by submission | Nov 19, 2020 | Story |
Author: Dick Narvett
It sat on the shelf behind a T-Rex action figure and a feminist coffee mug with the saying “If they can put a man on the moon, why not all of them?”
Finding a laptop in Mr. Chapa’s secondhand shop was like discovering an Apple watch on an Egyptian mummy. Vern latched on to it immediately. It was the size of an IBM Thinkpad, yet felt incredibly light. It carried no manufacturer’s markings.
He had come to this place of discarded treasures to find a gift for his girlfriend. The occasion was the first anniversary of their life together. The laptop, however, had brought out the geek in him. He felt guilty about buying it, but eased his conscience by picking up the mug for Elena.
Vern carried his finds to the shop-owner’s desk. “Ah… Excuse me, Mr. Chapa. I’m wondering if this laptop works, and how much you want for it. It isn’t marked.”
Mr. Chapa looked up from his jigsaw puzzle. “If it works? Who knows? You found it where?… Never mind. Twenty dollars.”
Smiling, Vern handed Mr. Chapa a twenty, plus another dollar for the mug, and headed out the door into the brisk, morning air.
***
The next time Mr. Chapa looked up it was to the sound of heavy breathing, as if someone were rushing to catch a departing flight. A most unusual customer stood before him. The man’s features seemed exaggerated, yet were indistinctive. He could just as easily been in his twenties as in his fifties. His black hair, perfectly parted to one side, lay flat against his head as though painted on. He was smartly dressed in beltless, black slacks and a long-sleeved, blue shirt with no buttons.
“The computer… where is it? I must have it!” The man’s lips moved as he spoke, but he exposed no teeth.
“Computers! I have no computers,” Mr. Chapa said. “My only one I sold this morning.”
“You sold it? To whom? I must know!”
Mr. Chapa pointed out the window. “It is surely none of your business, but to the young man who rents that house across the street.”
The strange man turned and raced awkwardly to the door.
Mr. Chapa shook his head. “You would think it a matter of life or death this computer,” he muttered.
***
Elena poured the fresh-brewed coffee into her mug. “I hope you didn’t spend all of next month’s rent money on this fine present,” she yelled.
Vern called to her from the next room. “Lena, come here. Looks like this baby works. It’s firing up.”
Elena carried her coffee to the living room where Vern’s newfound laptop was just coming to life on his desk. The screen lit a soft red. The dark outline of a circle formed with an arrow protruding from the two o’clock position.
“What kind of operating system is that? Looks like the symbol for a male,” she said.
“Or Mars.”
“Mars?”
“Yeah, it’s also the alchemical symbol for the planet Mars.”
The symbol slowly faded, leaving a lone folder marked ‘Avatars’ on the computer’s desktop.
“Looks like the machine’s pretty clean except for this,” Vern said. He clicked open the folder. A list of individual files appeared, each labeled with first and last names.
Just then they heard a pounding. Elena looked toward the front door. “What the…”
The pounding grew louder and more frantic. Vern right-clicked on the folder and hit delete, then quickly rose from his chair to investigate the clamor.
By the time he reached the door, the pounding had stopped. He looked out. The street was empty.
by submission | Dec 6, 2023 | Story |
Author: J.D. Rice
The cracks on the planet’s surface grow slowly at first, and silently. From the safety of my spacecraft, I suppose even the most violent of eruptions would be silent.
It doesn’t take long before the magma begins to appear, bubbling up from the surface, erupting into great plumes. But as the cracks continue to spread, like the tendrils of some great beast trying to consume the planet, the lava dips back below the surface. The atmosphere is similarly thrown into chaos, blown away by the force of the eruption one minute, then sucked back in as the cracks deepen.
I hold the detonator in my hand, my knuckles white.
The gravity bomb is doing its work.
In mere minutes, the surface of the planet is completely obscured. Water vapor and volcanic ash swirl and mix and hide the crumbling surface from view. The cities are surely all destroyed by now, the people wiped out in a sudden, unexpected cataclysm. I know I cannot hear their screams, but their voices echo in my imagination all the same.
I watch in numb horror, in morbid fascination, in terror at my own actions, as the entire event plays out. The planet soon to be replaced by a quiet, dark singularity. Same matter, same gravity, but not a remnant of the planet and its people remaining.
It takes less than an hour.
When all is finally still, I try to take a deep breath. The best I can manage is a short gasp, as if my body has forgotten how to breathe. Each breath that comes after is labored, forced in and out by a body that knows it must live, but with a mind that cannot possibly function after witnessing such destruction. It’s a burden a rational mind should never have to bear, a decision that I know I will regret for the rest of my life.
And still. . . I’d do it again.
I wasn’t driven to this choice by madness, but by reason. A clear, logical choice.
It was them or us.
Deep in the belly of this ship, locked behind a thousand security measures designed to prevent tampering or sabotage, is a device – the Temporal Observation Matrix, or Tom, as my fellow scientists have called it. It took our thinktank decades to develop, years to test, and for me. . . only a few short minutes to reveal the horrible truth.
