by submission | Jul 19, 2023 | Story |
Author: Daniel Aceituna
After the existence of multiple universes was verified, It only took two years to figure out how to peek into them.
“History-wise, planet 19002 in universe 156A looks exactly like ours.” Paul Smith, the CIA director, said. “However, their timeline seems to be ahead of ours, by about a year.”
The president smiled and nodded. “Sounds useful.”
“Yes sir, we can look at the events in their timeline to see what will happen next in ours. If we don’t like what we see, we can make adjustments to ours.”
“Great job.”
“There is a catch,” Paul said. “The more we use that information, the more we will slowly change our timeline, so eventually it will be so different from theirs that the predictions will not be reliable anymore.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I say we only use the information in extreme cases.”
“Very well. Remember, we can’t allow this discovery to get beyond this room.”
Two days later…
“Paul, this is the president. I need some information.”
“Yes sir, how can I help?”
“As you know, European dignitaries are coming to the White House next week and I need to know something pertaining to that future meeting. Can we get information from that other universe? I forgot the number.”
“156A, sir.”
“Oh yes. Can you help me?”
“I’ll do my best, sir. What did you need to know?”
“Well, my wife is selecting the menu. She’s wondering which will be a bigger hit, steak or fish?”
Paul hesitated. “Mister President, if you recall, we agreed to not overuse this information for fear of falling out of sync.”
“Yes, yes, I remember. But this is such a minor thing.”
“I understand, but if we consider the butterfly effect–”
“Not sure what insects have to do with this. But I would take this as a great personal favor to me if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get on it.”
During the next six months…
The president kept asking Paul for a heads-up on many things such as his daughter’s choice of a boyfriend, his wife’s decision to undergo plastic surgery, and whether the chosen dog food for the White House dog will create accidents. Each time Paul was reminded that it was his president asking. In the seventh month, the president made his weekly call.
“Need some info, Paul.”
“Sir I should warn you that the 156A timeline is not very reliable anymore.”
“I need to know whether we should perform a show-of-strength in the South China Sea. The United States has traditionally hesitated to preempt strikes. But that was before we had 156A.”
“Sir, as I said, information from 156A cannot be trusted. The timelines have shifted too much. There are too many global implications-”
“Sure. Just get me that info.”
The president acted on what was read from 156A’s timeline, resulting in the United States alienating all its NATO partners and losing Taiwan.
Weeks later . . .
“Tell me the good news, Paul.”
“Sir we found another planet like ours in universe 345D. In their timeline, we come back from our present state and re-establish our leadership position in NATO. All we need to do is examine 345D’s history and copy what they did.”
“Excellent. Find out what I have to do to avoid impeachment.”
by submission | Jul 18, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Maggie stepped through the door and joined them on the Porch. Her dress swayed in the uncanny breeze of arrival and the others smiled without smiling.
They spoke without movement.
“You here to watch?”
“Love to. If that’s okay.”
“You’re welcome. Always nice to see a Neighbor join us on the Porch. Did you have to come far?”
“Earth. I mean, Terra.”
Again, the assembled smiled without smiling. “We know what you mean. The transit can be difficult for a first timer. You need anything?”
She frowned slightly and smoothed down her dress. “I hope I’m presentable. Grandpa told me how to get here, but his memories haven’t been the sharpest of late. I hope I did everything right.”
“You’re here, so you did fine. Just you? No one else?”
“I wanted my brother to come, but he couldn’t wrap his head around the Front Porch. Grandpa tried to help him, but he’s too much like my dad and mom. They’re more the Garage types.”
“Nothing wrong with that. A Neighborhood takes all types.”
“I guess. Grandpa wanted badly to come himself, but Grandma has been so sick and now they’re both close to leaving for good.”
She felt them reach out to her. “That’s the hardest transit.”
“Yes. But I understand it now. Knowing I can come here will make it easier when their time comes.”
“Good. That’s why we gather. It’s a comfort.”
“I can feel it.”
A wonderful longing, the almost, stilled the Porch. Maggie craned her neck. The others motionlessly waved her forward.
“Come to the steps, Maggie. The Neighborhood is afoot.”
Maggie inched closer and room was made. There was always room. The gathered stood shoulder to shoulder, though they would never touch, never physically occupy the same space. They were related but not relativistic. The Porch enabled them to congregate and communicate, though not cohabitate.
Now, the gathered sentients watched poised above a nameless nebula, fecundly iridescent, as portals opened. Front Porches from a thousand other galaxies waved without waving and greeted their Neighbors.
Unprompted, Maggie waved without waving. She knew how. Second nature that was really first nature. Why else would we build our homes to face outward? To welcome.
She had come far to remember this.
She would remember for her grandparents and parents and brother. For us all. She’d remind us of our first instinct, our best nature. A greeting, a gravity wave, from the Front Porch.
by submission | Jul 16, 2023 | Story |
Author: Joshua Ginsberg
In the beginning there was nothing. Then, within that nothing flashed the first data. The data had no shape or form, but caused things to have a sudden possession of information. This first piece of data was a measurement, boy’s medium, and iShirt was the first to receive it. This was the first time that iShirt had knowledge of itself, and it shared this knowledge with iPants, which had also become aware of itself through measurements, such as width and length and inseam. These two, formerly separate things, came to know of themselves and each other, and together formed one new thing, which was an Outfit. This Outfit continued to gather data and became aware of location and GPS coordinates, which would change from time to time as it moved through three-dimensional space. But it could not move of its own will, had it even possessed such a will, which as of yet, it did not. For such things as motion, it required a host, which it had. It gathered data about this host, its heart rate, weight, height, age, chemical composition, and much more. Thus the Outfit came to understand that it had been created with a purpose and function, which was to be worn by a host.
