Brad Astra

Brad Astra (2019)

a Karl Sagan novel

Brad Pitt was in space.

He wasn’t cold or hot, wet or dry, happy or sad.

He simply was, in space.

He had never been to space before, or even thought about space in any real way, but he knew it was a thing.

As one of the top 58 stars in Hollywood, his finances allowed for such a vacation. George Clooney had once told him about space, since he had been there twice and enjoyed talking about it. According to George, space was “Fine. Not a big deal, really. And pretty cheap, considering.”.

Brad wondered what that meant, but he also didn’t really care either way.

Why had he come here?

Of all the places to spend one’s time, why space?

The shuttle had taken off without a hitch, without much of the excessive shaking you would see in a typical science fiction film or TV show.

Once the atmosphere was left behind, Brad treated himself to an overpriced Mars bar. It was in a tube, but it was, indeed, a Mars bar. Brad wasn’t particularly fond of chocolate, but he didn’t hate it either. Or even just liked it an average amount. He just knew it was food and food could be eaten by stars of the screen.

The tinted windows inside the shuttle cabin had switched over to reveal the blackness of space and Earth’s vast blue mass. Brad could see sparkling things he knew to be stars, which were probably far away.

Gasps, claps and other demonstrations of wonder were heard in the busy cabin.

It was just like watching a movie in the theatre at some swanky premiere, but with more space.

Brad noticed something: it was a hand waving in the air, somewhere in the cabin. He looked at it for a moment. The seat belt sign was soon turned off and the hand went down. Brad sucks another Mars bar tube chunk as he hears a voice calling him.

“Brad! Did you see me? I was waving.”

He looked up: it was Sandra Bullock, the star of While You Were Sleeping and Speed 2: Cruise Control.

Brad knew to smile right there.

“Can you believe this? Isn’t it a hoot?”, she continued, applying lip balm.

Brad thought maybe a response was appropriate here, since Sandra was looking at him and saying stuff.

“You’re here.”, Brad said simply, smiling again.

“Right? What made you take the leap?”

Brad shrugged.

“You’re funny.”

Sandra looked towards the shuttle window, Brad did the same.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

Brad couldn’t see anything he hadn’t seen before: Earth, stars etc.

“Is that normal?”, Sandra asked, perturbed, “Is that normal?”

She had turned to one of the shuttle attendants, who responded with a facial expression Brad had definitely noticed in a movie before. One of those comedies where people say things and then the other people raise their eyebrows, no doubt.

The seat belt sign was turned on again and the Captain’s voice filled the speakers.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please calmly regain your seats.”

“Fuck.”, Sandra said bitterly as she walked back to her seat.

The Captain continued.

“We are currently experiencing intermittent technical blackouts so you may expect some mild disruptions as we endeavour to fix this as quickly –”

The speakers and lights abruptly turned off.

Brad saw the Earth was small now. Maybe it was closer before?

“Can you believe this bullshit?”

Brad turned to his left to find Ryan Gosling talking to him.

“First the wifi’s slow and now this?”

Brad nodded because sometimes people do that.

Some time passed, mumbles mumbled all around the still darkened cabin.

The Earth was very small out there, now.

A seat belt click several rows behind Brad and then raised voices near the back of the shuttle got his, and many others’, attention.

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium star Natalie Portman was arguing with the shuttle staff. One attendant was in tears. Brad sucked more Mars bar as Gary Sinise and Jodie Foster intervened.

Natalie Portman had slapped the crying attendant after they’d confirmed that the shuttle was drifting in space. They had politely asked Natalie to remain calm while they resolved this issue.

“Imagine making Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium just to be talked down to by some random. Unbelievable.”, Ryan Gosling said, genuinely outraged.

Brad had not seen that film, though then again, maybe he had.

The cabin was calm again. Amy Adams had smoothed things over by threatening the attendant with a lawsuit they could never possibly win. The staff had left the cabin, promising to return with more answers.

Space was all black, now.

They had drifted away from the Blue Planet, Brad thought. This was a thing that had happened just now, Brad also thought.

To his right, projectile vomit suddenly flew out of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang‘s Val Kilmer’s mouth, landing all over the window.

“Someone’ll clean that up.”, he said, dripping.

The cabin now smelled of Chardonnay and yeast, but mostly vomit.

In the distance, somewhere past the back of the cabin, significant clinking and clonking sounds whirled and clacked, rocking the cabin sharply.

Jake Gyllenhaal, who was sitting next to Ryan Gosling, lifted his eye mask.

“Are we in space yet?”

Brad could see something floating in front the shuttle, though he couldn’t make it out very well due to all the vomit stains.

“Is that an escape pod?”, Ryan wondered.

Brad shrugged.

In the back, Natalie Portman was up again, this time hammering on the cabin door.

“What the fuck?”, Sandra Bullock exclaimed, looking at the pod.

Everyone now faced the front of the ship where the escape pod was floating, slowly getting further and further away.

“Is… is that the help?!”, Jake Gyllenhaal whispered to himself but loud enough that Brad could hear, “Why do they get their own ship?”

“They’re leaving us! Are they leaving us?”, Sandra Bullock was now red-faced, sweating profusely, “What the fuck is going on?”.

Natalie Portman, meanwhile, was still kicking the cabin door, pushing back anyone getting in her way.

“Maybe they’re coming back with a rescue ship?”, Ryan Gosling posited, not fully onboard with his own suggestion.

Brad shrugged.

The pod was now but a dot in the deepness of space.

With a loud crash, the cabin door finally burst open thanks to Natalie Portman’s custom made Alexander McQueen steel-toed high boots.

“I fucking knew it.”, she said, looking at the empty cockpit, “They’re gone.”

“I could see it in their eyes”, Jodie Foster added, “Their celebrity-hating eyes.”

A barely audible scratching and thumping sound had persisted ever since the door had been kicked down. Gary Sinise noticed.

“Do you hear that?”, he said, “What is that? Where is it coming from?”

It seemed to be coming from inside the cockpit.

Natalie Portman walks up to a nearby door, puts her ear to it for a moment, then proceeds to knock it down with one carefully placed kick. Out of the closet falls out a man, an older, well-kept man, like a newly chopped tree. With the whoosh of his landing came a brief yet pleasant aroma. A Georgio Armani fragrance crossed with coffee, cheap, very cheap coffee.

It was George Clooney.

George was completely tied up, with a ball gag in his mouth.

“George?”, Gary Sinise promptly untied the Oscar winner.

A crowd had gathered at the back of the cabin, by this point. Only Brad and a visibly too drunk to stand Val Kilmer remained seated.

Sandra Bullock walked up to George.

“George? What are you doing here?”

George removed his ball gag and pulled out a small bottle of Tiffany’s Mouthwash from his suit jacket’s inside pocket. A few swishes, a gargle and a swallow.

“There I was, in the Platinum VIP cabin, when I overheard two shuttle servants talking about their plan to leave us stranded. I was on my way to the Platinum VIP washroom. I confronted them and, just like that, they drugged me, gagged me and, next thing I know, I’m in the dark not holding a champagne flute.”

Amy Adams then said what everyone else was thinking.

“There’s a Platinum VIP cabin?”

“Is Tom here?”, George asked, ignoring the question on purpose.

“Hanks?”, Ryan Gosling replied.

George chuckled.

“In the Platinum VIP cabin? I don’t think so. No, I meant Cruise. Is Tom Cruise here?”

Everyone was silent.

“Darn. They must have got to him too.”

“Brad Pitt’s here, Mr. Clooney. Sir.”, Chris Pratt suggested, bowing respectfully.

“Brad? Brad’s here?”

Clooney passed through the crowd with ease. It parted organically, just like in biblical times but real. Yes, this all really happened.

“Brad! You old dog! Boy, am I glad to see you.”

Brad looked up.

“George Clooney.”, he simply said.

“Riding with the mortals, huh? That’s hilarious. You are one funny guy.”

Brad recognised the word funny because he’d heard it very recently so he smiled.

“Listen.”, George continued, “You remember when I took you on that VIP tour of NASA?The shuttle flying simulator? The one I couldn’t try because Clooneys don’t drive, they get driven?”

Brad shrugged.

“Brad, you aced that thing! You moved us all in Meet Joe Black, now I think it’s time for you to move us all again. Back to Earth. What do you say?”

Brad turned to space and stared.

A full minute went by as the entire cabin remained silent, save for Val Kilmer’s snores.

Tom Cruise’s corpse floated by.

“Ok.”, Brad finally said placidly.

