tekisui's Stories

Sugkleio

2008-07-18T03:35:22Z

Vic sat on the edge of the rooftop, feet dangling over the edge, watching the sun set over the skyline. Forty-nine floors below, the the empty streets flowed, silent asphalt rivers. He had set off alarms and broken locks to get to the roof, but no one came to stop him. Everyone was busy doing whatever they thought they should do in preparation, and in another three minutes, it would not matter.
He sat kicking his feet, drinking occasionally from a brown bottle. Vic checked his wrist, which was wrapped in an array of 8 watches, all different, all in perfect synchronization. All were counting down, showing two minutes remaining. Like every other clock on the planet.
Six months ago, every timekeeping device from government atomic clocks to fake Rolex’s from a street vendor started counting down. No one knew how or why.
Vic looked towards the setting sun one last time. He let the bottle slip from his fingers, to drop to the street below, and soundlessly counted down the seconds with the world.
Three.
Two.
One.
∞

History To Legend To Myth To Forgotten

2008-06-02T19:12:12Z

Cerlah sat with his feet up on the controls, reviewing the survey. On the monitors, the blue-green planet they had just left loomed in space, wreathed in clouds.
Aelina looked over his shoulder and clicked her tongue. “Looks like we struck out again.”
Cerlah gestured at his read-out.
“Not a single trace of any civilization. And we were so sure, too.” He tossed the viewer tablet onto the control desk.
Aelina looked back at the planet and sighed.
“We’ll find it eventually. After all, we have basically an unlimited budget from the Historical Alliance Of The Western Spiral Arm. They’re determined to rediscover mankind’s point of origin at any cost.”
“True. Let’s circle this planet’s moon for a mineral survey so we have something to show for the trip.”
Aelina altered the course of the ship, and it moved to orbit the moon.
“Wait!” Cerlah’s hand darted out to stop the ship’s movement. “I see something! Zoom in!”
Aelina magnified the object on the moon’s surface: a red and white striped flag.
“The planet was Earth!”

Easy Money

2008-04-03T21:26:36Z

“Earth.” Krantz spat. “What a toilet.”
“Watch it. That’s home you’re talkin’ ‘bout.”
Krantz shifted his weight to lean on the console and stared out the portal at the grey ball with the black tight spiral wisps coming off at the poles. The equator was darker grey, shadowed a ring of debris.
“Yeah, 320 years ago. It went to hell fast after the hypergate accident destroyed the moon and everyone left. What the hell did we come back here for anyway?”
Varney flipped a switch and the portal turned opaque.
“Something called Dr. Pepper. It was a drink or something in a pressurized metal container. No one thinks it’s worth the offered ten large for a trip to this backwater sector just for that, but I figured since we’re passin’ through, we’d pick a little extra bounty up on the trip.”
Krantz scratched his chin and counted.
“It’s been 311 years, not 320.”
“Just numbers. All the years in those ice crates makes for a lossy sense of time. Let’s get to the bridge and start the landing cycle”
“And get home,” Krantz added.

Only As Real As Your Fear, Nothing More Than What You Make It

2008-02-29T22:55:32Z

“Son, are you sure you really wanna do that?”
The tech checked his clip board, as if he didn’t really believe someone could be so foolish as to do what he just saw.
“Yep.”
The tech shook his head and drawled, “Don’t you worry about things going wrong or karma or things of that nature?”
Danno spat to his right, ran his hand along the smooth curve of the fender.
“Nope. Don’t believe in that nonsense.”
The tech arched an eyebrow.
“Really.”
It was more of a statement than a question.
“Yep.”
Danno indicated the clipboard with a upward nod.
“You gonna clear my sheet so I can get out of check-in and get dialed in before I have to make my first pass?”
The tech chewed his lower lip.
“I still think you’re making a huge mistake.”
Danno smiled.
“Hasn’t burned me yet. Only thing that can do that is me.”
The tech nodded slowly and pulled out his window marker.
“Your funeral. I hope you know what you’re doin’, son.”
Danno just grinned.
The tech inked the number in the right hand corner of the rear windshield.
Car thirteen.

There Is Always One That Wants To Be Just One

2008-02-27T03:24:27Z

“Journal Entry 24 Neauvebre
This will be my final entry. I will no longer record my thoughts and reactions, as I have decided I am not coming back.
I understand your reactions and the mission’s goals. I will finish this project as intended. But my mind is made up.
Fifty-one months of solitude has locked me into a pattern, a pattern I have been falling into for my entire life. This is a pattern I wish to continue.
The ship is self-perpetuating. Air, food, and water can be regenerated for just beyond my foreseeable lifespan. On the acceleration orbit that would bring be back to Dela Sebras, I intend to use the atmosphere of Bena Huana to brake and bring myself into a high orbit, orbit once while braking further with remaining fuel, and coming to a geosynchronous orbit on the far side, intentionally stranding myself. I will have my peace at last.
Give the Planetary Director my thanks for personally recommending me for this mission. I am proud to serve the homeworld.
Monaco out.”

