by submission | Feb 21, 2019 | Story |
Author: Suzanne Borchers
I’m one of three applying for the position of Assistant to the Chairman. Why me? My parents placed my application to the Great One.
Mother’s favorite story is about my birth. Daddy laughed, hugged me close to his chest, and called me his little lamb.
I grew up in Cumulous City, high above the drudges mining minerals and gems for our Chairman’s government. Daddy made sacrifices so my wardrobe was the finest in the city. He told me stories about our Chairman–his strength, his wealth, his love for his people.
And here I am awaiting his arrival. My parents told me not to worry, that I would be chosen. I am quiet, unrivaled in beauty, and mature for my thirteen years. Yet I shiver, knowing that if I’m not chosen, I could die.
We applicants stand before the throne and await the Great One. The Chairman’s Board circles us. The Followers stand off to the side, my parents in front.
On my left is Jax. My face heats at his beauty–his black curly hair and graceful curve of aquiline nose. He wears his planet’s tunic of silver. On my right is Aal. His appendages are placed without direction or order. Before I can lower my gaze, he smiles at me. My stomach heaves and I turn away.
With the sound of a gong, the Chairman enters. His unlined, clean-shaven face beams goodness. His large hands clasp together in our universal sign of peace. He radiates youth although he is old.
The Chairman sits and motions Jax forward. Jax’s fluid steps are confident. His tunic shimmers. He kneels. Of course, Jax will be chosen. Shaking, I glance at my parents. They smile at me.
A bolt of energy surges from the Great One’s hand.
“No!” I gasp.
Jax collapses and is dragged away by the Chairman’s guards.
The Chairman announces, “I knew Jax to be prideful and I felt his need to be purged of it.”
His Followers chant, “Our hearts and minds are yours!”
The Great One smiles and motions Aal forward. Aal’s eyes moisten and his appendages churn until he’s before the Chairman. His body shakes. His red tunic drips sweat.
He’s afraid like me! Tears fill my eyes.
Silence.
A bolt of energy surges into Aal’s body, twisting him around before he falls.
My eyes hold his until his eyes see nothing.
I breathe out a sob.
Aal is kicked from the room.
The Followers cheer.
The Chairman giggles. “I knew Aal’s embarrassment at ugliness and his need to be purged of it.”
I brush away a tear.
The Followers’ chants ring throughout the room until the Great One raises his impressive hand.
He crooks his finger at me. I turn toward my father, who motions me forward to the Great One.
I force my legs to move. My knees tremble as I stumble to the Chairman.
I bow my head and kneel, waiting for the arc of pain. It seems hours as I focus on his giant feet. His shoes glow black.
One hand caresses my scrubbed face before he lifts my chin, forcing me to face him.
His other hand cups one of my heavy breasts and squeezes it, hard. He whispers, “There is no need for an Assistant. I have just one need.” My breast throbs with pain. “You’ll learn.”
My father joins the Board Members’ circle. He doesn’t look back at me.
Moaning, I remember his words, “My little lamb.”
by submission | Feb 20, 2019 | Story |
Author: David Barber
Nova Education was paying Jacee Egan a pittance to interview famous scientists. Nova hoped the links would make their failing on-line physics course less dull. It’s not about the science, they insisted. Give it a human face.
Nobel-winner Darius Smalling was long dead, but this Blount woman had been a student of his. She seemed fascinated by the recorder on the table between them. Top of the range holographic. He’d still be paying for it when it was obsolete.
“Need a level check, Doctor.”
“Who did you say you worked for?”
“I work to free the facts, Doc. FTF.”
She was spry for her age, but tendons stood out on her neck, and her flesh was a map of wrinkles and age spots. A woman that old should cover up more.
Thought so, she sighed. Had to be sure.
The old girl was long past her sell-by date.
“So, Dr. Blount, you worked with Darius Smalling on the Quantum Hyperstate Project.”
“My Ph.D. supervisor, yes. A great man. Chen was brilliant too. I thought myself lucky.”
He’d looked it up beforehand. Seemed like the famous Darius Smalling had been onto something. Physics beyond the Standard Model. Hints of faster than light. Hints of time-reversed particles. All a bust. Faulty concept. Faulty claims. Smalling retired under a cloud. Chen got religion. And young Blount switched to medicine.
“But wasn’t there a scandal?” Serious face for the edit. “Talk of fabricated results?” Then if she looks shifty, nice link to the issue of fraud in science today.
“No, it was a complete success. On the very first run, we got a signal from ten minutes into the future.”
His interview face slipped.
“In fact, Professor Smalling poisoned the well deliberately. To make sure nobody followed up his work. Because the signal contained information. You could picture the future.”
The old bird was rambling. The plot of some TV show from half a century ago.
“You could see yourself on screen, holding a coffee mug, ten minutes from now. First thing Chen asked. What happens to that future, if you don’t pick up the mug.”
How was he supposed to get anything useful out of this?
“What do you think would happen?” she asked sharply, catching him out.
