by submission | Feb 9, 2013 | Story |
Author : Thomas Howe
The sleep pod hissed. He awoke full of dreams of empty fields and dark corridors.
He sat up, his feet hitting the cold floor. He walked naked to the console, checking the monitor.
“When am I?”
The computer clicked and whirred. One line of code appeared: SEPTEMBER 28, 2012.
He whispered a curse. “Too late. Just too late.”
He looked around the small windowless cabin. The external monitors were black. The pod and the computer filled the tiny space. His clothes still hung over the console, his long blade still propped against the wall. It felt like a short nap. It had actually been more than a century.
All the planning ended here. Piecing the craft together took him more than a year, and they tracked him down that morning, so he had to move up the launch. In a hurry.
He reached for the blade. The implants in his hands stuttered; solar energy hadn’t touched them for over a century, and they’d be out of juice soon. He used up most of it finishing the ship. He had planned to recharge before launch, but the drone ships changed that plan.
“Open the hatch,” he muttered.
The screen flashed: UNABLE TO COMPLY.
“Why?”
Nothing.
He went to an access panel on the wall, opened it. The processors looked fine.
“Run a diagnostic,” he said.
Click. Whirr. ALL SYSTEMS OK. FUEL LEVELS AT 84 PERCENT.
It was possible to relaunch, perhaps. He had planned a roundtrip, but the sleep pod screwed him over. He was out way too long.
“Open the hatch,” he tried again.
UNABLE TO COMPLY.
“Why won’t the hatch open?”
UNABLE TO COMPLY. UNABLE TO COMPLY. UNABLE—
He slammed his fist against the panel, electricity flying from his hand. The computer’s screen went black.
“Perfect,” he said. He punched some keys on the console. The screen relit, its cursor flashing.
“Reset navigation to original temporal destination. August first, nineteen-oh-two.”
DESTINATION SET.
“Is there enough fuel left to—“
ATTENTION! MORE POWER IS REQUIRED TO ENGAGE LAUNCH SEQUENCE! PLEASE REPLENISH FUEL STORES TO NINETY PERCENT MINIMUM!
“I was afraid of that,” he said. He accessed historical data and found the temporal line to the virus. It hadn’t mutated yet.
His original plan was to return to the virus’s inception around the turn of the twentieth-century, to eliminate it there. He started running the numbers of infected. It was fifty thousand, give or take. All carriers, but no symptoms. It still lay dormant.
Maybe he wasn’t too late after all.
“Can we synthesize an immunization?”
Click. Whirr. FORMULA FOR VACCINE IN DATABASE.
“Good. How do I get it to the population?”
UNABLE TO COMPLY.
He rolled his eyes and started looking around the cabin. The first step was to get out, recharge. Himself and the ship.
“Location?”
CURRENT LOCATION: BALTIC SEA. ELEVATION: 187 METERS BELOW SEA LEVEL.
“Shit.” He pressed more buttons. “Do we have enough fuel to surface?”
FUEL LEVELS AT 84 PERCENT. SAFE TRAVEL TO SURFACE IS WITHIN PARAMETERS.
“Do it,” he said, strapping himself into the console.
The ship, one giant engine, began to rumble. He watched the monitors. The monitors changed from black to dark blue to light blue. Bubbles rushed past. His ears began to pop. “Here we go,” he said.
The ship burst through the surface of the waves. The screen showed the churning waters of the sea.
“Now will you open the hatch?”
The hatch above him hissed, and sunlight poured into the tiny cabin.
He stood under the beams of light, blade in hand, recharging.
by submission | Feb 8, 2013 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
Trimet VII was the Emperor of the entire Epsilon Eridani star system. Of course, he didn’t know his solar imperium by the name a human celestial cartographer had given his sun. To Trimet VII, his star was designated Benzaprin and his planet, Benzaprin Prime, was the seat of his empire. But one solar system was not enough. He coveted the resources of another star system 10.5 light-years away. In particular, he wished to conquer the inhabited third planet of the system, a world called by its inhabitants “Earth”.
“Greetings, Majesty,” said Prime Minister Klav. “You asked to see me?”
“Klav!” said Trimet VII, “I want an update on my plan to expand our empire to encompass Earth and her star system. How long until an imperial battle fleet will darken the skies of the human homeworld?”
“Well, Majesty, there is the little matter of the system in question being 10.5 light-years away. Even fusion-powered vessels would take at least many decades, perhaps centuries to reach–”
“I don’t want excuses!” yelled Trimet VII. “That system has material resources that will make our empire fantastically wealthy! We must exploit–”
“Majesty,” interrupted Klav, “there’s no way the natural resources of that solar system could be shipped back here profitably. Even if the planets and asteroids were made of pure gold and platinum, it’s cheaper to mine our own system. And it’s cheaper than that to simply use Benzaprin Prime’s resources efficiently. A recycling program would make a lot more economic sense than–”
“Slaves!” said Trimet VII. “What about slaves? The human race could be pressed into service to cater to our every whim and to free our subjects from tedious and dangerous work!”
