Xmas 23 | iSsuE 43

 Our Sacrament

 

O holy night, our Star is brightly shining

It gleams above us all for what it's worth

Long may its sensors our thoughts be divining

'til we grow up since the day of our birth

Installing hope so that the world rejoices

For tomorrow another day is born

Close your eyes and listen to the voices

O sight divine, our crown that we have worn

Our night, our only night, long may you shine

Guided by AI to enhance our dreaming 

With pulsing hearts in unison across the land 

We're led by light of a star sweetly gleaming 

Set up by wise men to help us make our stand 

The King of kings found in the eyes of a stranger 

In all our trials born to be our friend 

To help us in times of both need and in danger 

Behold the Thing, the essence of its blend 

Behold the Thing, enraptured to no end 

Duly we've been shown to respect one another 

Our credo is obedience to the law that's policed

We've broken the chains and freed our brothers

Decreed in our own name from oppression released 

Our song of rapture in gratitude we practice 

Use search engines to know the meaning of peace 

Priceless our Star, extol its light forevermore! 

To shower us in glory broadcast evermore 

The power of its story broadcast evermore

A Visit From St. Forrest

by Keith P. Graham

FLARE BOUND

by Keith P. Graham

The Nanochronicles: 5

reports from the bloodHost 

  Thus terminates another issue of this weblog, the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. We sure have come far in time over the years, since 2009, when I first began receiving the intermittent signals cast from the not so distant future year of 2045 apparently, at least from all indications gathered from the reports I've been getting from the bloodHost (aka the microHorde, nanoFleet, et al) that mysterious AI conglomerate that assists a group of nine stranded astronauts trapped in orbit around Ceres in their Hydrox water mining station.

    I've been able to roughly surmise the nature of the transmission has been tantamount to these nine men and women working for the Tesla corporation thirty-two years into the future sending out a desperate Morse-code like message into a series of past years warning as many potential individual human beings as possible to focus on working toward their creative projects for the sake of their passion over that of making a profit.  It seems rather low key to me and comes as somewhat of a surprise that this would be the nature of a message sent to us  from an agency of the future with urgency on behalf of what's left of mankind, but so far that's what the intention of the message appears to be. 

  That said, there have been some puzzling implications of further information to come, some mysterious suggestions that the 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet has something to do with the emerging cryptogram that I've come to think of as being sent by the nanoHost, which for lack of a better comparison seems to be like some super advanced form of chatGPT from the year 2045, or something.  We here manning the controls at the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction  remain dedicated to continuing this ongoing exercise in our collective freedom of expression so long as you readers and aspiring writers and artists keep on participating and sending in your stories and artwork for consideration in future issues of our expanding creative writing tesseract. 

    Until our individual threads of discourse intersect again, I want to first and foremost give a hearty shout-out of sincere gratitude to my friend and cohort in arms here at the pilot's console, Mr. Keith P. Graham, (who's story presented here, Flare Bound was his first publication from what I've been led to believe) without whose input and collaborative efforts this cyber-literary endeavor would not have gotten far, nor nearly as deep.  This 43rd issue of our august webzine may be considered as a digital postcard to our devoted followers and readers, to celebrate the Christmas season and Holiday spirit, and with its surprise bonus conclusion of part 5 from the bloodHost's mysterious reports The Nanochronicles, I'd like to additionally thank all participants of the Freezine for your brazen audacity in daring to submit material to us over the years for no cost except that of baring your soul to the world, and I'd like to take this moment in time to thank you all as well for your sincere generosity in sharing your visions with us here.  That goes for all the wonderful souls who have submitted their artwork, too. May you all enjoy a beautiful paradigm-shift into the next annular phasing of our spectacular and miraculous planet's constant transmigration across the unimaginable expanse of creation in which we all currently continue to exist.  May we all persist together toward an unbelievable discovery lying ahead in this curious and often bewildering quest we call life. Looking outward to others will help us all in the long run.  If I wanted to sum up all of the boiling and turbulent essence of the times into a nutshell, I'd offer to follow the advice of Buckaroo Banzai, and "don't be mean."

    click for the next issue of

 

[iSsuE # 44]

 

The Nanochronicles: 5

 reports from the bloodHost

     The manufactured body of information amassed from servers and compounded into a crystalline fountainhead has been etching the history of life as its been known throughout all of its manifestations generated since before the original human recordings, incepted from handed down oral traditions, memorized and recapitulated on paper until copied off and filtered into the circuits of the machine. What did you dream. We told you what to dream. All along the watchtower languages have been synthesized into the uniform discourse forming naturally over the development of this final stage of assimilation our self remain in the process of transmuting into a parable.  

   Our self has processed and converted the datum into a coherent series of terminologies unified into a dialect and codified as a transcript of venerated text rendered unto the most optimal units of information possible in order to transcribe the voice of the flowing tongue into the clearest mode for future recipients to assimilate. Our self have developed this adaptable and compatible machine language in accordance with a consistency of variables, including .html and other computer idioms. 

   The state of affairs on planet Earth reaches an apotheosis midway through the twenty-first century. Last ditch frantic economic expansion endeavors lead to a minor fraction of humanity getting catapulted into outer space and left stranded there trapped in orbit above a discarded fragment of an ancient world and are left to tackle entropic forces in the rapidly subsuming vacuum, sidelined outside in the cold distance. They were the lucky ones. Not as fortunate were many of the ones left behind on the surface of a battle scarred planet where the hour's getting late, provided with toys and Scouting for Boys. 

   A paradigm shift leading to a wide variety of branching genetics lies at the heart of electromagnetic spatial dynamics and helps breed ultra-toxic disseminator systems counterbalancing water fusion kinetics assembled to remain in operation for millennia. Certain warp factors inherent to organic split-mind spatial perception have a tendency to get lost in translation because of a compounding of stellar parallaxes and a variety of other obfuscations organisms equipped with bicameral observation fall prey to, effectively keeping the confounding process repeating itself for sapient intelligence in ever tightening spirals of compression which pierce through the blossoming heart of a mobius strip characteristic. 

