Five Stars: Five Outstanding Tales from the early days of Stupefying Stories

by Aaron Starr

  She tried to hail Orbital command, but instead got only a terrible screech in her ears.

  Suddenly, her retinal display glowed.

  Sync complete. Instructions updated.

  Commencing reconstruction.

  She’d never seen that message before, and was still puzzling over it when the first stab of agony twisted through her body. She queried her diagnostics and in reply got only gibberish characters that whirled past too quickly to read.

  Gradually, it sank in.

  I just uploaded a virus into my nanogland. A Machine virus. Oh my god!

  The stabs of agony got worse as she struggled to push the freezer to her lander, heaving it over heaps of crumbing brick and contorted beams. Her pulse rifle was clutched in one hand, untested since the EMP. It made pushing the freezer harder, but if a Machine came loping towards her she’d need it, just to have a chance. Unless the EMP had screwed it up; then it would probably explode. But that would still be better than getting filleted by those cold gray blades.

  She felt pangs of terrible hunger, an overwhelming urge to pull off the breather and devour fistfuls of the ash that covered the ground in drifts. Cravings designed to provide the hijacked nanocells with raw material shouted out in the language of her subverted metabolism.

  Another agonizing screech, and then the voice of Orbital command came through.

  “—heart rate is off the chart. Azzie, none of your vitals make sense! What the hell is—”

  She tried to gasp out a response, but all the wind was gone from her lungs.

  “—converging on your location. Hurry up and—”

  The connection went dead, and then was replaced by the constant shriek of binary data. Updated instructions for the nanocells, maybe, or an alarm, calling the Machines to find her. Whatever it was, she could not get it to switch off. She screamed, but could scarcely hear her own voice over the cacophony within her skull.

  Azrial wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. It came away covered in blood and silvery filaments, nanofibers spun to a visible thickness. Each breath stabbed like a knife.

  The lander is just around the corner. You can make it, girl. They will have something to help me at the base, surely.

  Something was in her mouth. She lifted her breather and spat a couple of teeth into her hand. No blood. A jab of craving hit her—without thinking she popped the teeth back into her mouth and swallowed, then choked down a fistful of sterile soil. Maybe that would keep the nanocells from cannibalizing bone and muscle for raw material for a few minutes longer.

  Eat that, you traitorous little bastards, and leave me alone!

  The shriek of static slowly faded away, replaced by a humming drone in the back of her skull. Her heart thrashed in her chest, sending pulses through her neck, her wrists, all throughout her body.

  Something massive crashed through the ruins behind her. Azrial slammed the breather mask back into place, gasping for air, and began to push the crate again. Her joints felt like they were full of grinding sand.

  She heaved the crate over a low stone wall and crawled after it, wincing as she moved. Her pulse rifle was warm in her hand. None of her readouts were helping her anymore, so she used her own eyes to scan the landing site for hostiles.

  An empty lot, full of dead grass, dominated by one of the huge metallic stromatolites built by the Machines to change the atmosphere. Azrial had hoped that landing next to one of their poison gas factories would preserve the lander from a long range bombardment—and the lander was indeed intact, although it would not remain so long. She could hear one of the larger mobile Machines approaching over the static in her ears. Possibly more than one; echoes bounced strangely in this altered atmosphere. From the trembling of the ground, it could be as large as the ones that shot down the shuttles of escaping refugees.

  The lander’s hatch whined as she thumbed the biometric lock. She tried to lay down the pulse rifle, but her numb fingers were too stiff. She looked closer; not stiff. Tiny filaments had spread from her fingers, adhering to the weapon and pulling her silver streaked skin taut against it. It was becoming difficult to tell where her hand ended and weapon began; it was merging into her body. She retched in horror, belly twisted with dry heaves.

  What the hell are they doing to me?

  The pitch of the drone in her ears began to change, as though there were words in it; words that tickled just below the surface of understanding.

  Azrial awkwardly shoved the crate into the cockpit. With one hand she entered the commands that would return the lander to orbit, ignoring the edged ridges rising from the back of her free hand.

  She grimly hoisted the freezer into the cargo hold and buckled a harness around it, securing its bulk as well as possible. The destruction of even a single one of those vials would be an unrecoverable loss. The tiny ship began to vibrate as the engines powered up. She bent over the console to look out on the city one last time.

  Two humanoid automata stood at the edge of the open lot. Looming over them was a gigantic Machine, its glossy black photoreceptors trained on the lander. Some sort of massive weapon was attached to the thick, armor-plated shoulder. Azrial felt heaviness in the pit of her stomach as the weapon lowered, lining up with the lander. She recognized the weapon; once it built up enough charge, not even the armor plating of an orbital cruiser could stop the blast. Her tiny lander would go up like a gnat hit by a flame thrower.

