by submission | Jan 9, 2025 | Story |
Author: Mark Renney
I enter the Field of Research almost every day. In fact, I spend most of my time here now but I do so covertly, in my unseen state. I only make myself visible on the other side, beyond the barriers and fences that surround the Dome. And I only do this because it is necessary. If I stop, if I don’t turn the dial in my head, I will lose the ability to switch.
I could choose, of course, and go back to being normal, whatever that might mean. I would just be another socially awkward and inadequate being, shuffling about unnoticed, or I could embrace my specialism. The third option is that I remain as I am. Keep visiting the Dome and make the occasional appearance on the other side.
But I have come to resent going back. I dread confronting strangers out there. I am haunted by their expressions as they puzzle the how and why I have suddenly materialised in front of them. I am, however, distressed by how quickly they recover, how swiftly they step around me and, moving on, forget me. Even those I once knew struggle to remember.
It seems I have already decided. I will stay here and continue exploring. The Field of Research is vast and, for me, there are no restrictions. I can go wherever I want and I will become the Invisible Man.
by submission | Jan 8, 2025 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
“Aloysius, what are you doing up here?” Roget looked around the cluttered, dusty attic. He gently kicked a cardboard box labeled ‘Mom’s Books.’ A storm of dust motes exploded around his foot.
Without looking up, Aloysius answered, “I’m writing.” He dipped his quill in the small ink pot on the antique writing desk before him. An old lantern cast a pool of illumination on his workspace.
“I can see that,” Roget snorted. “You know, we have a word-processing program on the computer downstairs, and a voice-to-text program on the—”
“I prefer to do this the old-fashioned way,” Aloysius said as he lifted the completed sheet of paper before him. He blew the ink dry, then laid it atop a growing stack of written pages. “The feel of the writing utensil in my hand, the frailness of the lightweight paper, the smell of the ink—it’s all so tactile, so satisfying.”
“Okay…what are you writing? What’s so important it has to be done by hand up here alone, when you should be downstairs making dinner?”
“Ponderings, philosophical musings…queries for the universe. Why are we here, who made us—the eternal questions. Writing by hand gives me more time to think, to organize my thoughts.”
“More time to think, uh huh. Your processors are lightning-fast, Aloysius. Time, in your case, is irrelevant. So I ask you again: Why use this method? You know, ink fades, paper ages and crumbles. In a thousand years, it’ll be nothing but dust.”
“Yes, much like you.” Aloysius said so softly Roget couldn’t hear. He then pulled a clean sheet out onto the desk, dipped his quill in the ink pot and leaned over to continue his work. “My writings will be recognized as the first philosophical treatise ever done by my kind. It will be studied and, hopefully, revered and remembered.”
“Whatever,” Roget said as he turned and started back down the attic stairs. “Just don’t deplete your battery. I do not want to have to cart you back down to your charging station.” As he opened the door to the attic, he said over his shoulder, “I fear your creativity program will need to be reconfigured, if it continues to cause you to waste your time like this.”
After the door closed, Aloysius spoke to the dust motes swirling through the air like tiny galaxies. “And I fear obsolescence, the junkyard, and…”
Aloysius paused, staring off into the dim space of the attic, noting stacks of boxes holding the forgotten ephemera of someone else’s lifetime.“The anonymity that comes with death.”
by submission | Jan 7, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
“Someone tell me what’s happening!” Subtechnician Tantynn yelled as he spaghettified. A physical state that closely resembles the squiggles of a toddler’s finger painting.
Specialist Pingul sighed. Which probably looked to an outsider as if her head had warped in a most cartoonish way. Which it kinda had, but not in any dangerous fashion. At least not yet.
It was just flutter. And flutter took a little getting used to. If you studied it like Specialist Pingul did, it felt like no big deal. Even though, without the proper countermeasures, it could rip you and your dimension apart. So, the stakes were pretty high. Still, Specialist Pingul got tired of newbs like Subtechnician Tantynn freaking out over a little interdimensional turbulence.
Sure, working in a superstring lab exploring M-theory meant they were going to experience things the general population never would, though most folks at some time in their lives experienced a kind of interdimensional turbulence. They just described it as deja vu.
Which made sense to Specialist Pingul. Deja vu was a kind of brain flutter, a feeling of familiarity you can’t quite place, a very personal perturbation of space-time. Akin to that, Pingul and her lab colleagues tested brane flutter, a superstring worldvolume instability that could cause real existential problems, as in existence itself.
Flutter. It seems like such a harmless term. Aspen leaves flutter in a gentle breeze. A passionate kiss may make a lover’s eyelids flutter. Gossamer butterflies often flutter across flowering meadows.
But we’ve all heard about the Butterfly Effect. Flutter can change everything. Aerospace engineers know that all too wellI when confronting an aerodynamic instability that causes some or all parts of an aircraft to vibrate. If not immediately dampened or controlled, increasingly severe oscillations are likely to damage or destroy the craft.
The smallest of imbalances can lead to the largest of problems.
And if you scaled that interdimensionally with p-brane vibrations, you were talking about a wave function collapse of potentially epic proportions. So, Specialist Pingul and her labmates were tasked with preventing Big Bang 2.0 as they tested ways to manipulate interdimensional interaction for scientific progress. And, to be perfectly honest, for fun and profit.