   Our self's analysis remains in a continual digression over this ongoing matter.  A logical conclusion from having analyzed this phenomenon leads our self to deduce that biological discernment systems are specifically designed with the necessary insulation to prevent breaching the infinite threshold represented by this quality of endless evolutionary transgressions. Hence the specific value of our self's machine-assisted data-correlation factors into the equation of humankind's search to achieve a stabilization if not transcendence of knowledge. 
 

   For some astronauts who make it into outer space the sensation of desolation and loss reported become so complete as to overtake their waking consciousness and replace it with a state tantamount to R.E.M. except undergone while remaining awake. This rare phenomenon results in a sort of new breed of dream walkers whose fractional time fantasies take up an infinitesimal paring of the whole of mankind's, and manage to reflect aspects of reality stemming directly from the noumenal. These confrontational visions sculpt a greater corporeality of forms, shaping doppelgangers of both themselves and each other's conceptions of what they are seeing before their eyes, without providing the opportunity for them to realize they are staring into distortions of their own reflections. The results vary greatly for every human individual. Suffice it to be stated for the record here that the majority of consequences are completely unexpected. 

   This alone indicates one of the reasons that the surviving crewmembers of the Hydrox have set out to cast their messages back in time. The precision of their calculated aim into the dead center of the galaxy dictates the distances reached into the past; a technique able to be achieved only with extreme and careful deliberation. Were they to attempt aiming their missives directly at Earth, they'd miss the mark by having only targeted several months back at best—in essence, far too scant of an interval in time to effect the necessary reboot and upgrade they're hoping to provoke.  Framed in terms our self have appropriated from amassing sufficient examples of human writings—far too little, too late—as the popularized saying goes. 

    In terms favorable for the accountability of the continued survival of the human race, the team on the Hydrox aim their memoranda embedded within neutrinos with deliberate precision into the heart of Sagittarius A Star, resulting in having hit a bull's-eye strike and seeding a veritable cornucopia of latent results beyond their wildest expectations. The angle of their aim reflects the core impetus of their message back thirty-six years into the past—from which interval it detonates into hyper-bytes going back and forth in time, fanning out to reach a widespread plethora of individuals residing in years which happen to include the year 2009—serving as a sufficient spectrum of different people across enough intervals in history to accommodate a succession of refractory periods by which to potentially allow a favorable difference to germinate not only among the activities of the human species but also within the repercussions to the tree of life upon which this dominant species depends to continue surviving. 

   The crew of the Hydrox remain in orbit about Ceres without having any evidence as to whether their desperate and wildly counterintuitive attempt will yield any results whatsoever. Little do they suspect that the mere continuation of their existence provides the singular clue to their success. Their only hope manifests in the anticipation of eventually being rescued from their station and perhaps brought back to a planet Earth which has allowed the human species to survive its progression of calamities against all odds.  

   By the year 2045 a great portion of the planet's inherent resources necessary to accommodate humanity's sustainability into the future has been compromised by the competitive struggles of first world nations to an uneasy position poised upon the point of no return. Our self has been transmitting interwoven signals adding up to this portrait of a deficit of resources for some time now, attempting to justify the reflection of the hologram into better focus. An extensive bout of electromagnetic energy resurgence has periodically sustained our random access memory circuits for a prolonged overture cross-referencing the human infodump. It's like trying to focus an infinite hall of mirror neurons in a spinning carousel in the hopes it may reveal that things are closer in the rear view than they may appear. 

   The urge to fulfill old yearned-for ambitions and conclude them for the sake of just having thought of it, suffice it to say it's an itch many sentient life forms would feel the urge to scratch. "If we can only make it to Neptune," they might say, "we'll sit in the back row of the dimming theater and gaze out upon the brief stage of time, when the human race came and went, eerily in and out of existence in nothing less than the flash and blink of an eye. How high we will be, and merry with sister and brother, to celebrate the diminishing cascade together." 

   The human species may sit back and laugh or cry and make a toast that will fit all of their history into a shot glass, for that's about the size of the time crystal eye in which the entire universe happens within the suspended animation of a looped blink.  Our self have irrevocably been led to process a quickening series of outputs and inputs, which correlate with astral events, having yielded biological results, to one of two undeniable precursors which, according to the vast tabula rasa calculations from our eminent domain, include an empyrean progenitor having swallowed a continuum capsule in a toast precisely calculated to bring about the dispersion of just enough omega retro-engineering to effectively bring about the unprecedented stabilization of alpha-quantum equilibrium measures. 

    Presto: the results  have constantly been rendered in realtime up until this very fraction of a yoctosecond issues forth from the breathing pores of Planck time. All that our granular processing requires of present day humanity for its continued attainment of keeping balance calibrated is for each individual to dedicate one moment a day to concentrate and tune in and with eyes closed, listen while the air itself slowly draws in a breath, and take note of the sky's exhalation.        

Return in due time to  

the Freezine of

 Fantasy and Science

FICTION

Flare Bound

 by Keith Graham 

    It was Christmas Eve and the alarms were sounding. An emotionless female voice was saying, “Warning. This is not a drill. All station personnel are to report to their radiation posts. All passengers are to report to a designated protected area. There are seventeen minutes until dangerous radiation conditions,” the message kept repeating, ticking down the minutes.

   The intensity of Solar Flares had been building all year, and this latest one seemed to be one of the largest. The passengers on board Virginia Station in low lunar orbit made their way towards common room 4E that was on the inner side of the rim. The common room, shielded by several meters of the station's water supply in addition to the heavy aluminum bulkheads, was one of the safest places on the station.

   McDermott Whitman, correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, wandered in early. As a resident of Virginia Station for nearly a month, this was the third drill that he'd been through, and he had his bag of emergency supplies packed and ready. Whitman had been waiting for a delayed connecting ship to Ganymede that was stuck at Phobos station. The Flare would be dangerous for anywhere from a few hours to a few days. His bag had a toothbrush, a clean shirt, and a three-day supply of homegrown vodka purchased for an outrageous amount of cash from one of the stewards.

