by submission | Nov 30, 2012 | Story |
Author : David Stevenson
I had never seen the moon so bright and clear.
I had brooded all evening until, shortly before midnight, I went outside and looked at the sky. All evening I had heard the sounds of panic and rioting outside in the street, but now, as I looked up into the sky, all the sounds faded away until it was utterly silent.
The moon was where they made their base when they arrived in our solar system 5 years previously. They set up lines of communication with governments, universities, and big business. We’re here to trade, they said. We’d be really excited if you had a working FTL drive, or some sort of teleporter,, but we’ll consider anything else.
We spent years talking and swapping technology. They obviously had the means to travel between the stars, but they wouldn’t share that. We got batteries which were slightly more efficient, medical scanners which were much more detailed than before; that sort of stuff. They liked our music and architecture, but we could tell that we didn’t have much to offer them.
We learned more about them. They had been working on teleportation for generations, but had had only limited success. They could take pea sized objects, and move them a few centimetres. Trying to move further, or using a bigger object, resulted in a loss of focus at the destination, which translated to certain death for any living being. Try to move a man one metre to his left and you ended up with a corpse. Move him ten metres and you had a large pile of ground beef. A kilometre and you had a cloud of gas.
When it became obvious that we had nothing to offer them they announced that they would take our planet, thanks very much. They invited us to watch while they demonstrated some of their failed teleportation technology. Although it wasn’t terribly good at teleportation, they said, it was terrifically useful for, say, moving heads of state ten metres to their left during live news conferences. It was also good at dealing with nuclear missiles and the like, as it turned out.
They had no intention of doing anything so uncouth as actually fighting us. What they planned on doing was focusing their teleport beam some distance above a city and displacing a large sphere of air. Keeping the beam turned on for an hour exposes the city to near vacuum, and all the humans are dead, but conveniently the buildings and infrastructure are intact. Do this to every conurbation and military base on Earth and any rural survivors can be mopped up later.
The beams started eight hours east of me, at local midnight, and worked their way west. Eight hours of screaming, rioting, sirens, house fires and explosions as the news spread. Now, as I sat on the hillside and looked up at the moon, the beam was turned on. For the first few seconds the wind bit at me as it rushed upwards, going faster and faster, and then fading away as the air got thinner and thinner. All the sounds faded away, I breathed out, my skin started to prickle, my chest hurt, and I knew I was dying.
With no atmosphere to hold it back the moon shone so brightly. The stars that we had never reached were so clear it was as if I could have reached out and picked them up. My eyes, and my body were failing, but the last thing I saw was the beautiful moon, familiar companion, old lover, and home of my killers.
by submission | Nov 29, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
Minerva City had a population of one thousand and greater financial resources than all but the largest countries. The great aerostatic city-state floated 50 kilometers above the surface of Venus and moved along in the super-rotating atmosphere at 300 kilometers per hour. The airborne habitation circled Venus every four Earth days even as the planet itself sluggishly completed a single rotation on its axis only once every 243 days.
Without Minerva Incorporated, the solar economy would collapse. Just as Earth was dotted with oil wells during the 20th and 21st centuries, the skies of 23rd century Venus were dotted with floating fuel refineries. The automated aerostat platforms mined the Venusian air for raw materials and processed them into fuel. Then the orbiting skyhooks hoisted the payloads into space where they entered long, cycling orbits between the inner planets. It was this cheap and plentiful commodity that was the lifeblood of interplanetary commerce.
Daniel Sperry, president and CEO of Minerva Incorporated, watched as the shuttlecraft that looked like a miniature version of Minerva City itself made its careful approach into the docking bay. Fifteen minutes later, Sperry found himself sharing a bottle of exorbitantly expensive wine with Ng Yeow Chye, the Prime Minister of Mars.
“Fifty thousand people. That’s what the population of Mars will be by the end of the century,” Ng said. “Aerostats are fine outposts, but a true civilization must be built on land.”
Sperry poured Ng more wine. “Why just fifty thousand? Why not five hundred thousand? Or a million?”
Ng knew that Sperry knew the answer to his own question. The habitation domes, of course. Each one was an engineering marvel, massive both in size and cost. Ng stood with the assistance of a powered exoskeleton. Venus’ 0.9 g of gravity was over twice that of Mars. “You have a proposal, Mr. Sperry?”
“Paraterraforming,” said Sperry as he tapped a control on the table. A holographic model of the solar system filled the room. Sperry showed Ng a dozen carefully selected comets that could be made to collide with Mars, their disintegrations and impacts thickening the red planet’s atmosphere by dozens of millibars. He showed him the massive drilling machines that could pierce the planet’s crust at six different locations around the equator. He showed him the six huge induction motors that he claimed could magnetically stir Mars’ liquid metal outer core until a magnetosphere enveloped the world. He showed him images of genetically engineered bacteria that could turn sterile Martian regolith into lush soil.
Over the course of three days, Sperry answered the Martian Prime Minister’s questions and translated arcane technicalities into layman’s terms. Sperry allayed his doubts with reassurances and met his skepticisms with a confidence that bordered on arrogance.
