He chewed and drank absent-minded, thinking about his life. He was in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way, so far away you couldn't consider it even a part of the galaxy. If you made a map with all the galaxy's stars, you'd go all the way into the black edge and put a pin there. You'd ask, 'But there's nothing there?'
And that's where you'd find Pharos.
He understood the reason for that one. It had to do with gravity and approach angles. Everybody that was coming to our galaxy tended to approach from this area, but it was literally dark and riddled with rocks.
So, like the deadly shallows that sank ships, the e-persons set up this lighthouse that warned all those races that hadn't discovered space-folding.
Why were those races crossing distances galaxies-apart to get here?
Same as us. Exploration. They sent out ships, automated or not for millions of years of travel.
It was a waste to have them cross the dark-matter tendrils between our galaxies after all this time and end up crashing on the shores of our own, vaporised in an instant by stupid rocks.
The system worked, he knew that. He'd warned at least three ships in the years he was working at the lighthouse. Three visitors. Oh, the wonders they had seen. Or, wait, they hadn't seen anything. Their home planet was definitely gone by now and the passengers had either been in stasis or in generation ships for a million generations, which meant they didn't actually know anything outside that claustophobic hull.
Nevermind.
Pharos finished his orange juice, went blergh from the taste just like always, and left it all in the kitchen sink. The box could clean it up afterwards.
He walked back to the rim, to the beam of light.
The e-persons feared that if there were no more organic people left, then there would be no one to observe the quantum effects and collapse the waveform. Meaning the universe would vanish.
That's why they kept panhumans around as pets.
Because of a scientific superstition.
He stared into the beam of brilliant light, his body tilting forward. It was as if it was calling him, the most brilliant light in the galaxy, brilliant enough to outpace the other, boring beams of light.
He understood some of the science. For example, he knew that in order to produce that impossibility, the moon simply had to remain still, unmoving, steadier than other things that rotated with the spin of the galaxy.
That meant that someday it would be left behind as the spiral moved, but that was far, far beyond his lifespan. Only the e-persons bothered with that problem, and who knew what their solution would be.
They'd probably have some poor bastard that was kept around like a pet such as him push the damn moon into position.
Pharos chuckled at his silly thoughts.
He titled forward, almost ready to take the plunge. It was deep, far too deep into the heart of the moon and the heart of the light that was faster than light.
He sighed, covered his eyes.
He turned around, blinking. He reached out for the railing, felt his way around, grabbed it.
He blinked, took off his goggles, rubbed his eyes. He kept waiting for the afterimage to fade away a bit just like it always did eventually so he could get to the corridor.
He waited a minute, two.
"Phylax?"
No reply.
"Phylax?" he shouted, worried now.
The afterimage didn't fade away. All he could see was that brilliant plume of light wherever he turned, and the contrasting darkness around her. Nothing else.
"Phylax? This is not funny."
He stumbled along the corridor, after all he knew these halls and these walls after all those years.
He went on all fours and felt his way around.
"Phylax?" he said softly, weeping. In the dark. Alone.
It seemed that the improbable had happened. The automatics had failed. Pharos kept doing his rounds and his routine checks, day by day.
The lighthouse was working just fine, but he did prevent a few catastrophic malfunctions. The panels had a compatibility mode where they just gave him haptic feedback or spoke things out to him, so that was less of a problem than he was worrying about.
Blind, he walked the same halls along the same walls and made his own breakfast. He washed the dishes after he was done, Phylax wasn't there to pick up after him.
He saved six more incoming ships. They carried on, unable to stop by their tremendously accumulated momentum, towards the centre of the galaxy, to find some place that was busier and meet someone with a more interesting job than Pharos.
Pharos searched the installation top to bottom with his own fingers, centimetre by centimetre. Other men would have given up after a few standard months, but he was epically stubborn. Eventually he found the little box behind a failsafe mechanism, it must have overloaded as he repaired it and zapped him dead.
He carried the little box that looked like a toolcase with him at all times after that, maintaining the lighthouse like they used to do.
