “Check the board for shrimp and update it every order. If we run low, start pushing catfish for the ones that want cooked seafood.” She marked the dry-erase board with “shrimp: 30” and dropped the pen in the tray at the bottom.

“Okay, Mabel.” Priya hummed as she worked. “Why do we have such big bottles of mustard on the tables?” she asked, opening the third large container in her rounds to fill everything.

“You’ll see, P,” Travis said with a chuckle. “Just don’t stare.”

“Easy there, darlin’, she’ll do fine, won’t you hon?”

“Thanks, Mabel.”

A sheriff’s cruiser pulled up outside, and a lanky, red-headed woman walked in holding a massive travel mug. “Hey, Mabel!”

“Hey, Grace! You hear for the usual, hon?”

“No time to stay for the show tonight; just some coffee to keep me awake. Fill it all the way. And this is the new girl? I’m Grace,” she said, extending her hand.

“Priya,” Priya said, shaking Grace’s hand.

Mabel filled the mug with the freshly brewed coffee and handed it back. “Have a good night and stay safe.”

“You too,” she said, leaving as quickly as she’d come.

“She didn’t….”

“Drinks are free for cops, firemen, paramedics…pretty much any emergency types,” Mabel said, “except for milk or the stuff in the cooler.”

Priya looked at the cooler near the wait station. It contained energy drinks, orange juice, apple juice, and grape soda. She was ready to settle into a long, slow night when a bright, orange glow flashed from the crossroads. “What was that?”

“Trav, start dropping fries!” Mabel handed Priya six coffee cups and the decaf pot. “Table seven, room for cream in all of them, and whatever you do, do not give them anything other than decaf.”

Confused, Priya did as she was told, Mabel following behind with napkins and utensils. No sooner had they set the table, than the door opened, and six figures entered. They looked nearly identical; short, with overly large, black eyes, tight-fitting suits of blue, with three long fingers on each of their four grey hands.

Mabel poked her in the ribs. “Best get used to it quick, girl.”

“Right, sorry.” Priya hurried back to the wait station to put the pot back on the warmer.

As she left, she heard them ordering, their voices were high-pitched, like a child, with a slight ringing to them. “Four orders of fries,” they were all saying over the top of each other.

“It’s coming right up, sweeties,” Mabel replied.

“Order up!” Travis’ voice boomed from the kitchen, and the six strange beings all squirmed excitedly. Priya noticed that they removed tablets and strange dice from their bags, handling them only with their lower hands.

“Priya, hon, help me get this order out to these hungry boys…or girls…or whatever they are.”

Priya nodded and took three of the plates, while Mabel took the others. As she set the massive piles of fries in front of each of them, they took turns smothering them with mustard. She noticed that they used their upper hands to handle the food and drinks, while the lower continued with their dice and tablets. Even though they made no sounds other than hums of appreciation while eating, it was clear that they were communicating with each other, as the game continued.

“They’ll be there for a few hours,” Mabel said. “Just keep their decaf coffee topped up, and they’re happy. They’re deathly allergic to caffeine, you hear?”

The crossroads flashed again, green this time. “Ugh. These guys are likely to take most of the shrimp, but don’t offer them catfish. It’s no good raw and they can’t eat it cooked. If they ask for regular coffee or soda, check their ID.”

“Oh, are these the kylari Travis mentioned?”

“No, some unexpected griptar,” Mabel said. “Closest as I can say it anyway.”

“What am I looking for on their ID?”

“If they’re allowed to have caffeine, you’ll see a blue circle around their picture. If the circle is missing, or any other color, don’t give them caffeine under any circumstance. It’s decaf or water. Don’t want the patrol to have any reason to close us down.”

Five creatures walked, or rather, slithered in. Their bodies were small, ending in a mass of tentacles on which they moved, with smaller tentacles around their mouthparts. In contrast to the first group, they were noisy, chattering among themselves in some incomprehensible gurgling language.

Priya showed them to a booth and placed menus in front of them. “Can I get you started with something to drink?”

One of the creatures pushed a button on a device it wore at the top of one of its tentacles. “I’m sorry, the translator was off. What was that?”