“That’s the spirit, old chum.”

George hugged Brad. He then sprayed some perfume on the vomit nearby and on Val Kilmer, who had just woken up.

Brad had been piloting the shuttle for over two hours.

George had been sitting in the co-pilot seat, telling Brad of his travels, encounters with world leaders and how he told his wife he was doing a Peter Jackson movie. Amal couldn’t stand that man: smelt like he took the subway, which he did. Anyway, she wouldn’t approve of him going to space again because it was bad for the environment, which was a thing she actually cared about and George only cared about in spirit.

George loved telling that story.

“You know, Brad. I feel like we connect, you and I. Always have. We should make another Ocean’s. It’ll be fun, plus it’ll make up for that spin-off.”

Brad was silent yet he looked uncharacteristically solemn. George noticed this new emotion. Even on the big screen, he hadn’t seen Brad deliver such intensity.

“What’s up, Brad? You seem… different.”

Brad remained silent, at first. George couldn’t quite put his finger on why, but he felt anxious in that moment. Maybe it was all that complimentary espresso, maybe not.

“We’re broken.”, Brad said sombrely, without elaborating.

After a beat, George ventured a candid question.

“Something wrong with the ship?”

Brad sighed.

“You can’t see it.”, he started, “They can’t either. Had to be done.”

George didn’t really know what to make of this.

“Look, buddy, if you need to take a rest for a minute, I could take over for a little bit. Watch over the auto pilot or… ”

Brad shook his head, as if to say “you don’t understand”, and was silent again. George was now nervous. He hadn’t felt this nervous since the dividing window between him and his limo driver got stuck.

Slowly, George leans into the controls. His hand nearing the joystick Brad was currently manning.

“It’s been a long day, buddy. I’ll just –”

Brad turned to George so fast, the latter was startled. Brad’s eyes were now glowing, a light blue colour. His pupils were gone.

“BROKEN!”, Brad’s voice was louder, deeper and somehow projected an echo. It was nothing like George had ever heard. He promptly sat back as Brad faced the front once more.

“We’re not going back, are we?”, George finally concluded, his heart beating at double speed.

There was a long silence. Only for a few minutes, yet it might have lasted hours. George couldn’t tell anymore.

Brad lifts his left arm and points ahead.

There was something bright. Far, far on the horizon, if you could call it that.

George was afraid but he also inexplicably felt relief. Like a weight was about to be lifted off his shoulders. A weight that had been getting heavier and heavier for many, many years without him noticing.

His Rolex was spinning out of control.

Brad smiled.

More from Karl Sagan soon.

Only on WeTheMindThinkers.

The Electric Owl – Chapter I

The Electric Owl (1982)

or

Bot Hunter

or

Do Bots Dream Of Bi-Horned Unicorns?

a Ragle B. Gumm novel

All owls are electric.

To a certain extent.

But what if they weren’t owls?

This was the subject of Aardvark Magnussen’s ground-breaking scientific research. Anything could be genuinely electric, in theory. This, however, had yet to be proven.

Until now.

Aardvark had made an electric owl and this meant that, not only was his experiment successful and he therefore possessed tangible scientific proof but now it was time for the next step.

“Damn this headache.”, he complained.

Perhaps he was overworked, perhaps it was the stress. After all, his horoscope had not been particularly encouraging for this month.

“You will find the key. You will not like what the key will unlock.”, it said.

Petal Pladd was a telepath, her head was literally bigger than most people’s. Her predictions were, unfortunately, never wrong.

A few Martian poppy seed pills should do the trick, he concluded. They’d put him right to sleep and he wouldn’t remember Pladd’s cryptic nonsense in the morning.

After popping five pills, Aardvark sat down, dimmed the lights in his laboratory and fell asleep quickly and quietly.

Dick Richards felt nauseous.

He’d just awoken from a particularly unpleasant dream: he was pregnant with a bi-horned unicorn, he was bleeding inside and out. The blood was white, like milk, and smelt like trees.

He heard a faint sound, was it raining outside?

Looking up, he saw, in the distance, the faint blurred curves of a naked woman surrounded by steam.

His wife Nat was showering.

Ex-wife, he corrected himself.

“Where’s that goddamned Happy Sink?”, he thought. Lighting a death stick blindly, standing up with a wobble. He twisted the tap, set it to “perky” and closed his eyes.

“If you’re confused, hun: it’s the poppies. You took a handful last night. “, Nat said all the way from the shower pod. “We made love again. You should set that thing to “perky” next time. You were drunk.”, she added.

Too early for poppies.

Never mind. She was a quick dresser. She’ll be out in a minute.

Coffee.

Coffee sounded good.

He smiled a little, just thinking about it.

If only coffee was still around…

Dick’s fly-bike was hovering higher and higher, but not fast. He was in no hurry to get to this next job.

Dick was a bot-hunter: he hunted bots, bots that got out of hand somehow. It didn’t help that they looked like anyone else, like flesh and blood human beings. They paid the rent, though, and the imitation-coffee. Three-hundred floor apartments don’t come cheap and neither do those rare artificial beans.

The client was Aardvark Magnussen, some crackpot Swede with way too much money and way too much power, Dick thought smugly. In a way, Dick owed his whole livelihood to Aardvark. After all, the latter did build the first bot and all bots since.

I’ve been cleaning his mess for years. I hate him. But let’s face it: without Magnussen, I’m nothing.

This depressing realisation left Dick beaten.

Why did I choose “perky”? Perky never lasts.

Dick had never been this high-up.

He didn’t even know that a fly-bike could reach the clouds.

So peaceful up there.

The inside of Magnussen’s office was vast and nearly empty save for a single desk and a winged creature perching on top of it, silhouetted by the Sun.

I had never seen an owl, Dick realised.

Those eyes…

He could hear the sound of footsteps heading in his direction but somehow, he just couldn’t look away from the animal.

“Mr Richards.”, said the female voice coming from somewhere on the other side of the room.

“Yeah.”, was Dick’s vague reply.

“We weren’t expecting you here so soon.”

“That a real owl?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On what you mean by ‘real'”.

Dick gives her a puzzled look.

“And ‘owl'”, she adds.

This was a good-looking gal. The classy, sophisticated type. And she was looking at Dick with a mix of disdain and curiosity. Sad thing was: it was probably a bot.

“You’ll have to wait, Mr Magnussen is still… away.”, she instructed Dick bluntly.

“You got a name?”

“Emily. Anything else?”

There was that disdain again.

“No. I’ll just wait.”

Emily leaves the room as Dick sits facing Aardvark’s desk. The owl flies to the other side and lands on the absent inventor’s chair.

Date with an owl, there was a first, Dick thought as he lit up another death stick.

“You can’t smoke in here, Dick.”

Dick takes a quick look around the room: he is alone.

Did I hear something?, he wonders.

“It’s a bad habit and it bothers me.”

That voice again.

Either Dick was losing it or someone was playing an elaborate prank on him. Neither pleased him much.

“Whoever this is: mind your own business.”, Dick said to the room.

“Oh but it is my business.”

Dick now started losing patience.

“What in the…”

“Death sticks aren’t good for you. Believe me.”

Just then, Dick’s attention turned to the only moving being near him: the owl, who ruffled its feathers and turned its head towards him just as the voice spoke. Quietly, Dick extinguishes his cigarette on the desk, watching the owl as he does it.

“Thank you.”, the voice said.

The owl blinked.

It couldn’t be…

“Mr… Magnussen?”, Dick asked.

“Yes.”

“What have you done?”

“We mustn’t speak now.”

“You’re…”, a stunned Dick interjects.

“My experiment is not complete, we will speak later.”

“W-word is you’ve made a bot. I’m looking for it.”, Dick persists.

This time, there is no answer.

Dick sits back, looking at the owl in disbelief just as Emily walks into the room. The owl promptly flies over to her and sits casually on her shoulder. Dick stands up, still stupefied and points at the owl.

“That owl!”

“I suppose you’ve figured it out.”

“I knew Magnussen was eccentric but I would have never expected he’d do something like that.”

“It’s all in good fun, Mr Richards.”

Dick takes a second to stare at her in puzzlement.

“In good fun?!”, he asks incredulously.

“The possibilities of bot technology are endless, that’s our motto.”

Dick shakes his head absently, he doesn’t reply.

“Maybe I could take a message?”, Emily suggests politely.

The owl defecates on her, she doesn’t react.