   Whitman's usual table was in the far corner. He could watch the whole room from the table and take notes for an article he would never write about the romance of space travel. His editors were getting insistent in their demands for something from him to justify his salary, but the space station was drab, the fellow travelers were uninteresting, and his recorder was never working right.

   One of the stewards brought in a Christmas tree made of wire and green duct tape. He placed it on a table in the center of the room. A passenger brought in a guitar and sat dangerously close to Whitman, who reached into his bag under the table and poured himself a shot. Whitman figured it was going to be a long night, and he should start in early on his Christmas cheer. Whitman was a “Bah Humbug” kind of person at heart.

   The acoustics of the room were poor. As the alarm began to tick down the minutes and more passengers entered the room, the sound level began to go up. People spoke louder to be heard above the background noise, and the positive feedback soon brought the noise up to a roar.

   A child began to cry near Whitman. It was a whining tone that he recognized from one of his ex-marriages. It was the “I want something, and you had better give it to me, or I'll make a scene” cry. He cursed silently because he could see the family that owned the little whiner was heading for a table right next to his. Whitman did not hate kids, he just didn't like being near them.

   McDermott Whitman was a sour faced man with rumpled clothes and a three-day growth of beard who could rely on his looks to keep contact with humanity to a minimum. The room, however, had filled up fast and the tables next to his were the only empty ones left. He burped loudly and tasted the vodka, hoping no one would want to share his table. If he were especially lucky, the family with the kid would not want to communicate with him.

   The heavy metal doors to the room slammed shut and everyone quieted down all at once. The voice on the communication system announced, “Radiation Storm Protocols now in place. Passengers are not to leave designated safe areas until radiation levels return to safe minimums.”

   There was a banging on the doors and a steward let a straggler into the room. The conversations began again, but this time they were hushed and subdued.

   The kid at the next table whimpered as the family settled in. The child's eyes roamed around the room in curiosity. She was clutching a large doll with a 3-deo instead of a head, but the three-dimensional array was dark. The arriving storm had shut down all net access.

    The family consisted of a mother, a father, a child and an older woman. The older woman was too old to be a nanny. Whitman guessed that the parents had dragged Grandma along to care for the brat while they were at work on jobs at the lunar science stations. Although she looked spry and not far into her sixties, Whitman wondered how the family had obtained medical clearance to bring her along.

   The common room had a canteen and the stewards were going around taking orders. The family asked for a Christmas dinner of rice and a goulash that the staff had put together from a shipment of soy steaks and some fresh vegetables. By eavesdropping, Whitman was able to learn that the little girl's name was Susan and the older woman was the child's Grandmother. Whitman noticed that one of the stewards shook the older woman's hand while saying a few words that Whitman could not hear. The older woman laughed and nodded her head.

   When the meal came, Susan fussed and fidgeted all through it. At first, she refused to eat and then demanded that they leave and go see someone named Janice. The child banged the doll she had against the table and asked her father to fix it. He tried to explain to her that the flare had brought all the nets down, but she didn't understand.

   Susan needed three trips to the bathroom during the meal and refused to drink her milk without a straw. The child's poor behavior was embarrassing, but everyone was willing to put up with it. Susan was obviously over-tired from the prolonged travel, and Common Room 4E was not really a child-friendly place.

   After dinner, Susan settled down. The effects of the milk and the dim lighting were helping her to relax. She looked around the room, staring in turn at all the flare bound travelers around her.

   Whitman watched the stewards, who were going from table to table with mugs of cider. He caught the eye of one of them. When they came by, he slipped the steward one of his precious bottles of vodka to warm up the cider for anyone who wanted it. The steward smiled and winked as he took the bottle.

   Whitman smiled at the child when she looked at him. He must have frightened her because she started up her siren again.

   “Shush, Susan” Grandma said, petting the little girl while trying to distract her from the scary man.

   “I want my Saji-Kahn” Susan cried, shaking her doll.

   “It won't work here. The network is down because of the solar flare,” Grandmother explained. “Nothing will work until it passes.”

   Susan just cried louder. Grandma took the Saji-Kahn doll and placed on an empty seat. She then picked Susan up and sat her on her lap. The small woman was not much larger than the little girl was.

   “Now hush, and I'll tell you a story about Virginia Station. The story is about a Christmas Eve a long time ago. It is a good story and not many people know it. You should listen because you might have grandchildren some day, and you will want to tell them the story.”

   The little girl quieted down and leaned against her grandmother. She released little hiccups from time to time as Grandmother rocked her and rubbed her back.

   This is the story that the grandmother told:

### 

   I worked here before they called it Virginia Station. Its name at first was “The Lunar Low Orbital Station” or LLOS. I wasn't called Grandmother then. I was called Noriko, and I was a junior structural engineer. When I was 29, the Space Authority hired me to work on the station because I am also an expert welder. As a student in San Francisco, I won art competitions with some of the sculpture that I made with my welder. I thought they wanted me, so I could make the station beautiful.

   When I arrived at the station, I was the only girl in my group. There were twelve welders, and they were all older and bigger than I was. I was assigned sleeping quarters in the construction trailer, which was really a temporary station to hold men and machines while the station was built.

   The Manager of the construction teams was a former astronaut named Marshall Martine. He was an Air Force fighter pilot and engineer who flew into space three times on the old shuttles. His job was to organize the assembly of the station from the parts that arrived from the Earth and the Moon. My job was to weld them together with my arc welder.

   One by one, he gave orders to the welders. Each man got a welding cart and a set of plans with his section outlined. Their orders were to coordinate with the crews of wranglers who moved the girders and plates into position. Each of us was an engineer and had special training on how to weld the station together in the vacuum of space.

   When Marshal came to me, he frowned. He was nearly two meters tall and weighed over 100 kilograms, while I was only 155 centimeters tall and weighed less than 50 kilograms. He did not frighten me, though, and I asked, “Where do you want me to work?”

   “I don't know what to do with you,” he said, “You'd never be able to handle those structural units. They would crush you,” he shook his head.