“Two hundred years to transform Mars?” he asked Ng with a laugh? “We’ll do it in twenty!”
Ng finally boarded his shuttlecraft and left Minerva City bound for Mars a veritable disciple of Sperry. After Ng was gone, Sperry sat alone in his study. He tapped a control on his desk and a hologram of Mars appeared before him, large areas of wasteland highlighted in blue. The marked real estate would be his payment for paraterraforming Mars. The image gradually changed to show what a transformed Mars would look like. The highlighted areas now described the borders of beachfronts and fertile plains.
“A true financial empire must be built on land,” Sperry said aloud with a smile. His desk’s display showed Minerva’s quarterly profits. Enough playing around with a few hundred trillion credits, he thought. Time to make some real money.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 28, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The agent had been a train wreck. Until just a few hours ago he’d been laid open like a can of tinned meat from his ear to the bloody stump that had been his left foot. Blue, the mechanic, had stopped counting the number of liters of fluid that had been pumped through him, gathered in the catch basin beneath, filtered and pumped through him again.
Messy business, special ops.
Along the side of the makeshift medical center hummed a bank of printers assembling replacement parts one micro-thin layer at a time. Several days ago they had produced a femur, a nearly full complement of ribs and the better part of a jawbone. Prior to the agents arrival they’d produced a complete foot mesh, from the cuneiform bones through the metatarsals to the phalanges, all from data retrieved from the agent’s medical records at Langley. Blue’s cultured tissue was rapidly turning that mesh back into what would soon be a working foot.
“We’ll have you dancing again in no time,” Blue joked, noting the pained look on the agent’s face.
As the damaged man’s body worked to assimilate the new components, the printers were now tasked with reprinting the missing body armour pieces and assorted tools the agent would require when redeployed. Assuming he made it through this rebuild.
“We’re not going to win any prizes for thread-work I’m afraid,” Blue tested the strength of the glue and suture-line holding the two halves of the agent together, “but then I don’t expect you’re out on many dates these days, are you?” Satisfied the seams were well on their way to healing, Blue crossed the narrow room to a workbench littered with freshly printed gun parts and the recovered barrel and firing assembly from a battle weary HK PSG.
At the end of the workbench, the quad-rotor recon drone chirped to indicate its batteries were fully charged, then silently disengaged its tether, lifted off the desktop and headed to the ceiling. A circular panel irised open, and the craft rose to hover again inside the light lock on its way into the night sky. There were two more agents unaccounted for.
“How… long…?” The agent spoke with apparent difficulty through a newly remanufactured face.
Blue walked back to the table where he could look the man in the eyes and ran down a deeply ingrained checklist.
“Twelve hours and we’ll have your kit printed, polished and put back together, which should coincide with the growth cycle of your new muscle almost exactly.” He checked off items on his fingers as he spoke. “Your gun, fortunately enough, is mostly intact and preliminary tests show your eyes are working fine with the fresh lenses, but we’ll need to calibrate them once you’re up and around. You’ve stopped leaking, which is always a good sign, so we’ve started pumping more specialized fuel into your system. I’m going to knock you out until we’re closer to redeployment as I expect your brain could use the rest your body sure as hell needs.”
Blue stopped there, staring into the blank yellow irises of the agent stretched supine before him.
“The only thing we can’t remanufacture is your will to reengage, you’re going to have dig deep and find that on your own.”
There was a pause, then the agent’s face twisted into a gross approximation of a smile.
“You sure I’ll be able to dance when you’re done with me?”
Blue laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Like Fred Astaire,” he said, hoping the reference wasn’t wasted.
“That’s great Doc,” the battered man chuckled, “I was never able to dance before.”
by Julian Miles | Nov 27, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
‘The night is yet young’ as my grandmother used to say. Apparently it was my grandfather’s favourite line before they’d go out and party. She told me about the two of them jetting off to Dubai for breakfast and always being in Shanghai for Chinese New Year. She also bemoaned the difficulty of remaining elegant in the face of a weekend of partying. It was difficult to be elegant on a Sunday evening when you hadn’t seen your wardrobe since Friday afternoon.
Fortunately, the times have caught up with the needs of the modern lady. Nanite refresher booths are a feature of every ladies room these days, and my nanofluidic couture allows me to vary my styles in response to the slightest need.
Tonight I am a belle dame from the Mississippi Riverboat era, swanning about in a flounced and ruffed creation appearing to be of jade velvet over black leather. My Personal Access Device is transformed into a pair of long lace gloves. Elegance at will.
“Christina, my dear. You look ravishing.”
His choice of words makes me smile. Carmody has a reputation for taking the ravishing bit all too seriously. But he knows that I know his tastes. He slides closer with a devastating smile in a face that cost a million. A shame that making his personality pretty is more than cosmetic science can accomplish.
“Why don’t we take a stroll somewhere quieter, mademoiselle?”