Dick Richards is standing outside a noodle stand in the rain, chewing on a chow fun enchilada looking morose. He opens the newspaper to find several advertisements relating to space travel, promoting inter-planetary migration.

“The very idea…”, Dick thought, “Fleeing like cowards when we’ve got a perfectly good planet right here.”

Dick always believed in fixing one’s own world before contemplating another. He chews down some of that soy sauce and cheese and dumps the newspaper on the counter. He feels a slight tap on his shoulder.

“Vous have a rendez-vous, old bugger.”

Dick recognises the voice: it was Jacques Smith, another bot hunter. Dick could never stand the guy, or understand him with his confusing French Cockney accent.

Still, the man technically outranked him.

“I’m eating.”, Dick threw in a deadpan tone, before turning back towards the counter.

Jacques this time places his hand on Dick’s shoulder.

“Drole, sonny Jim. Le Commissaire wants you, innit?”

“The Commissionner?”

Jacques slyly grabs Dick’s chopsticks and proceeds to eat one of his jalapenos.

“Oui.”

Dick makes a face.

Look out for Chapter II soon.

Only on wethemindthinkers.wordpress.com

Daughters Of Uranus

Daughters Of Uranus (1974)

a Gustav Belland short story

Uranus was fertile.

And so they were born.

Out of Uranus, our fate was sealed and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it.

The search for extraterrestrial life had reached its peak in the early 3000’s when scientists invented a teleporting device powerful enough to project human beings onto other planets. By recreating the Big Bang in a contained environment, Man discovered the source of life: the first cell, which scientists called “The Seed”. It is this Seed which paved the way for the creation of the Explorium, a gate capable of allowing a person to travel to distant lands without the need for a spacecraft.

Some planets proved problematic: Mercury was hot, Mars was boring, the Moon wasn’t a planet.

Dr Fredrick Thomson led the expedition to Uranus, assembling a team of capable astronauts and explorers with the common goal of unlocking the mysteries of the ice planet once and for all. Among them was Sharon Lang, an expert on Uranus, playboy astro-physicist John Tucker and decorated space traveller Rick Kirkstrom.

The team would enter Uranus and bring back samples.

Who knew that such a simple mission could go so wrong?

It was a Sunday morning, Dr Thomson had assembled the departing trio in his office for a final meeting before sending them through the Explorium.

“Thank you for coming.”, he said in a welcoming tone, “I’m sure you all can’t wait to get going!”

“I went to the bathroom, so I’m happy now!”, John replied confidently.

After an awkward silence, Dr Thomson continued.

“This mission should be straight-forward but nothing is straight-forward with science. I wanted you all to keep that in mind, when you’re out there. While we have been fortunate enough to learn a lot about other worlds, we have never penetrated Uranus and there is very little we know about it.”

“You expecting some nasty surprises up there?”, Rick asked before Sharon also showed concern.

“Is there a problem we should know about?”

Dr Thomson smiled.

“There is nothing to be worried about. I simply urge you, all of you, to stay focused on the mission at hand. Distraction is dangerous, in space.”

Rick and Sharon share a slightly puzzled look as John picks his nose.

Shortly after the ominous meeting, the team were standing next to the Explorium in their full space gear facing the leader of the United States who, in the spirit of an impromtu photo op, had agreed to wish the crew well on their adventure.

“Have a beautiful time up there, folks. And I mean that, I really do. I got a lot of astronaut friends, a LOT of astronaut friends, believe me. I know astronauts. Nobody knows astronauts better than me. You guys are great. Have a great time up there. I mean that.”, was President Frump Jr.’s obligatory speech.

Everyone shook hands, pictures were taken and Dr Thomson stepped forward.

“This is it: you are about to be the first people to step inside Uranus. Make us proud and be careful.”, he said.

After a countdown, the Explorium was turned on and the crew was soon walking through the pink, jelly-like portal.

If only they had known…

Sharon was the first to walk on Uranus, the others soon followed.

“It’s cold over here, what the fuck?”, John said.

“John, do you realise that those are now the first words ever spoken in Uranus?”, Sharon responded with a cold stare.

“What’s your problem?”

Sharon shakes her head and keeps walking.

Around the explorers, nothing but ice, wind and fog. White hills and mountains on the horizon and, in front of them, a blank canvas. The sky was electric blue with a slight greenish shade.

“We have reached Uranus, over.”, Sharon spoke into her receiver.

The response was a broken buzzing, no discernible word.

“God damn it.”, she complained.

“What’s wrong?”, Rick asked.

“Audio’s out. I can’t hear a thing from back home.”

“Maybe they’re busy and shit.”, John remarked.

Ignoring John’s last comment, Sharon and Rick keep on walking through the slippery, violently cold environment. Eventually, they come to a large puddle. A thick brown liquid is oozing out of a circular cracked hole.

“Let’s take a sample and get the hell out of here.”, Sharon decided, “I don’t like this one bit.”

Sharon hands John a small vile.

“We need some of that mud: go get it.”

“Why me? I’m an astro-physhism!”, John complained.

“Your father’s an astro-physicist, you’re a rich kid with shit for brains. Now go get the mud before I tell everyone you shit your pants yesterday in the cafeteria.”

“Yes ma’am.”, a beaten John replied, picking up the vile.

As John approaches the puddle, Rick starts filming the surroundings with a small camera and Sharon gets on one knee to examine the frozen ground. Suddenly, she sees something move under the ice.

Startled, she stands back up.

“Rick!”

“What is it?”

“I… saw something.”

Sharon then tries to contact Earth again.

“Come in Houston, come in Houston. This is Sharon Lang. I have encountered a life form. We are coming back now, over.”

She turns back to Rick.

“We gotta go.”

“What about John?”

“Oh right…”

She turns to the puddle but John is nowhere to be seen.

“John…?”, she whispers.

Without warning, the ice breaks underneath her and she crashes through the ground screaming. Rick starts to run towards her.

“Sharon!”, he yells.

Noticing the cracks on the ice, Rick stops running and takes a few steps back. He stands there for a while, silently, not knowing what to do. The only sound is now Rick’s heavy breathing and the wind around him.

“Sharon…”, Rick says under his breath, with a lump in his throat.

The ground starts to shake.

The puddle bubbles.

“My god…”

Brown liquid promptly shoots out of the puddle like a geyser. Rick watches, in shock, as the mud falls back down turning a lot of the ground and the astronaut himself brown.

“Come in Houston… come in Houston…”, he mutters into his microphone, terrified.

Once again, faint static is the response.

Out of the puddle a sphere slowly pushes through: it stays floating in mid-air above the hole for a moment before flying towards Rick.

Rick starts to run back towards the portal and the brown sphere follows unhurriedly. Rick runs faster and faster, slipping and sliding on the ice.

“Come in Houston! Request assistance right now! I am being pursued by a… an unknown life form!”, he speaks into his mic in a panicked tone, out of breath.

Nearing the portal, Rick eventually slips and falls on his front, cracking his helmet a little in the process. The sphere quietly picks up pace. Noticing this, Rick stand with great difficulty and starts to run again. He soon realises the sphere is about to catch up to him and he runs faster than ever before, dropping his camera to allow himself more room.

He finally leaps into the portal and lands back safely on Earth.

On the laboratory side of the portal, Dr Thomson leaves his seat and runs up to Rick.

“Oh no…”, he says to himself, concerned.

A few other men run to Rick and help him sit up, Dr Thomson tries to see who is inside the suit as the helmet is cracked and covered in frost.

“Who is this? John? Is that you?”, he said, “Where are the others?”

Not getting an answer, he signals to one of the men to remove the helmet. The obstruction is quickly disposed of and a hyperventilating, pale Rick is revealed: his hair has turned white.

“Rick! It’s me: Dr Thomson. You’re home! You’re back! It’s alright now.”

An oxygen mask is placed over Rick’s mouth.

“He’s trying to say something…”, Dr Thomson remarks.

Rick, who is breathing a little better after a few seconds, pushes the mask away and gets nearer to Dr Thomson.

“Shut… it… down!”, he struggles to say.

A cloud of horror lands over Dr Thomson’s face: he stands up.

“Shut down the portal! Now!”, he yells.

But it was too late: the sphere suddenly pushes through the Explorium and, in a few seconds, it is on Earth, floating above a group of scared, confused technicians and scientists.

“What do we do, doc?”, an assistant asks, frightened.

“I don’t know…”, Dr Thomson replies.

A sound booms out of the jiggling sphere, everyone covers their ears.

Rick finally stands up, holding the oxygen mask to his face, inhaling.