This planet, this species, they would be our undoing. In a few short years, we would come into conflict – an unavoidable, unspeakable conflict. And they would win. They would destroy our homeworld. Not in a sudden, brilliant collapse. But slowly. Haphazardly. In the name of ending the war and winning the peace, they would gradually end us. With as much unintended suffering and good intentions as you can imagine. Slow and painful. The opposite of the death I just granted them.
What else could I have done? It was them or us.
I tell myself this same mantra, over and over, even as I suppress the urge to hurl the detonator against the wall. Even as my body twitches, every neuron screaming for me to run before this goes any further. But I know I must continue.
There are still the colonies to consider.
My hands move, urged on by the part of my brain that is still able to isolate itself from my emotions, and I begin pulling up the local charts for this star system.
Yes, there will be colonies. There will be research labs, satellites, biospheres, colony ships, little nests of resistance where this species can survive, regrow, and come back for revenge.
I have to do it again.
And again.
And again.
As many times as necessary.
My chest feels tight as I let my hands do their work, charting a course all across the system to snuff out each and every one of them. My FTL drive will get me there before the light of the planet even disappears from their satellites. And I’ll end them. Quickly. Methodically. Without suffering or pain.
Tom has shown me the only path to survival.
Even as I hesitate to ignite my engines and make for my next target, Tom is down there. Gathering the data. Reading the future. Assuring me of the rightness of my actions.
It was them or us.
But somewhere, in a part of my mind I won’t acknowledge, I know the second half of that terrible platitude.
Maybe it should have been us.
by submission | Aug 25, 2022 | Story |
Author: Steven French
“Professor? If you’d just like to press the button, that’ll initiate the experiment.”
Professor Sarah Roberts looked around the control room, with satisfaction and pride. It had taken so long to put all this together, starting from that first idea, only roughly sketched in conversation with a graduate student as they barrelled down the motorway to some conference or other. She remembered those long days in the office, drafting and redrafting grant applications, only to have them rejected in turn by all the major funding agencies.
“Unintended consequences my arse!” she thought.
And so, in desperation she had turned to the one funder she had always said she wouldn’t apply to, the one supported by someone who described himself as a ‘cosmology buff’ but who was also the owner of a nationwide chain of stores selling powertools named, amusingly enough, ‘The Will to Power’. She remembered her anxiety before the interview but also how the questions didn’t seem that hard, the concerns about safety protocols not that deep, the worry about possible consequences so slight she felt all the calm reassurances she had lined up were actually wasted.
She also remembered that surge of elation when she got the call and the feeling that now, finally, she stood above her erstwhile peers. She knew what they thought of her, those old men who had dismissed her work and laughed at her behind her back.
Construction stretched over months and into years, with setbacks and challenges, some expected, others not so much. And then it was done. Her device, her great machine, ready to be switched on and create something that had never been created before, something that would usher in a new understanding of the universe, with all the attendant plaudits and prizes.
‘Professor? Are you ready?’
Sarah shook herself from her reverie and cleared her throat.
“This will be the first manmade, or should I say, woman-made black hole ever created,” she announced and her team of scientists and technicians chuckled along with her.
“There were some who opposed my dream, our dream”, she continued, “who threw up objections, who said it was too expensive, who even declared that space-time itself would be disrupted by what we’re about to create.” There was more laughter, some of it a little nervous this time.
“Well,” she finished, “we shall show them how wrong they were as we draw back the curtain on a bright new future!”
And with a flourish, she firmly pressed the button on the panel in front of her. There was no flash, no ominous rumbling, just a lurching sense of reality being twisted into a new shape. Sarah grabbed at the edge of the panel and for a brief moment, closed her eyes.
…
“Professor? If you’d just like to press the button, that’ll initiate the experiment.”
by submission | Mar 12, 2017 | Story |
Author : D.J. Rozell
Agent Jackson sat down across the table from the bio-hacker and started in before the guy had a chance to size him up, “We’re not here to collect evidence – we’ve got plenty of that – but to discuss motives. Clearly you are a genius.” The agent was priming the pump. “So, why use your considerable talents for this?”
“Well, as the media correctly surmised, my little experiment had a social agenda. I decided to give the world a nudge in the right direction.”
“That was some nudge,” Agent Jackson remained polite despite the annoying false modesty.
“True, my expectations have been exceeded.”
“How so?”
“Well, as you know, the virus copies the genetic material of an infected male to a subsequent infected male’s sperm, but only those with Y chromosomes. The result is male offspring with random paternal genetic origin, but female offspring that still bear the original parents’ genes. This manages to preserve both the traditional mate selection process and the basis for families while at the same time elevating the status of females in society. I’m pleased to see that nobody prefers male children anymore.”
“Except for families in isolationist compounds and the wealthy who can afford sorted in vitro fertilization.”
“One virus can’t fix every problem…”
“Yeah, back to the main point. Did you actually think you could end sexism with a viral infection?”