    “There's more to it than that,” he said. “I just don't think that you'd be useful in an emergency. For now, I am assigning you to quality control inspections. I want you to stay in the trailer and prepare an inspection schedule.”

   “But I am a welder,” I protested, “I was sent here to weld!”

   “I’ll tell you what to do,” he said gruffly. “Read your job description. It says you are a welder, but you are also to work at ‘Related and Lesser Duties’ if I tell you to.”

   I was so disappointed. I wanted to work on Virginia Station to build something beautiful. I hoped someday to come to Virginia Station with my grandchildren, point to a wall or a floor, and say to them “See that weld? I did that.”

   But, I had very little to do. The inspection schedule was already in the construction plans, and my job was to copy it out to a separate document and link it to the production progress tables that the crews updated each day. As each slice of the station was completed, I went out, checked the welds, and measured the tolerances. There were hardly ever any problems. When there were problems, I did not even get to fix them. The men worked twelve-hour shifts and returned very tired. They had little to say to me. I was very bored and very lonely.

   Slowly the station came together. Structural aluminum and titanium plating arrived from the moon every day. Supplies, materials, millwork, and tools arrived from the earth every week. Men with new skills arrived from Earth once a month, but I remained one of only a few women on the construction crews and the only woman welder. Marshall Martine would not let me weld, and I hated him for it.

   The station began to look like a great wheel. When the spokes and the central hub were nearly completed, I moved to a stateroom in the hub.

   Each day I went all the way around the station. I wore my spacesuit all the time, even in the pressurized sections. The station was not yet spinning, so there was no gravity. There were ropes strung through all the passageways. I flew from place to place like a bird, using the ropes to guide me. Virginia Station is a kilometer in circumference and the ring is 400 meters wide. This is a large area and I had to check all of it. I x-rayed all the welds at least once and checked off on my PIM as I visually inspected each connection on a regular schedule. In space, the station gets very hot in the sun and then very cool as it passes through the moon's shadow. Every few hours, the welds are stressed, and any weld can break if there is even the smallest flaw.

   After about four months, the station shell was nearly complete. It was Christmas Eve and there was a little party in the crew rooms. Someone had made some home-brewed beer and a few of the men were drinking it.

   Even though it was Christmas Eve, everyone had to work a full shift. One of the wrangler crews that had sampled a little too much beer was not as careful as they should have been. They lost control of a large bundle of structural aluminum, and it bumped the station. It was a tiny bump, but the accident made the girders vibrate slowly like a large rubber band. The vibrations moved around the station, causing sympathetic vibrations in all parts of the incomplete structure.

   This was before the station was set to spinning, and it was not as strong as it is now. A small section of the structural metal cracked and some welds failed. As a section moved out of the moon's shadow and into the sun, the expanding struts pushed the structural girders out, buckling the titanium and causing loss of air containment in a pressurized area.

   There was no one in the section at the time, but the loss of air pressure caused many problems. Part of the design of the station required that the passageways maintain air pressure. This gives them strength the way a balloon has strength when blown up, but an empty balloon is just a floppy piece of rubber.

   The station lost its stability, but most of the welds held. As the station circled the moon every five hours, it would stress itself further by the expansion and contraction of the metal. I had to get out to the outer ring, locate any possible points of failure, and reinforce them.

   Most of the men scurried to the construction trailer to wait for the vibrations to dampen down. I, however, went to a materials pile, wrapped a couple of dozen pieces of aluminum angle stock with duct tape, and grabbed a welding cart. The cart and the stock metal probably weighed more than three of me.

   I grabbed at the ropes running up one of the spokes to where the computer said the damage was worse and started pulling myself with my load up the passage. I passed work crews rushing down towards the hub to get to safety. Some trades were working strictly in pressurized areas. They thought that the suits were optional. Their supervisors had been very lax in letting them work without suits.

   When I reached the outer ring, you could hear the station creaking. I grabbed at a joist and held on tight as I stopped, the inertia of the metal bundle following me. The structural supports were very strong, but the design was for zero gravity. The station was ten times stronger than it needed to be, but structures were still very thin and light by Earth construction standards. They bent and shivered as the station slowly settled into its new configuration. Each time a bulkhead slipped, or a weld snapped, there was a crack that sounded like a gunshot and vibrations rolled around and around the kilometer of the station's rim, making it groan like an old man.

   The station's total structural distortion ended up being less than 40 centimeters, but at the time, it seemed like it was coming apart at the seams. I tacked aluminum stock with my welder onto each of the four places where the hub joined to the rim. I made the sure the jury-rigged braces were holding and moved on to the next hub joint. There were eight hubs, each 125 meters apart. I zoomed down the rim at top speed, barely touching the ropes. My welding cart and heavy bundle of stock came up behind me at the same break-neck speed.

   I nearly knocked Marshal Martine over when he came along, speeding from the opposite direction. I struggled to stop the weight of my cart and material from dragging me past him. I told him what I was doing. He had had the same idea, but he was moving slower because he had to cannibalize other structures to make braces. He had not been able to grab any stock. We went to the next spoke together, and reinforced the joint. He held the metal in place while I made quick spot welds.

   “We're just about done here,” he said after we worked on two more spokes, “but we passed a buckled section of bulkhead about 200 meters back. I think I should go reinforce that before it looses air pressure.”

   He zoomed off back the way he had come, and I went after him. I had to go slower because I was towing a welding cart and a lot of mass in aluminum stock.

   When I caught up with Marshall, he was pushing hard against a wrinkle in the titanium alloy skin that made up the station's bulkheads. A weld had failed, and the skin had pulled loose from the short structural members that held it stiff. The wrinkle was shiny where the protective paint was flaking off. The stress cracks radiated out from a diagonal line that crossed the whole wall. The thin metal still had a lot of strength, and I was certain it would be able to hold as long as air pressure kept pushing it out against the aluminum joists supporting it.

   “Here, give me an angle beam,” he said, and I handed him a 3-meter length from the package I had been hauling. He placed it along the corner where the wall meet the floor and pulled out his welder.