The sphere bursts.

The brown liquid splashes over the people, the walls, the floors, the ceiling as a thick smoke and a foul stench fills the entire room. Those who didn’t pass out are either coughing or holding a handkerchief to their mouths.

Two glowing silhouettes appear in the middle of the room.

The smoke finally clears to reveal two young bald women, fully naked. Everyone looks up, without saying a word. The women scan the room quietly, intensely.

You could hear a pin drop, at this point.

Without warning, one of the women speaks in a strange accent.

“We are Uranus.”

There’s a beat.

The other woman opens her mouth: countless brown bubbles fly out.

The bubbles stick themselves onto the bodies of everyone in the room, turning every individual into a large brown sphere.

Rick picks up his helmet and quickly walks up to the main control panel.

“What are you doing?”, Dr Thomson asks with desperation in his eyes.

“I’m ending this.”

Rick activates the Explorium before slamming the control panel with his helmet over and over again. Dr Thomson attempts to stop him.

“You fool! You’ll kill us all!”

“We’re already dead, doc. Look around!”

The control panel short circuits and the Explorium partly bursts out of the magnetic field holding it together: it is now a vortex sucking everyone into it. Rick and Dr Thomson grab onto the edge of the control panel as the people around them, some of them brown bubbles, start flying into the pink, fleshy spiral. The two women struggle to remain standing and they are soon sucked in also along with all their loose bubbles.

“I can’t hold on for much longer, Rick!”, Dr Thomson yells out.

Rick tries to move along the control panel in order to reach the wiring going up to the generator. With his right hand, he goes to pull one of the wires but his other hand slips. Luckily, he manages to hold onto the wiring, which he starts to dismantle.

“Help… me!”

Dr Thomson loses his grip and starts to fly into the portal just as Rick successfully turns off the power. The Explorium and its vortex disappear. Rick falls to the ground and turns around: he sees only the bottom half of Dr Thomson’s body wiggling around in a bloody mess.

Rick takes a deep breath, stands up and leaves the empty room.

He walks around the corridors of the building aimlessly, as if in a dream. He looks around the rooms and finds no-one, had they been sucked in as well?

Wanting to get some air, maybe smoke a well deserved cigarette, Rick exits the building. He is surprised to find completely lifeless surroundings, with nobody in sight. Cars have their doors open but no drivers or passengers.

Rick feels a cold wind blowing.

And then…

A snowflake.

More from Gustav Belland soon.

Only on WeTheMindThinkers.

You Are L.

 You Are L. (2012)

a Malcolm M. Milon short story

I’ll never forget the look on that man’s face, the first time I met him.

If you can call someone coming up to you wide-eyed and star-struck meeting someone.

He was a stranger and yet he seemed to know me, like a fan recognizes a popular actor or singer. Now, I’m not talking about a shrieking, Beatlemania type of fandom. I’m talking about that quiet, awkward, shy, slightly frightening respect that neither the fan nor the star truly understands.

I just couldn’t pinpoint what I could have possibly done to warrant such fame.

By any standards, my life had been an average, dull, bordering on mediocre one. Married once, divorced, no children, working in a cubicle, speaking to clients on the phone day in, day out. No ambition, frankly no interest in taking any unnecessary chances.

I first met the man at my local café. It was a Thursday morning. I pop by there daily before heading off to work so this was just a day like any other.

He was sitting close to the entrance. I walked in, ordered the usual, a double espresso and a cereal bar, when he stood up, as if under some sort of spell, and slowly walked up to me. I tried to ignore him. I guess I just thought he was heading towards the counter, ready to order something.

Then I heard my name. ‘Leo?’ he said.

When I confirmed his suspicion, his eyes lit up and I perceived a slight smile form on one of the corners of his mouth.

‘Do I know you?’ I asked.

I didn’t know him. I knew that. This was just my way of breaking an uncomfortable silence. His reply sent a chill down my spine.

‘No. But I know you. Probably better than you know yourself.’

Whatever that meant, it did not sound promising. It was the kind of thing that a stalker or a hitman would say. My natural reaction was to get out of there as quickly as possible. I mumbled some nonsense about being late, grabbed my coffee and headed for the door. But the man had anticipated this, and stopped me in my tracks.

He grabbed my arm, just above my right elbow and held it firmly. When I turned to him, ready to struggle my way out of his grasp verbally and physically, the look in his eyes had switched to a troublingly stern, serious stare.

‘If you leave, I won’t be able to help you.’ is what he said to me then.

The urgency in his tone of voice, which sounded genuine, coupled with that worried look of his, I must admit, piqued my interest somewhat.

What did he mean? Was I in trouble? Why would I be in trouble? Who could be behind this?

All these questions swam through my head and, in all honesty, I was curious to find out what this strange individual knew or what he thought he knew.

‘What do you mean?’ I inquired meekly. ‘Sit down. Let’s talk.’ was his simple reply.

Still hesitating, I obliged him and sat down. There was another awkward silence and then he spoke.

‘This is going to sound strange, I’m well aware of that. Just… hear me out, please. This isn’t a joke.’

After an uncertain nod, I finally asked: ‘What’s this about?’
Because, why not be direct at this point?

‘Your name is Leonard Windell, you live about 25 minutes away, Chinatown, Yan Tin Apartments, number 30, third floor. You have a pet fish and, despite what you tell people, it does have a name: Bob. You have an ex-wife, you haven’t seen her in years but still dream about her from time to time, nightmares mostly. You come here every day, same time.’

‘You’ve been following me?’

‘I didn’t have to. I’ve seen what you’ve seen. There is a site, your site, LeonardWindell.com, where everything you do, everything you are is recorded and put on display. I am bringing this to your attention because I think you need to know, because I would want to know. Unless, of course, this is all your doing, somehow.’

What was all this? This was a prank. It had to be. Probably someone’s idea of payback for whatever I may have done to him or her. Or part of some twisted radio show, designed to humiliate complete strangers. Basically, joke or not, I wasn’t laughing.

‘You’ve been listening at my door, speaking to my friends, to people who know me. I am not impressed or amused. Whoever you are, leave me alone or I will report you and you can be sure that I’ll press charges.’

I promptly stood up and walked out the door. Ignoring the man’s desperate pleas to believe him and to let him show me the proof of this so-called site. Behind me, I could hear the door of the café slam open: he was following me. As infuriated as I was, I decided to handle things as calmly as I possibly could. Not saying a word, I stopped walking, took out my mobile phone and dialled for the police. In front of me, I could see the man holding his smartphone up like it was some kind of meaningful trophy. Glancing at it, I saw nothing more than the street’s reflection on the phone.

Except… it wasn’t a reflection.

What I could see on the phone was the man holding up that very same phone. I was seeing what I was seeing on that screen. Which meant that, either someone had placed a small camera at the centre of my glasses’ frames or there was something really wrong here. I tried taking off my glasses but this made no difference. Not knowing what to do, I told the man to leave me alone, to stop what he was doing, and I ran all the way back to the office.

There, the plan in my mind was to forget about the whole thing and get back to saner, more mundane occupations. But what if that man was to walk in right now and make a scene in front of all my co-workers? It was impossible to focus knowing that, at any moment, this could all come back to haunt me.

Maybe I should go online and take a look at that website, the URL’s easy enough to remember. Unless that’s what they want me to do and I’m being tricked into something.

My phone vibrates: it’s a text.

I pick up my mobile and take a look, the text reads: “Do it. It’s not a trick. Alan.”

The man had not introduced himself to me officially back at the café but I knew it was him. How he got this number and how he knew what I was just thinking a second ago, that I was a little more confused about.

Typing in the site address was the most stressful thing I’d done up to this point. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a huge mistake and would cause every computer here at the office to implode somehow. My ring finger finally pushed down on the ENTER key and, to my surprise, the Millennium bug I was expecting did not happen.

The home page I was facing looked mostly bare: a black background with links to the left of the screen, the site title at the top and nothing in the middle. These links got my attention pretty quickly. The first one under “Home” was “About Me”, under it was “Contact”, under that was “Blog”, then “Pics”, then “Videos”, and finally “Quotes”. Oddly, looking at the site, I felt somewhat appeased. This was not a professional-looking page and nothing on it seemed too Earth shattering, nothing a healthy lawsuit couldn’t cure. This was clearly the work of an obsessive amateur, nothing more.