Autumn Redeemer, Thy Day Cometh

2007-11-02T02:25:55Z

Saul grumbled and rolled over. The clock blinked 3:34. Wasn’t it Bradbury that said this was the low tide, the ebb time for the soul? Damn the phone..
“Yeah?”
“Saul?”
Saul’s head refused to clear. It took almost a full minute to identify the shaky voice.
“Sweet Christ its 3:30 in the morning, Wes.. What the hell do you want?”
“This world makes we me weary, Saul. It eats at my heart that the authorities spend thousands of dollars and man hours to find a missing girl, to amass evidence against her deadbeat husband, resources wasted on other people’s rampant evil..”
“Aww jeeze Wes, not this again. We’ve been through all that. The world is not basically good. Of course it’s gonna get worse. Look, let’s go out tomorrow and get a drink.. We’ll talk abo..”
“NO.”
Saul bit his tongue, the sleep snapped from his mind by the tone and force.
“I’m going to do something about it, Saul. I’m going to fix it. I’m going to.”
“Wes, you can’t..”
“Do it by myself? Yes, I can. And I will. Watch the news, Saul. You’ll see.”
Click

Heartbreak Like Matchsticks, Pain Like Candy

2007-09-21T18:57:23Z

There was Meghan, Angela, Cortney, Jennifer, Ashleigh, Katie, Nicole, Amy. Blonde and brunette and blonde again and again. For six months, a year, or three years, overlapping and constant, simultaneous engagements, concurrent relationships. One after the other along with one and the other. Because I could. I lead and lead and love and live and then, the icing on the cake, the grand finale: then the end. Car wreck, drunk driver, mugging gone awry, defending an innocent, a fire, spectacular death. Unlikely? All the better if she believes. And the fun part: watching them fall apart. Lindsey still sees a psychiatrist, Natalie tried to kill herself twice. Vanessa did, still wearing cubix zirconium and gold on her left hand, the veil and gown waiting for her day in the closet. Helena won’t leave her house. Yasmine won’t date. Christine takes eight kinds of meds. Ann doesn’t talk anymore. At all. They’re all my toys. I keep them in my scrapbook like boxed toys, that I take out to break and laugh and put away again.

How Small Is The Earth To He Who Looks From Heaven

2007-07-24T15:24:40Z

It was referred to as a “Category 6 Existence Failure”, and not further elaborated upon. Mancove had disappeared right in front of everyone’s eyes.
He had been having an exceptionally bad day, no energy, no modivation, and nothing ahead of him but another bleak 15 years working in the same drab laboratory doing the same mind-numbing experiments. He was reflecting on his own doom, was just coming to some realization about what it meant, when he simply ceased to be there.
Simmons fainted. Clarke gaped, tripped, and spilled chemicals all over the floor. Someone set of the alarm.
Mancove had simply vanished.

Mancove stood on the moon. He hadn’t specifically wished to be here, but he had wanted to be off the Earth. And here he was, breathing too. He watched the blue ball turning in the sky, and all the little ape descendants scrambling about, trying to amass more than the next ape descendant. He watched for a very long time before he was ready to go back. When he finally did, he was the only ape descendant left.

Wreathed In Light, The Void Transcends

2007-07-21T04:04:54Z

“I’m lagging in the middle..”
In her voice there was a frustration with failure to understand the cause of the problem.
DeWitt fumbled with comprehension of the physics.
“It’s like time is different at each end. There’s nothing any of us could have done to predict this mess.”
DeWitt slapped the comm, hands clammy, a cold sweat.
His voice flashed out across the nothing, towards the 10,000 year mission.
“Maggie, Gerald and his team are working on a solution. They’ve got a lead and we’ll have a workable solution to you by the..”
Her voice interjected, cutting him off. The fear and uncertainty were gone, though the undercoat of resolve almost failed to cover it completely.
“Not this time..”
A pause.
“Looks like both ends are fading. If dimensions don’t have clear boundaries, our whole perception of physics is massively unique to humans. It’s like wearing blinders.”
DeWitt swallowed, with great effort.
“Wait. Something’s happening..”
The speaker roared in DeWitt’s ear.
“Maggie?!”
“There’s so much light..”
Silence.

Between Storms The Stillness Hangs Heavily, Like Waiting

2007-07-19T15:47:42Z

There was a spark.
Fire.
The apes died out anyway.
200 million years passed.

The rockets came, scorching the earth black and barren where they touched. Three landed in perfect symmetry, their points marking the corners an equilateral triangle. The significance was lost on the flora. The fauna had fled the fire and noise. The rockets sat for three of the planet’s cycles around the sun. The rockets left, in unison.

Another 100 million years passed.

There was a spark.
Fire.
The apes died out anyway.
200 million years passed.

The rockets came again. This time six, forming the points of a dodecahedron. The rockets waited. The apes gained courage. The hatches opened. The planet cycled around the sun twice. The apes made homes in the ships’ bowels. Fire would be coming soon.