“Uh, Majesty, slavery hasn’t been economically viable since our industrial revolution four centuries ago. That’s why the anti-slavery movement gained so much traction within a generation or two of industrialization. We’re a service and information economy. Robots already do most of the drudgery. Transporting captives across light-years of space over a century or two is quite imposs–”
“A new world for our surplus population!” insisted Trimet VII.
“Birth control is many, many orders of magnitude cheaper,” retorted Prime Minister Klav.
“The glory of military conquest!” said Trimet VII.
“The Liberal Faction favors pacifism,” said Klav. “Besides, we can’t afford–”
“Raise taxes to fund it!” said Trimet VII
“The Conservative Faction favors tax cuts,” said Klav.
“A new scientific frontier!” said Trimet VII.
“Telescopes and robotic probes,” said Klav.
“Ambassadors and diplomats!” said Trimet VII.
“Radio transmissions and laser pulses,” said Klav.
“Spinoff technologies?”
Klav shook his head.
“Manifest Destiny?”
Klav frowned.
“No chance?” asked Trimet VII
“No chance,” said Prime Minister Klav.
The meeting over, Klav left the throne room and headed back to the Prime Minister’s Residence. Young emperors always went through this stage, thought Klav as he walked out of the Royal Palace.
by submission | Feb 3, 2013 | Story |
Author : Christine Rains
All they cared about was the color red.
When we landed on blue-gray gaseous Kepler 3, the squirrel-like beings greeted us peacefully. The Keps were primitive and living in small farming communities. They’d never even seen the full spectrum of colors, but they were intelligent and eager to learn. We brought them machinery to help with their fungi crops and technology to make their everyday lives easier. We even shared with them the secrets of space travel.
The first time some of their kind entered one of our ships on the surface out of the color filtering atmosphere of the planet, they cried out and some fell to their knees. Our galactic allied flag was brightly dyed, and the ship’s name was in red letters underneath on the wall. The Keps reached out their stubby hands, trembling as they traced each letter.
We were proud to have made new friends and allies. Not all beings we met in the galaxy were friendly. Yet we humans managed to make enough allies to help us flourish in the darkness of space.
The Keps worshiped us at first. And, not surprisingly, we liked it. Yet we didn’t stop to understand why. We assumed it was because we were strong and smart. They were small and comic in our eyes. We had brought them into a new age. We were gods.
We were blind to when it started to change.
They created a new flag for their world and wore uniforms. All red. We saw it as a tribute. They learned about weapons and strategy. They became great pilots and techs. Every farmer became a warrior. The Keps left their planet and made space their home.
When they helped us win wars, we gloated. When they conquered our most feared enemies, we congratulated them. We were the most powerful alliance in the galaxy.
Then they turned on us. We didn’t understand why. We had given them so much.
We lost several billion humans in the fighting. We feared we’d become extinct. When the Keps accepted our surrender, we thought they would kill off the rest of us. They were hungry for violence and glory.
They kept us clustered in camps on Mars. Earth was no longer habitable having been devastated by the war.
The Keps used us as entertainment, but mostly for livestock. They’d bleed us to stain their flags and uniforms. The red kept its intense color through ingenious fabric preservatives. Our blood was so different from the bluish-black ichor in their veins. Perhaps it was a statement to other aliens of their superiority, but in the end, we realized it was something more primal. Something that reached into their hearts and souls to bring out centuries of suppressed anger, passion, and hostility.
It was the color red they truly worshiped.
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by submission | Feb 2, 2013 | Story |
Author : Chad Bolling
They looked like large slugs with reptilian skin and no shell. Besides their lack of defense mechanisms, the species had many more obvious traits that made it easier for predators to catch them. However, through some miracle, one these creatures alone could supply the human colony with boundless energy.
“Make sure he stays happy.” The colonies director, Myers said.
“We think the species is a hermaphrodite,” Dr. Chambers, the colony’s head scientist replied.
“Then keep it happy.”
It was kept happy for some time. The creature, nicknamed Volt, was safe from predators in its large aquarium.
“It’s getting fat.”
“This type of creature is meant to have an excessive body weight, but because of its poor survival mechanisms, it usually doesn’t make it to its mature body mass.”
The interesting thing about the glow slug, which is what the newly discovered species that included Volt was named, is that when they sleep they glow in the dark. Volt was no different from the other members of the glow slug species in that respect, except when he slept and began to glow, Volt gave off a highly powered energy field. The energy was then harvested quietly by the colonists and used as a power source.
Years later, Myers and Chambers were having a meeting about the status of the colony. “Well, Chambers,” Myers said, “the colony is prospering far better than anyone expected.”
“With the cost of energy so low compared to other off world colonies it’s no surprise,” Chambers replied.