“Can I get you started with something to drink?”

“Four colas, and I’ll have water. I have to pilot,” the creature said.

Priya was about to get the drinks when she remembered. “Can I see your IDs?”

The four that would be drinking cola raised a tentacle, and a holographic image of them showed. Three were haloed with a blue circle, the fourth had a green circle. “Um, it looks like I can’t give you any caffeine,” she said to the odd one out.

The creature’s bulbous black eyes hid themselves behind a nictitating membrane, and the whole table began to count together. “Four…three…two…one…zero!” The circle turned blue.

“Happy…birthday?”

“The translator does not understand this word. But this one is now at the age of majority,” the ordering creature said.

“Congratulations,” Priya said, before returning to the wait station to get their drinks.

Mabel sidled up to her. “I saw that,” she said. “Get ready for them to act like college kids at the youngest one’s twenty-first birthday. Could get rowdy.”

“At least they have a designated driver…pilot?”

The crossroads flashed blue. “Here comes the kylari,” Mabel said. “I’ll grab them; I think the griptar are ready to order.”

The table was already getting loud, and Priya put on her best waitress smile and approached. “Are you all ready to order?”

After some arguing, and the designated pilot’s consultation with a strange device, the creature ordered four and a half pounds of raw shrimp, whole. Priya kept her smile on and returned to the order window to pass it on.

“One minute,” Travis said. “Mark us down as twelve orders of shrimp left.”

“Got it,” she said. She picked up the pot of decaf and headed to the table with the gamers. They had each gotten around halfway through their pile of mustard-slathered fries, their odd dice rattling as they rolled them. Being as efficient as she could, she refilled all their mugs, leaving room for cream, and returned the pot just as Travis put out a large bowl full of shrimp, still in the shell, with heads, tails, and legs still on.

“This is what they want?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Plates?”

“No, they’ll share a bowl, but bring them a couple empty soup bowls.”

“Ah, for the shells,” she said.

Travis just laughed.

She set the shrimp and the empty bowls down. “Anything else I can get you?” The four drinking caffeine were clearly inebriated, despite having only drunk less than a quarter of their colas.

“No thank you,” the sober one said. “We have everything we need.”

They filled the empty bowls with mustard, dipped the shrimp in the mustard and crunched them up whole. She went back to the order window before her stomach could turn any further than it already had.

Travis nodded toward the table where Mabel was seating the kylari; four creatures that resembled a cross between a frog and an ape. Their skin was brightly multi-colored, their large eyes with rectangular pupils set high on their wide heads. One of them gesticulated wildly with webbed fingers, six to a hand; but at least they each only had two hands. “There goes the rest of the shrimp,” he said, “unless they’re interested in fresh-water fish.”

Mabel nodded at them and came to the order window, one of the kylari following closely behind her. “Four double-orders of the fried catfish, on a bed of greens, with a whole radish on the side.”

“How?” Travis asked in a whisper.

“I know, we’re supposed to keep it secret, but they’re here all the time so, we can share this once,” she said with a wink. She laughed as she filled a pitcher with warm water, into which she stirred a generous amount of salt, handing it to the kylari waiting impatiently for it.

“You’re good,” Travis said with a grin. He turned back into the kitchen as the crossroads flashed a bright yellow.

“Shit. Priya, hon, push that button under the till.”

“Trouble?” Travis asked, his back still turned.

“Wolves.”

A loud crash sounded somewhere in the field behind the diner, and Mabel ran out the back door. When Priya started after her she shouted, “Stay in there and wait for Grace.”

The inhabitants of the diner were all looking at Priya, probably wondering what the crash had been. Rather than let her nervousness show, she busied herself with topping the gamers’ coffees and pretended everything was normal.

Mabel returned a moment later, helping one of the four-armed creatures hobble in. It wore only a rag around its waist. Its skin was pallid, crossed with scars, and a heavy collar circled its neck. One of its lower hands looked broken.

