G'day, greetings, and bonjour. Welcome. You're about to launch into an adventure at AntipodeanSF, the online magazine that's devoted to the regular monthly publication of fabulous and original science-fiction, fantasy, or horror mini-stories of about 500–1000 words each, with occasional feature stories of 2000 words and beyond.
AntipodeanSF will entertain you, get you out there, and land you in places — perhaps with creatures you never expected to imagine — yet won't take hours to read.
It's my pleasure to present you with this month's stories.
Read on...
Nuke.
“Hello?” Nell smoothed her hands over her gown, patted her hair into place and struck what she had been told was a becoming pose. She knew she was not always visible to the clients but old habits die hard and Charles had always liked her thus.
In the year 2047, a man named Evan Montrose devised a way to upload the complete contents of a human mind, otherwise known as a person, into digital space. For decades wetware had interfaced with hardware, but before Montrose no one had been able to crack the problem of consciousness. There was only one catch: the process, like birth, was a one-way street. Although painless — as far as those on the other side could recall — it left the physical body in a complete vegetative state, and no amount of trying could reverse the transfer. Nor were individuals able to transfer to a new body. After the crossing, human physical life was over. Machines could be controlled, but only as the living controlled them: by programming. Being digitally incarnate didn't make one digitally omnipotent.
For the first week they had remained hidden amongst the tufted grassweed, blinking in hushed unison, passing around dandelion leaves like they were eating popcorn at the cinema.
Occasionally they exchanged glances or emitted a soft cluck but mostly they were silent, and curiously so — something strange was going on but no one could say what.
“Am I prepared for today, Sir? Yes, as much as I can be. I mean, the thing is, once you win it gives you such an advantage in the other competitions, doesn’t it. And I haven’t ever won. He has. He got the bionic eye last time and the main cyberware enhancement the time before that. And I know I agreed at the beginning that there should be a winner each time for each enhancement but … well … that is... I’ve changed my mind! That’s all. Anyone can change their mind, even their unenhanced mind. I think it would be fairer if it was six enhancements shared between us and no loser. Sorry, I mean no Drone. I know we might not reach the top of the Hancer society if we do that, but at least we’d both be Hancers, not Drones.
We were parked opposite the shops in our trusty hand-me-down Landrover, watching the shops, me, my brother-in-law Sam, and Tod, a genuine ex-Army sergeant now conscripted like the rest of us into the local militia.
Zombies were the primary threat, though there were other things that had turned up as well. Few people had seen the long reptile with big jaws like a dry-land croc, but people said it was there, and no, it didn't fly or breathe fire ... let us be thankful for small mercies!
“I need to do better.”
This was the label on each and every door. Even the toilet door announced, “I need to do better.”
This was Karen’s way of dealing with the Plague. She’d read a story where someone fixed sticky notes to everything and she thought it was a good approach to doing better.
Boone knew his name would be called. While the others went to recess he studied astrophysics, when they went to the movies or the circus, he did extra gym sessions. He knew he’d be picked, his classmates knew he’d be picked, his teachers knew he’d be picked and his parents knew he’d be picked. It was destiny.
Shortly before sunset Garrett Bolton switches the throttle up on the hydrofoil and heads back into the transition zone. The wake of the speeding craft looks like a golden road trailing mistily behind him and he glances worriedly at his watch.
Six-o-three p.m. local time. He has about thirty-seven minutes until the temporal anomaly swirls back into existence and about thirty kilometres to cover.
“Name please.”
“Yes, sir. That’s correct. Sigh. Your name.
“Thank you. Let me just check you off the list and we’ll get you started… Let me see here.
“The wind makes . . . . a terrible noise today,” he mumbles. There is a momentary lull when he says it, but the wind blows against him two seconds later at 5.8 metres per second. With high pressure to the west, low pressure to the east, he finds himself in a town located in the center, but the balance has collapsed.
I awoke to the sound of growling. It was coming from outside. What the hell? I thought. I sat bolt upright in bed. Despite the rain pissing down against my bedroom window, I could still hear it. I tilted my head to one side. If I hadn’t known better I’d have said there was an angry bear in my backyard.
Last night. Carol and Martin’s house again. Eight of us all together in the living room with the conversation that was anything but. Again.
Me, I was there. Sitting on the couch, edge of my seat and still wearing my jacket, watching. Next to me was Paul. Paul was an awkward shuffle of a man in his late 60s. Wisps of white hair, the facade that is his face, slipping away.
Grade six summer camp was always the same. Rustic cabins set in a rural or semi-rural landscape. To a gaggle of angsty pre-teen city kids forcibly separated from our Playstations — it was a fresh kind of hell. Daily activities like bush walking and horse riding existed solely to be endured rather than enjoyed.
The surprising thing about the aliens was that one did not feel uncomfortable around them even though the Apis, as they called themselves, had six legs and some kind of antennae waving about their heads.
Do you remember? When the Apis first arrived here on Earth it was complete chaos. The army, the police — all running around, unable to stop people busting store windows and gathering food to run away into the forests.
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Coming In Issue 271
A Ring in the Stars
By Callan J Mulligan
Desk Chronicle
By Kaoru Sakasaki - Translated by Toshiya Kamei
Eternal Life (Almost)
By João Ventura
Famous Last Words
By Chad Bolling
Flash Ships Ltd
By Neil A. Hogan
Hope is a Dangerous Thing
By Laurie Bell
Human Suit
By Nick Petrou
In the End
By Samuel Gachon
Mercury
By Brian Biswas
Pyramid Scheme
By Louis Evans
The Fermi Solution
By Kevin J. Phyland
The First Time I Saw Douglas Adams
By Edwina Harvey
The Zip
By Harris Tobias
UFO
By Steven Fritz
What We Are
By James Patrik
Speculative Fiction
Downside-Up
ISSN 1442-0686
Online Since Feb 1998
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