Sci-Fi Web Serial | Offworlders

Regrets But One by David Nadas

Kyle Pollard — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 19:26:58 +0000

Regrets But One – Sci-Fi Short Story by David Nadas

“What word of what I just said didn’t you understand?” Deedle said mocking him as she pulled the handgun from her shoulder bag.

“Deedle…. hold on…. put the gun down,” he pleaded rolling back in his chair with nowhere to go.

With a flick of her thumb, the laser-powered scope turned on, and she raised the red dot until it settled between his eyes.

“Don’t do this, Deedle. I thought you were coming over here to make amends? It was a long time ago. We’re friends now, right? We’ve done business together. This is crazy… We’re both going to die in a few hours anyway. I’m sorry…. don’t do this…”

“I’m not going to give you that luxury… you prick…. You don’t deserve to go out with the rest of humanity.” She took aim.

“WAIT! Just wait! I didn’t have a choice–”

“NO! I DIDN’T HAVE A CHOICE!” She shouted cutting him off as the red dot bounced along his forehead. She promised herself she wouldn’t lose control of her emotions over this scumbag and needed to prove to him she was no longer the young impressionable nitwit she had been in those days, new to the jewelry trade and too trusting of shitbags the likes of Donald.

Seeing him here, now, brought back thirty years of anger and sleepless nights of reenacted dreams when he claimed to have lost a piece she had loaned him; it had been her most precious piece, a vintage VCA coral and diamond leaf motif brooch worth a little more than eighty-seven grand…. a fortune to her at the time.

“Tell me, Donald…. and if I sense any bullshit… I swear I’ll blow your fucking head off!” It felt good for her to say that out loud having rehearsed this line over and over in her head during her walk along Fifth Avenue to Donald’s office.

An hour earlier, she and everyone on the planet had received a series of public service emergency alerts that a catastrophic solar flare, ten times the diameter of Earth, was heading toward them and there was no chance of survival. The Internet had become choked with posts of people making amends and being with those they loved. There was nothing anyone could do. Instead of rushing home to Dov, she had sat in her office thinking of any regrets she may have had in her life. There was one.

“What did you do with that piece I loaned you, Donald?”

He looked at her, feigning confusion.

“Donald! Answer me!” She shouted and dropped her leg back and took straight aim.

“I sold it!” He blurted out. “I’m sorry, but I needed the money… “

“To whom?” She demanded.

He was stuttering, looking for an answer that wasn’t there. “No-no one you know… please… put the gun away… we can talk about this.”

“You’re lying to me,” she said calmly. “You always flick the end of your nose when you lie… just like you did right now.” She took aim down the barrel.

“OK, OK, OK… I gave it to Anna Skylovski… Don’t shoot…” he whimpered.

“You were always such a pussy, Donald. I should have known you’d give it to that slut… I hope the blowjob was worth this bullet in your head,” she said closing one eye just before pulling the trigger and for Donald to thrust his hands in front of his face and turn slightly. The sound was much quieter than she imagined, a single pop. She looked up to see a hole in his palm and the tip of his nose missing.

“FUCK ME!” Donald screamed out as the blood began to gush. He pulled his bloody hand down and held it, growling through clenched teeth and the bubble of his voice though the tip of his shredded nose. Beyond him the bullet had exited the picture window, leaving a spider web in the glass.

“Damn! My aim sucks,” she said more to herself than for Donald’s sake. “Dov insisted I get a gun to protect myself. He even took me clay shooting, and those fucking orange pigeons went sailing forth unhindered by my bullets… I would have shot you in the balls, Donald, but I now realize you never had any.” She laughed and raised the gun once more but jumped when the sirens outside screamed out, distracting her long enough for Donald to grab the paperweight from his desk and hurl it, striking her in the forehead and knocking her onto the floor.

She was lying there, still holding the gun when Donald launched over the desk onto her, his good hand pinning the gun to the carpet.

“You stupid bitch,” he screamed inches from her face. She felt the warmth of his bloodied forearm on her throat as the drip from his nose landed her cheek. He began to press down.

Her free hand was clutched to the brooch that had come loose from the fall, the long gold pin held in her fingers. She jabbed him in the temple and felt the pin bend when it hit bone.

He roared out and rolled over onto his back, and Deedle staggered up onto her Jimmy Choos, the gun still hot in her hands. She wiped her cheek, straightened her suit and brushed the flip of her hair to the side while the sirens outside continued at a deafening pitch. The end was coming.

Donald pushed himself up against the front of his desk, defeated. “Get it over with. Do it. Do me the favor of not having to see your fucking face as my last image. DO IT!

Deedle raised the gun and held it steady, the red dot settling between his eyes. She was breathing heavily, and her head ached. She looked into his eyes that were filled with hatred, and she began to laugh. She was laughing so hard it drew Donald in as he closed his eyes and laughed achingly with her.

She wanted to pull the trigger, but the reservoir of revenge felt half full, and she didn’t want this to end, on his terms, so she lowered the gun and pulled the trigger and miraculously hit his knee. A black dot appeared on his pant leg, and he screamed out once more, a primordial guttural, “FUCK YOU” through threads of red spittle tethered from his bloodied lips.

The reservoir had drained, and she raised the gun, held her breath, and pulled the trigger. Another pop and beyond the sights of the barrel a black dot appeared on his forehead as if that was all that bullets did was to create black dots. A crimson ribbon began to drip between his eyes and along his nose where it bowed like a strand of silk onto his chest.

“No, Donald… Fuck You,” she said under her breath and lobbed the gun into his lap.

She was smiling to herself in the mirrored walls of the elevator, primping and wiping his blood from her face and throat until the courtesy ping of the elevator notified her she had reached the lobby. The doors opened, and she stepped out onto the worn marble floors with the echo of her heels the only sounds she heard as she walked toward the revolving doors that opened to the street.