It made a noise, like the voice of the gamers, but it wasn’t in a language that Priya could understand. She ran to the table of gamers to ask if one of them could translate for them. They were already packing up their dice and tablets, their fries left unfinished. “We heard our cousin,” one of them said, as they rose to follow Priya.

When the other creatures got close enough for the translator to work, the noises became intelligible. “Help me, please,” it said. “I escaped the slavers, but they’re right behind me.” It grabbed at the collar around its neck. “They’re following this.”

“Can I try?” Travis asked.

The creature raised its head so he could get at the collar. Travis gripped it in his hands and pulled at it, his muscles straining, until the clasp snapped, opening. He placed the collar on the order window.

“Can you get this poor dear safe?” Mabel asked them.

“We will take our cousin home,” one said. “May we exit through this portal?”

“Sure, dear.”

“Oh, we haven’t paid,” it said.

“Don’t worry about it, on the house this time,” she said with a smile.

“Wait,” Travis said. He loaded a to-go box with fries and added a whole squeeze bottle of mustard. “He’s probably hungry.”

“You are very kind,” the creature said.

Grace ran into the kitchen, her hand resting on her pistol. “What’s happen…oh my god, do we need an ambulance?”

“No, we need to get him out of here before the wolves show up,” Mabel said.

“If you take off right away, they’ll follow you. Hide in your ship until I tell you it’s safe,” Grace said.

“If the patrol searches our ship, we’ll all be slaves.”

“Leave that to me,” Grace said.

A second bright yellow flash from the crossroads spurred the creatures into action. “Thank you again,” they said, hurrying out the back door.

Priya, Mabel, and Grace rushed into the dining room, trying to act nonchalant, while Travis finished up the catfish order. “These guys can’t handle sugar,” Mabel said, “but they can’t taste it either. If you don’t want to have to drag doped up wolves out the door, no sugar.”

The door opened and three tall creatures entered. They were vaguely human-shaped, though the proportions were all wrong. Dull grey fur peeked out of the edges of their armored uniforms and covered their snouts. Large canines and sharp claws marked them as predators.

As they entered, one of them studied a device in its hand, while the other two scanned the diner. One of them approached the table of celebrating griptar, now grown deathly silent. It leaned over and spoke softly, and they all showed their IDs again. It licked its snout with a purple tongue and returned to the other two.

“Would you prefer a table or a booth?” Priya asked with a smile, looking up at the largest of the three.

“Don’t threaten me, human, I’ll have you for a snack.”

“What threat?” she asked. “I just asked whether you’d like to sit at a table or a booth?”

“Where is the slave? And don’t bare your teeth at me.”

“Oh, you’re like a monkey,” she said. “I get it.”

“Where is the slave?”

“No slaves here, it’s illegal.” She smiled her sweetest close-mouthed smile. “Table or booth?”

“That,” it said, pointing at the collar on the order window.

Priya casually walked to the window and picked up the collar. “Is this thing yours?” she asked. “Someone dropped it off hours ago.”

“Where was it found?”

“In the middle of the intersection,” she said.

“Where did the creature wearing this go?”

Priya shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you. Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Colorado…depends on which direction they went. How about this booth over here,” she said rather than asked, leading them to the corner furthest from the door and nearest Grace.

They talked among themselves, their translators off, before sitting down. “We lost it. We’ll just pick up a new one from the corollaxian ship,” one of them said, unaware the translator had been turned back on.

Grace approached and sat next to the largest of the creatures. “Howdy, officers. You’re a long way outside your jurisdiction.”

“Not true, human. All member planets and crossing spaces are under our domain.” It looked at its device. “The corollaxian ship behind this building; go check it out.”

Grace stood, laughing, her hand on her pistol. “Nope. Sit right back down. This ain’t a normal crossing place. You’re on Earth; human space, and we aren’t part of your little club. How about I treat you to a nice meal to make up for it.”

“No. We will have a beverage, then we must leave,” the large one said, looking at the broken collar. “We will apprehend the corollaxian ship after it leaves your space.”

“Well, officers, drinks are on me,” she said. “Could you get us something?” she asked Priya.

Priya headed to the wait station. She was about to grab coffee, then stopped. She looked at the cooler.

