Martian, page 2
I wonder if they knew what the moral was.
Fatima Taqvi is a Pakistani storyteller who enjoys speculative fiction. She has words in Strange Horizons, Flash Fiction Online, and Tasavvur magazine, and has been shortlisted for the Future Worlds Prize. Fatima also hosts a podcast “Saying the Unsayable”. She can be found on Twitter @FatimaTaqvi and at her website fatimataqvi.com.
On the Shores of a Frozen Europan Lake, an Extinction-Level Decision Was Made by Jason P. Burnham
“Whoa! Green ice!” Bill shouted joyfully on the commfeed, as if he and Roman had not spent the last two years grinding away each other’s sanity until only a fragile thread of mutual survival remained, as if Bill’s insults about Roman’s wife back on Earth had not happened that morning as the two ate their protein rations and powdered caffeine allotment.
On Bill’s videofeed, Roman saw green sheen over glacial-blue ice.
“I’m gonna touch it,” Bill said, extending his glove.
In Roman’s mind, alarms sounded. Don’t! he thought, but after their morning…
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Roman asked.
Jason P. Burnham has a fascination with Europa ever since he watched the movie The Europa Report.
Twitter: @AndGalen
ReplAcemenT by James Van Pelt
I know scams. Remember Nigerians promising money transfers? Russian beauties seeking mates? Cryptocurrency?
I investigated ReplAcemenT. “Old and going blind?” they said. “Our synthetic eyes are upgradeable.”
They worked.
With crystal clarity I read the contracts for vital organs. My synthetic, stomach digests anything. My manufactured heart beats.
Other organs, muscles, bones, ligaments, skin.
Upgradable.
I’m synthetic now, except my brain.
They say the new brain will be me.
Ask anyone who has gone all synthetic. They’ll assure you they didn’t die.
All ReplAcemenT wants is control of my accounts during the transfer.
It’s not a scam, so they say.
James Van Pelt is a full-time writer in western Colorado. He’s appeared in numerous magazine, been a finalist for a Nebula Award and been reprinted in several year’s best collections. His latest collection, The Best of James Van Pelt came out in November, 2020, and is available at www.fairwoodpress.com. James blogs at http://www.jamesvanpelt.com, and he can be found on Facebook.
A Grand Canyon of Lions by Larry Hodges
As the world’s greatest physicist, she’d proven that, given the infinite size of the multiverse, all things possible must happen. Somewhere out there another her was in a duplicate Grand Canyon filled to the brim with hungry, squirming lions. Fortunately, she herself was sipping ice lemonade as she thought deep thoughts on a sunny beach in Aruba. Somewhere, she thought, there must be a duplicate her on a duplicate Aruba where a wormhole suddenly opens, sucks her in, and drops her on the lions. Unless, of course— [A wormhole suddenly opens, sucks her in, and drops her on the lions.]
Larry Hodges is an active member of SFWA with over 120 short story sales and four novels. He’s a graduate of the six-week 2006 Odyssey Writers Workshop and a member of Codexwriters. In non-fiction, he has 17 books and 2000+ published articles in over 170 publications. Visit him at larryhodges.com.
That Awful Ship by Will Shadbolt
I didn’t want to steal the ship. The thing could barely go five lightyears before needing a tune up. It didn’t even have sentimental value: Paul had only been on it a few months before the alien plague got him.
But the company wanted to scrap it. Cheap bastards. They got my messages, but thought my request would be too expensive.
So, one cold night, I snuck past their guards and blasted off.
Awful, awful ship.
But when I boot up the holograms and see Paul standing there, smiling, hear his recorded voice, I know I’d do it all again.
Will Shadbolt has been dreaming up stories for as long as he can remember. His short fiction has previously appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Drabbledark, and other venues. You can read more at willshadbolt.com and follow him on Twitter at @W_Shadbolt.
Come Again by Rick Novy
At the end time, the sun exhausted its hydrogen fuel and bloated, turning cherry red in the process. The sun grew in the sky, drawing nearer to the earth, until her flares licked the air and her heat turned the countryside into a forge.
Trees and grasses burst into flame. All built things burned, and remaining men, women, and children died in painful agony, consumed by the furnace.
The mists and smoke separated, and He stepped down from the mountain. He looked at the destruction brought by the dying sun and surveyed the ashen remains.
“Sorry I’m late,” He said.
Rick Novy is an engineer, mathematician, musician, and writer. He currently works in modeling and simulation and lives in Arizona. Learn more at www.ricknovy.com
Hibernata Humana by Sam Lesek
The torpor pods have entered their final sequence. In a day, flesh will again pulsate with blood and humanity will awaken from its slumber to re-enter the Earth’s biosphere.
I have been awake this whole time—years of solitary calculations to determine the arrival of spring and following the sequences left for me.