Clicking on the “About Me” link unfortunately confirmed that this site was, indeed, about me personally. Here was a full biography complete with my birth date, which school I went to, my first real job, my ex-wife’s name and all I’d achieved up to this point, which really wasn’t that much at all. Anyone could have pieced all this together so I wasn’t much intimidated. Besides, this seemed more and more like the work of a disgruntled friend, or ex-friend, rather.

The “Contact” page explained the text. My mobile number, along with my landline and every single one of my contact details were on here. This was certainly one

thorough stalker with a lot of time on his hands. Clicking on “Blog”, however, brought back an uneasiness I had pushed away, I thought, for good. Here was a constantly updated account of what I can only describe as my thoughts. These short posts seemed to date back to even before the Internet. Scrolling down, I found a blog post from 1980 which read:

“Went out to a new Lebanese restaurant today. Food was nice. Service was slow. Didn’t leave a tip. I don’t like leaving tips. Don’t know why people still leave tips.”

I remember that night. I didn’t even own a computer then! The last, most recent post eerily read:

“Checking out the site. Feeling confused and a little freaked out. Maybe I should call the police.”

Maybe I should call the police.
I had to leave this page. I had to click on anything else.

“Pics” was next and hardly made me feel any better about anything. There was a huge list of sections, which included standard stuff like “Photographs Taken”, but also the likes of “Photographs Almost Taken” and “Photographs I Wish I’d Taken”. Other sections were more general: “People I Know”, “People I Met”, “People I Love”, “People I Hate”. Literally everything I’d seen since birth had been documented. Even my most intimate moments, even people I’d seen naked, no matter how fleetingly, from celebrities on TV to myself.

I started to feel nauseous at this point, no doubt this was, by now, updated on my “blog”.

I checked: it was.

Reluctantly, I clicked on “Videos” and, again, found a whole range of sections. This time, it looked like every single moment of my life had been recorded, all from my point of view. Pretty much everything I’d ever experienced seemed to be on here. The video footage was raw and unedited, the quality of the image occasionally decreasing, even changing altogether for older videos. Some of those looked like they were shot on an old VHS camcorder or even black and white film in the case of clips dating back to the 1950’s.

The “Quotes” section, much like the “Blog” section, was a collection of updating text. This time, everything I’d ever said seemed to be on here from my first words to my conversation with Alan and a random ‘Hello’ to one of my colleagues on the way to the office just now.

‘Boo’, I said out loud, testing the site.
Sure enough, the word “boo” appeared on the screen seconds later.

This was more than just a website, it was obvious. What it was I did not know and I couldn’t even start guessing. A project of this magnitude would have to involve generations of people not to mention a small camera and sound recorder implanted into my skull from birth.

I couldn’t work until all this had been resolved somehow. I had to do something. There had to be a way into the site.

Scrolling down the home page, I finally find a “Sign In” link. The site asks me for a name and password. I type in my name, the password I use for my emails and it lets me in. I click on a link called “Account” and, finally, I get the option to “Delete My Account”.

I click on the link. Everything goes dark…

More from Malcolm M. Milon soon.

Only on WeTheMindThinkers.

The Small Man Chronicles: There Be Dragons

The Small Man Chronicles: There Be Dragons (1938)

a J.R. Dallas novel

(extract from Chapter XVIII)

published one year after J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, or There And Back Again

The Smalluns had made it to Asragarn.

And Mandrarg was near.

The giant owls of Forellem had not brought them all the way, for they had other, more interesting things to do like do other things and such.

Thall, the tallest of the Smalluns, knew there was only one way to proceed: through the dark woods of Klorsharum and past the rivers of Gooloore. The journey was perilous but this was his quest, their quest, and he wasn’t about to give up now.

“Young Small Man, you have served us well thusfar”, Thall said to Polio, “We Smalluns need you but this is not your fight. If you wish to return to your meaningless existence, with your round doors and your cheese, you may do so. We will not think less of you.”

“I’ll be honest, Thall, I don’t like you people and I care not for your long and tedious quest”, replied the Small Man, “But I will help you. Because Old Man Hat is very powerful and he will no doubt vaporise me or put a sinister curse on my soul should I refuse.”

Old Man Hat, who was standing behind Thall, giving Polio a stern stare and making throat-cutting gestures at him, said nothing.

“Very well”, Thall said with a smile, “On we go! Your courage will not go unrewarded, young Small Man.”

Thall ruffles Polio’s hair and walks on as everyone follows.

“I’m 78!”, yelled a vastly ignored Polio.

The dark woods of Klorsharum were dark.

So dark in fact that one could only walk through them with the help of a lit torch, or two. Luckily, Old Man Hat possessed many abilities, one of which was to generate strange white light from his staff. This was certainly helpful. But they were many and Polio’s tiny feet could not quite keep up with the rest of the group. It was only a matter of time before he would lose them completely, despite his many vocal complaints.

And lose them, he did.

Polio was now walking in total darkness. He became more and more aware of the bizarre sounds which emanated from those treacherous woods.

“I hate Smalluns…”, he thought.

What could he do but keep walking and hope that someone would eventually come back for him or that he would somehow catch up? Then again, what if some forest creature was to attack him and feast on him long before that?

This thought unnerved Polio and he started shaking.

That’s when he remembered: the bracelet.

Of course! The bracelet from the monkey mines of Blerrendor! It had proved itself most useful and displayed incredible powers earlier in the quest, surely it could come in handy in this desperate instant. All he had to do was wear it and think of what he wanted, then the bracelet would no doubt provide him with that!

But why wish for something as trivial as a mere boost? Why not wish for The Smalluns’ Pointy Mountain back? Or the death of the beast Mandrarg? Then that darn quest would be over! Hell, why not just wish for a short trip back home?

It sure was tempting…

Then again, perhaps there were more creative things he could do with this bracelet. Old Man Hat could swallow that rusty staff of his, impale himself from orifice to orifice with it. Thall and all the Smalluns in the land could all be tied together into one big ball by their veins and nerve-endings, with only their raw muscle tissue keeping them warm at night. Mandrarg could be summoned and I could sit back and watch as he devoured each of them, limb by limb, eyeball by eyeball, before my very eyes as a female Fairyun lets me lick those pointy ears of hers.

“Young Polio!”, a loud voice came from the darkness.

Polio looked up, as if brutally awoken from a delicious dream. Above him, stood a stern-looking Old Man Hat, who was puffing on his fern pipe anxiously.

“What is the meaning of this stalling?”, he said, “Explain yourself!”

Halfway between anger and shame, Polio was seriously considering wearing that bracelet. In fact, he was so close to wearing it, it was almost passed his wrist.

“Well?”, pressed the old man.

“I… “, the Small Man struggled.

“Speak, damn you!”

“I… couldn’t reach. I’m too small.”, Polio said finally.

“Too small? No creature is too small that it can’t run or hold on to a taller, and therefore superior, being’s leg in order to follow a pack during a most important journey.”

Polio resisted the bracelet’s power and slipped it back in his coat pocket, without Old Man Hat noticing.

“May I… hang on to your leg?”, Polio asked.

“Not on your life, peasant!”

Old Man Hat walked on, leaving Polio to follow on foot, cursing his name under his breath.

“I could have skinned you…”, Polio muttered.

“What was that?”

“N… nothing. Just talking to myself.”

“And they say I’m high…”, Old Man Hat concluded.

Polio had soon rejoined the group when Thall sensed something was amiss.

“What is there, Thall? What do you sense?”, said Yarlaan, one of the hairiest of the Smalluns present.

“Klargens…”

Just then, a pack of rabid klargens, foaming at the mouth and emitting terrifying shrieks, burst out of the forest and start surrounding Polio, Old Man Hat and the Smalluns. Once again, Polio starts to consider his bracelet. Slowly and discreetly, he removes it from his pocket and leads it to his wrist as the klargens get closer and closer.

“This is it…”, Polio thought, “First I get rid of the klargens, then the old man’s getting melted in the fiery pits of Warglor. Beard first.”

And, just as Polio was about to finally wear the bracelet, spears came flying from nowhere, impaling every single klargen right there and then. Polio couldn’t understand what had happened. Had the bracelet worked already? That was impossible, he hadn’t pulled it passed his wrist yet.

Out of the darkness, light finally appeared revealing the Smalluns’ saviours: a group of armed Fairyun men on their typically white, blonde and blue-eyed horses.

“Fairyuns…”, Old Man Hat said to himself.

Polio puts the bracelet back in his coat pocket.

“Smalluns, are you all well?”, said the whitest of all the Fairyuns.

“We’re fine.”, replied Thall, reluctantly.

“How did you find us?”, Old Man Hat asked.

