Burst Fiction
An active e-zine of one shot short stories, around 1000 characters in length, set in near contemporary times preferably, with scifi tendencies.
Curated by Erik Chevalier.
Visit the new main site!.
Mobile?
An active e-zine of one shot short stories, around 1000 characters in length, set in near contemporary times preferably, with scifi tendencies.
Curated by Erik Chevalier.
Visit the new main site!.
Mobile?
He itched. Like a thousand tiny creatures burrowing beneath his skin, moving around with no thought to the discomfort they caused their host. Of course this was not far from the truth, although the magnitudes were a little out. As his father had explained to him, inside his body millions of tiny machines were at work preparing him for what lay ahead. That they had chosen this moment was not mere chance; it was time.
It had taken hours for the sensation to breach his conscious mind and he knew that this must have started days ago. He would be ready soon. Too soon perhaps since his father was across the city in the clinch meeting for a multi-billion dollar contract. Soon his father would know that the time had come.
He lay on his bed having made his way home from the school where his lessons had to end abruptly as he could no longer bear to sit. Fortunately his bed was comfortable; yet, as the sensations became more and more intense, he could not stifle a sob as something clicked within and began to warm up.
They marched into the neighbourhood with the pulse-pounding beat of a terrible rhythm. Hundreds of jack-booted soldiers poured in from every street, every alley. Restless eyes rolled in their sockets, searching for the strays that had eluded them.
Three children, filthy from a brief life of scrabbling for scraps huddled behind a dumpster. They whimpered quietly, unsure of where to hide but seeking the comfort of a barrier between them and the soldiers. Vague memories came to them of being tucked safely into their beds by beautiful women who filled them with love and safety. The memories only served to increase the terror now. Love and safety were gone, taken by the very soldiers who hunted them now.
The children felt them first. Waves of hatred infiltrated their natural defenses and permeated their minds. The soldiers had stopped their deadly march and stood still like dispassionate sentinels. As if they were one, they shut their eyes and pushed their energy outward.
The children cowered.
The small cockpit vibrated as the multi-engine drive pushed the shuttle upwards. Through the plumes of grey dust, heavey red beams of light could be traced from the blackness of space, down to the trembling planet. Richard flicked on the auto-pilot and wheeled his chair over to Sarah, who was crying hystericaly on the steel cargo bin. Putting his hand on her trembling shoulder, he juggled his words in his head.
“We, we did what we had to, and-”
“WE? Richard, we are two people, there are at least two billion down there.”
Richard rolled his eyes. They had evacuated just in time. Any longer and the shuttle would have been ruined in the earth quakes.
“Honey, we didn’t have time to save any one.”
“Richard! You know there are people down there who deserve life. What makes them different from you?!”
She wasn’t making sense anymore. Richard precariously gave her a hug and wheeled back to the controls.
“I own a spaceship…”
by Richard Peck
I fell for hours.
This is not hyperbole. I was not in space. Not technically.
Imagine a giant sphere as thick as a planet surrounding a star with a radius that puts its inner surface at a habitable distance. Pour enough air into it to give the inner surface a decent atmosphere, and you have enough habitation space for the population of a whole galaxy. This is a Dyson sphere.
Now imagine an army of robotic construction vehicles launched to build these in advance for settlers from an overpopulated empire of Dyson spheres. Imagine these construction vehicles hunting down black holes and ripping them apart for building materials.
Now imagine this gets out of hand. That shouldn’t be a stretch.
Eventually, the whole damn galaxy is covered in giant metal scaffolding and junk. A contiguous, semirigid structure, most of it filled with air and an infinite variety of life.
In such a place, you’re bound to find doors without warning labels in your language.
“Caution, open transit shaft!” would have been so nice.
by White Hat
“Marcus, get your behind out here this instant!”
No response.
“Marcus, don’t make me come in there! I will shut that thing off!”
“Mama…”
“What’d I tell you about holoplay before your chores were done?”
“I did my chores!”
“You’re telling me you got all that endoshielding clean already?”
“Mostly…”
“Uh huh. Mostly? Boy, you ain’t getting no dessert tonight.”
“Mama, it’s okay, I got Siggie working on it!”
“What? What? …Marcus baby, Siggie is a janitorial bot. You can’t use him on endoshielding. The stupid thing barely keeps the floors clean, you know that!”
“I’m sorry, mama.”
“Marcus, look at me. You gotta understand, you can’t just get lazy like that! Now that… now that daddy’s gone, baby, you’re the man of the house. I need you to take things more seriously now, okay?”
“Okay, mama.”
“That’s a good boy. Do you remember what’s so important about the endoshielding, Marcus?”
“It keeps us safe.”
“From?”
“From the sun. It’s hot outside, mama. Real hot.”
“That’s right. I’m proud of you, son.”
by Parker Smith
As we strode down the beach, trying hard to repress ourselves from grasping hands or some other embarrassing atrocity, we came upon a small robot figure, slowly waddling his way up the beach with steady determination.
“That’s odd,” Xander said, picking up the little robot by the head. It’s legs continued to waddle and its little eyes glowed red. It’s body began to move more frequently with fervent desperation to be set free. I could have sworn it was cursing us in Japanese. Xander set it down. It turned towards us as we began to walk away, shaking its little arm at us with grouchy displeasure before continuing his walk.
“I think Gary Numan was trying to warn us about this kind of thing,” Xander said with a serious tone.
“Like that robots are going to take over the world?” I said.
“Exactly,” He said before he began to sing, “Down in the park where the machmen meet the machines are playing `kill-by-numbers, down in the park with a friend called `five.“
“Maybe Gary Numan was a robot,” I offered.
The seed was huge, roughly the length and breadth of Manhattan Island, and in it rested the future of the quest for energy. The people living on it, or rather, in it, knew what they were getting into, both literally and figuratively. They could never emerge. They made that choice. Those born after them had no hand in that choice.
If you grew up there, you had no frame of reference, so you didn’t really know how small your world was. You didn’t feel a sense of loss when you harkened back to life on an actual planet’s surface. You never had that privilege, so you “never knew any better.” This is often the lamentation of the first gens who are still alive. “No appreciation” for what was given up.
You were living in a pod skirting the edge of the event horizon of a Class IV black hole. In the time it took you to brush your teeth at cycleStart, majestic civilizations rose and fell elsewhere.
All Alice knew was that she was late for school and didn’t have time to brush.
by Ighnot
The next morning it was as though the past seventy-two hours simply hadn’t happened. It was as though only she could remember the feeling of the fire that swept the city beating against her, flowing around her, burning everything made by man. Everyone just carried on as though nothing had happened. Or rather, as though the glow-in-the-dark rubble was simply what had always been.
Fingers of deep green and a brilliant blue began to claw their way across the sky. A single tear rolled down a dusty cheek, the trail shining in the early morning sun.
How much of today would they permit her to remember come morning?
She climbed down from the lintel, which had served as her morning seat, and began to hike towards the only building which, against all odds, survived the conflagration. Two towers reaching into the heavens, which would become the symbol of hope for a new tomorrow.
Two towers which would serve as a beacon for those who could remember.