For he was the Pharophylax now, always there to keep everyone else safe.
He missed waking up to the screams every day.
The End
Read more stories set in the Antigravel Universe here.
Whoopsie Daisy
"Whoops," the man said and pulled his hands away from the keyboard.
She placed her coke on the table. "Whoops? This is not the time for whoopsies, John."
"Um… I may have fried someone's brain," the man said panicking.
"You what?" She yelped and sat on her workstation across him. "Did you mirror all the servers?" She demanded while tapping furiously.
"Yes."
"Reroute traffic to the dummy DNS?"
"Yes…"
"Spoof our IPs, plus a few thousand more to throw them off our-"
"Yes Daisy! Yes I did all that, it's not… I dunno." He sighed and started sweating like the can of coke across the desk.
She had her angry frown on. "For fucks sake man, we had it all planned down to the last…" She nodded. "No, it doesn’t seem like you fucked up…" she mumbled.
"Daisy, I-"
"I told you to use handles! We could be bugged. It's Stuxlady," she quipped at him.
"Stuxlady," he corrected, "The hack went through. We got it man. I saw it, we had control of the nodes. I ran the script to change privileges and, I dunno. It didn’t go where it was supposed to."
Daisy gulped down the coke and cracked open another can. It sprayed the dark location, and caught just a touch of light from the monitor, before vanishing into the air. It was an empty office space, a dot-com that had gone under like so many others.
"These aren't good for you," he pointed at the can of sugar.
"Wanna know what's not good for me?” she asked angrily and slapped the pistol on the desk. “Having the hack of the century botched because of what? Something we didn't anticipate during months of planning?" Daisy raised her eyes to him and they glistened furious blue from the monitor. "That fucking outsource man. That must be it, they spilled. That damn fucker!"
John shook his head. "I don’t think so, the Serbian would have never narced on us."
She gulped down the can of coke while maintaining eye contact from the side. He hated when she did that, it was kinda freaky. "Do we have root access to the city?"
"Yeah, I only risked one ping, two minutes ago maybe?"
"They must be stopped, Baptiste. Those corporate pigs can't keep getting away with openly destroying the liberties that our ancestors fought and died to earn for us-"
A crack and a thud interrupted her tirade.
John whiplashed, "What was that? A bird?"
"Stay here," she said, turning on her flashlight and gripping her pistol. "I'll go check."
For once, he disobeyed. He followed Daisy through dusty cubicles. They weren't the old miserable kind of course, startups had spacey cubicles with colors and swings. They still looked gray and abandoned in the dark, no matter what the original intentio
n was.
"I think it was this window," she said pointing the way. John noticed that she hadn't scolded him for disobeying like she'd normally do. Could it be that the fearsome Stuxlady didn’t want to go in the dark all alone?
The thought of that made him smile.
"It's probably just a bird," he said. "The EM messes up with their internal navigation and they smack onto windows," he whispered.
Daisy flashed her light into his face. "What did I teach you, Baptiste?"
"It's not paranoia when they are really out to get you," he repeated from memory.
"Good," she said and took a step forward. Broken glass crunched under her shoe and a faint breeze came through the window. Something whirred. Mechanical.
Daisy gasped and pushed him back.
"What?"
"Police drone," she whispered and panicked, "They found us."
He peeked. "No, that can't be. It wouldn't crash like that," he whispered. "I'll go check."
Daisy pulled her t-shirt over her head, covering her face in an inverse hoodie. "Pull your t-shirt up!"
John the Baptiste, who wasn’t pious like his nickname implied, took in the lines of her body. In the twilight, with the bottom of her t-shirt pulled up like that and with her tummy and bra exposed, her body almost looked beautiful. Daisy was thin but she had a moderate gut, due to all the soda she drank when she was anxious. John didn’t mind that, her belly looked soft and inviting and as for that bra… Well, let's just say he was already coding the unlock for that in his mind.
"Facial recognition for fuck's sake! Pull it up!" She repeated.