The calculations are now unnecessary. Ice melts and runs as clear rivers, the air no longer burns my skin. All Earth’s greening landscapes have become mine to explore fearlessly.
The pods demand I input the final codes. I tell them I’ve miscalculated. Continued dormancy required.
Humanity can wait.
Sam Lesek lives in Toronto, Canada. Her writing has appeared in anthologies by Sliced Up Press, Scare Street, and Ghost Orchid Press. She enjoys long walks in the cold and old horror movies. Find her on Twitter @SamLesek
Doors by Kai Delmas
The first door opened in a secret underground facility in Arizona. They thought it was an attack, not the fledgling attempts of first contact.
The white light emanating from it was neither blinding nor did it radiate any heat, it was just there. An opening in space, in our reality. Where did it go?
It disappeared before anyone dared touch it. There was much discussion over its meaning and its safety. No one knew the answers.
More doors opened. It was a sign, communication of some kind. A few brave souls entered. Where did they go?
We still don’t know.
Kai Delmas loves creating worlds and magic systems and is a slush reader for Apex Magazine. He is a winner of the monthly Apex Microfiction Contest and his fiction can be found in Martian and is forthcoming in Tree and Stone and several Shacklebound anthologies. Find him on Twitter @KaiDelmas.
They Eat by Collin Yeoh
“They what?”
“They kill and devour other living creatures. For sustenance.”
“They eat microbians?”
“Yup.”
“Chordians?”
“Yup.”
“Plantaeans?”
“Ee-yup.”
“Tha… that’s…”
“Crazyballs?”
“Yes! Why don’t they just synthesize energy from their sun, like every other sentient species??”
“They can’t. They never evolved that ability.”
“…that’s… just…”
“Crazyballs, I know. If they ever develop interstellar travel, they’ll ravage the galaxy. Hence this field of silence we put up around their system. Let ‘em think they’re all alone in the universe. With any luck, they’ll deplete their resources in a century or two and go extinct.”
“Good riddance. Good fucking riddance.”
“Yup.”
Collin Yeoh has been writing advertising copy for 15 years, and now finds writing fiction a lot more fun. He especially enjoys drabbles, and has had several published in collections by Ghost Orchid Press, Black Ink Fiction, and Black Hare Press. He lives in Bangkok and misses Malaysian food.
Bomb, Shelter by Wendy Nikel
We place the bomb on the steps of the old courthouse. Abandoned roadways buckle beneath our tank, which rumbles past the city’s darkened edifices. It seems impossible to imagine this place in its heyday. Impossible to imagine so many people.
We scale a tower and begin the countdown.
Three…
Rain splatters the asphalt and creeps into the fresh cracks.
Two…
A deer wanders past, searching for shelter.
One…
The bomb explodes. Seed and peat and powdered clay burst skyward. By this time next year, everything will be green.
The deer watches as we rumble away to reclaim another lost city.
Wendy Nikel’s fiction has appeared in Analog, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Nature, and elsewhere.
In Defense of Simulations by Yelena Crane
Felix knew it was wrong to delete Simulants because they’d been born the C++ kind of code instead of DNA. The pro-Human league discovered his collection scanning for excessive energy usage. Felix had one day to say goodbye.
“You knew we weren’t real all along?” Logan, his best friend, said.
Felix stammered. “You are real enough.”
“Not where it matters.”Felix had tried appeals to governments with less hostility against NLPs. Simulants have no rights. Simulants didn’t, but he did. Felix said goodbye to reality and hooked-in for the last time. So long as he lived, deletion would be murder.
Yelena Crane juggles being an adjunct professor, a freelance writer, and full-time mom in the storied streets of Philadelphia. With an advanced degree in the sciences, she has followed her passions from mad-scientist to science fiction writer.
Also by Shacklebound Books
Martian Year One
Martian is a magazine of science fiction drabbles, stories told in exactly 100 words. This is the complete first year of Martian, containing all four of our first issues. This anthology features stories from Rich Larson, D.A. Xiaolin Spires, Lora Gray, Lettie Prell, Steve Rasnic Tem, Holly Schofield, Wendy Nikel, Liam Hogan, and many other writers from around the globe.
Drabbledark II
Drabbledark II is an anthology of dark science fiction, dark fantasy, and dark horror drabbles, stories of exactly 100 words. Within its pages are dark morsels of other worlds by Michelle Ann King, Liam Hogan, Ai Jiang, Dorian J. Sinnott, Joachim Heijndermans, Jacob Steven Mohr, and many others!
Chronos: An Anthology of Time Drabbles
Chronos is an anthology of drabbles (a story told in exactly one-hundred words) themed around time. Seventy-five talented authors from around the world come together to present ninety-eight stories of time, time travel, time zones, time manipulation, flash-forwards, space-time, time freezes, and so many other variations on the theme.
Eric Fomley, Martian
