by submission | Nov 10, 2012 | Story |
Author : Suzann Dodd
They were supposed to come for me in a hundred hours. That was the deal.
I was passing for a local, having done the course. I knew how to get over.
I’d been given enough currency to survive for two hundred hours; that was also part of the Contract. What I didn’t spend would be deducted from my bill so I was frugal.
But they didn’t come in a hundred hours, and after a hundred and twenty, I panicked.
I got a job after a hundred and thirty hours, not good pay by any means, but enough to off set my expenses so that I wouldn’t be stuck with a life’s mortgage.
After two hundred hours I had the feeling that ‘something had happened’ and they weren’t coming.
That meant I was stranded.
I moved from the Hotel to a Motel, then to a basement apartment. I changed jobs, and after three hundred hours I realised I might be here for the rest of my life.
I was violently ill. What cured me was that the technology was so primitive I couldn’t dare enter any facility. I had to protect my integrity at all costs and use my knowledge to prosper.
Of course it was a Breach of the Contract and I would be severely punished, but considering I was the victim here, I liked the odds.
I started small, betting on sporting events, investing in stock, using my winnings to purchase value which would double, treble, but staying just under radar.
I traveled to places that didn’t keep efficient records, and occasionally thought about interfering, but kept remembering the ‘Grandfather Principle.’
When I felt like it, I left messages to those from my time who would know that even here, I thought of them.
by submission | Nov 8, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
I set the display to pan to the constellation of Canis Minor. The holographic celestial sphere rotates all around me until the Smaller Dog comes into view. I wave my hand over the controls. The display zooms in on Procyon A. The white main sequence star fills half the room. The image is a real-time picture, at least as real-time as 11.4 light-years of distance will allow. The Procyon system has no planets, but if it did I could zoom in on an object the size of a deck of cards on the surface of one.
All across the solar system telescopes of every variety continually search the sky. Sensors scrutinize gamma ray sources to determine if they are the product of an antimatter propulsion system. Detectors search the void for hints of Bremsstrahlung radiation that could come from the plasma confinement system of a fusion reactor. The possible visual signature of a photon rocket? Cyclotron radiation that might be a sign of an operating magnetic sail? A radio signal or modulated neutrino pulse of an extraterrestrial civilization? There are devices to detect all of them and more. And all of that data is sent to observation and early warning stations like this one.
We’ve been watching the skies for decades, watching for any telltale sign of an impending invasion. A second invasion, that is.
January 18, 2098. That was the day the human race finally made contact with an alien civilization. Much to everyone’s surprise, the signal came from Mars. To this day, we have no idea where they originated. We know it wasn’t Mars. They’d come from another star system and claimed Mars for themselves. In fact, they claimed the entire solar system. Earth was ours, their transmission said. And we could maintain satellites in orbit. But that was it. No manned missions and no more probes beyond Earth orbit. Even the Moon was off limits. The entire solar system outside of Earth was their territory. This ultimatum was the first, last, and only communication humanity ever had with the aliens.
The Chinese didn’t listen. Nine months later, they launched an instrumented probe to study Saturn. Three weeks after the launch, Beijing was annihilated. Antimatter weapon, the physicists who examined the aftermath said.
For six years after the destruction of Beijing, Mars was minutely studied by telescopes both on Earth and in Earth orbit. On July 9, 2106, the alien facilities on and in orbit around Mars were struck by 75 nuclear weapons. The Greater United States, China, the European Union, and the Russian Federation had developed stealthy vehicles that could approach the alien stronghold undetected. Each nuclear-armed probe had secretly gone up along with some other innocuous payload like a weather satellite and then surreptitiously proceeded to Mars. The aliens were obliterated.
For close to 50 years, humanity has studied the remnants of biology and technology left behind after the destruction of the invaders. As a result, we’ve advanced much faster than we otherwise would have. We’re all over the solar system now. There’s even serious discussion about a manned mission to Alpha Centauri before the end of the century. The dream of humanity exploring and colonizing space has finally come true. But it’s not the old science fiction vision of the human race evolving into something nobler and embracing its destiny among the stars. It’s a nervous necessity that drives mankind out into space. And we never stop watching the skies.
by submission | Nov 6, 2012 | Story |
Author : Susan Nance Carhart
“There’s no way to program my time machine remotely. Not really,” Solberg told his friends. “I can’t perform a unmanned test. I can’t even use an animal for the passenger. But the modeling works. It all comes down to me.”
The friends caught each other’s eye and shook their heads. Solberg’s private laboratories were in a separate wing from the rest of his facility, and even more amazing. Cool blue light suffused the shining interior. Before them was the device that Solberg had dreamed of for thirty years.
“You tell him, Royce,” muttered Julia. “He won’t listen to me.”
Solberg stared back at them, and then put up his hands. “What? What is it?”
“You always think it comes down to you, Jack,” Royce grunted. “Real science can’t be done by one person these days. And it should never be done in secret. You have a team to vet your ideas. Bring them in on this! You need free discussion. I don’t care if you have more money than God. If you had to look for funding, you’d have the challenge of informed analysis and constructive criticism—”
“I might as well send my research to the Chinese,” Solberg sneered. “This is going to revolutionize human life. I’m getting all the credit this time. Do you want to see the test, or not?”