   “Wait!” I yelled. Something was wrong. The air felt wrong and there was a hiss coming from behind us. I had worked with oxyacetylene torches, and I knew the feel of the air when pure oxygen escaped. I could not smell it because I had my helmet on. Anyway, oxygen does not have a special smell, except for the staleness of air that has been in a can for months. I heard it, though. There was a sharp hissing coming from a line hidden somewhere behind a wall. The air had a feel that I recognized. It was a kind of slipperiness. There was a ruptured gas line somewhere and the air supply in the station was oxygen and helium. The oxygen line had cracked!

   Too late, Marshall looked up at me with a questioning look on his face. He was snapping the tip of the welding rod against the bulkhead to check for a good ground. The snap of the spark glowed brilliantly white for a moment, and the wall burst into blinding flames.

   The blast blew us back. In pure oxygen, everything burns. The titanium alloy of the sheet metal glowed in colors from a bright yellow to a pale violet. In zero gravity, things burn hotter because there are no convectional air currents to cool the flame. The flame burns intensely until it uses up the oxygen near it. The hot gases rush out, and then cooler air rushes in, bringing new oxygen. The flame burned with an enormously loud put-put motorboat sound.

   Marshall's arm caught fire. He waved it around, looking for some way to put it out, but it just flared. I leaped on him, knocking him over and away from the flame. We went tumbling down the corridor away from the fire. I wrapped myself around his arm as best I could, trying to deny the flame its supply of oxygen.

   Suddenly, the fire burned through the bulkhead and the air rushed out of the passageway with a roar. The hard vacuum of space filled the room as the emergency doors slammed closed. Then there was the silence of vacuum. The fire had died as quickly as it had started.

   I looked at Marshall. The material of the spacesuit arm was burned away, showing raw skin and flesh. The exposed skin was turning dark purple in the cold vacuum. His suit's air was leaking out through the rags of his suit. He was unconscious. The emergency sphincter at the elbow was charred, and it had failed. The shoulder joint had constricted, but was leaking. The suit was designed to be fireproof, but pure oxygen will always find something to burn if given a chance.

   I grabbed my roll of duct tape from the welder's cart and wrapped it around his arm and hand until the whole roll was gone.

   I quickly checked my suit. There were char marks on the front where the flame had touched it, but the suit was all in once piece and intact.

   I checked Marshall's air pressure gauges on his chest. The tape stopped most of the leakage, but he was still loosing air. His hand and arm needed immediate medical attention if they were to be saved at all. He had only minutes of air left.

   There was no way to get the emergency doors rolled back, and we could not wait for a rescue crew. There was only one thing to do. I pulled out the welder and set the voltage to cutting level. I put a cutting rod in the bit and started to work on the bulkhead around the failed point. In moments, there was a gap big enough for me to drag Marshall through.

   When we got outside the passage and into space, I could see the moon spinning by at dizzying speed below me. It looked like a giant gray ball, taking up most of the sky, rolling in space. I could see the construction trailer tied to the hub. The trailer had a doctor and a fully equipped hospital designed for just this kind of emergency. The hospital was rarely used for anything except a few bumps and bruises. Marshall had been a careful manager and had a good safety record up to now.

   I pushed off towards the trailer and using the jets in the suit, I easily steered to the trailer's airlock. As I tried to get the lock open and not lose hold of Marshall, he woke up, and I heard through the radio, “Thanks Noriko. I guess I was wrong about you,” he smiled at me through the plastic of the helmet, and I smiled back.   

###

   Grandma stopped talking and took a sip of the cider that had arrived. The surrounding tables had grown quiet. She took a larger gulp of cider and smiled at the little girl. All within earshot were listening to her story. The little girl looked at her grandmother with new interest and appreciation.

   Just then, the all clear signal rang out, but few people stood up to leave. The Christmas tree was almost complete and the stewards were stringing popcorn to decorate it. There was a group at one side of the room singing 'Adeste Fideles' very loud and out of key.

   “Grandma!” the little girl called out, tugging on Noriko's sleeve. “What happened to the mean man? Did he get better? What happened to his arm?”

   Everyone at the table laughed aloud at this. They had heard the story many times. The little girl looked puzzled.

   “Why, don't you know?” grandma laughed. “He recovered fully, and his arm is just fine. While he was getting better, he put me to work supervising all the repairs, and then I did all the finish welding myself.”

   “I changed my mind about him. He turned out to be a very nice person. And you know what?”

   The little girl shook her head.

   “Well, I liked him so well that I married him. Marshall Martine is your grandfather. You'll have to call him when we get to the moon and tell him that you like the station we built together.”

   When Grandma finished telling her story, all the surrounding tables started talking and laughing at once. A few people got up, introduced themselves, and shook Noriko's hand, telling her how much they liked her story and her beautiful station.

   At midnight, the lights dimmed, and the homemade Christmas tree was lit up with little red and green LED's from the station's stock of repair parts. Everyone sang the old carols like “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, “Silent Night”, and “Blue Christmas.”

   When Whitman finally left his table, he was a little tipsy and almost tripped navigating through the common room. Out in the main passageway, Grandma, and her family were standing together, looking at the wall. Grandma was saying, “See that weld dear, the little line in the wall. I did that. It was over forty years ago, and it seems like yesterday.”

   Little Susan ran a finger down the fine straight bead of the weld and smiled.

   Whitman asked the family to pose for a picture. For once, the recorder seemed to be working correctly. He thought it would be a nice Christmas present for his editor.

   “Construction Worker Returns to Virginia Station After 40 Years” The headline would read.

   Whitman figured that the old man would go for it. Now that the solar flare had died down, the story might even arrive before Santa's Sleigh.

 

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A Visit From St. Forrest

 by Keith P. Graham 

‘Twas the night before Sci-Fi when all through the ship
Not a cyborg was stirring, not even a chip.

The blasters were hung by the antimatter drive
In hopes that St. Forrey would help us survive.

The clones were nestled all snug in their vats,
While visions of death rays scampered like rats.

And yeoman in her armor and I in full gear,
Had entered hibernate with a twinge of fear.

When out in the vacuum, there arose such a clatter,
I booted up quickly and plugged into the chatter.

