Tag: science fiction

Skin Contract

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Awake at 4. Itching, scratching.
The rashes are unbearable.
One more week until my skin contract’s up.
The free ones are nothing compared to expensive designer skins, but with the contract, you get a discount on those.
I look in the mirror. Hideous bags under my eyes, wrinkles like canyons across my face.
And rashes.
Last time, I cheaped out. Ever since, it’s been dermatologist appointments and oceans of cosmetics.
Yak butter creams? Tungsten wire therapy?
I won’t make that mistake again.
I put on my happy-face, the porcelain doll-mask with the vacant, vapid stare, and head to the kitchen.

Free Trial

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The letter said I qualified for a 7 day free trial. But it didn’t say what it was for.
I figured what the hell, right, and I called the 800 number.
I heard it ring twice and then a click.
No answer. No voice.
The line went dead.
The next thing I knew, I was in Paris.
It was a week later, and there was a receipt in my hand.
“REFUNDED IN FULL”
I had no idea what had happened to me or how I got there.
There were no other receipts, no clues.
I found a cafe and drank.

McKinney

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McKinney. Leader of the pack.
I grew up watching him on late night specials, learning his voice, his gestures, his jokes.
The unknotted bowtie hangs around my neck just like his.
Martini glass in hand, one olive on a glass spear.
I do his routine at retirement homes, people old enough to remember, too old to put up with the new stuff out there.
Keep it familiar.
McKinney’s fame was wider than I’d thought.
Broadcasts, deep in space.
That audience came for him.
They found me.
Now I’m touring the galaxy. Rich as hell.
But no olives to be found.

Hack Writerland

639165

Sixty-five million years from now, an amber block containing a mosquito will be drained of “author” Michael Chricton’s blood.
Through the miracle of junk science, his DNA will be patched to a chimpanzee’s and grown into a theme park attraction.
From all over, they will pay to see herds of hack writers roam the hillsides, devouring fringe research and vomiting up novel after novel, screenplay after screenplay.
“Mommy! Look at the box office on that one!”
Until a theme park rival tries to steal the DNA and causes deadly violent mayhem!
But that’s a tale for another hack to tell.

Devil’s Night

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They call this night the Devil’s Night because kids set fires to usher in Halloween.
One year, they got what they wanted, and The Devil showed up to survey the damage.
“You call this devastation?” He howled. “I’ve seen entire empires laid waste, nothing but ashes from ocean to ocean!”
He spat at on the sidewalk and laughed.
The kids burned more houses, but it wasn’t enough for The Devil.
Cops arrived and arrested the kids.
Instead of becoming Satanists, jail house imams converted them to Islam.
For them, any size fire was fine.
Especially when it involved killing Jews.

Pumpkin Screams

639165

This genetic engineering shit gives me a case of the heebie jeebies.
These newfangled pumpkins scream and ooze blood when you carve them.
When it got to Thanksgiving turkeys that gobble to the tune of “over the river and through the woods” even after you cut their heads off, I got worried.
How did it start? Let me think… It started with a simple splice of DNA to produce Yule logs that burn with natural cinnamon spice scent.
All downhill from there, rabbits laying eggs and crazy shit like that.
Oh. Great. Here comes Santa Clone.
Earlier every damn year.

Bring Him Back

639164

The poster was supposed to say Dead Or Alive, but it ended up saying Dead And Alive.
Before we could fix the mistake, the poster was up in every Post Office.
Replacements were sent out the next week, but by then, we’d gotten our man.
He’s in the holding cell, Dead And Alive.
No, I haven’t seen him. All I know is, the guy who brought him in said he was, and he wanted to collect on the full reward.
I don’t know what Dead And Alive means. Do you?
Maybe we should just leave him for the next shift?

Deathface

639173

The law says three days.
The machines can do five.
With modifications, seven.
That’s how long Spencer wants.
He’s got Deathface. Sunken eyes and cheeks, grey skin, eyebrows gone, raspy breathing.
The law says not to send a Deathface down. Notify the police if one comes to your Coma Center. Or if someone asks for a week.
It can’t be called an accident because the wastebag has to be changed and the
morphine refilled. The inspectors will know.
No, I say. I can do five. Not seven.
Spence left and I never saw him again.
Nobody saw him. Just vanished.

The Cloud Whisperer

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He lays back in a field, guiding the clouds across the sky.
The Cloud Whisperer rules the heavens by sheer willpower.
The clouds are happy to do his bidding. It delights them to float where he asks.
He hardly notices the roar of the crowd around him, the players in their helmets and pads.
This championship needs to be played. the rain needs to stop for just a few hours.
“Please,” he says to the sky.
The clouds shift slowly, rising and thinning.
The game will be played.
“Thank you,” says the mayor. “Now get your clothes back on, Bill.”

Caution

639171

Caution was her name, taken from the yellow tape across the door of the abandoned nursery they found her in.
You would think someone would realize the tape was there as a warning, But most folks are soft-hearted and assume all babies are safe.
This one certainly isn’t Whoever left her there, hoped she’d die.
She didn’t.
The rescuers naming the baby Caution, well, that takes a special kind of stupid.
Stupid makes for easy mind control.
Caution giggles and points to the roof.
“Jump!” she squeals.
We all giggle along and climb out the window. This will be fun!