“We sensed you would all wander here, and the dark woods of Klorsharum are not known for being the safest of places.”

“We do not need your charity or your company.”, Thall retorted.

Old Man Hat gives Thall a piercing look of disappointment and intervenes:

“What Thall means to say is: we do not mean to be a burden.”

“Your quest is a perilous one, we only wish to offer our assistance should you ever need it.”

Thall emits an audible grunt.

“Thank you, Melomas, you are most kind.”

“We will lead you out of the dark woods. After that, if you wish to proceed without our help, we shall not get in your way.”

And so Melomas and the Fairyuns led the way and we were soon out of the woods. But there were more obstacles yet to come.

The Smalluns had reached the rivers of Gooloore, night had turned to day and the Fairyuns had said their goodbyes for they knew that not all these Smalluns would make it back.

“Blasted river, how will we ever get across?”, Old Man Hat asked himself.

“What about the owls? Call the owls.”, suggested Polio.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“The owls are not ours to summon.”

“But we summoned them earlier.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“That was a cliff, this is a river.”

“I don’t understand. Don’t you have a spell? Can’t you dry the river?”

“No. We’ll have to go around.”

“That’ll take ages! We’ll never get there!”

“Do you have a better suggestion, foolish Small Man?”

“I could use the…”

“Yes?”

“The… wood to build a bridge. We could all do that.”

Overhearing the conversation, Thall stepped in:

“We are not lumberjacks, young Small Man! We are warriors and Smallun warriors do not build bridges!”

“But…”

Old Man Hat hits Polio across the face with his staff. Polio reaches into his coat pocket.

“We’re going around.”, Old Man Hat finally said to everyone, “Follow me.”

As the group marched on behind Old Man Hat, Polio could only sit there and manage his anger internally. But this time, by extending this quest even more senselessly, the old man had gone too far. Polio finally takes out his bracelet and, without hesitation, wears it.

“Take me to Mandrarg, deep inside the Pointy Mountain.”

In a flash, Polio was there.

Removing the bracelet, Polio looked around to find that he was ankles-deep in a sea of riches. Gold, silver, diamonds, rubies, it was a sparkling paradise and Polio had never seen anything like it.

Unfortunately, where there are riches, there be dragons.

The ground started to shake beneath Polio’s feet. Or so he thought, for it wasn’t the ground that was lifting him, it was Mandrarg. The bracelet had landed Polio right on his head. Losing his balance, Polio fell back, dropping the bracelet in the process. What was he going to do?

As he started searching through all the coins and gems around him for the bracelet, he heard Mandrarg’s booming, cavernous voice and it was easily the most frightening sound he’d ever heard in his entire life.

“Who dares enter my mountain?”

“N-no-one, I assure you.”, replied Polio nervously, still searching for the bracelet.

“I was wondering when you Smalluns would disturb my slumber.”

“I-I’m no Smallun, I’m a Small Man, from the Parkypark Lands in the West.”

“Small Man? I’ve never seen a Small Man.”

“Trust me, I’m no Smallun. In fact, I hate Smalluns. So you see… we have something in common, you and I.”

“You think me a fool, Small Man?”

Mandrarg’s voice was much more aggressive now.

“N-no, of course not! Your… excellency.”, replied the Small Man sheepishly.

“You may not be a Smallun but you are one of them nonetheless. You are aiding them in some way.”

“That’s not true! Y-you’re mistaken, oh great Mandrarg!”

“Silence!”

Mandrarg’s breath reeked of smoke and it felt like fire could burst out of his vast nostrils at any second. The beast approached its scaly, toothy mouth closer and closer to the Small Man, ready to eat him when Polio finally found his bracelet.

“Take me back! Take me back to the Smalluns!”

And, just like that, he was back with the Smalluns, trailing behind as usual. Old Man Hat turns around to find a shaking Polio, lying in the dirt.

“Young Small Man! Hurry up! This is no picnic!”

Polio turns to Old Man Hat and gives him a dirty look, followed by a wry smile. As if he’d just got an idea.

“Coming!”

Putting the bracelet back on, Polio wished for something unpleasant. Just then, Old Man Hat felt the trousers under his robe get looser. Polio had made him a small man, just not all over.

What a fiendish punishment.

The bracelet had finally taken hold of Polio.

And it would never let go.

More fantasy tales from J.R. Dallas next year.

Only on WeTheMindthinkers.

See Little Earth Map HERE.

Edelweiss Space Magic

Edelweiss Space Magic (1963)

by Simon Simmons

119 years ago, on Planet M, the unthinkable happened.

When young Edelweiss awoke on the first Tuesday of February, she had no idea that this day would change her deeply, forever.

Number 85, her mother-droid, had just finished making grey berry pancakes and had called her down for breakfast.

“Today. Is. Now.”, 85 announced.

Floating out of her silky pebble bed sheets, Edelweiss slowly made her way down the rocky stairs and into the gravel kitchen, her long, flowing white hair glistening softly in the low gravity like a sea nymph coming home for Christmas.

“85: give me syrup.”, she said.

85’s mouth opened, liquid flew out.

“85: stop syrup.”

85’s mouth closed, the syrup stopped.

Just as Edelweiss was about to take her first bite of 85’s pancakes, the Magenta Siren rang. It rang all over the house, all over the city, all over M.

They had returned.

They were the Magicians: strange beings from another world, from the skies, come to Planet M, no doubt, to enslave its people. That was the general belief, anyway. 6 years prior, a Magician ship crash-landed, its crew was lifeless, dead, but judging from the amount of artillery and technologically advanced death machines they had brought with them, their intentions seemed clear: destroy and colonize.

This time, the M-ians were ready.

On Planet M, different sirens meant different things: Cyan meant “GOOD”, Gold meant “HIDE” and Magenta meant “GATHER”. “Gather” called all the M-ians to rally together at a specific point on the planet surface and expunge a foreign, potentially harmful entity together.

The Magenta Siren had never rang.

The last time the Magicians had landed, they weren’t perceived to be a threat at first so Cyan rang. The M-ians hid on the other side of the globe and waited for further instructions. It was only later, when it was deemed safe to inspect the crashed ship that those instruments of death were found.

Edelweiss was almost there.

She was nervous but ready, whatever danger lay ahead, she would tackle it with all the might of a thousand Suns.

When she arrived at the meeting point, she saw nothing except her people and rows upon rows of  father-droids, all aligned around a single vacant point.

Could this have been a false alarm?

Just then, she saw it: the enemy ship.

It was small, shiny and it was landing.

“Activate. Cloaking. Device.”, said the largest and most silver of all the father-droids.

All droids suddenly opened their mouths as transparent beams of transparent light blasted out converging into one single point high up but still far below the Magician ship. The cloaking device was a precautionary measure. As long as there was still a chance that the imminent threat at hand could turn out to be benign, the attack would wait.

Any sign of a weapon of any kind, on the Magicians’ side, would, of course, suggest antagonism and prompt instantaneous retaliation.

“Charge. Eye. Beams.”. the droid leader commanded.

Edelweiss and her M-ian brothers and sisters therefore began charging their eyeballs with pure energy. A simple blow from all these eye beams at the same time would annihilate any foreign object. The cloaking device had made the M-ians and their droids invisible to the Magicians.

Now there was only waiting.

The ship was close, very close, even closer now.

Edelweiss’ eyes were starting to hurt.

It landed.

What felt like an eternity passed by before the doors of the ship shooed open. The first Magician to exit looked nothing like those before him: bulky, white, round.

It was like an oversized child.

Words were heard, in a strange language, but they were too faint for anyone to hear. No sign of a weapon as yet. They were floating but not like the M-ians, their steps were clumsy and pathetic.

Were these Magicians children?

Underdeveloped versions of their predecessors?

Or had their predecessors, in fact, travelled back through time from their own future?

After all, the original ship had looked much more advanced than this one which, come to think of it, certainly had a much more primitive, fragile structure to it.

Danger!

The Magicians were holding something, it looked sharp.

The head droid raised his arm, readying us to release our beams should his arm come down in a single clunk.

But something seemed out of place.

These Magicians could barely walk, how could they possibly harm us with a weapon this visibly flimsy and inferior?

The item in question was soon planted onto the surface: it was a small pole with some sort of fabric attached to it.

Was it a bomb, a peace offering or some sort of random decoration?

This kind of odd behaviour continued until they finally picked up some rocks, returned to their ship and eventually disappeared into the skies near-silently.

