by submission | Jul 24, 2015 | Story |
Author : Suzanne Borchers
“Hey, Cuz, why are you sitting on that refuse pile?” George5 glided by snickering. “Thought you were high end, not dead end!”
Eddie kicked at the garbage beneath him. He couldn’t be obsolete! He could still warm and cool his skin with just a thought.
He should have had two more years before the luxury spa was renovated. He had enjoyed regulating the restoration/whirlpool. He had enjoyed the soothing waves of the water mixed with the smiles of the bathers. He had been necessary. An Edward450 bot needed to be of service.
Eddie wasn’t ready to be recycled. He’d have to find something new. Eddie called, “Hear about any good jobs?” Even though Georgi5 was already down the alley at the corner, Eddie could hear his derisive laugh.
“My hands can still massage human muscles into relaxation,” Eddie mused. “I’m going back to my job at the Yoga to Go Studio.” After all, they knew he was hardworking. Then he remembered that it had been razed for a fast food chicklet joint.
Eddie wished he could frown. He kicked the pile beneath him.
It was then Eddie noticed an old ragged man writing on a cloth. The man slowly limped past shivering. His clothes were of light material, and he wore no hat or gloves in the freezing air. Eddie didn’t take his orb from the shaky form until a piece of rag drifted toward him on the wind. He pulled it off his stained metallic leg to read its handwritten words.
There once was a bot in my alley
Who certainly needed a pally
So join with me bot
You’re in a poor spot
The garbage ship’s here so don’t dally.
Eddie looked at the man who had turned to stare back at him. He heard the recycle ship rumbling behind him, the sound getting louder.
“You coming?” The ragged fellow turned and began to shuffle away.
“Wait!” Eddie was an intelligent bot and knew he only had seconds. He jumped from the pile and landed on his feet.
Later that evening, Eddie and Charles sat together inside a rickety box of piled metallic pieces tied together with strips of rags. Eddie emitted warmth and light into the space. Charles scribbled on another cloth, occasionally stopping to gnaw on a chicklet bone and take a swig from an ancient flask.
Charles sniffed then showed the cloth to Eddie.
There once was a ragged old man
Who prayed to his god for a plan
To keep him alive
And help him survive
So he sent a fantastic tin can.
Eddie wished he could smile.
by submission | Jul 22, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
“Another ten billion dollars a year?!” said the Senator incredulously. “And that on top of the billions already spent annually? And for a scientific toy that only worked one time for a few minutes? And that had some kind of radiation leak or something right after you switched it on? You better have one hell of a sales pitch.”
The quantum physicist nodded. “I realize we’re asking for a lot, Senator. And I’m not insensitive to the fact that the country has lots of other expenses. But the safety of not just the nation but the world depends on the SuperString Collider getting more funding.”
“I’m inclined to doubt that, doctor. You scientists already played the world safety card when you convinced Congress and the administration to write you a check sufficient to fund a major war just so you could build that giant dome over your white elephant.” The cantankerous legislator pointed at the kilometer-wide geodesic hemisphere that dominated the landscape. “And you’ve had four years to get it up and running again.”
“It will never be turned on again. In fact, the collider no longer exists. But we need our budget increased just the same.”
The Senator looked at the scientist with utter disbelief.
“Four years ago when we did a trial run of the SSC,” continued the physicist, “the machine worked perfectly. For the briefest of moments the collider’s detectors confirmed the presence of a ten-dimensional hyperspace just as was theoretically predicted. Exactly 17 hours, 21 minutes, and 11.3 seconds after the SSC was shut down, an area around the machine roughly three-quarters of a kilometer in diameter changed.”
“Changed? How?”
“The land on which the SSC had stood and the area around it had transformed into a desert. We detected low-level radioactivity in the soil. We thought the machine had created some kind of chain reaction that caused it and its surrounding to disintegrate. But 17 hours, 21 minutes, and 11.3 seconds after the facility’s security camera telemetry ceased, the area changed again, this time into a swamp.”
The Senator shook his head incredulously. “A swamp?”
“But like no swamp ever seen on Earth,” said the scientist. “We were able to retrieve several plant and animal specimens before the next transformation cycle occurred. Not one of them fit anywhere in the taxonomy of life on this planet. The military quickly took command of the situation. I and my colleagues had to sign nondisclosure agreements if we wanted to continue working on the project. A couple of acquaintances who refused have been ‘missing’ for some time.”
The car pulled itself up to the dome and automatically opened its doors. After going through a security checkpoint, the physicist and the Senator entered the dome. Steel and glass partitions reached from the floor to the inward-sloping interior wall of the dome. The partitions extended around the interior circumference of the structure hermetically sealing the area.
The contained land, at the moment, was covered in ice. A large, white, frog-like creature slid on the ice on its belly, its hind legs beating furiously to propel it across the tundra.
“What…what is that thing? An alien?”
“No, Senator, that creature is as much an Earthling as you or I. But it’s from an alternate Earth, an Earth with a radically different history and evolution. Sometimes it’s like the surface of the Moon. Other times, ‘people’ show up. Not human, but intelligent and bewildered. For a little over 17 hours, anyway.”
“Are you sure,” asked the Senator, “ten billion more a year will be enough?”
by submission | Jul 21, 2015 | Story |
Author : Beck Dacus
For most the difference between being stranded on an island and being stranded on a distant planet is merely numerical. But while stranded on the planet Ergingad, I could feel it.