Everything seemed so surreal; it was a beautiful day with not a soul in sight. Everyone who was, were where he or she needed to be. Deedle walked Fifth Avenue toward her Upper East Side apartment, not drawn in by the windows of Christian Louboutin or lured through the open doors of St. Patrick’s by the sobering choir of voices within. She walked past Bergdorf’s without admiring the window displays and was amazed not to see crowds gathered around the Apple Store. Why couldn’t it always be like this? She thought to herself as she headed along the park with the dogwoods in bloom and over the wall in the fields beyond, horses with tiaras were grazing on the chartreuse of grass — their handsome cab owners having set them free. She couldn’t remember the last time she walked home from work and took note of all the shops and cafes she had never been to or had known to exist.

With the crosstown walk behind her, she stopped to admire the tower of her apartment building and the duplex apartment at the top, a symbol of her success. She thought back to the countless dinner parties out on the terrace, her love of the kitchen and cooking, the smells of fresh biscotti on the oven sheets with Dov always stealing one before they cooled. She had some great times there, and those thoughts filled her with happiness.

It felt odd opening her own door to the lobby, where Kevin was not there to greet her with his infectious smile, eager to carry her packages no matter how small. She entered the to its emptiness, where the elevator door at the far end of the lobby was openly awaiting her, an NYC rarity. She rode up in silence to the penthouse floor and stepping out, the door to her apartment opened before she could remove her key. Standing in the doorway was Dov in his tuxedo holding two glasses of champagne.

Noticing the bruise on her forehead and smear of blood on her cheek, throat, and blouse, he asked nonchalantly, “Tough day at the Batcave, Batgirl?”

“You should see the other guy…” she huffed and dropped her bag to the floor as she reached for her glass and kissed him hard on the lips. “Come on Batman…. we’ve got some messing around to do before the world ends. Hopefully, this solar flare thing is not fake news, or I will have some serious explaining to do in the morning….”

Main Photo Credit: David Nadas
Background Image: “[2005] 5th Avenue at Night” by Diego Torres Silvestre is licensed under CC-BY 2.0. The image that was resized, and cropped to fit required size.

David Nadas is a science fiction writer based out of Florida with a background in computer science and marine biology. His novel November Seed takes the almost now formulaic zombie infection theme and turns it into something new and unusual. Fun and realistic characters and a smooth flowing plot follow two N.J. Fish & Wildlife biologists that stumble upon an extraterrestrial zombie contagion. What happens next is entirely unexpected. To read more about the novel follow this link: November Seed by David Nadas.

The post Regrets But One by David Nadas first appeared on Offworlders.

View From My Kitchen by David Nadas

Kyle Pollard — Wed, 15 Mar 2017 18:30:19 +0000

View From My Kitchen – Sci-Fi Short Story by David Nadas

End of Days Series – Part Three

They said it would come, that it would start with a sunset of such unbelievable beauty it would bring tears to your eyes. They were right.

It was quiet. Eerily quiet. No bird chirps or the whine of motorboats speeding across the lake. No one in their back yards, no joyous shrieks of children chasing fireflies, no smell of fire-pits and no sound of car tires rolling down the crushed stone roads, eager to get to their weekend camps. Everyone was down in their last minute shelters with not enough supplies to outlast what was about to unfold.

My children, grandchildren, friends, and neighbors begged me to come with them into the town’s shelter. But why miss the last sunset one would ever see. Where was there to go? Nowhere. It would take ten thousand years just for the fires to burn out, and the only reason they would extinguish would be due to the absence of oxygen left on Earth.

I know it might seem selfish — that I should spend the last of days surrounded by family and friends — but I just wanted to spend it in my kitchen, overlooking the lake where I can see the memories of my grandchildren out on the dock, their silhouettes with fishing poles matching the paintings in my home. So here I stand, a glass of Chardonnay in hand and raising it to the sky, thankful I was given this sliver of time to see and experience this magnificent world and hoping my next journey will be as spectacular. Cheers.

Photo Credits:
Background – “Sunset” by theshutterbug is licensed under CC-BY 2.0. The image that was resized and cropped.
Featured Image: Photograph by Ann Swanson, used by permission.

The post View From My Kitchen by David Nadas first appeared on Offworlders.

Under Eden by David Nadas

Kyle Pollard — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 22:16:47 +0000

Under Eden – Sci-Fi Short Story by David Nadas

End of Days Series – Part Two

Shite, that was close. From the impact, the sky had lit up so bright we could clearly see down the street with its neatly parked cars, perfectly aligned like the teeth of a zipper. But no one was out and no lights came on in any of the homes; our neighbors had all moved to the underground.

When we go, we want to taste the air and see the sun going down and not have the taste of someone else’s exhale lingering in our mouths or staring up at a filament, waiting for it to extinguish and be left alone in darkness with only our fear leaning in. The underground was not for us, but I suppose for those who have chosen to stay below, there is something to be said for not knowing or seeing the end coming.

For us above, we enjoy free rein of the big box stores and the design outlets to get all the lumber, tools, and furniture needed to build a roof deck on our flat … something I had always wanted to do for my family but never had the funds to do it. It’s bittersweet under these circumstances, but our roof deck rocks. We have a full working tiki-bar and a well-stocked drinks cupboard up here with unobstructed views of the sunsets. And the sunsets have been magnificent lately, even knowing the colors are fed by the ash of every living thing that was incinerated from an impact.

We have allowed our fifteen-year-old daughter, Louise, to drink alcohol along with us, enjoying these last days together as a family. Tonight’s concoction of a drink is a Comet-Kaze, but instead of Triple Sec, we used Orange Curaçao — stuff we could never afford but is now readily available at the off-license … free of charge of course. Honestly, I hope the end comes soon because we are running out of clever drink names. My youngest, Alec, is a space nut. When we had a family vote to stay above or go under, he was the most vocal of staying above; he wanted to see what was coming. For the record, it was unanimous, we all wanted to stay above. A weird lot we are.

Ever since the announcement that Earth would pass directly into a catastrophic asteroid storm, spelling out the end for us all, Alec has been glued to his kit of computers and monitors lined up on the dining table. Seated upon his newly acquired oversized luxury office chair with his feet dangling, he has been tracking everything coming in; it’s like having the ESA in our sitting room. Alec informed us that the impact we just saw was an eight on the Torino Scale with a low MT potential… whatever that means. He said if it had been a nine we would have been okay, but we would have had to remain inside for a while, but if it had been a 10, well, that would have been a bit of a damp squib.