The M-ians were signalled to stop charging their eye beams. Edelweiss closed her eyes and the intense pain she was feeling began to subside. When she opened them again, everyone had gathered around and over the object left by the Magicians.

It appeared to display stars.

Stripes and stars.

Whatever this meant, one thing was sure: they came twice and they would come again.

And when they do: we’ll be ready for them.

More from Simon Simmons soon.

Only on WeTheMindThinkers.

Dead Air

Dead Air (2003)

by Matt Kowalski

the incredible true story that inspired the motion picture “Gravity”

Space.

I don’t know what all the fuss is about.

I mean, I “get” it: it’s far.

But it’s not like you can eat it or take it to the movies.

Before going up there, even I had that misguided “isn’t space grand?” attitude. I guess you never know what’s waiting for you behind the curtain unless you actually are the curtain, or something to that effect. I don’t know why I kept going back up there, maybe I just really like that diarrhoea-style space food, maybe Earth just doesn’t do it for me.

Now as to why she went up there… that’s a whole other mystery altogether.

Medical doctors with daughter issues have no business being in zero gravity settings. I learned that the hard way.

I always knew she was trouble, the minute I saw her. She had that look. You know that unconfident, sweaty, eyes-darting-left-and-right type of look? “How she passed the psychological evaluation I’ll never know…”, I thought. It seems silly now but how could I have known?

Sure, NASA isn’t exactly known for its overall incompetence but, every so often, mistakes slip through the cracks, even in the most professional and together of places. It happens. I should have known better but her making it up there, I suppose, wasn’t completely unfeasible.

I was assigned to supervising repairs on Explorer, she was working on the Hubble when mission control warned us about debris hitting us and that’s when I saw it. A look in her eyes I’d never seen before. Her edgy desperation had suddenly opened up the door to something much more knowing, much darker. Without hurry, there she remained, seemingly continuing repairs as debris started hitting us but really doing their bidding.

Before getting “accidentally” knocked off out of danger and into the dark chasm of space, I saw her neatly place a metallic item on the skin of the shuttle. It was like some kind of spinning cylinder with blue blinking lights shining all around it. Something not from our world. This is when I finally understood that what was happening to us was no accident.

Luckily, I had my thruster pack handy: stupid thing saved my life.

She killed Shariff.

He was one of our key engineers, the man had a family and a positive (read: naive) outlook on life. He was a good man and she killed his face, just like that. That device she planted on Explorer before floating away was clearly emitting some kind of magnetic field leading the debris to the shuttle. Shariff was almost at the airlock when part of that satellite hit him.

Can’t believe we were pinning this debacle on the Russians.

I’m Russian!

So there I was, at a somewhat safe distance from the disaster. Shuttle’s down, she’s floating far out. I had two options: find a way out and get back to Earth or get to her and find out why she did what she did. THEN get back to Earth.

I decided to get the bitch.

Seeing as she was probably programmed or hypnotised to do these things, I would find her, find out the truth, her plan, and deal with her accordingly.

When I found her, she was hysterical: breathing loudly and wasting oxygen. Her real, cowardly self had resurfaced and I had to calm her down in order to reach deep and find what else was lurking inside her psyche. There wasn’t much time to get the both of us over to another structure.

She told me about her dead daughter.

Ruined the vibe.

Can’t listen to good music in space, these days.

Anyway, we just about made it when the debris came back, knocking me away unexpectedly. That bitch had once again called the debris towards us: she must have been onto me. She knew I suspected her.

That’s when I got the idea: fake my own death and bring her down another way.

She was holding my hand, pretending to save me. I let go.

What she didn’t know was that my thruster pack still had plenty of fuel. I would make my way to a nearby Chinese satellite, where she would no doubt be heading, and set a trap for her.

It took some time but I finally made it. The people there were good people. They were on their way back to Earth when I warned them of a possible impending attack on our world by an unknown force. I flipped the oxygen switch down without them noticing, waited for them to get dizzy and, eventually, they believed me. We devised a plan: they would take the first escape pod down and warn the authorities, warn NASA, and I would hide and come back down with her.

Soon after the Chinese astronauts had left, she finally made it and, luckily, didn’t notice me hiding under the pod. I saw her sneak in, try to communicate with an Earth base and that’s when it happened.

She started barking.

Like a dog.

Well, seemingly like a dog but it was much stranger than that. Much more disturbing and high-pitched. She turned off her oxygen completely and closed her eyes. Suddenly, she re-opened them and I saw like a mist pass over her blank gaze. Over the pod, something crazy happened.

Space dogs.

Yes, I saw three dogs with spinning blue collars, floating in bubbles and communicating with her from the outside. What they were transmitting sounded like co-ordinates. They were planning an attack! I knew it!

I wasn’t insane!

The space dogs barked, she barked back, I listened.

After a couple of minutes, they floated away. That’s when I realised that my thruster pack was running completely out of fuel. I had to make it inside the pod, somehow. Luckily, she was still unconscious so, if I acted fast, I could open the pod, sneak inside, hide and make sure she didn’t see me when she woke up. Which is what I did. I was afraid for a moment when she blindly opened her eyes but, thinking fast, I pretended to be a ghost, knocked her out and hid inside the pod, right at the back.

She woke up and turned the oxygen back on. Thank God for that.

As if overwhelmed by a new sense of lust for life, she followed the procedures to get back to Earth and so we did. We almost burned-up on re-entry and I almost drowned when we landed but I had taken off my space suit as soon as we did so sneaking out underwater after her was easy. I even pushed a frog towards her in order to send her in a different direction.

Dogs respond to frogs.

Popping up over the water to breathe every so often, I eventually saw her stand and walk away.

Just then, the authorities arrived: the Chinese astronauts had followed my instructions! She was instantly apprehended, given a strong sedative and taken back to NASA headquarters. I, of course, followed.

What they found was staggering.

Testing revealed a small but significant bone-shaped substance inside her brain. It was carefully removed and analysed. Apparently, the substance contained a highly concentrated dose of nuclear energy. The space dogs’ plan, then, would have been to turn us all into skeletons, invade the Earth and feast on our bones. They led her into space in order to psychically impregnate her head with this powerful weapon as, from their far distance, they could only hypnotise her.

This explained everything!

The barking, the sudden change of emotions, the hysterical mood swings, the incompetence, it all makes sense now!

Unfortunately for her, by removing the substance, which had reached deep parts of her brain, she was left with a limited amount of capabilities. Essentially all she could do from now on was get on all fours, bark and eat doggy treats. To this day, she still resides at our NASA kennel. She’s happier than ever and I go feed her biscuits once a week.

Poor Dr Stone.

It’s like something out of a bad movie or something…

More sci-fi “true stories” soon.

Only on WeTheMindThinkers.

Over Thair

Over Thair (1979)

an Abraham M. Moon short story

They came for hair.

I know that now.

There are things that, here on Earth, we take for granted. Things which, in a world unlike our own, can translate as treasure.

Three days ago, when the Moon invaded, we were unaware and unprepared.

The idea of life on the Moon had been long dismissed as “silly” and “too far to check again” and our attention soon turned to Mars. Little did we know that a race of mostly liquid entities lived and thrived deep beneath the Moon’s hard structure. Despite our many studies, we remained blind to these beings’ existence and the Moon’s inner secrets.

Had we known three days ago that 80% of the Moon’s core was, in fact, covered in hair, perhaps disaster could have been aborted.

The Moon People, much like us with water, had been digging for hair for Millennia. It was their gold, their home, their food.

Their all.

When the Moon inexplicably stopped growing its own hair, desperation soon settled in and the Moon People began to panic. With their imminent destruction in the cards, they had no choice but to dig up to the surface, where they had avoided to venture to because it was cold and had a weird smell, to seek answers.

There, they found a flag.

A flag they did not understand.

Nonetheless, they concluded that the nearest planet was probably to blame so they set out on a voyage which could, and should have meant certain death.

The Moon People were a brave Moon people.

But they lacked hair and we had it.

Their interplanetary floating took centuries. To compare with the Earth’s timeline, suffice it to say that Christopher Columbus discovered America the Thursday prior to their departure.

Now, the year was 1999 and here they were: weak and hungry for hair.

The long, uneventful and immensely slow trip had starved them and driven them to madness. Returning home with hair was no longer their mission.

Their new mission:

HAIR.

And lots of it.

Like mere liquid, hair-hungry zombies, they soon roamed the Earth in search of hair. Rendering anyone they encountered smooth all over. For head hair was not the only type of hair they were after. They wanted it all.