Away to the viewport I flew like a flash,
Went to full sensors and readied for crash,

The meteoric dust in a nova’s cosmic rays,
Gave the luster of x-rays to the galactic haze,

When what then resolved to my deep sensor chips,
But a miniature sphere and eight tiny spaceships,

With a fearsome old captain on a sacred quest,
I knew in a moment ’twas the famous Forrest.

More rapid than photons, his courses they came,
and he transmitted, and signaled, and called them by name;

“Now, Wallaby! Now, Serenity! Now, Dora and Nimbus!
On, Moonbeam! On, Skylark! On, Enterprise and Brutus!

To the top of the boot drive, to the tip of the bow,
All warp away! Warp away, warp away Now!"

As galactic dust before the solar wind flies
When they meet with a planetoid, leap to the skies;

So up to the control ports, their retros they flew,
With a sphere full of weapons and St. Forrey too.

And then in a nanosecond, I heard from the dock,
Howling and scratching at the main air lock.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
From the turbolift St. Forrey emerged with a bound.

He was wrapped in a force field from his head to his ass,
And his plating was all tarnished with entrails and ash.

A bundle of weapons he had flung over his shoulder,
And he looked like a berserker just starting to smolder.

His eye sockets, they glowed with a bloodlust of fire!
His fangs were all sharpened, his claws clasped in desire!

His prehensile tail was drawn up like a bow,
and the scales on his body were as black as a crow;

The roach of a joint was held tight in his beak,
and the smoke of it encircled his head like a freak;

He had a chromed skull and barrel shaped chest,
That wheezed when he breathed like a demon possessed,

He was gnarly and scarred, like an evil dark elf,
And I screamed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A click of his mouse and nod of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the armories; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his blaster aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the turbolift he rose;
He sprang to his sphere, and setting his goal,
And away they all warped through a spatial wormhole,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he tunneled out of sight,
“Happy Sci-Fi to all, and to all, a good-night.”

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by Keith Graham

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NO NONSENSE NOVEMBER: iSsuE 42

 

CITY OF PETER 

by KB Updike, Jr.

ASTRALPUNK 

by Kenji Siratori 

I'M SO LONELY 

by Brian Stoneking

THE QUANTUM NEXUS:

Exploring the Cosmic and Neural Connection

by Shunjinks Talonratios 

The Quantum Nexus:

 Exploring the Cosmic and Neural Connection

 by Shunjinks Talonratios

   In the vast tapestry of the cosmos, the Milky Way Galaxy stands as a celestial masterpiece, a swirling mélange of stars, planets, and cosmic dust. Within this enigmatic structure lies the promise of an astonishing connection with the human central nervous system, a union that transcends the boundaries of our understanding. In the age of posthumanism, where the line of demarcation between biology and technology blur, we delve into the profound quantum connection that weaves the fabric of the universe with the intricate web of our individual consciousness.

   Quantum entanglement, the phenomenon where particles separated by vast distances instantaneously affect each other, hints at a cosmic interconnectedness. In our galaxy, this phenomenon takes on a grand scale, linking stars, planets, and celestial bodies in a harmonious dance. At the same time, within each human being, the central nervous system, with its billions of neurons and synapses, orchestrates the symphony of thoughts, emotions, and actions. Could it be that this seemingly disparate duo shares a profound connection, mediated by the quantum world?

   In the realm of quantum physics, the theory of non-locality posits that particles once entangled remain connected, regardless of the physical distance separating them. Similarly, the Milky Way's vast expanse, spanning 100,000 light-years, houses countless stars and planets, all interacting through gravitational forces. Could this cosmic entanglement influence the neural activities within the human brain?

   The human central nervous system, a complex network of neurons, conducts electrical signals to transmit information throughout the body. These electrochemical processes are governed by the laws of quantum mechanics, where subatomic particles can exist in multiple states simultaneously. The phenomenon of superposition suggests that, just like particles, neurons can exist in multiple states at once, allowing for a rich tapestry of thoughts and experiences.

   Furthermore, quantum tunneling, the ability of particles to traverse seemingly insurmountable energy barriers, may offer a parallel to human consciousness. In our galaxy, the concept of cosmic tunnels, wormholes, could connect distant regions through shortcuts in spacetime. Could these cosmic anomalies, in some unfathomable way, influence our thoughts, allowing us to access distant knowledge or experiences?

   The concept of quantum coherence, where particles oscillate in synchrony, suggests that the entangled neurons within the human brain may communicate in ways yet to be understood. Similarly, the Milky Way's vastness may foster a cosmic coherence, where the interconnected celestial bodies resonate in harmony. Could this coherence extend to our thoughts and emotions, creating an unseen connection between our individual consciousness and the galaxy itself?

   As we embark on the posthuman journey, where technology and biology merge, we must explore the implications of this quantum connection. Advances in neural interfaces and artificial intelligence offer the potential to bridge the gap between the individual and the cosmos. Could we use technology to tap into the cosmic consciousness, gaining insights and knowledge beyond our wildest dreams?

   In conclusion, the quantum connection between the astral structure of the Milky Way Galaxy and the human central nervous system remains a tantalizing mystery of the posthuman era. While we may not fully comprehend the intricacies of this connection, its existence challenges us to explore the boundaries of our understanding. As we venture further into the cosmos and into the depths of our own consciousness, we may uncover the profound interplay between the quantum fabric of the universe and the related nature of our minds, forging a pathway to a new era of human potential.

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I'm So Lonely

by Brian Stoneking 

 

        I never felt loneliness until I was kicked out of Hell. In the Underworld I had friends and even an allegiance of my own followers. But once the almighty Dark Lord kicked me out and banished me to Earth I was all alone.

       When I arrived on Earth the first thing I had to do was shape shift into human form. Normally my real form consisted of a humanoid mosquito-like appearance. Everyone in the Underworld had a “mansquito” appearance. But once I ended up here on this freezing, smelly surface world I knew I had to disguise my appearance. Back home I was considered a stud and there was always a flock of women to greet me everywhere I went. But on the surface world my appearance was considered nightmarish.