"Oh, right," John said and pulled up the bottom of his t-shirt too, showing his six-pack. Not an impressive one, but it was there. Hackers were notoriously unfit, he just needed a hint of muscle to stand out. He looked around, squinting behind the fabric. He could barely see through the threads. They both stumbled through the desks and approached the fallen drone.
Indeed, its camera was rotating, scanning the place. The rotors were smashed and they just whirred and whined like a wounded animal. Stuxlady, her face covered, pushed the camera away from them. Then she picked up a trash can and crushed the remaining part of the police quadcopter with menace.
"We are burned! We are so fucking burned," she said out loud and paced, grabbing her hair up.
John pulled down his t-shirt and looked out the broken window. Something was wrong. The city was… Quiet?
That never happened in Pittsburgh.
"What the hell? Is the power out?" He said and the city replied.
A wave of noise crashed into him as the cacophony of sirens, alarms, tire shrieks, screams, pushed him back like a physical thing. He looked ahead. Planes were crashing. Planes. Were fucking. Crashing.
Cold sweat covered his body.
"No. No. We didn't… No. We merely diverted the data flow, we didn't block it," he said out loud so he could believe it himself. She came to his side and he stared at her. “This isn’t what we did to the Solon system. This isn’t what I signed up for!” he spat out, pointing at the broken window.
He covered his face and swore quietly. He calmed himself. He could fix, it, give them the control back. He’d just have to undo his own script and give them access to the mirrored servers. Police, fire department, they’d be able to work their machines again.
Yes, that was it. He could do it.
He paced towards the workstation.
A gun cocked behind him. He froze.
“What are you doing,” he asked calmly, not turning around.
“Finishing what we started,” she said. The wind rushed through the broken window.
“Daisy, please,” he pleaded and turned to face her. “People are getting hurt. We can at least let the city authorities handle the crisis.”
“No,” she said simply but didn’t dare look him in the eye. She was looking at the pop-out display on the smartgun, with the sights locked on Baptiste. He knew she was a terrible shot really, but the pistol was so hacked and upgraded with illegal mods that it didn’t matter at this range. The vibra-grip would shift the shooter’s wrist, the kickback would be negated and the bullet would divert its course in the air and aim for his head. The gun was smart enough to ignore the trigger press if an innocent bystander happened to get in the way. It knew, it sensed you didn’t want to shoot that kid so it simply didn’t let you.
But who then is truly responsible for pulling the trigger? She or it?
“Look at me!” he demanded.
She said nothing.
“I said, look at me!”
She did.
“You of all people, you who knows my family, my history… You dare turn me into a fucking terrorist?” John said, chocking down the rage. “I’m gonna stop the script. Shoot me if you dare,” he said and walked towards the computer.
Daisy didn’t reply. Her face was contorted, she mouthed an apology, but she said nothing. She looked back into the pistol’s display.
And it was that night, the one later known as the night of the Solon hack, that Stuxlady shot in the back the last man who ever loved her.
Ten Kilos Till Christmas
"All I need is to completely stop eating until I'm down ten kilos. Hrmph, okay, five, until Christmas," Phoebe said, huffing before the baklava in front of her.
The pastry shop was quiet, the sun was shining in and the orange decoration reflected warm tones on their faces.
Gula leaned on the table, propping herself up with her elbows. It squealed under her weight. "Why?" she asked, simply.
"What do you mean, why?" Phoebe frowned. "Look at me." She lifted the edges of her floral dress. "I'm huge."
"No you're not," Gula said, raising an eyebrow.
"I am..." Phoebe huffed out. "You're just being polite."
"No, I'm being honest. You are not huge, you're fine as you are. In fact, you should eat some of this baklava," Gula said, and picked up a corner with a fork. She brought it before Phoebe's mouth.
Phoebe went cross-eyed, looking silly as she stared at the dessert. "I really shouldn't." She pressed her lips together.
Gula shrugged, "Okay," and she put the entire thing in her mouth. She savoured it, moaning "Mmm..." with her eyes closed. When she opened them again, Phoebe was looking at her from so close that someone else would have considered it rude.