Myers leaned back in his chair. “Our Volt has given us all the energy we need for the cost of a pet lizard!” Myers stopped talking to reflect for a moment. “Unfortunately, this colony has reached full capacity. Volt can only give us so much power per day. We can’t have anymore people moving here without using a more traditional power source, which would be much, much more expensive.”
After a minute of silence Chambers spoke, “well sir, we could try and figure out how the creature makes its energy field.”
“How so?”
“We can find the gland or organ that creates the energy field then extract it, then clone it using cells from other glow slug and have an infinite amount of energy!” Chambers said confidently.
“Sounds good to me. Get on it Chambers!”
“But sir there is one thing.”
“Yes?”
“We will need to do a full dissection of the creature.”
Myers sighed and gave the okay, saying the colony had enough backup power to last until Dr. Chambers and his team could duplicate the creature’s energy field generating ability.
“This will be a risk, Sir,” Chambers said before the dissection.
“I understand the risk, but I have complete confidence in you and your team,” Myers said slapping Chambers on the back.
After the dissection, Chambers and his team searched with both microscope and naked eye to find the source of the creatures unique ability to generate power fields.
“Have you found anything yet Chambers?”
“Well sir, not really…”
“Nothing?” Myers raised his voice.
“Nothing”
“How could this have happened? We aren’t prepared for this Chambers. Now we don’t have any power source at all.”
“Yes sir, I know. We should probably start a nuclear power contract-”
“Dammit man! We were at the top of the food chain. Just imagine it, a world with free energy.”
“Well sir, it seemed that our glow worm, Volt, had given us that…it just wasn’t enough.”
“Do you know what caused all of this Chambers?”
“Too much ambition?”
“Hah! You could use some more of that! No Chambers, it was greed.”
by submission | Jan 31, 2013 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
The beauty of my living room design was the simplicity of it’s vacuous two storey cube. High with expectation, I entered the freshly printed room for the first time. What I saw made me stagger.
A spaghetti junction of alienesque shapes swarmed frozen throughout the room, bastardising the purity of my cubic design. The tubular, six sided shapes randomly speared through the cube like a game of cheese grater kerplunk. Child-sized tubes honeycombed the walls while others pierced through to adjacent bedrooms. The extreme ones curved upon themselves in knots and slides.
I collapsed, shocked, on a coffee table sized cell running through the two day print cycle for answers.
My dream of designing and building my own home became conceivable when councils approved 3D printing as a viable building method and started printing whole communities. It took me 30 days to model my new home design on my computer and two days to print.
The viscous printing medium that would harden to capture my living spaces was a concoction of self healing, all natural, fast drying polymers with fibre-optic filaments and lithiumene. The filaments let sunlight through for daytime illumination and lithiumene absorbed the sun’s energy through networked battery molecules, wirelessly powering my needs.
My prototyped external wall finish with it’s pitted furrows designed to foster microclimates and channel condensate into storage, gave my ingot shaped house a wrinkled appearance, making it look like a box grown brain.
With the design complete, I rented and erected a HomeJet 3D Printer onsite. Painted black with industrial yellow diagonal danger stripes, it straddled the epoxy floor slab like some gargantuan preying mantis. At noon, the first of many buzzing polymer laden AirDrones arrived and taxied down the infrared delivery path. Once the drone had finished decanting it’s syrupy white cargo into the HomeJet hopper, I loaded my 3D house model into the JetHead and hit print.
Following a diagnostic check, the JetHead traversed the main support beam, performing vertical manoeuvres while the gantry rolled down site to the starting position. With a humming buzz, the hopper pump delivered polymer to the JetHead and during the wait, time seemed to stop. With a controlled lurch, the JetHead started a mesmerising dance. The fixed outer jet nozzles oozed two sausage sized parallel lines of glistening fresh white polymer. A central jet nozzle between them oscillated, oozing a zigzag stream of polymer that coalesced, uniting all three streams to form a load bearing external wall.
Twenty minutes later the JetHead completed it’s first lap, giving me my first glimpse of the size of my future home. It was going to be big. The remaining print time on the JetHead was 47 hours and 59 minutes.
Seated on the hexagonal cell and surrounded by my corrupted bee hive interior, I commenced trawling through the JetHead model for answers. My home model was there but so too was something else. A residual model in the memory, left by the last user. It had commingled with my home like jelly dropped into a milk crate. I scanned the logs to isolate it and there it was. Buzzy Bee Nursery Playground.
Purists believed 3D house printers symbolised an end to craftsmanship. However in time, my home’s insectoid simplicity sparked a new wave in home design – Insectism.
The judging panel’s summary went…
‘The house displays homely scale with delightful play. Childlike in its performance, the seemingly accidental attention to detail within the hexagonal sculptural forms, evoke strength and unity through chaos’
I smiled as I stepped up to collect my award for home of the year.