“End, no. Greatly diminish, yes.” The bio-hacker was getting more animated. “The current generation of children already accepts the new paradigm. Unless a vaccine is developed soon, motivation to return to the old ways will quickly fade.”
“What about men with genetic diseases who were ostracized or worse?”
The bio-hacker inspected the table, “Every technology has unintended consequences.”
“Unintended consequences?” said the speaker in the wall. Agent Williams was standing on the other side of the mirrored glass. His marriage had been part of the early collateral damage of the virus before scientists realized what was happening.
Agent Jackson segued, “Yes, one unintended consequence has been for our profession. Violence has emptied some countries of bioengineers, while others are stockpiling them like weapons. So, the real reason we have you here is to offer you a job.”
“Why?” The bio-hacker was faking surprise.
“Reformed bio-hackers are the best security specialists.”
“What if I say no?” Now he was trying to bargain.
“We go public with your identity. Long trial. Life in prison.” There was a long pause.
“OK, I’m in.”
“Good. The official story will be that the virus was created by a scientist that died three years ago. Case closed. Meanwhile, you create a treatment and vaccine.” The bio-hacker’s eyes narrowed. “Consider it the appropriate conclusion of your ‘experiment.’ A good scientist always cleans up when done. Right?”
The bio-hacker brightened and leaned in, “Actually, now that we’re colleagues, I think you’ll be more interested in what I’ve been working on since the first release. It’s a benign bacterium that will end religious conflict.”
“Very interesting. Excuse me for a moment.”
Agent Jackson and Williams had a brief discussion and then sent the bio-hacker home with a handshake and some paperwork to complete. Agent Williams made a phone call. Later that evening, the bio-hacker would be abducted by an isolationists group in black ninja-like biohazard suits. Agent Williams said it was apropos – vigilante justice for vigilante science. Meanwhile, Agent Jackson erased all records of the day. Then, both agents went home to enjoy their Father’s Day weekend.
by submission | Oct 2, 2014 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
“Your hot coffee, sir,” says the Inteeri waiter as he places the beverage on the table in front of me.
“Thanks. Here’s–” The short alien that looks vaguely like an anthropomorphic armadillo shuffles away before I can offer him a tip. At no time while serving me does he make eye contact. That was out of respect. And fear. I’m nobody important. Just a struggling writer. My waiter probably has more money in the bank than I have. But in his eyes — all six of them — it doesn’t matter. I’m a member of the galaxy’s most terrifying species. I’m human.
My old man was part of the delegation that made first contact with the Inteeri. The aliens weren’t sure if mankind posed a threat to them so their top military officials were tasked with the initial assessment of the human race. On a space station orbiting Inteer Secundum, my dad and the other human ambassadors met with the alien generals and admirals. One of the human delegates had a slight cold. He sneezed once during the meeting. An hour later the entire Inteeri High Command were dead. The earthly rhinovirus proved instantly lethal. With their military command gutted, the Inteeri political leaders unconditionally surrendered to Earth despite the reassurances of a distraught and horrified humanity that the Inteeri deaths were an unintended tragedy.
Someone or something jostles me as it moves past. Some of my coffee spills onto the table. I turn in my chair to come face to face with a rather surly looking Kordann. The creature’s eyestalks quickly withdraw from a beligerent extension to a submissive retraction as its leathery skin turns blue with fear.
“Ten thousand pardons, master,” the Kordann says through its translation device as it glides away on six tentacles, bowing in apology.
Humans made contact with the Kordann ten years after the disastrous Inteeri encounter. Again, the Biomedical Assessment Team determined there was little danger of contagion between the species. Nonetheless, the Earth delegates wore environment suits as a precaution. As the human ambassador walked up with his hand extended to the Kordann prime minister, he tripped. The Earthman’s hand struck the Kordann leader’s trachea, killing the latter. The details of this event bore a more than passing resemblance to a passage in the Kordann Book of Scripture prophesying a visitor from the heavens who would kill a Kordann ruler and establish a monarchy on their world. The religious-minded Kordann quickly submitted.
And so it would go for Mankind’s emmisaries to the stars. The Scottish brogue of Earth’s ambassador to the Relvet would result in “We come in peace and brotherhood” being mistranslated as “Surrender and serve, or die.” In the wake of the fall of both Inteer Secundum and Kordanna, the Relvet surrendered.
On Basura VII, the representative from Earth accidentally knocked over his water glass short-circuiting the computer that managed the Basuran Stock Exchange. A crippling recession and humble request that Basura VII be admitted to the growing Terran Empire followed. The Supreme Monarch of Juppnoi, finding himself trapped on a conference table by the barking Maltese dog of the Earth diplomat, abdicated the throne and turned the Juppnoi Kingdom over to Terran control.
Humanity now dominates much of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. But we’ve turned over all further first contact and diplomatic missions to our extraterrestrial vassal states. A population of 50 billion subjects, none of whom we wanted, is more than enough.