Priya set an open can of grape soda in front of all four of them at the table. Grace smiled at Priya, raised her can and said, “Cheers, to the keepers of the law.”

They drained their cans in great gulps, followed by loud belches. Within seconds, all three passed out.

“That was too easy,” Priya said.

“Get them to their ship. I’ll let the gamers know it’s safe to leave.”

Priya grabbed the largest one, surprised at how light it was. She lifted it easily and carried it out the door. Grace pointed to a black ship sitting close to the diner. By the time she and Mabel had the third out, the crossroads flashed orange again, the gamers gone back to their home.

The wolves were still breathing, so that was good. She looked at their armor closely and saw something that looked like it might be a camera. She sat the creature up and looked straight into the camera.

“I hope this is recording. You won’t get away with being a bully here. I won’t let you. Any slave that comes here will be protected.” She heard Grace approaching and let the creature drop. “What now?”

“They wake up when they wake up, then they go home. I’ll hang around until then.” She smirked. “How was your first night?”

“It was…different.” The crossroads flashed blue again, and a ship appeared above them, settling down in the field. “And I guess it’s not over.”

“Eh, quiet for a Tuesday,” Mabel said.

prompt: Write a story about a team tunneling down into the centre of a planet.

available at Reedsy

“This isn’t science, you know, it’s a pissing contest.” Garvey gulped down the cold, bitter coffee, dribbling some into his orange beard.

“A contest between whom?” Sarah asked, her RP accent, clear, pale pinkish skin, short dark brown hair, and bright green eyes out of place amid the roughneck miners.

“Cutter and Frontier Fields,” Garvey answered, wiping his beard. His thinning ginger hair topped a permanently flushed face, heavily lined by weather and hard work. “Whichever one wins gets rich.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Marla said. She pulled a hard hat over her cropped curly hair, the bright yellow hat making her mahogany skin and deep brown eyes seem to glow. “We’re gettin’ paid. Are you trying to say you ain’t, Garvey?”

“Nah, man, I wouldn’t be doing this crazy shit if I wasn’t.”

“So it doesn’t matter, does it?” Marla set her empty cup by the coffee maker. “And don’t call me ‘man,’ man.”

“But you’re far more man than Garvey could ever hope to be,” Sarah joked.

“Y’all keep it up and I’ll switch shifts with someone.”

“Really?” Marla asked excitedly.

“Yeah. I was thinking Butler might want to switch.” Garvey laughed.

“Cheeky fucker!” Sarah bowed deeply. “I’m so terribly sorry I disparaged your indisputable, although fragile, manhood.”

“You ladies are killin’ me,” he said. “Let’s get to it.”

“How far did the other shift get?” Sarah asked.

Garvey looked at his data pad. “Second shift got three kilometers, third got almost one.”

“Third shift is digging now?” Marla asked.

“Yeah, I guess changing out the new style cutters is easier, makin’ it so’s they have time to spare now. Big boss don’t like no ‘spare time,’ so they’re gettin’ dusty.” Garvey held the door to the elevator open. “After you, ladies.”

“That’s more like it,” Marla said.

They descended the shaft in the cage, the conveyor across from them continuing its upward journey, pushing the drilled material up to the Martian surface. It meant that they wouldn’t have to start the drill from a stand-still for a change.

The previous shift met them at the cage, Butler handing a sledgehammer to Garvey. “God damn,” Butler said, “they just keep looking better every day don’t they?”

Marla pretended she didn’t hear him, but Sarah turned on the man, easily a head taller than her and built like a bull. “Fuck off, wanker,” she said. “There’s not a woman on Mars would piss on you if your hair was on fire.”

Marla let out a snort of laughter. Butler just stared at Sarah harder, as the cage lifted them out of sight.

As the drill ground away at the solid mantle, the roughnecks managed the coil that served as a wall for the borehole. It required constant movement, pounding the four-centimeter-wide band into the space left by the moving drill head.

With three of them, they could spell each other, two resting while one worked. As with all things related to the Mars Core Project, everything was organized in such a way to maximize the use of every second of every minute.