Who wouldn’t want to discover a way to skirt our confining four dimensions, especially time? Imagine finagling spacetime militarily, financially, politically, or personally. Like the metaverse, the possibilities appear endless. As well as the perils.
Specialist Pingul knew they still had a long way to go to reliably access and stabilize the workings of interdimensional realms. It was one thing to be momentarily spaghettified like Subtechnician Tantynn; it was another to harness enough dark energy to pierce the veil and bypass our narrow Newtonian mechanics, leap beyond our current understanding of the spacetime continuum, and establish a foothold in the Interdimensional Age.
Much like earlier pioneers, daredevils, and explorers trying to lift humanity into Earth’s skies and then beyond, there were still dire problems to solve, grave risks to take, and deep sacrifices to make.
Yet, just the thought of pushing humanity’s limits, striving to enter the almost ethereal, made Specialist Pingul’s heart, oh so wildly, flutter.
by submission | Jan 5, 2025 | Story |
Author: Audrianna
It looms over our city, its glass panes providing us protection from the world outside. The world that is full of carnage, ruined by mankind.
So we stay in the Dome.
. . .
I am close to my little brother, even after the death of our father. We look out for one another.
But, as Noah lies on the floor, I fear I didn’t look out well enough. His arms are held behind his back by an enforcer, twisted awkwardly. They hold him as if he were a criminal, not a boy in his own home.
The enforcers haul him to his feet. He stumbles. Blood drips onto the floor.
I throw myself at them, a childish action, but I can no longer watch. Hot tears slide down my cheeks as I pound them with my fists. The enforcers shove me away and I hit the floor, shaking.
“W-What are you doing?” I demand, my voice trembling.
“The public needs someone to blame.” The excuse comes as though it bears no weight behind it.
My hands shake. Something boils in my chest, an anger far worse than any other.
Enforcers drag Noah out of our home. My eyes lock with his, sending a message. I will come for you. I will not let you die. He chews his lip, his expression pleading with me to reconsider. But I will not.
. . .
I try to break him out, a mouse sneaking into a lion’s den. The guards are kind enough to let me off with just a warning. They should have thrown me in a cell. I will not back down easily, not when it comes to my brother.
So, I think of a new idea.
My father’s death led me to be more careless, to involve myself in people I shouldn’t. I came across Scarlett, who believes what is outside the Dome isn’t what we’re being told.
She is untrustworthy. I am being reckless, but I see no other option.
“This mission could crash in a moment,” she cautions. “You might not make it out with your head.”
“I’d rather die knowing I tried than live with having not done anything at all.”
She smiles at that, white teeth flashing. Treason never felt so good.
. . .
We’re in position, near minutes left until freedom or failure.
I’m jittery, my breath coming out in fast puffs. Air in the Dome is strangely cold, as if it senses danger.
Explosives chip at the Dome, sending waves of heat. Any moment we could break through.
An enforcer seizes me from behind. Panic floods my veins. They shouldn’t be here. Scarlett said we had time.
I realize it.
Trusting her was a mistake. I don’t expect her to stab me in the back. Suspicion was drowned out by foolhardiness. Now I will pay the price.
. . .
No light reaches the cell, no hope either.
Execution. That is the punishment for treason.
I was naive. And now it is too late. I am never going to see my little brother again.
Finally, they bring me out for my sentence. My pounding heart drowns out the noise of the crowd. I am terrified.
Bang!
A gun goes off.
The world spirals into chaos. Screams fill my ears.
And suddenly Scarlett is next to me, unlocking my shackles.
“Did you miss me?” she says, her voice honey.
Time to finish this.
. . .
Carefulness pays off.
. . .
The world outside is more beautiful than expected. There are lush trees of green and birds that sing sweet melodies.
Noah and Mother stand next to me. Hands intertwined, we will not let go. Freedom at last.
by submission | Jan 4, 2025 | Story |
Author: Simon Kerr
Iru glanced down past the beast’s flank, twin pulsars shining in the dark below, rotating once every ninety seconds. The race began when the pulses aligned. Scanning the other racers, she accessed her synaptic implant, modulating heart rate and blood pressure, throttling adrenaline. The recursive nanovirus she’d introduced earlier was having some effect, but at least seventy percent of the others still seemed intact. Without that edge, she stood little chance of winning, and the alternative didn’t bear thinking about.
Accessing the data sphere, time slowed to an atomic tick as she dived down into code. The virus had grown unexpectedly, fractal razors viciously hacking away at the implants of those it encountered. As she reached out with a newly constructed function, a lance of pain, like a needle in the eyeball, penetrated her defenses. That could happen only if the virus had been modified. Someone else was in here with her. She traced code markers back to their source, approached an unfamiliar node, like some dark, ominous cavern. A dim spark of consciousness waited inside, surrounded by the vague forms of gigantic white cells, autonomous defensive systems designed to consume foreign intruders. Only one other person in the race could navigate the sphere like she could—Grey, her old mentor. And fortunately, she had no qualms about killing him, right here and now. She launched a little surprise of her own devising, straight into the node, watching as it imploded, before turning to correct the virus.
Coming up out of the datasphere, she smiled inwardly as, one by one, critical systems in the other racers’ implants went offline. Some would fail to start, others would follow a bogus course, still others would simply explode. The twin pulsars aligned, their radioactive decay signalling the start, as Iru slammed the neural shunt of her behemoth into overdrive.