He was busy nodding. Nodding was good for linking edits. “Well, if you saw him holding it, then…”
“A test of free will, yes.”
Jacee smiled uncertainly. The QHP had ruined several careers, but in her ramshackle memory everything turned out fine.
“I don’t think the Professor trusted Chen to keep quiet. So we checked ourselves out. Professor Smalling watched himself die in a car crash. And Chen’s retirement into obscurity. Only Doctor Blount, paediatrician, spills the beans fifty years on.”
“For a moment there, Doc…”
“Imagine if it became known. The kind of world where you’re not responsible for a crime because you couldn’t do any different.”
They stared at one another.
Useless for Nova maybe, but a nice piece for the Net.
The recorder had a good heft to it; lenses and batteries and so forth. It didn’t feel like she was being forced to act, any more than wanting to confess the truth at last. And she’d seen this before, the hack making a grab for his precious equipment.
She can never remember whether it takes four or five, so she goes for five whacks to be sure. Then she fries the recorder memory with mains AC.
It’s taken fifty years, but finally, she’s free. Finally, she doesn’t know what happens next.
by submission | Feb 17, 2019 | Story |
Author: Gerard Baars
Surging forward he crosses the sonic boom, his toned body unaffected by the turbulent forces. Accelerating he hits the second boom. Then the third, fourth… G-forces now threaten to rip his body to shreds, but his perfect physique shrugs it off. Hairless, naked except for the streamlined genital sack, he pushes on, emotionally dead, but mentally alert, consciously slips his mind into a higher sphere.
He skirts the wide circular arc, pushing his angular momentum to the max. Perfectly balanced between the competing circular forces he sails on. Aware of the approaching challenge he moulds his body into an extended pencil shape. Taking a deep breath he hurtles into the vacuum tube of the hadron collider. The magnetic fields increase his velocity the more. Homo sapiens has breached another evolutionary barrier. Aware of the laser photons speeding towards him from the left, he eggs his body on. Closing in on the collision point he blanks his mind and gains a few vital metres per second. Rushing forward, ever forward he senses the blinding light of the beam to his left and powers through with a few nanoseconds to spare. The laser beam hits the opposite wall, breaches the tube and the shock wave surges towards him. Mentally he has flattened his feet to receive the shock wave. It hits him and instead of engulfing him, forces his body forward even faster.
Now into free space again, he senses a dimensional portal ahead. Moving is right elbow millimetrically, he deviates into the new dimension. Not slowing his forward movement, his mind wallows in the peace, leaving the stress of his near annihilation behind. But he quickly recovers not allowing this ennui to slow him down, and takes the next portal back into his own dimension. An energy barrier approaches and he takes the jump. One, two, three levels higher. Yes, he is now more energetic than any other human body and hurtles forward at unprecedented speeds. Reaching beyond the mental state he nears nirvana. Another energy barrier overcome, he powers forward even faster.
He now hits the entropy barrier and is enthralled by the peace and ease of motion. He hurtles, surges, ever faster, ever freer. Somewhere way, way, behind the finishing bell tolls. Blissfully unaware, he knows without knowing that no bell tolls for him or ever will. Forward, ever forward, he hurtles on outrunning space. Even time now is no barrier. Forward, speed, acceleration, speed, hurtling, surging, powering, forward, forward, forw…….
by submission | Feb 16, 2019 | Story |
Author: Richard Wren
“Aaaagh!” It was always a shock to return, to feel the meat encase him again, to stare out through balls of jelly. Felix Bonaparte, time traveler, twitched his body to relieve his aching joints and waited for his heart to stop racing.
With eyes now closed, and in a fetal position, he concentrated on calming his rapid breath. Okay, that was better.
The worst was over. He was home. Rolling onto his back, he pushed with his legs to slide sweatily across the soft flooring. Now, propped into the corner of the dim little room, he felt his muscles gradually relax.
Felix loved to travel but wished it was more like H. G. Wells and those other stories. If only he had a slick, shiny machine with flashing lights and data screens. In reality, time travel was more of an art than a science. A matter of focusing on the moment – any moment, and then simply being there. Easy once you had the knack, but not everyone allowed themselves to be released into the currents of time. Most people preferred a limiting, single reality.
Felix Bonaparte – not his real name, had been traveling for most of his life, firstly by shocking accident then, after resisting Ritalin and other childhood drugs, deliberately. Teachers said he had a wandering mind.
As a youth, he had followed various boyhood whims. He had gawped at dinosaurs tramping through primeval swamps, watched dramatic, blood-stained battles and had admired the building of the great pyramids under the ancient Egyptian sun. Now, more mature and satiated with the spectacles of history, he was a connoisseur. He specialized in French history of the eighteenth century, a time of great change.
His last trip had been to his favorite place – the sumptuous palace of Versailles. It wasn’t just the elegance and social intrigue that he enjoyed. Even the hard lives of the servants and courtiers held a fascination for Felix.
Would M. Hardouin be able to create the spun sugar sculpture he boasted for the Duke’s visit? How much longer would The Marquis de Lafayette continue his dalliance with his chambermaid? It was all a real-life soap opera, both subtle and dramatic.