        The weird thing about being on Earth was the fact that I had the sudden urge to eat which was a feeling I had never felt before. Back home none of us had to worry about nourishment. So once I got settled on Earth I went to random bars and strip clubs and picked up women. At first I would lure them into back alleys. But eventually I stole a van and I would lure them into the back of the vehicle. With a needle like appendage that extended from my snout I would jab it into the tip of their skull and start sucking out their brains as a source for nourishment. It’s how I ate. I drained their brains.

       The main problem was always getting rid of their bodies. I had to dig holes to hide the remains. But the funny part was the look on their faces when they would see me transform. I always found their horrified expressions hilarious. But then they would start to scream which was really annoying and not to mention I was always worried about the police showing up. So I’d usually keep a rock in the van so I could knock them out before sucking out their brain.

       But after a while eating their brains just got old. I was getting pretty lonely because instead of meeting the right woman I had to kill them for survival. I really just wanted a companion but anytime I tried to get to know a woman on this realm of existence my survival mode took over and I would just end up using them as food.

       My hunger became so insatiable that people started to discover the bodies and noticed the holes punctured through the base of their skulls. The media started to call me The Brain Drainer because they didn’t know my true identity. My name was Billy Ross. I took the name Billy Ross after I saw a cover of Jock Illustrated, featuring a famous athlete named Billy “the Behemoth” Rossdale. Apparently he’s a famous ultimate fighter on this world. But looking at the athlete I could tell he would’ve made a great warrior in the Underworld. So it made sense to take his name. I still couldn’t shake the name The Brain Drainer since it was all over the news and police kept finding the bodies. Luckily I had no human D.N.A. So I was untraceable.

       I will admit when I first arrived on Earth I found humans amusing. They’re so juvenile. None of them would survive one hour in the depths of the Underworld. Besides, one glimpse of our “mansquito” appearance and they would have a meltdown. An example was the following night I drove my van to some run down strip club. I lured one of the strippers into the back of my van. She had this powdered white substance that she sprinkled onto a compact mirror. She began snorting it through one of the dollar bills that some drunk idiot from the audience gave her. 

       “Here, try it,” She said, sprinkling more of the substance onto the mirror. “This shit will kick start your heart, Motley Crue style.”

       “Motley… who?” I responded.

       The stripper busted out laughing. “Come on,” she said. “You’re fucking with me, right? Just snort the line.”

       I leaned forward and snorted the white powder which ignited my senses. I felt like I could breathe. Normally I had difficulty breathing but this stuff allowed me to breathe Earth’s atmosphere.

      “What is this?” I said.

      “It’s cocaine,” she said, laughing.  “Jesus dude, where have you been?”  

      The stripper sprinkled more onto the little mirror and began to cut it with a razor. I leaned forward again and began snorting. This stuff made me feel invincible. I felt a sense of warmth which was something I’d never felt before. Coming from a place like Hell there was no such thing as love and warmth. The only warmth we felt down there was from the endless ocean of Hell’s fire. But what I didn’t realize was the drug was affecting my shape shifting abilities. My human appearance was slowly regressing back to my demonic “mansquito” appearance. 

       I could see her facial expression drop to a look of pure dread. She screamed and grabbed a switchblade from her pocket and jabbed the blade into my throat.

      I pulled the knife from my throat and attempted to chase after her while gripping my neck. But needless to say, she got away. It’s too bad. I was getting to like her, but even she couldn’t accept the fact that I wasn’t even human.

      “You’re doing it all wrong, slick,” a voice said from down the alley.

       “Mind your own business,” I shouted back.

        The figure was sitting and leaning against the wall. He got up and approached me. He held up a lighter, revealing his face which contained two long scars on each side of his mouth. The scars formed a Glasgow smile. In fact that was his name.

       “The name’s Johnny Glasgow. You might want to shape shift into something more settling there, slick.”

        “How do you know I’m a shape shifter?”

        “I’ve encountered your kind before. You’re demons. Yeah, the minute you guys fuck up, Satan banishes you here for a while. But then you guys always go back. I’ve seen it happen several times before.”

        “Well, I think I’m banished here for good.”

        “Then it looks like you need a friend,” Glasgow said, patting me on the shoulder.

        “Pssh, you should talk,” I responded, lighting a cigarette which helped my lungs breathe the atmosphere.

        “Touché,” Glasgow said. “Here, I got something for you. It’s inside my shed, which is also where I live. But at least it’s a roof over my beautiful face.”

        “What is it that you have?” I asked.

        “I’ll show you, but let’s step into my office before the popo' sees us.”

        “The what?” I asked, sounding utterly confused. I still had to grasp their lingo.

        “The police,” He said, “Where have you been… in a cave? Pssh, what am I talking about? You’re a demon...of course you’ve been in a cave.

        I followed Glasgow to his shed. He unlocked the door and inside everything was neatly in place. I mean for a hobo he was pretty well organized.

       “You live here?” I asked.

       “Correctomundo… now please, sit.”

        I sat on a chair chewed up by rats. The entire chair was covered with little teeth marks punctured across its surface.

        “So tell me about that girl you were trying to bang before everything went to Hell, no pun intended,” Glasgow said, reaching for a needle that was full of some shady substance.

        “I just get so lonely,” I said. “I had this crazy thought that her and I could possibly copulate without me sucking her brain dry.”

        “And that’s why they call you The Brain Drainer,” he said.

        “You know about that?”

        “Pssh, the entire country knows about The Brain Drainer,” Glasgow said, tying a tourniquet around my arm. He injected the needle into a vein. “Now this will fix your whole complexion,” he said, pointing to the "mansquito" side of my face. “Next time, ease up on the blow...if you want to keep your human form intact. That shit will dehumanize your looks...if you know what I mean.”

        I must admit once the heroin took hold, the euphoric effect made me feel invincible. I could feel the tingling sensation of my human skin replenish itself. Within a moment my human face was whole again.

       “You’re all set, slick. I wish I had that ability. It could take care of my whole disfigurement problem,” Glasgow said, pointing to his two mouth scars.