Sarah worked her away around the borehole, hammering the band into the space created by the drill as it dug down. The band was fed from a coil that fit around the cages and conveyor. Somewhere in the hardware near the surface was the atmosphere generator, while huge fans along the shaft kept the air circulating.

“End of chain!” Sarah’s call brought the other two to their feet, following the inner side of the coil, which was now painted with red stripes that grew closer together as it fed out.

When the solid red end of the coil exited the feed, Garvey and Marla grabbed the bright green start of the new coil and pulled it out to the edge of the borehole. As Sarah pounded the last bit of the previous coil in place, they overlapped it with the bright green portion of the new coil, which she pounded in place on top of it.

Satisfied that the new coil was in place and not in danger of springing free, they sat back down.

“You know,” Garvey said, “I wasn’t sure about being on a team with y’all ladies.” He glanced over at Marla, then looked back at Sarah. “Especially little Miss England.”

“Really? Afraid we’d show you up?” Sarah teased.

“Mostly afraid I’d be pullin’ more than my share. And afraid that I’d have to watch my language around you.”

“Yeah, not so much. ‘Little Miss England’ could make a sailor blush.”

The drill slowed as their shift continued, smaller amounts of rubble leaving on the conveyor. Glints of metal twinkled in the rubble and the drill began heating up more than normal.

“It’s gettin’ too hot!” Garvey yelled over the growing din of the drill. “Shut it down!”

Sarah hit the e-stop on the drill, bringing it to a shuddering halt. The sudden relative silence washed over them, only the sounds of the fans filling the borehole.

“Pull the center cutter and let’s have a goosey,” Sarah said.

Marla crawled down onto the back of the cutter head and released the catches for the center cutter head and hooked it to the overhead winch. Once she was out of the way, Garvey raised the winch to lift the cutter free.

There, beneath the cutter, was a polished metal surface. They had reached the core. He pulled the data pad out of his cargo pocket and took a picture to send it to the surface. “We’re here,” he said on the radio.

The voice on the radio responded. “We’re sending down the core drill. Pull cutters two through seven.”

“Pulling cutters two through seven, will radio when it’s done,” he answered.

All the drilling crews knew the plan upon reaching the core. Remove the center cutters of the drill, and the core drill, looking more like a giant, standard drill, would be lowered in. That drill was water cooled with cutting oil flowing around it at all times.

The goal was to drill a cavity into the core large enough to hold a critical pile of uranium. It was hoped that the critical mass of uranium would heat up the core enough to make it molten once again. With the core molten, more fissile material would be dropped into the borehole and sealed in.

This would, in theory, restart the Martian magnetosphere, improving the conditions for terraforming. At least, that was the theory.

The core drill moved slowly but steadily down into the metallic core, creating a hole a meter wide and fifteen meters deep. They closed out their shift watching the core drill being retracted back up the shaft as the last of the iron-rich shavings, curves of more than a meter long and several centimeters wide, were carried up the conveyor.

Sarah had already cut off the coil at a long slant, pounding it into the last section of un-protected wall. She carried the sledgehammer over her shoulder as they waited for the cage to return to the dorms.

“Well, I do believe that’s our last shift,” Marla said.

Sarah laughed. “Oh, you’re going to miss us?”

Garvey said, “It’s been real, it’s been fun, but it ain’t been real fun.”

“Of course it has, you cheeky git!” Sarah said. “Every minute you spend with me is another minute in heaven, and you know it.”

They rode the cage up to the dorms, where they saw the other shifts waiting, dressed in their bulky surface suits, helmets in hand, with their bags. “Pack up, we’re out of here in thirty minutes,” one of them said.

“Why the rush?” Marla asked.

“They’re bringing in the radioactives as soon as we’re out.”

“I guess they’re going to write off everything in the dorms,” Garvey said. “Here’s your chance to steal the coffee maker, Marla.”

“If I have room in my bag, you can bet I will.”

They rode the cage to the surface in silence, the bulky suits uncomfortable after the year of living in the sealed, pressurized borehole. They put on their helmets and checked each other for gaps or leaks before the cage entered the airlock.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Garvey asked.