Louise has been on a mission every day now, looking for pet stores to liberate or following the barking or meowing of dogs and cats left abandoned in their homes. When we find them, we open the doors, cages and pet food. We even take the freshwater fish to a freshwater canal or pond and take the saltwater fish to the sea, but we need to check in with Alec before going there in case an 8 or 9 hits off the coast creating a tsunami.

My wife, Jenny, has been a rock through all this. Me, well, when you have loved someone for eighteen years, every day as much as the first, someone you would instinctively put your life before theirs … well … I can’t think about that right now. It’s been a long day. We’re off to bed.

We were awakened by the alarms from Alec’s monitoring alerts, Jenny and I still in a tangle with the lingering scent of our lovemaking around us. We knew the drill. If this was going to be the one to take us out, we wanted to be together through to the end. Jenny would gather up Louise, as I headed down the steps to the sitting room to find Alec inches away from the monitors, the screen data reflecting off his specs as he nibbled away on a biscuit from Marks & Sparks. Now that we were directly in the path of the storm, Alec has been sleeping here on the couch under a litany of graphs and hand drawn eclipses of near misses and impacts, looking for the one that will do us in. He never had a passion for sport or music and had always been a bit of a loner with his technical books and sci-fi pulp fiction, but this makes him happy, happier than I have ever seen him. So be it. The kit he put together came from the Apple Store and smaller bits and PC shops down the block. I’m not sure of what his kit does, but he seems to know of inbounds before anyone in his circle of plusers does. Lucky us.

“Alec. What does your crystal ball show?” I said coming up behind him, making sure to slide my slippers on the floorboards so as not to startle him.

“Daddy, you should see this one. It’s big. A 10 with a high MT.” he said not turning away from the screens.

I stooped over his shoulder, trying to see what he was seeing, but all I could make out was a ball of multicolored elastics knowing somewhere beneath it all was Earth.

“Hmmmm….” was the most meaningful response I could come up with.

“This is the one,” he said without the slightest doubt and proud that his forecasts have always proved to be spot on.

I palmed the mop of his hair, thankful he got the hair gene from his mum. “Let’s get up on the roof then.” And I helped him into his pullover hoodie with the phrase, Waiting For The 10, written in front.

“I’m very proud of you, Alec,” I said reaching down to zip him up, tucking the hoodie around his ears to keep out the chill. When we got to the roof, Jenny had the mushroom heaters going and hot tea for me in hand. We sat close together on the outdoor furniture, our overly fluffy slippers up on the ottomans while passing the tin of peanut butter shortbreads, from Luigi Zuck. This was our routine; no one should have to go out without the finest shortbreads at hand.

“See it!” Alec said jumping up and almost losing his glasses.

It started as a white dash in the night, elongating and brightening as it raced toward us.

“It’s traveling at 24.360 Kilometers per second,” Alec said. He moved to the edge of the deck, leaning over with his hands on the rail, then looked back at us with a child’s innocence.

I reached over and pat Jenny on the knee. “He’s right about this one.” And stood up to join my son at the railing, my arm draped around his tiny shoulders, pulling him tight. I was proud of him, and he knew it. Jenny led Louise to the railing, standing beside me as I reached for her hand and felt the wedding ring I had slipped onto her finger eighteen years ago. We looked up at the dash in the sky, its cobalt blue tail under a gown of white forming a cone. It was beautiful, I had to admit, like a slow moving shuttlecock entering the atmosphere. Then from the tip of the cone, the object projected outward, a second stage, plunging into the lower atmosphere and growing brighter, affording us a clear look down the entire block of flats as if it were daybreak.

“Shades down everyone.” And I helped Alec with his before my own. It was bright, even through the welding goggles we were wearing. I knew Jenny was looking over at me and I turned to see her smile beneath the dark lenses.

“Don’t think you’re getting your back scratched, tonight,” she said as a statement of relief.

I laughed. “It’s been wonderful, Jen.” and I leaned in for a kiss, her head tilting to the side, her lips slightly parted and I knew her love for me, and I for her would never dim. As we kissed, we drew in Alec and Louise. There is something to be said for the human spirit, something that feels it will never extinguish, even where it can’t exist.

Photo Credit: Mark Lynch

The post Under Eden by David Nadas first appeared on Offworlders.

Blood of the Narlack: Part 7

Kyle Pollard — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 18:32:57 +0000

Sci-Fi Web Serial by Kyle Pollard

Continued from Blood of the Narlack: Part 6

Lars sat motionless for some time. Everything that had just happened in his life was a lot to process, and there was still missing information. How much time has passed since planet Vorta’s sun went supernova? How many had died? Millions he assumed, and for what?

“I don’t know where to begin,” said Lars.

“I do,” said Ultnobe. “If you are willing to armor up in your GB Battle Mech I have a warship to show you. There are crew members that wish to speak with you.”

“I have a lot of questions,” replied Lars. “I am still sensing blocks on my awareness.”

“All blocks will be removed when you are ready.”

“When” quizzed Lars?

“Tonight” answered Ultnobe. “You would figure out everything on your own with your core’s new processing capabilities. Nothing gained by holding anything back now. Here, follow me.”

Ultnobe led Lars to a door on the far end of the room. When they were near the entry, it silently slid open. The room was a fully stocked armory. Battle mechs lined the far wall standing at attention in docking bays. Row upon row of weapons charged locked in refresh ports, ammunition storage bays glistened and glowed amber from LED status lights.

Ultnobe stopped in front of a mech at the end of the first row. There was a seat in front of the shell awaiting its soul. Ultnobe motioned to a high-backed chair. Lars looked for a moment at where she was pointing and then took a seat. A cable snaked out of the headrest and attached to the back of his head. A feeling of euphoria came over Lars as his digitized self incrementally uploaded from the shunt that Ultnobe had placed his mind in after releasing him from protected memory storage. The upload took only a few minutes. Even as his systems were coming online, he could feel more data uploading in the background, but he sensed that it only took a few minutes to obtain situational awareness. Internal HUDs activated, and a flood of information presented itself.