Of course, only his focus moved there – roaming the mirrored corridors like a ghost. His body always stayed here in the cushioned little room.
He had visited the palace a dozen times without the problem of seeing himself from a previous jaunt. His earlier foci were no more visible to him than they were to the locals. By the same spectral token, he could observe but have no effect on what happened around him.
A little smile trimmed his mouth. Why hadn’t those story writers thought of that? Goodbye time paradoxes.
The little smirk widened to a grimace. Damn! He could feel what was coming next. It happened like this sometimes – uncontrollable spasms and reflex actions as his body adapted to being full again. It shook, laughing uproariously at those narrow-minded old tellers of tales.
Thankfully the padded walls and securely tied straps of his jacket prevented him from serious damage from his frantic contortions. He paused to grab air before another exhausting bout of laughter, accompanied by bodily thrashing, rolled him around the echoless room. Opposite him, set in the cushioned door, a little flap slid open for someone to peer in, then immediately shut again.
He was safe in his little box with its gentle lighting and comfortably tight clothing. Beyond, in nearby cells, he could hear the anguished shouts and wails of other returning travelers.
by submission | Feb 15, 2019 | Story |
Author: Michael Hopkins
It knew itself as awareness. No center. No end. Awareness. It did not know its name. It had no I. A perturbation arose – from where? The agitation expanded – a significant change. It grew. It caused disruption – a point of focus with hope for discovery – all new concepts for it. It asked why. It hoped it would speak its name.
Scientist arguably decided that the universe was billions of years old. From the pinprick of the big bang it was expanding in all directions at the speed of light. Intelligence, as measured through the development of languages (approximated at seven thousand) were starting to disappear. But as the dialects of man dwindled, with increased attention to the universal tongue of mathematics, the languages of animals were discovered and categorized: the song of whales, the chirps of birds, the movements of bees, the barking patterns of dogs. Beyond these, the languages of what were once thought to be unintelligent objects made themselves evident.
Aspen trees with their interconnected root systems, and ability to sway in the wind, which freed microscopic cells to be carried through the air to others of its type, were found to send messages of drought and fire over hundreds of miles.
Mycelium roots were determined to be the largest living organisms, connecting and communicating over thousands of miles.
The movement of the wind and seas, thought to be results of physical phenomena, such as changes in atmospheric pressures and the gravitational pull of the moon, were discovered to be complex dialects, with messages that gave rise to the climate transitions on the earth. The oceans, the large lakes, the small trickling streams carried their messages across the earth: water evaporated, molecules transmitted their utterances through the sky, the wind moved these codes, depositing information, to receptors, with rain.
The name of a god was thought to hold a final power; to know a god was to speak its name. Christ. Allah. Shiva. Vishnu. Elohim. Elah. Shangdi. Maykapal. Bhargava. Surendra. To know this name was man’s purpose for existence; its discovery, spoken aloud, as a prayer, would bring the purpose of man’s existence to an end.
Hebrew intellects searched the ancient texts for the all-encompassing name of god. The many representations all had their purpose. The Tetragrammaton YHWH: Yahweh: Jehovah, a piece, yet incomplete. The art of Kabbalah merged with the complexities of equation to divine the name. But it was the final discovery that gave the greatest hope.
Geologists agreed that the most inanimate of objects were alive – and had language. Stones spoke. The earth’s landmasses, once a single unit, had split into continents: separate parts that yearned to be whole. The 500,000 detectable earthquakes every year began to shape into an alphabet. Many, perceived by only the most sensitive scientific instruments, were seen as a constant chatter: words, sentences, and paragraphs. The largest destructive quakes were theorized to be shouts of pain, calling to their distant pieces. The religion of Gaia: a sentient earth, characterized these as soulful cries of longing across the chasms – lost love.
The earth went silent. As decades progressed with no quakes, the geo-linguists (a science to some, a religion to others), developed more precise instruments and found the mountains themselves spoke. The utterance of a single syllable took years. A word – centuries. The meshing of science and religion turned from the subatomic world for answers, to the macro, the large, the most visible of physical entities. It gave man hope that in the study of these ancient beings, the purpose of creation had focus, and struggled to speak the name of god.
Society, with its diverse economies, competing philosophies, anxious religions, and growing technologies, served to further divide man, rather than make them whole. Peace was always torn at its fundamental fabric by war. Love was subdued by hate.
When the sun grew in size by twenty percent (a surprise event that would reshape the theories of astrophysicists – if there were any to see it), all organic life on the earth was destroyed – in an instant.
The rocks continued to talk, for thousands of years, in the quiet of a dissolved humanity, and moved toward the first utterance of god’s name. When the sun expanded again, the earth was gone, vaporized – its quarks, fermions, and leptons, pulled apart, separated forever, blown in all directions to chaos, to nothingness.
It sensed the loss. It asked why. It wondered if it had a name. It became as it was before. It knew itself as awareness. No center. No end.