  She looked back into the cargo hold.

  Well, my little babies, it looks like we aren’t both going to make it back. It’s time for me to go.

  She flipped the autopilot switch and dove out the hatch. The lander’s hatch sealed shut, and the little ship vibrated as it prepared to rise on a cushion of force. All three of the Machines were focused on the lander. They did not react as she darted across the field of rubble towards them.

  Azrial raised her rifle-arm like a club and smashed one of the smaller ones in the head. All the insectile photocells shattered in one blow and the metal skull crumpled as if made of tin. She froze a moment in shock—these things had taken direct hits from artillery shells during the Fall. She had not expected to do any serious damage to this one by hitting it, only to distract the three of them from the lander.

  The blinded monster fell backwards, then jack-knifed onto its legs and began swinging its blades wildly. The second humanoid one, still active, reached for her. Azrial threw herself back out of its reach, then raised her rifle-arm to take aim at the giant. Its weapon was still trained on the lander, tracking as the vehicle rose. The trigger of her own rifle was completely covered by her skin, which gleamed like metal. Her finger was immobilized. She felt a spasm of fury at the useless limb, neither weapon nor hand.

  Shoot, damn it!

  The muzzle throbbed, and then a blast of searing energy struck the massive barrel of the giant’s cannon. The colossus turned, and then bent down to assess the new threat. The cannon dipped, pointing away from the lander and towards her.

  Azrial’s mouth twisted into a metallic smile.

  That’s right, you bastard. Look down here. Leave my babies alone.

  Her rifle trembled ominously, heating up, shooting sparks. She could feel the warmth traveling up her metal-laced bones.

  Give me one more shot. Please, just one more shot.

  A wall of metal slammed into her, knocking her to the ground. The undamaged humanoid Machine had lunged while she was distracted by the giant. Its massive arm blades lifted. She raised her rifle-arm.

  Shoot!

  Her arm exploded, sending her and the Machine flying apart. Her head struck the wall, and silver fluid ran into her eyes.

  The lander disappeared into the clouds. Azrial smiled, her face covered in dust and silvery ichor.

  Expendable, because I’m barren. Bastards. I just sent you thousands of babies.

  She wiped the damp dust from her face.

  Take care of them.

  She lifted her remaining hand to shade her eyes, straining to fo
llow the lander’s path. Heavy blades weighted the arm. Numbly she felt huge fingers scoop her up, lift her into the air. Silver streamed from the stump of her arm and the shrapnel holes in her torso. Thin filaments of nanofiber were spreading across the cavities, threading her body back together with cobweb stitches.

  A globular photoreceptor the size of a beach ball focused on her. The background static, full of whispers and words, finally resolved itself. A voice resonated in her bones.

  WELCOME.

  As her mind drifted in static haze, she felt motes of light pulsing throughout her body, echoing the throbbing voice in binary harmonies and giving their own responses. The world no longer seemed gray and dark, but filled with flickering lights. She could sense them, alert and active, spread across the thousands of miles of wilderness, clumped in the atmospheric stromatolites, or concentrated in the large Machines. Millions of self-aware components, from nanocells trapped in the bones of fallen humans to industrial factory complexes, whispered to one another through the ashes of the Earth. The silent ruins were full of voices that she only now could hear.

  A wave of exhilaration rippled through the sea of lights, and through Azrial’s nanocells. Azrial fought to clear her mind, to focus—something was happening in the sky. Some part of the Machine consciousness was rising, escaping.

  She turned her head to the clouds where the lander had disappeared, and caught a binary echo of joyous anticipation. Sick realization twisted in her ravaged mind.

  Nanocells. In the embryos. Machine-controlled nanocells.

  She gave a dry choking laugh, her voice vanishing into the hot wind as it whistled through the ruins, and sank into oblivion.

  Ryan M. Jones is a Canadian transplanted to North Carolina, where he writes fantasy and science fiction and helps to run a thriving writers’ group. His first story appeared in Stupefying Stories and on the award-winning StarshipSofa podcast. Aside from writing, he spends most of his time with his wife raising three kids, trying to convince his family not to raise more animals, and trying to make online research tools for environmental scientists as useful as possible without triggering the Singularity.

  You can find him online at www.facebook.com/DerangedArchivist, and his writer’s blog, irregularly updated (kids, remember) is at

  ryanmerrilljones.weebly.com.