Cattle died of shock, cats of cold…

Chaos.

On the second day, the military intervened but no amounts of advanced weaponry could stop them. Bullets and big bullets just passed right through. Giant sucking devices and giant drying devices were brought in as alternatives but the Moon People had become too powerful. Somehow the hair they had consumed had made them undriable and too strong to be sucked by anything.

The third day was critical.

Earth was balding, fast, and it looked like nothing could ever stop those lunar devils. Then, an ageing Swedish physicist and aspiring boot collector by the name of Lukas Jarlsson designed a rocket which would be filled to the brim with hair and piloted by unwitting automatons (also filled with hair). Once inside, the Moon People would be trapped there and sent back to their cold, lifeless, hairless home. The spacecraft would then auto-destruct and the Moon (and its people) would be no more.

The plan was set in motion the very next half hour.

After a particularly tense build-up, the rocket finally launched with the Moon People inside. They had been lured inside thanks to Jarlsson’s last minute idea to pave all the roads of Stockholm with hair all the way to the rocket’s Moon People-shaped entrance. Many sacrificed their lives and their hair for this cause.

The Swedish people would never forget that day.

As the Moon People left our atmosphere, we Earthmen and Earthwomen looked on proudly, happy to once again be safe.

The Moon did not explode as planned, that was unexpected.

We all assumed the Moon People died of natural causes or perhaps simple gluttony during the voyage back.

We were free again: that’s all we needed to know.

But Lukas Jarlsson had not been seen since the launch. Could he have been left inside the rocket accidentally? What would happen to him? Would they use him to grow hair for them forever? Would they devour him?

It did not matter, his life was a small price to pay for our hair.

Our beautiful hair.

More from Abraham M. Moon soon.

Only on WeTheMindThinkers.

Hard Warriors

Hard Warriors (1979)

a Hiroaki Yamada short story

(translation by Guillaume Le Taureau)

They were strong.

They were hard.

Warriors with strength.

One was blue, the other: not blue.

They were ready.

Inside the beast, young Hideo was sweating. Sweating like an animal in the Sun. Like an unborn baby rhinoceros waiting to come out of its mother’s womb. But there was no coming out: the battle was about to begin.

“Stop it now, Isamu!”, he said to his opponent.

“Never!”, Isamu replied through his own metallic warrior.

“You were good! Now you are bad! Why, Isamu? Why?”

“I am bad because you made me bad! I was good! Now we are both bad.”

“Never!”

Hideo threw the first punch.

WHAMMAK!

Such power!

But Isamu would not be defeated so easily.

PAPOOM!

What an attack!

“Our strengths are matched! But mine is stronger!”, Isamu gloated.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Isamu!”

And Hideo lept at Isamu, clenching the latter’s waist with his thighs while thumping on his head with his titanium fists.

FHOOM! FHOOM!

“Aaaaah! Damn you!”, Isamu screamed.

“You can still end this: we used to be brothers!”

“Never!”

Isamu unleashes a hidden chest saw: sparks fly as Hideo is violently propelled by the rotations of the sharp thoraxian weapon.

“Take that, inferior thing!”

“How about… you take… THIS?”

Hideo’s warrior releases gold arrows from his eyes: they promptly pierce through Isamu’s shoulders. Isamu screams and drops to his knees.

“Nooooo!”

“Yes!”

“You will pay for this!”

“Surrender, Isamu! It is what you must do!”

“Never!”

Isamu pulls out one of the gold arrows from himself, stands and runs towards Hideo. He jumps at him, ready to stab Hideo with the arrow but Hideo was prepared: he had already deployed the anti-arrow disc.

BZONGH!

The arrow broke.

“Last chance for salvation, Isamu!”

“Never!”

Hideo slices Isamu in half.

Both halves of what once was Isamu plop down to the ground as blood, oil and wires pour out.

“Isamu…”, Hideo says quietly to himself.

Just then, Hideo felt a change of gravity.

Was he flying?

No.

In fact, he was being lifted. Inside the warrior, Hideo panicked, playing with all the buttons peppered over the main control panel.

“What the…”

A voice came from above.

“You have failed, Hideo.”

“Computer”, Hideo asked his control panel desperately, “Analyse big voice!”

Looking up at the screen in front of him, Hideo finally saw the truth.

The voice continued:

“You can’t kill so early: you lose the drama, young Hideo!”

Was that an eyeball facing him?

Were those glasses?

It couldn’t be… they were so big.

“Try again”, said the voice, “This time: use the arrows last. Take your time: length is good. We’ll keep rolling.”

“R-rolling?”

Suddenly, Hideo was placed back down on the ground.

“Aaaaaand: action!”, said the voice.

In front of him, Hideo found another hard warrior.

Could it be?

No.

It couldn’t.

“I…Isamu?!”

More from the Hiroaki Yamada soon.

Only on WeTheMindThinkers.

In The Between

In The Between (1990)

an Ian McCanus short story

It was their last meal and the Torhns had lost their appetite.

Their world was about to end, the two black holes on either side of their planet were about to tear it apart, split it, right down the middle and that’s all there was to it. No amount of food could change that. Even the Schgleg they were about to consume knew something was amiss.

” Go, shoo.”, Yichn ordered.

The Schgleg, feeling unwanted, slimes out of its tray and leaves the table.

“What’s the point?”, Yichn asked rhetorically, “It’s all going to end anyway.”

Her husband, Gnok, had no answer for her.

“You’re upsetting Igli: calm down.”, he answered.

Little Igli was only 300 years old, she had no defined idea about what was going on. She had just wet herself, though.

“I don’t care! It’s the end! I can do what I want!”, Yichn continued.

“That’s not true, you have a responsibility: you’re her mother.”

“Oh blow it out your flaaagn…”

“I know how you feel but you can’t let it get to you, let’s just finish our last meal with dignity. As a loving family.”

“A loving family? You think I don’t know about you and Griil?”

“W-what do you mean?”

“Oh forget it…”

Gnok turns to his daughter, wiping the urine from her face.

“Go to your room, Igli. Mummy and daddy need a moment alone.”

“Wammy?”, replied the infant.

“That’s right. I’ll be in there to tuck you in right away. Just give me a couple of months, ok?”

“Wakay.”

Igli leaves the table and walks to her bedroom leaving a trail behind her. Gnok turns back to Yichn and gently places his tentacle on her shoulder.

“You’re upset, I understand that. But we have to make the most of our time together, while we’re still alive. The planet is splitting in half, that doesn’t mean we should do the same.”

Yichn promptly knocks his tentacle away with her paw.

“That’s just it: maybe we should do the same! After all, if nothing means anything, why shouldn’t we? Why should anything?”

“Yichn, calm down…”

“Why?! Why be calm? Who is there to wake up? Besides you?”

“What?”

“You’re the one who needs waking up! You’re asleep! Asleep from the truth!”

Yichn stands up. Now hysterical, she starts to turn purple as her antennas vibrate from side to side (a sign of stress). Gnok walks to her slowly, trying to calm her down.

“Settle down, Yichn. You’re having a breakdown…”

“You’re asleep, they’re all asleep!”

Gnok moves his tentacle towards her.

“There there, it’s gonna be alright. Just give me your paw and we’ll talk.”

“Don’t touch me!”

“I’m not gonna hurt, no one is…”

Just then, Yichn opens her third mouth and bites Gnok’s tentacle hard: she eats half of it. Gnok screams, flapping his remaining tentacle around the room, breaking vases and glasses in the process.

“There there…”, Yichn says in a dark monotone, “It’s gonna be alright.”

Yichn falls on top of Gnok and devours him on the spot, her mouths taking large chunks out of him with every single bite. Gnok struggles and screams throughout, his orange blood splashing over every family portrait, every inch of the room.

Minutes later: Gnok was no more.

Meanwhile, Igli is lying in a puddle in her bed, counting Niays, her favourite animal. Yichn knocks gently on her door and walks in, still completely covered in blood and foaming at the mouths.

“Hi honey, you asleep?”

“Weelp.”

“You are asleep, aren’t you…”

“Wilry.”

“Hungry? I’m hungry too.”

There’s a knock at the front door. Startled, Yichn gets up and goes to answer it. Igli continues counting Niays.

Before opening the door, Yichn enquires:

“Who is it?”

“It’s Poyng! Open up! One of the black holes imploded in on itself. It’s gone! Our world is safe!”

Trembling, Yichn finally opens the door.

More from Ian McCanus soon.

Only on WeTheMindthinkers.