“Feels good,” said Lars. “Feels damn good.”

“I thought you would like it,” answered Ultnobe.

When Lars received the fully operational message in his HUD, the data upload cable from the chair detached and disappeared into the headrest. He walked over to a full-length body mirror positioned at the end of a long line of stowed mechs, leaving the shunt body sitting in the upload chair. The soldiers used the mirrors for visual inspection of their gear before exiting the armory. He looked up and down at the reflection of the streamlined battle mech in the mirror. Form fitting, the mech that he and Ultnobe used were light infantry models designed for maximum mobility. The interlocking shoulder armor gave his frame a three tiered effect. He felt like a twenty-year-old in a tight fitting uniform designed for contact sports, yet he knew the serious destruction his powered armor could do in the hands of a skilled operator. The highly polished and reflective face shield was the strangest thing thought Lars. After living all those years on Karbackus with a fleshy, pudgy face, to not have facial features was in a word bizarre.

“If you are done getting ready for the ball,” said Ultnobe. “Let’s get moving soldier.” Lars nodded, and they entered the main corridor of the ship which was Spartan in its design, the halls shining from the lightweight highly polished composite ceramics. His HUD displayed the 1g of thrust gravity as he moved alongside Ultnobe.

They had walked for some time before Lars said: “Mind telling where we are going?”

“The bridge,” replied Ultnobe. “Command staff meeting.”

Lars sorta figured that was their destination. He was following their progress on his situational awareness mapping system. He would have to discuss this with Ultonobe when given a chance. How could all this – being a GB soldier – feel so natural, so second hand, and yet at the same time be so foreign to him? He had been watching their progress on a deck map of the ship. Switching between full 3d and wire frame mode, he had been tracking their progress ever since they left the armory together. Their progress through the vessel seemed to be leading them to the area on the ship’s deck map marked GB Command.

It had taken another ten minutes of traversing corridors before they found themselves at the entrance to the bridge. A strange feeling was surging through Lars. He half expected to walk in to discover a spiked bowl of punch and a room full of birthday revelers. Maybe a simulated beach complete with Narlack beetles and party goers jaunting off to some interstellar back eddy beach party. The emotions surging through him bespoke of family ties, of friendship. It was overpowering. When they were just shy of the sensors that would open the door he placed his arm on Ultnobe’s shoulder and stopped her progress.

“These people, these soldiers. I know them.”

“Yes, you do. They have all missed you.” Replied Ultnobe. “You have been gone a long time Lars.”

“Ok, let’s do this,” he said taking another step and triggering the door that silently slid open into a recess in the wall. There was no yell of surprise, but everyone stopped what they were doing and looked towards Lars and Ultnobe, who entered the command deck together. On Lar’s HUD names were instantly connected to the mechs who now stood silently looking in his direction. There was Dirk McLaren, Denny Derson, Mara Ryante, Jesse Sones, Rahy Ryante, and many more. He knew these people. He could feel it. Other names attached to faces by his HUDs AI were foreign to him. Dossiers for Betol and Brenna appeared, and Lars parsed the data. Much to his surprise, everyone in the room brought up a crisp salute and held it waiting for Lars. Even Ultnobe snapped her heels together, turned, and saluted him.

Lars was touched. He quickly returned their salute, held it there for a second, and quickly dropped his arm. Everyone in the room waited for him to drop his before they brought their arms down. The next few moments were pure chaos. The mechs all converged on Lars and greeted him with handshakes, slaps on the back, and all manner of infantry type grunting noises. Or were there any sounds in the room? Lars was so caught up in the emotion of the moment that he had not even realized that all the mechs had opened their face shields to reveal human type facial features.

He stood still for a moment, made an internal command for his face shield to open, and then felt his face with his hands. It was there. He could feel the tears coming, yet not coming. Tears without the moisture.

“What’s wrong Lars?” asked Ultnobe, who noticed something was bothering him.

“It’s silly,” responded Lars.

“You are the one being goofy Lars. I could read your thoughts as I have before, but that’s rude unless in battle when all GB interconnect.”

“I thought for a minute that I had no face.” Said Lars. “I told you it was silly.”

“Oh, that’s all,” she replied. “Wait till you see the face I programmed for you.”

“Close your face shield so I can see my reflection.” Ultnobe complied. Staring back at him was the face of Lars Karnack from Karbackus in every detail: Large black eyes sans pupils, scraggly white hair and beard and mustache, and pointy ears. He was so happy he wanted to hug Ultnobe. He held back, however, still re-adapting to his role as a GB soldier and unsure of the protocol.

After a moment, Ultnobe opened her faceplate again. It was then that he noticed Ultnobe’s face. Perhaps for the first time aboard the ship. Had he looked at it before? She was beautiful. Her face unlocked a flood of memories. Their marriage, children, their time spent together on long deployments fighting impossible battles and winning. Defeat, struggle, happiness and loss. The floodgates were now open, and there was no way to turn back the tide. He grasped her hand in his, made eye contact and said: “I will never question your love again.”

She replied: “Lars, you are the bravest man I know. I would move heaven and earth to stand by your side. For a thousand years, we fought together, cared for each other, loved each other. I have long waited for this day. This very moment.”

To hell with protocol he thought as he pulled her close to his body and planted a kiss on her lips. The entire crew on the command deck cheered. It was then that Lars knew that he was home.

A moment later Lars noticed a human in the room. He looked to be earth-born, but Lars was uncertain of it. He would have to ask Ultnobe later that evening. When the riot of emotion that followed their kiss on the bridge began to quiet down, Lars suggested to Ultnobe that they retire to their quarters.

Ultnobe turned and addressed the mob surrounding them. “We have important matters to discuss. We should discuss them now, but as you can see Lars is not 100% yet.”