“It might,” Sarah said, “though I doubt very much we’ll see it in our lifetime.”

“What are you going to do with your pay and bonus?” Marla asked. “I’m probably going to retire to the Arkansas coast…until I can claim a homestead here.”

“I’m not ready to retire,” Sarah said. “I’ll probably go back to lithium mining, unless I can get on with the Lunar mining crew; digging up rocks to turn into rocket fuel and air.”

Garvey shrugged. “I’ll probably get blind drunk for a while before I make up my mind.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” Sarah said, “you’re driven to drink just to get over us.”

Their banter was cut short when a ground vehicle trundled past, pulling a train of trailers marked with radioactive danger stickers. “Looks like they’re starting already. I’d rather not be here when they figure out they used too much and blow up the planet.”

As the lift ship connected them with the interplanetary ship, on a never-ending loop from Earth to Mars and back, Garvey checked his data pad. “They hit criticality; the core is starting to melt.”

Marla watched the planet they’d called home for the past year shrink behind them as they headed for Earth, imagining what it could look like if she were ever to return.

prompt: Write about a character who can suddenly see through another person’s eyes — literally.

available at Reedsy

Ethics be damned, Mara was going to do whatever it took to change minds. Mathematic rigor, scientific evidence, even repeated verification by experiment, none of these convince as well as personal experience. It was the quest to make the experience of one person available to others that led to the device in front of her.

The real question, of course, was how well the device would translate the experience of her thirty subjects for the wearer of the halo. She’d try it herself, but she was already fitted with the prototype for the other half of the equation: an implanted interface that translated the signals of the brain to electrical impulses transmitted wirelessly to a receiver.

Mara smoothed her lab coat, her light brown fingers with bright red polish contrasting with its stark white. Her first subject was coming in; a fifty-three-year-old male with a highly conservative upbringing.

“Good afternoon,” Mara said, “please have a seat.”

He nodded. “Ma’am.”

“Just so we’re clear, when we place the halo over your head, you are going to experience what someone else is experiencing, in real time.”

The man shrugged. “As long as I get paid,” he said, “I can sit through almost anything.”

Mara smiled and placed the halo on his head. “Here we go.”

“When does it…oh!” His eyes closed and from the outside it looked like he was in REM sleep.

While he was under, Mara went over the questionnaire he’d filled out the day before. She wondered which of the subjects he’d be linked with. Every one of them was different, and there were no guarantees that any specific one was compatible with the person wearing the halo.

#

“Fuck you, faggot!” The two white men, one wearing a Confederate flag tee and the other sporting a collection of white supremacist tattoos, jeered at him.

Keith’s heart raced. He knew he wasn’t safe here, or anywhere really. This neighborhood was primarily black, like himself, but even his neighbors wouldn’t lift a finger to help. Being black in America was hard, and even harder when you’re openly gay.

The litany of abuse he’d encountered growing up played in the back of his mind. He was trying to determine the best course of action. It would probably be best if he rushed past them into the store. At least inside they weren’t likely to assault him physically.

As he headed for the relative safety of the store, the men moved to block him. That’s when another man stepped out the door of the store drinking a can of soda. Without hesitation he stepped between them. “What is your major malfunction?”

“Stay out of this,” the one with the tattoos said, “this is between us and the fag nigger.”

“I see,” the man said. “You’re just fucking morons.” He dropped the soda he’d been drinking and pointed at them. “This is your one warning. Walk away now.”

The tattooed man took a swing at him. He ducked out of the way and followed with a uppercut that knocked tattoo on his rear. Flag tee grabbed him, and in a well-practiced move, he reversed the hold and threw flag tee to the ground. “I said, walk away.”

Keith used the commotion to rush into the store. He felt awful for leaving the man to take care of them on his own but knew what would happen if police were to show up with him fighting a white man. Hell, any time police show up it’s bad for a brother.

Keith stood by the rack of carts inside the door, trying to stop the shaking, when the man came back in the store. He was tall, at least six feet, with sharp features, his skin sun-touched and peachy, with medium-blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and well-defined muscles Keith hadn’t noticed at first.