I am just about to tell him to fornicate and depart when my PAD clenches about my wrists as my dress locks up.
Carmody smiles: “Oh dear, cheap bodyware? Wonderful.”
My intent to shout for aid is pre-empted by my choker acting literally. Carmody is the very soul of attentiveness, helping me past concerned partygoers, onto the veranda and down into the bowers of the love gardens. The bastard is using a slaver program to turn my couture into a prison. I think about what I’m actually wearing and realise I am, to put it politely, vulnerable to manipulation.
Carmody walks through the starlit evening to a remote nook containing a low table, with me accompanying him like a meal in a serving-droid.
“I think we’ll start with obscene and get inventive from there. Any objections? Thought not.”
Bastard bastard rapist bastard. I am striving to remain calm when Carmody emits a falsetto shriek and collapses rigidly, his face slamming into the gravel with a satisfying crunch. A figure steps into view as my couture rushes to cover my nakedness.
“My apologies for being a tad late, Miss Christina. Your brother’s compliments; he felt that you would object if he insisted that you employed a Safeguard.”
Safeguards are personal bodyguards trained, enhanced and equipped with the latest countermeasures for just about anything. Using them is deemed as gauche, but after tonight, I’m a convert.
He offers his hand and pulls me up without effort. His impeccable couture changes colour and style to complement mine as I take in his two-metre tall frame. I could become accustomed to this. Turning slightly, I nudge Carmody with my toe.
“What happened to him?”
“I thought it best to dampen his ardour by restricting the volume of his codpiece as I locked his couture. The servants will take him to the gatehouse for collection by the Police.”
I like the edge to his voice as he describes defending me, but I have to confirm my suspicions: “What volume, exactly?”
He actually blushes.
“Five cubic centimetres.”
I laugh. My Safeguard and I are going to get along just fine.
by Clint Wilson | Nov 26, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
The secretary general entered the command center with her entourage. She walked directly toward me, an imposing figure. Although we had not yet met in person she obviously knew I was the team leader. Dispensing with any formalities she got right to the point.
“So Doctor Grant, I am told that you and your team have deciphered WOW2020?”
“I uh…” clearing my throat I quickly composed myself. “Ahem, yes, the signal detected some three months ago apparently coming from the direction of Hoag’s Object, an odd ring galaxy some 600 million light years distant, has been baffling us up to now…”
She interrupted, “I know where the signal comes from Doctor, you can skip the science lesson. I’m here to find out what it says.”
“Yes, of course,” I apologized. “Um, as I was saying, we were baffled,” I turned and reached out to the mega decoder humming and blinking there in the center of the room, “But not this baby.” I smiled and patted the top of the Cray Translator Array, a ten-meter long bank of super computers working in unison, enough calculating power to state pi to some ten trillion places. “The signal is extremely complex but the decoder has been able to break it down into a comprehensible message.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Comprehensible how?”
“Oh, why plain English of course.”
She exchanged a glance with one of her aids and turned back to me. “Okay Doc, I’m waiting.”
“Yes… as you will soon hear, we have run the translation through a basic voice modulator.”
The eyebrow went up again as she wondered at my unfamiliar technical term.
“Oh,” I clarified, “It will sound like Doctor Stephen Hawking.” And with that I turned to my console and typed in a command.
Suddenly loudspeakers blared throughout the room as everyone stood listening intently.
“I AM THE KNOWLEDGE FACILITATOR. I EXIST TO EDUCATE THOSE WHO DEVELOP THE INTELLIGENCE TO WONDER AND UNDERSTAND. I AM A NATURALLY OCCURING PHENOMENOM, EVOLVING OVER EONS FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PROPERTIES OF THE UNIVERSE. I AM NO LIVING THING YET I AM HERE TO SERVE ALL LIVING THINGS. SINCE YOU HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN TRANSLATING MY MESSAGE, WE NOW SPEAK EACH OTHER’S LANGUAGES. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK ME ANYTHING YOU DESIRE TO LEARN.”
I turned to her smiling.
She said very bluntly, “That’s it?”
I blinked several times then, “I don’t understand… do you not find it wonderful?”
She stepped closer. “I’m not a complete idiot Doctor.” She poked me in the chest. “How the hell are we supposed to ask it questions when it will take over half a billion years to send a signal back?”
I brightened up. “But that’s the thing you see Madam Secretary, we’ve already asked it our first question!”
“You what?” She looked around at her entourage seemingly furious. “Did anyone else know about this?”
She was greeted only with nervous mumbles, shrugs and averted eyes. Seeing she was getting nowhere she turned back to me and poked me in my chest again, this time much harder. “Well then Doctor, I feel like I’m going to regret this but, exactly what question did you ask it?”
I tugged at my collar. It suddenly felt very warm in the command center. “We uh, we asked it if there was any quicker way to send messages back and forth.”
She stood there motionless for a moment, then shrugged thoughtfully. “Hmm, makes sense I guess.” Then she leaned forward smiling nastily, “Now how about we ask it why I still feel like slapping you?”