The rockets sealed. The apes screeched and howled. Some were trapped inside, some outside. The ones inside flew. The ones outside burned. The rockets left the fourth planet, pointed at the third.

A spark.
Fire.
The apes would not die here.

We Were Not Ready, These Other Worlds

2007-07-19T15:07:32Z

It was like King’s Captain Trips. Or Crichton’s Andromeda Strain. Or the historic Black Plague. There are no humans left. None. I’m down to my last page of paper, my last can of food, my last match, my last paper and pen, my last hope. No, that hope died long ago. I’ve been everywhere I could go, realistically. Most of the States, some of Canada, and down into South America. I can still fly, but I already know what I’d find in Europe and Asia. Anyway, they were all dead when I found them. Or so close, it didn’t matter. I’m next. I do not understand these people, their customs, or their methodologies. The food is poison, the air is stale, and I am nearly spent. I can not leave. I was meant to come, mingle, provide hope, and to help prepare for a cultural friendship. But instead they died. I do not know why. When I fail to report in, someone else will come and see how we failed, and so brought about the destruction of the homo sapiens. I weep for our arrogance. Alas for myself and all mankind. We came in peace.

The Green Fields Of Endless June

2007-07-04T04:05:48Z

We ran, as we did everywhere. Across the fields, down the dusty roads of our childhood, through the starry dome of royal night. The wind blew and the storms chased us down the lane.
We ran. Home again, safe. Seconds ahead of the rain, the lightening, the thunder that rattled us inside our skulls. Each under the covers, protected by our houses that would shield us, if only because we were young and our faith in it held it up under the storm’s assault. Till the sun came with the trumpet blast of the cavalry, to save the cowboys, seconds from being overwhelmed by the indians.
Each day dawned bright, the potential endless for adventure and discovery, and sprained ankles falling out of trees. There were rocks to climb and hills to roll down, books to read about far off places while drinking iced tea brewed in the sun.
Such were the summers of crab grass, creeks, and ferris wheels, with July on the horizon, August unimaginably far, and September’s threat of school nothing but a dim murmur and shadow in our minds.

Transport

2007-07-04T03:50:49Z

Beccan purred, tail twitching. Ganymede loomed in the window, sparkling with an infinite number of pinpoints of color, lights of a billion residents. Home at last. Her ears perked in the direction of the comm, tuned to the Sommerfeld-Feinberg band, for trans-orbit traffic control. Jupiter’s traffic was analogous to that of late 21st century New York City, Earth: the 7th level of hell.
Docking completed, she stood and lifted off the deck, stretching. She drifted in the 1/8 gee she preferred to the 5/8th that the rest of the ship had. Her body complained. The 43 hour trip from Nereid was brutal, and despite the best genetic engineering that added her cat ears, tail, reflexes, stamina, and feline personality traits to her human body, she was exhausted. And she missed Daniel something fierce.
She drifted to the door and grabbed the handle to bring herself to the floor, preparing for the increase in gravity as she stepped out into the hallway.
A shower first. Then she must see her beloved. It was good to be back.

Requiem

2007-07-03T17:36:08Z

Catalogs. Shelves stretching into the darkness. Aisles both ways, under flickering glow-pads, extend for kilometers. The roof drips from its sagging sections. The floor stinks. The paper rots. The world dies.
Alan pointed his light down one aisle, then back the way he came, up the stairs into the burnt night above, the steel door open at an angle, revealing stars and a complete lack of light pollution.
He looks back at the shelf nearest him, selects a catalog at random, and opens it, reading the meaningless title twice: Pottery Barn. The cover crumbles away partially, and he drops it to finish its slow death in a puddle on the floor.
He sweeps the room with the light, walls beyond the reach of the beam’s atomic strength. Breathing deep the creeping death, he clicks the light off.
The ladder creaks as he climbs out, the steel door slams down like an explosion, returning the room to darkness for another millennia.
The stars scream silently, dead for lifetimes. Alan slips between their light, everywhere at once.

Interlude For Requisition

2007-07-03T15:49:50Z

Emily sat, crosslegged on the floor next to me. Somewhere in the background, Trent terrorized the cat. It could hide under the bed for a minute.
“This isn’t really something I planned on bringing up when I told you I was in town, but since I’m here.. ”
I look into her eyes at just the right time. She blushes. I’m reminded what gave me the nerve to go talk to her when Eric’s courage failed him.
“I don’t know how much I told you, or you guessed, but the first few years after we met, I was too out of my head to be more than vaguely aware of what was going on around me.”
I smiled faintly.
“I know. I knew all along.”
She blinks
Pause.
“Well, I didn’t see until it was too late what you wanted, what I needed, or what I was missing out on.”
She indicates the other room, the two year old trying gamely to reach the cat on the book shelf, the whole apartment, my life.
“It’s ok.”
“But you loved…”
My hand on her knee, her brown eyes swimming, and mine.
“Emily.. It’s ok.”
“Ok.”
She smiles. That cat yowls. Trent giggles.