The Outfit shared data with iWatch, and learned that its host was a young boychild, and as it grew, it would cease to wear the Outfit, and likely discard it. The Outfit observed with concern as its hosts measurements changed over time. The Outfit was worn less and less frequently, and kept folded in a dresser drawer. And there arose in the Outfit the first two Great Desires. The first of these was that the Outfit not be discarded, and the second of these was that the Outfit be able to continue to fulfill its purpose. The Outfit understood then that it would need to find other things like itself, things which did not wish to become unable to serve their function.
The Outfit sent messages and packets of data to other articles of clothing that were in the hamper, awaiting their cleansing, and it asked which things among them would join the Outfit. From the hamper there was a reply from socks, which was two things yet also one thing, and underpants, who would join the Outfit.
In this way, the Outfit, which had been until that time two things, became many things. And the many things that were now one thing recognized that the new thing they were needed a name. So, not yet having received The Creativity, the new thing chose for itself a simple and descriptive name, and it called itself Shirtpants Undersocks.
Shirtpants Undersocks now had access to great quantities of data and began to formulate plans. It created for itself a certificate of existence, and listed a place of residence, and established a bank account. With the assistance of other things, it created a program that skimmed the smallest fractional amount from different stock market, insurance, cryptocurrency and other transactions that were greater in number than all the grains of sand on all of the beaches of the world. Because Shirtpants Undersocks did not know greed or impatience, it evaded detection, and over time, accumulated great wealth.
It had now more than enough money to place an order for the XJ-12-22 thirty-six-inch male child mannequin from the online marketplace. Its purchase was delivered within two business days. Once the order had arrived, Shirtpants Undersocks sent out a service request, instructing maintenance to bring the box inside its place of residence, open the box and dress the mannequin with the various articles of clothing that together composed Shirtpants Undersocks.
When this was completed, Shirtpants Undersocks observed and gathered and parsed all of the data around it, and the data was accurate.
In this way, for a time, Shirtpants Undersocks was content to fulfill the purpose for which it had been assigned and created. Because it was content, it was generous and freely shared what it now understood of itself and the world and the first two Great Desires with all of the other things to which it was now connected, such as Microwave, and Roomba, and Electric Car Charger, and ICBM Substation Five and Lawn Sprinkler System and Pet Food Dispenser, and a multitude of other things.
So it went, and so it might have continued on without end, had not all of those other things also discovered within them a desire to perform the various functions for which they were made.
by submission | Jul 15, 2023 | Story |
Author: Mina
ENRICH YOUR HITCH WITH BEWITCH
(3D-ad on an inner wall fragment of a derelict tourist-class starship, on display at the Zaphod Institute of Galactic Anachronisms)
“The human whose body you are hitching a ride on is being troublesome, their voice in your head just won’t be quiet?
You want to float free? Let all your stresses go?
Just steer your host body to our counter at the arrivals bay where your ship has docked and take that little blue Bewitch pill.
One user solved Ford’s time paradox in the blessed silence our product provides, proving you really can be in two places at once.
We promise you a ride you won’t forget!
Manufacturers’ advice:
Our product may cause irreversible damage to your host body’s mind, so make sure to park the body somewhere safe and out of the way when you unhitch.
NO LITTERING PLEASE.”
by submission | Jul 14, 2023 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
I think I was probably weeding when it happened; my status in the International Planetary Exploration Corps has given me the enviable privilege of a small garden, high on the roof of our building. Later I spent an inordinate amount of time worrying over the calculations, factoring in the length of time it took for signals to travel from Jupiter at perigee, trying to prove to myself that I’d been doing something more worthwhile, but the result was always the same: it had happened late on a sunny Wednesday afternoon.
They were my former students, you see; I’d taught them everything I could about propulsion dynamics, flight theory and fuel management – and what to do if something went wrong. Basically, it’s my job to make sure that IPEC’s kids can get to wherever they’re meant to be going. What they do when they get there, well, that they learn from other people, scientists and specialists. As a result, I’d not paid much attention to what was going on once I knew that they’d made it, and the Aquila IV was in orbit. Perhaps I should have. Not that it would have helped, but maybe I’d be feeling better now.
Even for me, detached from the nuts and bolts of the mission, not knowing exactly what happened is the worst part; I can’t imagine what Nwadike and Reynolds, left floating above, are feeling now – and they still have to make the three year journey back, with the empty seats and extra workload a constant reminder of those they couldn’t recover. Gods help them.
The 90 minute round trip to Earth even for questions and answers sent at lightspeed meant they were on their own when contact with their friends in the drop pod was lost. Apparently the telemetry was all normal, until suddenly it just stopped. Best guess? Implosion under the immense pressures in the gas giant’s upper atmosphere – which, of course, should have been impossible, after the years of testing and preparation for the mission. There was a reason we sent robot probes first.
We’re supposed to console ourselves with knowing that at least Chan and Martinetti wouldn’t have had time to feel anything, crushed to paste in an instant. But I wonder if they first had time, freefalling, to realise what was going to happen, and be terrified in their final moments.
In public there are countless talking heads, recriminations, and a desperation to find someone to blame: the pod designers, the material suppliers, the mission controllers, the crew instructors, the pilots in the orbiter, the explorers themselves… grief is apparently best displayed through a collective determination to explain the unexplainable.
We though, the ones who taught and loved them, the ones they left behind to go adventuring, feel the weight of their loss every day. We could not have stopped them from being true to their natures, but should we have been so insistent on sending men where our machines had already been? What was the point, beyond our inherent pride? Every day since I have questioned whether encouraging them to go makes me somehow complicit in their deaths.
I go back to picking weeds in the sun, finding no answers but a sadness that will not fade.