“Say no more,” said Jesse Sones, speaking out of turn. “We can hold down the fort here. Take all the time you need. We will finish running all the projections regarding Earth. We still have some serious number crunching to parse.”

“There won’t be another Vorta on this operation Ma’am” chimed in Dirk McLaren, now sitting in a chair in front of an array of holographic monitors. His hands were a blur as he tapped virtual keys and input data into the system.

Lars noticed the look of concern in the eyes of the human when planet Earth entered the conversation. Now that he thought about it – the human’s face looked familiar. Lars snapped a pic and filed it for later pattern matching. Now, he had other business to attend to and felt strangely aroused. Is it even possible to? Just then he noticed a smile cross Ultnobe’s lips.

“Hey,” said Lars. “I thought you were not scanning my thoughts now?”

Ultnobe didn’t say a word as she led Lars by the hand back out into the corridor.

To be continued

The post Blood of the Narlack: Part 7 first appeared on Offworlders.

Blood of the Narlack: Part 6

Kyle Pollard — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 22:34:26 +0000

Sci-Fi Web Serial by Kyle Pollard

Continued from Blood of the Narlack: Part 5

When Lars started thinking clearly again, he was again sitting in the large high-back leather chair staring out the space viewport. He was not sure how long he was out, but the view had changed. The Surrogate was no longer in orbit around a planet. The viewport showed nothing but stars.

Sitting next to him Ultnobe. He instantly recognized the blue and white mech of the God Battalions. The mech her mind now inhabited looked like a professional athlete wearing form-fitting galactic space armor over the sculpted leg and arm muscles. Her shoulders were stacked, and three layers of interlocked shoulder armor covered them in layers. She looked human. Lars knew better. She was a GB battle mech. Her thruster jets were folded up and tucked away in the recess of her back. Two snake-like cables protruded from her shoulder blades. On the end of one was what looked like a camera of sorts. On the other was a sampling device methodically darting about.

“You remember this then.”

Lars stood up and looked down at the armor. “Where’s your weapon?” he replied.

“All in good time. All in good time.” She replied. “Please take a seat, Lars.”

He sat. His mind was processing at speeds he had never been capable of hitting when he lived on Karbackus, or had he ever lived there?

“Yes. You lived on Karbackus,” said Ultnobe sifting through his thoughts, “but not as you think. You were reborn as Lars Karnack when we lost the Morphu Quani planetary system. You are who you believe you are. Your father, your mother, they are real.”

Lars looked at her. He could see his reflection in Ultnobe’s transparent semi-translucent face shield that covered her face. For some reason, her helmet shield was in the closed position. They were communicating through thoughts, as he realized they always must have or ever would for that matter. He was still pissed about what had happened. Pissed, even though he knew deep down that everything she was telling him was true. The “upgrade” she bestowed upon him came with ExaBytes worth of data from his life that he was now scanning through. That was in itself amazing. He was processing warehouses of data at an unbelievable pace. There were gaps or inconsistencies where he could not piece together a clear picture of what had happened.

“Tell me more about the Morphu Quani planetary system? I have primary data on the solar system, neighboring galaxies, the level of tech of the inhabitants, the type of info readily available in any data dump on a civilization. I have no information on any wars taking place there.”

“Lars,” said Ultnobe. “You are adapting fast. I did not think you would make the connection so quickly. There are areas of your memory I have not released to you yet. What happened on Planet Vorta is one of those memories I wanted to release to you later.”

“I want to know everything.” Replied Lars.

“As you wish,” replied Ultnobe. She then manipulated her internal HUD and selected a memory marked “Fall of Vorta – Morphu Quani” and directed playback to the space viewing port that had now transformed itself into a playback screen. At the same instant, she unlocked a section of memory on Vorta, Morphu Quani, and Lars service records in the God Battalions.

On the screen was a birds eye space view of a major battle taking place on planet Vorta. Large arcs of light could be seen skimming off and penetrating the planet’s atmosphere. Massive bursts of light could be seen momentarily lighting up kilometers-wide sections of the main continental landmasses. Lars was watching the screen and simultaneously reviewing the new data Ultnobe made available to him. He was looking at the vid feed and playing back internal recordings made by his mech during the battle. The experience was so real his nails clawed into the fabric.

The vid feed switched to the internal head cam from Ultnobe. She was on a ridge, alone, in a bunker surrounded by body parts littering the ground around her. The wind was howling, and visibility was reduced due to a massive sand storm that had kicked up as a result of all the heavy ordinance being dumped on the planet. Out of nowhere a group of enemy soldiers plowed out of the blowing sand straight at Ultnobe. She lifted up her Valhalla 24MM combat rifle and sparingly squeezed off a small burst of .950 rounds, each round weighing a little over a half a pound and leaving the barrel at 1,300-foot pounds of force. At what amounted to point blank range the rounds were having a devastating effect of the fighters.

The next image shown was another battlefield tactical overview. Waves of attacking soldiers in the hundreds of millions displayed as a moving formless blob on the map. Tactical nukes launched, and the blobs would be removed from the tactical display, only to return numbering in the millions a few minutes later.

Another cut back to Ultnobe’s head camera. The sand had cleared now, and her view of the valley floor she had from the ridge was one of hell itself. Enemy soldiers were regenerating. Crawling out of foxholes. Just materializing from nowhere. Some were attaching body parts from their fallen comrades to their bodies. Another wave reached Ultnobe. She had reloaded and started firing as soon as she could get a bead on them. Her position spotted, she could see a wave of soldiers on the valley floor turn and begin marching in her direction.

The next image was from Lars. He was feeding off her internal HUD cam. He spoke to her over the battle link. “I am coming. Hold the position.”

She messaged back. “No you idiot. Stay on the ship.”

“Negative,” replied Lars. “I am dropping now.”

The video screen now showed a view from Lar’s drop ship. He was screaming into the planet’s atmosphere, the heat shields glowing red hot until lift and flight were attained. The dropship hit the ground on the valley floor between the advancing army and Ultnobe’s position on the ridge. Rounds started tracing past Lars as he ran towards Ultnobe. She supported him by pumping round after round of grenade rounds at the horde following Lars.

