Plugs

Susannah Mandel’s short story “The Monkey and the Butterfly” is in Shimmer #11. She also has poems in the current issues of Sybil’s Garage, Goblin Fruit, and Peter Parasol.

Kat Beyer’s Cabal story “A Change In Government” has been nominated for a BSFA award for best short fiction.

Sara Genge’s story “Godtouched” may be found in Strange Horizons.

David Kopaska-Merkel’s book of humorous noir fiction based on nursery rhymes, Nursery Rhyme Noir 978-09821068-3-9, is sold at the Genre Mall. Other new books include The zSimian Transcript (Cyberwizard Productions) and Brushfires (Sams Dot Publishing).

Space Invaders

by SaraG

The little cannon had lost the war. The last coin chinked its way to oblivion in the depths of the arcade and the space invaders kept on landing, unopposed.

The little cannon didn’t think it was fair: he should be given the opportunity to fight the pixelated creatures on land, even if he had lost the game when the first one succeeded in landing. He knew he didn’t have a chance, but he would have liked to die protecting his two dimensional home-planet.

“Hey! Come back!,” he shouted at the player. “INSERT COIN you moron. Quitter!”

But the player was twelve and didn’t like to lose. Besides, the little cannon doubted that the player could hear him.

The screen changed and was substituted by INSERT COIN. Alone in the dark, the little cannon could hear the music of the simulacrum game designed to attract a new player. It seemed so far away, as if it came from another planet, another machine even. He scuttled off to a corner and readied his weapon. He still had a couple rounds in there. The green aliens disembarked and converged. They waved their horned green heads and scuttled about like over sized spiders. The little cannon could see the teeth inside those flat mouths, the teeth the players never saw.

He aimed. At least, he would go down swinging.

One Response to “Space Invaders”

  1. Carlos Says:

    January 30th, 2008 at 2:32 pm

    By the numbers! Self-consciously cute, no surprises.