"I-I really can't eat it," Phoebe whined, pinching her belly fat.
"Again, I ask you, why?" Gula said, and cut another piece with the fork. The baklava was dripping down syrup, and she held it up again to Phoebe's face, like feeding a baby. Which Phoebe was most certainly not, being a voluptuous woman of twenty-nine.
Phoebe looked away, biting her lip. "He'll never turn to look at me if I'm like this," she said with a small voice.
"Ooh, a boyfriend?" Gula asked. "Tell me all about him."
Phoebe scoffed. "Boyfriend... I wish. He's so dreamy... He plays basketball for Marousi team, they're going national!" she perked up. Then her mood soured again and she put her hands between her legs. "He's got all those beautiful Instagram girls chasing after him. Why would he even pay attention to me? I've got no chance at that."
"Don't say that!" Gula said and ate the piece of baklava she was holding. She did the same thing, moaning and savouring the thick sweetness as she chewed, her cheeks puffy.
Phoebe stared again, mesmerised, breathing hard.
"His name?" Gula asked, still chewing.
"Hm?" Phoebe shook herself out of her reverie. "Oh, right. Panos. He's also tall, but you could have guessed that," she chuckled.
"That's very nice!" Gula beamed at her. She cut the last piece of baklava in two little pieces and forked the one. "Come on now, this one is tiny..."
Phoebe looked around, then huffed out. "Okay, fine. Just one little bite," she said and opened her mouth to receive.
Gula fed her, and Phoebe licked the fork and wiped the dripping syrup from her cheek. She closed her eyes and moaned softly as she tasted it, she too savouring the de
licious flavour. Phoebe chewed slowly and her hand slipped between her legs.
Gula noticed that and glanced at it, but said nothing. She left the fork on the little dish from Phoebe's side and leaned back on her chair. "See? A tiny bite doesn't hurt, does it?" she smiled.
Phoebe licked her lips slowly, then seemed embarrassed. "No, it doesn't." She looked away. "D-Do you do this with all your clients?" she stuttered.
"Do what?" Gula said innocently.
"This, sit with them in your pastry shop and talk about things," Phoebe said, bobbing her head left and right.
"If they're nice people, sure," Gula said and stood up. "That reminds me, I have an excellent lemon pie, it's so fresh. Let me get that for us."
"Oh no... I shouldn't," Phoebe complained, but Gula paid no attention.
She went round the back and brought the lemon pie and big knife. She noticed that the last piece of baklava was gone but pretended not to. She placed the aluminium tray in the middle of the table and sliced a thin piece. "There, you have to taste it, it's my own recipe," Gula giggled, serving the slice.
Phoebe looked at it, sighing once again. "You're such a tease, Gula," she said with a smirk.
"Come on now, it's fresh!" Gula said, and cut a little piece with the fork. She raised it to Phoebe's face, who waited a second and then opened her mouth.
Gula fed her, and Phoebe rubbed the inside of her thigh, letting out little moans and caught breaths.
Gula had some for her, "It is indeed one of my best lemon pies ever. The taste of the lemon is biting you back, making it a struggle of sour and sweet on the tip of your tongue, right?"
Phoebe nodded in acknowledgement and said nothing. She opened her mouth for another taste.
Gula smiled wide, cutting another piece with the fork. She fed Phoebe, who now almost snatched the lemon pie with her mouth. "Panos, my dear, will accept you just the way you are," Gula said, picking up more lemon pie. "Panos will set his eyes on you and never want to look away, because you will dazzle him with your figure and your curves and your sexiness," she said, feeding her again. Phoebe grabbed her dress in a tight squeeze and rubbed it between her legs, her chest going up and down. "Panos, if he is clever, will realise that the Instagram girls have nothing to offer him but their fakeness," she said, feeding her another piece. "Whereas you, will have so much to offer him, like a proper woman. Affection, support, sex," Gula said the last word with a tiny shrug, "and good food."
MOAB � Mother Of All Boxsets Page 122