Lars remembered the moment he made it to her position. Ultnobe first shook her head at him, and then gave him a huge hug. Their conversation was recorded by their own HUDS.

“Crazy motherfucker Lars. I always knew I could count on you.”

Lars replied: “Crazy is my middle name.” They hugged again.

The reunion was short-lived. Command was overriding all the HUDS with an emergency message: “We are not going to win here people. There is an evil here the sci-techs cannot comprehend. The enemy is now regenerating twice as fast as we can take them out. All ships in full burn. The Union thanks you for your service.”

“They are leaving us,” said Lars. He checked his HUD. “All ships are leaving orbit and burning towards open space. They are going to jump out of this system. There are thousands of us down here.”

Ultnobe looked at him. She slid open her face shield and held out her hands. He walked over to her and grasped them. It was at that moment that the video showed Ultnobe’s internal HUD flashing the word: “Armageddon.” A progress bar next to some text that read “uploading” was slowly incrementing. “My God,” she said. “They are going to do it.”

“Do what?” said Lars.

“Lars, command is going to force this planet’s sun to go supernova. I cannot stop it. They are uploading me to a relay. As soon as that upload finishes they will trigger the explosion.”

“Why just you?” said Lars, his faceplate now slid to the open position.

“Too involved. No time.” Answered Ultnobe. She grabbed him, and daisy chained their minds together using an intracranial connection. She included his mind stream in the upload. The time for successful upload doubled, which made the problem of the swarms of enemy scrambling up the hillside to their position a real pressing issue.

The last of the video to be shown was the helmet cams from Ultnobe and Lars as they fired round after round of ordnance at the mob of soldiers throwing themselves at them. Finally, “Upload Complete” flashed in Ultnobe’s HUD and the video ended with a bright light.

Keep Reading – Go To Part 7

Photo Credit: “Supernova Companion Star – Goddard Space Flight.”
by NASA is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Image resized and cropped and placed as an object on top of a background.

The post Blood of the Narlack: Part 6 first appeared on Offworlders.

Blood of the Narlack: Part 5

Kyle Pollard — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 18:13:37 +0000

Sci-Fi Web Serial by Kyle Pollard

Continued from Blood of the Narlack: Part 4

The connection was severed before Lars could even flinch a virtual muscle. The keep alive packets that linked him to his body back home started to drop fast. Ten percent packet loss. Thirty, sixty, then finally 100% loss. In a blink of an eye the data stream severed. The narlack beetles, as soon as they detect a continuity break in the communication between the digital and physical selves, begin devouring the physical host body.

“So it has been written . . . and so it has been done” whispered Ultnobe.

“You have killed me.”

“No . . . I have given you life,” said Ultnobe, who snapped her fingers to remove the veil of her VR construct. As she removed the containment filters from Lars that held him locked in protected memory space, the room slowly faded away and was replaced by undulating data streams of immense complexity. It was too much for Lars to process, too many branching data paths, infinite associations, cross references, and eons of stored data with limitless room for expansion.

Another snap of her fingers and the fluid code behind Ultnobe’s memory palace returned to the VR version of the memory construct. Lars was on his knees staring out the viewport. The sudden influx of that amount of data was disorientating and filled him with terror. His thoughts went to his father who he will never see again, not in the flesh anyway. He could always travel back on the black web data currents to see dear old dad by shunting into an artificial host. Just not the same. You lose your sense of species identity when you move from the physical to an entirely inorganic existence. Love, desire, and sexuality still exist, but it’s never the same. To embrace the one you love knowing that life could end at any moment brings a sense of immediacy not possible when you join the ranks of the digitally immortal. Better to have the ability to switch between the real and the unreal, than to exist only in a physical body, or a cybernetic shell.

“Are you angry Lars?”

“Why do you even ask? You know every thought and emotion I have experienced since I started backing up such things. Why do you even need me? You already have everything that makes me – me, filed away in a cross-referenced data hierarchy.”

“I need you, my love.”

“About that” Lars countered angrily, “you cannot possibly love me.”

“That’s not true,” Ultnobe countered. “We have been together for thousands of years. Fought together as a member of the God Battalions during the Rift Wars. We were there when the Digital Messiahs fell, and the stream space breach freed the Narlacks.”

Lars stood and faced Ultnobe, who was also at this time standing. He moved in close and stared into her eyes. The two embraced. Lars felt drawn to her, and when they wrapped their arms around each other, it felt like arriving home after a long journey. Thirty or forty gold cables began rising from Ultnobe’s back and swayed in the air waving about like Medusa’s head of snakes. The wires grew in length and began wrapping around Lars and Ultnobe, pulling them ever tighter together. Input covers on Lars’ head slid open with a pop and thin wire cables from Ultnobe’s head jacked into Lars skull connecting the two together.

Lars screamed “what is happening,” or would have screamed if a thick fat data cable did not run from his mouth directly into Ultnobe’s throat.

She heard him and replied: “Time for an upgrade dear.”

Keep Reading – Go To Part 6

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Blood of the Narlack: Part 4

Kyle Pollard — Sat, 12 Sep 2015 13:51:17 +0000

Sci-Fi Web Serial by Kyle Pollard

Continued from Blood of the Narlack: Part 3

This may be hard for you humans to understand as you all live closed loop lives. Only the insane among you carry on conversations with other people that exist in your mind. For us, it is different. With transhumanism eventually comes intracranial communication and a literal opening of the consciousness.

With Ultnobe, it was different from the start. I was a big believer in and user of VR meet-ups in virtual space. With inter-cranial VR commonplace, it was not unusual to be in the physical world one second, and transition to the virtual the next. With the latest beta builds, you could exist in both planes simultaneously. That is if you don’t mind running your brain on beta software. Not for the squeamish. In Ultnobe’s protected space, impenetrable firewalls held me tight. Keep-alive packets still passed to my body on the beach in Karbackus. Otherwise, I would be stranded and locked in my current digitized existence. There was, however, no sense of freedom. No ability to move with the data currents as they flowed through time. I was, as you earth clan would say – stuck in the mud and going nowhere fast.