Probes had been there before, so it had been explored. We knew about the atmosphere, gravity, composition and anything else that there was to know. We also knew it was uninhabitable; there was no life, and terraforming it would be a waste. My crew and I went to establish an automated mining base. But when the ships boron-proton reaction chamber ruptured, nearly killing all of us, I didn’t think, “I’m stuck here.” I thought, “I’m stuck 2 quadrillion kilometers from civilization.”
You start to get the feeling that the galaxy isn’t that big, because anywhere you go, you can fly back from. But the instant that’s not true anymore, you realize that the scales you’re talking about are too big for any human mind to comprehend. But if you can comprehend it, you are utterly terrified.
I can see it in the others now. We’re all jumpy, depressed, irritable, and mistrustful. I don’t know if we’ll ever get rescued. I don’t know if we’ll let each other live long enough to find out.
by submission | Jul 20, 2015 | Story |
Author : Amy Sutphin
Sargent Pedlson watched the foggy mass forming through the streets from his birds eye vantage in the radio tower. It was thinner than traditional fog, but behaved as though fluid. The ghost oozed through the streets, around the houses, creeping though any crack or crevice it found. Pedlson knew the chemical vapor wasn’t alive, but the way it was attracted to living things created a very eerie anthropomorphism.
“That,” Private Michael said beside him. “Is the biggest ghost I’ve ever seen.”
“They used to get five times that size during the war.” Pedlson said. “Engulfed entire battle fields.”
Pedlson had seen the end of the war, when the weapons were getting out of hand. He’d watched from evac helicopters as the chemicals engulfed those either too slow, or too unlucky to escape them.
“Good thing we were able to evacuate that district.” Michael said.
“Mhm.” Pedlson grunted. The naturally forming ghosts were much slower than the ghosts catalyzed for swift deployment. He doubted anyone had the technology to catalyze a ghost attack now.
“Sargent there’s a person down there!” Michael cried.
Pedlson, and the two enforcers on patrol with them peered over the platform. A lone figure was indeed, making its way through the fog.
“We have to get down there.” Michael said.
“No time. That’s a dead man.” Pedlson said, peering through his binoculars
“Doesn’t look dead.” Said one of the enforcers.
He was right, Pedlson saw. The figure should have keeled over by now, convulsing on the ground.
“Maybe he had a gas mask.” Michael ventured.
“Wouldn’t help, stuff gets into your cells.”
“That’s not a person.” The other enforcer said. He’d hardly said two words the whole night.”That’s a pest.”
Pedlson whistled.
“A stray from the attack yesterday?” He wondered.
“Could be.” The enforcer said.
“Better call it in.”
by submission | Jul 19, 2015 | Story |
Author : Helstrom
“Hey honey, come look at this.”
I took my bearings and found Samantha’s voice, drew a bead on it and pinched space in her direction. She was far out on the edge of the universe, casually riding the expanding frontier.
“What is it?”
“Have a look. Out there.”
“There’s nothing out there.”
“Well, don’t look then. Feel. Do you feel it?”
She got like this sometimes. I squeezed in close beside her and playfully arranged some photons into the shape of a heart.
“Oh you,” she giggled, drawing an arrow across the photons before they blinked off on their way, “Now really, focus and feel it.”
“What am I feeling for?”
“Not that,” she said as she pulled slightly away from me, “Feel what’s out there.”
“Alright, so I’m feeling…”
I felt it. There was something out there. It was subtle but it sort of bent the edge of the universe. There was nothing that could do that. There wasn’t supposed to be anything out there. The whole concept of ‘out there’ didn’t even make sense.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know.”
We sat there for an aeon or two peering into nothing. To our left a civilization of marsupials sprang up, spread across a few hundred thousand star systems and started to rip itself apart in a bloody conflict.
“Stop it,” said Samantha, briefly flashing an avatar before them.
I chuckled. Always the warden. Such an offhanded gesture for her, but to these creatures the universe would never be the same again. They suddenly realised they were not alone, that there was a great, powerful being watching over them who loved them and wanted them to be happy. There was a great potential for suffering among the stars. We had inherited enough memories from our progenitors to decide we were not going to allow that again, ever.
The edge began to buckle. The universe was no longer expanding in a uniform way. Something was pushing against it, into it, disrupting its fabric. Things started to go wrong. Time wasn’t spreading right, matter folded back in on itself, clusters formed in all kinds of grotesque ways.
Samantha got nervous: “Honey what’s going on?”
“I don’t know baby,” I said, drawing her close again, “I don’t know.”
It stopped in a singular instant. The buckle vanished. Galaxies were rattled like flakes in a snow-globe, shifting violently before finding new points of balance.
Something outside told us: “Sorry about that, I wasn’t paying attention.”
Neither of us knew what to say. I glanced over at the marsupials. They had been playing nice, building shining cities and many flattering monuments to what they called the Star Mother. But with their skies suddenly re-arranged they were having something of a panic.
I appeared before them: “Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay.”
A complimentary cult to the Star Father promptly appeared. Samantha and I pinched off in separate directions. There were a lot of scared species around that needed reassurance that their gods were still looking after them. It would only take a moment of negligence for them to feel abandoned and do all kinds of horrible things to themselves. That much we knew from experience.