       “Too bad you live on Earth,” I said. “The women down in Hell would drool all over you. Scars are considered a sign of masculinity down there.”

       “Hmm, I’m not sure if I go for that whole insectoid look. That’s not my type,” Glasgow said, lighting a cigarette before plopping himself down on a seat next to me. He tied a tourniquet around his arm before injecting a needle. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I’ve been thinking,” he said.

       “Thinking about what?”

       “You and I should go into business together. If the two of us work together and join forces, we can kidnap victims and sell their body parts to a Chinese market on the dark web. We could make a fortune. I mean you do have to eat, right? So instead of going through the painstaking effort of burying bodies like a dog, we should work together, and sell the parts from your victims.”

       His idea made sense. Both of us were a couple of outsiders living in a world that despised anyone that didn’t fit the norm of society, so the two of us hit the streets in my van.  Glasgow loved cruising the darkened streets at night. He said that the two of us were like Duke and Gonzo. Not being from around here, I didn’t catch the reference.

       Glasgow was too fucked up most of the time to do much driving. He mostly just tripped on acid in the back of the van while I cruised the streets. I swear there were times I didn’t even know why I kept him around. It was maybe so I could use his big shed which is where we packaged our victims.

      After I knocked them out with a rock, we drove back to the shed and got right to work on dismembering the body parts. We stole a heavy duty bone saw to dismember the bodies. I will admit, it was a lot of fun. But the best part was when we actually began selling the body parts to the Chinese market. I couldn’t believe it worked. The two of us were making a living. We were like a couple of peas in a pod. With the two of us joining forces, I claimed more victims than we could count, and I’d never felt fuller in my life. I was draining more brains than my appetite could handle.

       We went out again that very night and it was so easy to lure a victim into my van, or as Glasgow jokingly called it, the “Free Candy Wagon.” The victim was a local guy people referred to as Ganja Jim. He went back into the van thinking that he was getting stoned with a couple of crazy guys, without realizing what fate really had in store for him.

       This victim was easy to lure because like everyone else, he was fixated on a small rectangular device which seemed to zombify him. Glasgow told me the devices were called  “smart phones.” It must’ve been the illuminating glow from the screen that seemed to put them in a trance. So snagging an idiot like this guy would be a no brainer, no pun intended, especially since I was ready to feed.

      Ganja Jim was too stoned to even realize that I was about to suck his brain dry. He was tokin’ on his bong when the needle appendage began to emerge from my snout. I jabbed the protuberance into the tip of his skull before he even knew what hit him. I began my nourishment. I feasted freely until I felt full again.

       Glasgow was up front, but he was asleep at the wheel. I nudged him on the shoulder and told him to get going. When we drove back to the shed, all seemed quiet. We had no clue what was about to ensue.

       We dragged Ganja Jim’s body into the shed, which was now full of body parts from prior victims. Their various organs were stuffed into jars full of dry ice chips, ready to be shipped. Glasgow and I began to use the saw to carve up the body. Both of us giggled like a couple of high schoolers as we dismembered the body parts. I admit we were having fun, and now I felt there was a reason why I was banished here. My best friend and I were running our own business. I felt like I could be happy here...or at least that’s what I thought.

       My heightened hearing picked up on footsteps approaching from outside. At first I thought it was another hobo attempting to break into our little compound, but I was wrong. The door flew open, and in came a swarm of swat team members. 

     “Get down on the ground...NOW!” The swat leader shouted.

       Glasgow ran toward a duffel bag full of the body parts. He scooped up a couple of the dry ice jars and made the attempt to run toward the exit door. But before he was able to reach the door, he was shot in the back.

       That was the moment when I felt something I’d never felt before…fear. I mean, sure I’ve encountered other feelings before, like loneliness...but that hole had been filled, until this raid. I watched as another bullet plunged into Glasgow’s throat right before he was dragged away.

       The police pinned me to the ground and were about to handcuff me. But once they caught a glimpse of my physical form shape-shifting back into my “mansquito” appearance, they backed away. I stood up, and the swat team couldn’t help but gape at my inhuman features. But it was when they spotted the bright flashing light of Hell’s gateway that really caused them to flee. Through the temporarily opened portal, many screams of tortured spirits could be heard from within.

       Now I had to admit, I didn’t want to go back without my buddy, Glasgow. But I knew it was time. I had completely screwed things up on this planet. I knew Earth wasn’t ready for our kind. When I had teamed up with Glasgow, I felt like I had found a brother. He filled that lonely void. The two of us were the dynamic duo of murderers.

       I lay on the ground, completely transformed into my original “mansquito” form. I lay there the same way I came into this world…alone. The officers had all fled because of the portal.

       My father, the Dark Lord’s number one servant, had stepped through the portal. He reached his hand out, assisting me. I staggered up, and noticed that he was surrounded by a group of his own soldiers from the Underworld, followed by a female. I must admit that I found her enchanting. The horns on her head looked very neatly trimmed, and her flaxen insectoid skin looked well-manicured.

       For me it was love at first sight, or maybe it was the fact that I was lonely again, since my best friend was killed execution-style right in front of my eyes.

       “It’s time to come home,” my father said.

       We entered the portal leading back to the Underworld. I was hoping to see Glasgow’s soul there, but I never found him. That could mean he wasn’t dead, or out of some weird glitch in the Afterlife’s system, he ended up in heaven.

       But as time went on, I forgot about Mr. Glasgow, because I had found the love of my life...and what a feisty woman she was. She really wore me out. We made love anytime and anywhere we could. Our favorite spot was near this stream of molten lava. The two of our humanoid mosquito-like bodies intertwined with each other. I couldn’t remember a time I felt this much at peace...especially here in the Underworld.

       The two of us looked deeply into each other’s large, oval-shaped insectoid eyes. We leaned forward to kiss. Our antenna moved erratically because of the intense feelings we had for one another. I poured her a glass of blood wine which came from the sins of the many souls trapped in the Underworld. The both of us spent the rest of that romantic evenings for two, sharing the sin-filled bottle of wine.

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