Network time protocol communication was also blocked. My internal systems, the code in which made up my entire digitized self in transit through the dark web, began self-calibrating time the instant I became trapped within Ultnobe’s bosom. Time sync is critical if I ever hope to make it back to my host body laying on the beach back home hundreds of light years away.

At 97 hours, seven minutes, and approximately 6.3333321547 seconds, Ultnobe sent me a VR Chat request. I looked at the icon slowly pulsating on and off. I approved the request instantly. What did I have to lose?

A door appeared. I hesitated for a minute before opening it. I attempted to set my avatar but was unable to set a lock in any appearance commands. Everything still blocked. Some internal systems too as avatar set does not require interfacing with any outside systems. I was going in just as I look in the physical world – balding head, large black eyes sans pupils, and scraggly beard. My wife always told me to take in more physical activity, but I was a “perfect” physical specimen in VR so why bother?

I wanted to perhaps beef up a bit before entering. Add a few inches of height. Lose a few pounds. That was not possible, so I cautiously opened the door and stepped into what appeared to be the main room of a Palace. The ceilings were ornately decorated with geometric and flower patterns. The floor was a hardwood of indeterminate origin. I walked into the room cautiously. Have you ever had a dream where you forgot to attend a college class for the entire semester and you were now sneaking in to take the final? That’s how I felt as I walked through the threshold.

Ultnobe sat at a desk positioned at the far end of the large Victorian styled room. From panels on the wall behind her 30 or so thick data cables fed into her head. She had no eyes and wore no clothes. Her skin shimmered and glowed with a translucent gold hue. This lasted for but a second when that avatar of Ultnobe was replaced by one not tethered to a desk by cables running into her noggin. She stood and walked towards Lars. Her eyelids opened to reveal cybernetic eyes that spun as they focused.

When Ultnobe spoke her voice was like the last taste of honey at the bottom of a cup of chamomile tea: “Lars, Take my hand.”

Lars complied and took her hand in his. She guided him through an ornately carved archway that led to a small alcove. Once inside the room Ultnobe let go of Lar’s hand and motioned to one of two large leather chairs that were positioned to look out the three windows of the small alcove. The chairs were side by side with a little cherry wood table positioned between them.

Lars sat down and looked out the windows. The ship was in low orbit over a planet. He could clearly see an atmospheric layer and a swirling mass of clouds covering continental land masses. Lightning strikes lit up the clouds at random intervals. The view, as it always is in low earth orbit, was strikingly beautiful. On the small table between the chairs steam from two porcelain cups filled the room with an intense and surprisingly aromatic smell.

“What is the liquid?” Lars asked.

“On earth it is called coffee. Try some.”

Lars picked up the cup and cautiously took a sip. “It is good,” Lars said after carefully setting down his cup.

Ultnobe turned her head away from the star port and faced Lars: “I cannot let you return to your body on Karbackus.”

Before Lars could respond she made a motion with her hand and the data connection between Lars and his body on the beach of his home world was severed.

Keep Reading – Go To Part 5

Background Photo Credit: “Best-ever Ultraviolet Portrait of Andromeda Galaxy”
by NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP) is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Image resized and cropped to fit required size.

The post Blood of the Narlack: Part 4 first appeared on Offworlders.

Blood of the Narlack: Part 3

Kyle Pollard — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 21:06:47 +0000

Sci-Fi Web Serial by Kyle Pollard

Continued from Blood of the Narlack: Part 2

Yes, Lars thought to himself. That trip changed me forever. After the Narlacks had their way with me, I focused my mind. Taking in the narlack code is not something one does haphazardly. Only after twenty years of study at university, and after countless simulations, did I allow the beetles to take me on a magic carpet ride through the multiverse. If one does not know the proper techniques to focus and direct the mind, the narlack code will take your stream of consciousness, your mind, and abandon its essence irretrievably in some backwater universe located who knows where.

My mind properly focused, I readied myself for the dizzying array of data trunks spider-webbing through dark matter. By focusing on my core and projecting my mind outward, I directed my packetized self to a spiral arm of the Andromeda galaxy where the sci-fi research vessel the Surrogate patrolled. At approximately 130,000 light-years from Andromeda’s center of mass, what the ship was doing in this uninhabited area of the cosmos was anyone’s guess. Curiosity drove me to attempt to find out.

As I was traveling to Andromeda, I sent pings to pinpoint the Surrogate’s exact location. Most ships had transponders, and it was easy enough to get a ping back from one. On my last journey to the galaxy, I had by extreme happenstance discovered the spaceship in the inky blackness of space and managed to record its signature. From then on it was easy enough for me to track.

After I arrived at the ship’s location the small matter of how to get aboard preoccupied my thoughts. As I was devising my plan, I bounced my soul off a series of dark matter routers, careful to avoid any poison routes. By not lingering at any end storage points, this allowed me to avoid detection by any of the ships sensors.

Then it came to me – it was so simple I was surprised that I had not thought of it before. I monitored communications traffic from the ship that was traveling over the shadow network I was using to transport my stream of consciousness. As a trans-human with an advanced cranial processor known as Brain 5.0, I was able to use its processing power even though my skull lay on a beach on the planet Karbackus hundreds of light years away.

The near real-time speed of the shadow network allowed me to intercept their comm chatter, record bits and pieces, and replay it back in a classic man-in-the-middle attack. With each segment, I was able to encode myself in the padding within each data packet without upsetting the header checksums. My hack took weeks to complete, but I slipped into their ship’s computer like a thief in the night.

That’s when I first met Ultnobe.

“Yes Lars, the moment you entered me I knew everything there was to know about you. Your life history. All your biggest accomplishments. Your failures. Everything that made you who you are was now a part of me. You thought you were so smart, but I was ahead of you every step of the way.”

I thought I had penetrated the ship. I did nothing of the sort. The ship’s AI – Ultnobe – was no ordinary ship’s computer. She intercepted my data packets and routed them to an area of protected memory, and the instant I transmitted my last packet she closed the loop and I was trapped.