He placed a gentle hand on Keith’s shoulder. “You okay?” he asked.

“I—thanks. I think I might be, now.” The man’s smell was intoxicating. Keith wanted nothing more than to hold the man, and let passion take them. He pushed the thought away as hard as he could. Acting on impulse like that had gotten him beaten once in high school, and he had no desire to repeat that.

“Listen, those idiots are sitting out there in their truck. How about I accompany you while you shop and make sure you get out of here safely?”

“Y—you’d do that for me?” Keith asked. “You aren’t afraid of what people will say when they see you with me?”

“Hell, no. Fuck them.” He laughed and offered his hand to shake. “I’m David.”

Keith shook his hand, being mindful to be “manly” about it. Firm grip, don’t hold it too long, god he smells good…don’t be creepy. “I—I’m Keith. How did you learn to fight like that?”

“Nice to meet you, Keith.” David gestured for Keith to head into the store proper. “I’m an amateur MMA fighter and I teach at the dojo over on 12th.”

“Why did you help me?” Keith asked. “Not too many white dudes will stop to help a brother. Hell, not too many brothers will help a gay brother.”

“I could try to sound all perfect and say that I’m just a really good guy,” he said with a shrug, “but you deserve the truth. My little brother’s gay, and I’ve had to protect him from bullies all his life, including our own father.”

Keith knew all too well how that was. His own father had disowned him and kicked him out at sixteen when he came out. He didn’t know how many times he’d wished his father was right, that it was a “choice,” or a “phase.” When he was younger, he’d have given almost anything to be “normal.”

“As for the racist bullshit,” David said, “there’s nothing that shows ignorance faster than that. If I thought I was better than someone because of the color of their skin, I’d be dead in the ring in no time.”

They made their way through the store, Keith grabbing essentials, and finding out more about each other, with David dropping not so subtle hints about Keith meeting his brother. Finally, David invited him for a barbecue on the weekend.

“You really want me to meet your brother,” he said. “Why is that?”

“You have it backwards,” David said. “I want him to meet you. His taste in men is…not the greatest.”

“Well, meeting your brother is the least I can do to repay you. I can’t guarantee anything, though.”

“Fair enough.”

#

Mara watched the man as tears ran down his face. Time was running out, but the signal remained strong and steady.

He came out of it with a gasp and wiped his face. He took a deep breath and looked at his surroundings, then his hands, which shook.

“Take your time,” Mara said. “Coming back can be a little disorienting. Can you tell me who you were linked with?”

“I was…Keith Meadows.” He shook his head. “I mean, it felt like I was him. The memories, the men, they were going to—.” He took another deep breath and blew it out. “My…his whole life, and he never gives up. He’s so strong. I could never….”

Mara helped him up and led him to the out-processing room where he would get snacks to help him reconnect with himself, and a follow-up questionnaire.

After he had left, Mara called up his questionnaire to compare the before and after answers. The initial findings were promising. Where before he’d thought racism was a limited problem, he now saw it as a systemic issue. He no longer considered homosexuality as something perverse or unnatural, but just the way some people were born.

His exit interview included the strongest indication of why this program might work.

Eyes red from crying, and still sniffling, he looked into the camera. “Until I was Keith, I had no idea just how deep racism in this country goes. It’s not just the loud jerks like the two who attacked him, but the entire system. And without being a man feeling an attraction for another man, it’s hard to imagine that being ‘normal’ or the default. Living it and knowing that it’s who I am to the core made it clear, even though it wasn’t really me. There’s a part of me that still has a crush on my rescuer, David. I mean, Keith’s rescuer. If you told me last week I’d have a crush on a guy, I would have knocked you out. Now, it’s just something that happened.”

It’s the third day I’ve spent in the barn, waiting on my batteries to recharge, and the fourth since I ran away. The solar cell I found and rigged up isn’t efficient, especially in these short, February days. The axe head I’ve been using to dig in the ice is near the broken door, and the bull hasn’t come in for the night yet.

…continue reading on Vocal