Keep Reading – Go To Part 4

The post Blood of the Narlack: Part 3 first appeared on Offworlders.

Blood of the Narlack: Part 2

Kyle Pollard — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 20:22:03 +0000

Sci-Fi Web Serial by Kyle Pollard

Continued from Blood of the Narlack: Part 1

Ahhh but dear reader I must digress. How is it that myself and my crew have come to this point in space and time. Why has our AI Ultnobe hacked into everything up to and including web-aware toasters? More importantly, what are our intentions with your shiny blue marble?

To know the answers to these questions, we must start at the beginning. It was not an easy life on Karbackus. As a young wet-wired babe straight out of my father’s womb, I found life somewhat confusing.”

Another ping from Ultnobe, Lar’s stops mid sentence, looks flustered for a second, and continues.

Ultnobe suggests I jump ahead in my narrative just a tad and start from there.

“That’s affirmative, Lars. If you consider moving the story ahead a few hundred years just a tad, then please proceed.”

“Fine, after graduating from University with a degree in Intergalactic Science Fiction of Pre-Contact cultures, I found myself at an impasse.” With many hand gestures and grand theatrics, Lar’s relates how on one early pre-dawn morning he was standing at an overlook on the famous beach Frubia Prime. The beach was almost at capacity. Everywhere he looked were lifeforms laying on the beach, each covered with narlack beetles. The beach looked like red, bumpy, undulating sand with periodic patches of black sand for as far as the eye could see.

Lars walked down near the water’s edge to a small section of beach not yet teeming with narlacks. Laying down, he thought about the conversation he had earlier with his father. After seventy-five years in college dear old Dad fumed that Lars had not yet demonstrated any real willingness to take up a profession. Once hooked on the blood of the narlacks, real-life, physical life, the here and now lacked a certain luster. Besides, Lars thought ruminating on the difference, if any, between the real and the unreal. When traveling the ancient data protocols of the narlacks, one’s soul, extracted from the physical host, is compressed and decompressed as it moves through fat data conduits that interconnect the spaces between baryonic matter. The known elements, the stars, nebular gasses, rocks, and planets are a small fraction of what is out there; it’s the spaces between, the dark matter that teems with infinite life.

Lars started to laugh as the narlacks began to crawl on his body. With billions, if not hundreds of trillions of the narlacks on the beach, the tiny brutes encircle a host and slowly begin piling on until every square inch is covered. The hard part, if you are a being that has active pain receptors as Lars did, was the first hundred or so punctures of the skin. It only takes a few minutes before the infusion of narlack blood overcomes the organic processes of the host body. Perhaps an hour before narlacks begin producing data packets that instantaneously course through dark matter routers that have existed for eons.

Screw you dad was the last thought Lars had before his consciousness tumbled over the event horizon and plunged into the gravity well of screaming banshee quantum data transmutation. The Andalusian’s had created the narlacks as a way to tap into the data carrying ability of what humans call dark matter. At first they used the “Shadow Network” as a way to communicate between galaxies in near real-time. After their civilization had peaked technologically, and their civilization’s singularity pushed aside organic life, it was only natural that the streams of data spiraling through the multiverse started carrying the digital minds of the Andalusians.

Lars received an internal ping from Ultnobe: “Tell them, my love. Tell them what happened on this journey through the multiverse.”

Keep Reading – Go To Part 3

The post Blood of the Narlack: Part 2 first appeared on Offworlders.

Blood of the Narlack

Kyle Pollard — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 12:54:18 +0000

Blood of the Narlack by Kyle Pollard

Earth Clan. This is Lars Karnack, Publisher aboard the Science Fiction research vessel The Surrogate. We are here to reach out to the citizens of Terra. If you are reading this, that means you. Do not fear the arrival of our ship. Your planetary governments have been contacted and assured that we come in peace.

I was born on the planet Zemlon Karbackus. It’s a beautiful water world similar to your earth. Not that I enjoy water. Mostly I love wading deep into the swirling data currents as they flow through my intracranial processors. Memories fade and drop into focus as my neural implants store, retrieve and process external stimuli. When walking on the beetle infested beaches of Karbackus, I take in the natural world that exists all around me. I embrace the tactile feel of the narlack beetles crawling up my bare legs. I even occasionally pull one of the fatter ones from my skin, pop it into my mouth, and enjoy their luscious taste.

The narlacks are highly sought after for their flavor and the hallucinations they inject into the bloodstreams of those they bite. Countless beings journey here to be gnawed on by the tiny mandibles as they are gateways to a multitude of interconnected universes.

Ultnobe, the ships AI, pings Lars internally. He smiles a wry smile and continues.

Ultnobe breached your global information network. The semi-sentient Google is now her bitch and fetches earth data for her as a mindless router passing packets.

The narlacks started their existence as pure code inserted by the digital messiahs. Their purpose was to cleanse transmuted system links between intergalactic data streams. They were exposed to organic life when the God Battalions destroyed a critical junction in the rift.

Another window opens in Lar’s mind from Ultnobe. The message enters his thought flow: “You flatter me, Lars. My tendrils reach into the inky black of the known and unknowable. My processing power is virtually limitless, but I do not know everything nor do I care for such a burden. Prepare for burst data.”

I stand corrected. Ultnobe informs me that the word hallucination is not the right terminology. The narlacks were a cross-over breed from the Andalusian data stream core breach a millennia ago. Hmmm? How to explain this? The narlacks started their existence as pure code inserted by the digital messiahs. Their purpose was to cleanse transmuted system links between intergalactic data streams. They were exposed to organic life when the God Battalions destroyed a critical junction in the rift.

More information from Ultnobe streams into Lars’ brain messenger. Lars hesitates for a second and then continues.

The narlacks now occupy the temporal and the world of the synthetic forevermore. Narlack blood’s infusion with gossamer protocol mixes the blood of organic-based entities and jacks that person into an infinite number of data streams stabbing into the heart of the multiverse. As your planet’s Hunter S. Thompson once said: “Buy the Ticket – Take the Ride.”

Keep Reading – Go To Part 2

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