“Yes, we want to see the test,” Julia shot back. “We want to know what happens to you. I think this is insanely reckless, but there’s no way to stop you now. What’s the plan?”
“A short hop, really. I’m going to go back in time one month exactly. I know that no one was in this laboratory at that moment. To prove I’ve been moving in time, I’ll scribble a message on that wall.”
He pointed to the white and pristine tiles facing them. “You’ll be here, and as soon as I’m gone, those words should appear on the wall. Then I’ll come back. It shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes in absolute time. Don’t move into the space occupied by the device… that could be bad.”
“You are completely crazy, Jack,” Royce sighed. “You know that, right?”
Julia took him in her arms and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Good luck, you idiot.”
Solberg grinned at her, shook Royce’s hand, and climbed into his time machine. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’ll just be in this exact spot, one month ago.”
A crackle of light enveloped him, and he vanished.
They waited.
They waited all day.
They waited until nightfall, with aching hearts and fading hopes. They called the Head of Research just after midnight. Doctor Philip Carmichael was at the facility in half an hour, and poking through his employer’s holy of holies in another ten minutes.
Balding and sardonic, he heard their story, and gave it some thought.
At length, he ventured, “You know what Galileo said to himself, when the Church forced him to swear that the Earth was the center of the universe?” He paused, and then told them.
“‘And yet, it moves.'”
Illumination. Each saw, in a mind’s eye of awe and terror, the time machine winking into empty space: in the exact position on the Earth’s orbit that the planet—and Solberg Laboratories— wouldn’t occupy until one month into that time’s future.
by submission | Nov 4, 2012 | Story |
Author : Melinda Chapman
Specimen 459 cannot see its reflection, or the glass itself, or the woman entering the room beyond it.
Christine enters the small laboratory and settles into the office chair in front of the glass capsule. Contemplating the specimen inside, she sighs. She gently fidgets until her lab coat becomes comfortable. Lately she’s been wondering what she’s really doing here – they’re getting nowhere. Christine speaks a sentence to 459, again.
459 realises this, as it does every other day. Listening in its own way, the specimen knows that Christine means well. She is more or less saying that she wants its health to improve. 459 sends her its gratitude, and wishes the same for her; perhaps not quite the same. 459’s expression of goodwill is personal, as opposed to experimental like hers, so they do not resonate together and there is no real exchange.
Christine looks to the waves on the screen. The machine doesn’t detect any variation in 459’s biometric pattern. She makes a note of it and begins her next communication.
459 considers her new words, but they are difficult to translate. The message vibrates at a higher level than the last question, and 459 thinks it knows what it means. The researcher’s frame of reference is different to 459’s, however, and her message is obscured by clutter. Even so, 459 believes she has primarily asked if it has a soul. To which, 459 reverberates a resounding…
“Yes.”
Christine touches the screen and zooms in closer on the biometric waves, hoping to detect some degree of change in the pattern, but there is none. She makes more notes.
459 waits patiently for her attention to return. It enjoys the questioning. It appreciates her dedication and has much time for her endeavour. But 459 also knows the device she is using to measure its responses is useless. The device can only measure certain frequencies, such as those that control biological functions. But these react much more slowly and minutely in response to other beings.
The device can’t measure high enough frequencies to detect the level of consciousness on which 459 communicates. As of yet, no machine can. 459 must wait for Christine to discover there’s only one device that will detect frequencies of that level and translate them as a response. She brings it with her every single day, to every session. It is consciousness itself. Even so, hers would need considerable tuning upward. Currently, it can barely detect anything. Christine predominantly uses her consciousness as a simple device for processing input from her other senses, not unlike the device she’s using on 459. She looks with her eyes at the patterns on screen for any suggestion of answers. She listens with her ears for the blips that she hopes will one day tell her that 459 has something to communicate.
The monitor flashes continuously, and Christine swipes her hand across it. Martin, a colleague, is using the screen to transmit to Christine that she needs to attend a meeting. He will come past the lab, and they will both walk a short distance in order to congregate with others and communicate using their basic physical senses.
Martin opens the door as he knocks. His eyes flicker with curiosity at 459, as if he might discover something ground-breaking in those brief seconds.
Christine pinches the corners of her tired eyes and picks up her cold coffee. As she walks through the door, Martin shakes his head and says “I can’t believe they pay you to talk to a plant.”
by submission | Nov 3, 2012 | Story |
Author : Sierra Corsetti
The visor of my pressure suit starts to fog up at 11,243 feet. My pilot notices as he tweaks the gas valves that propel the balloon ever higher into the winter night, and grins knowingly.
I adjust a knob on the control panel that’s inset to my right sleeve, and return his smile, feeling the butterflies dance in my stomach as my visor clears.
Thirteen-hundred feet now.
“This your first time?”
I shake my head. “It’s just been a while.”
Nobody ever admits to being a newbie. You never realize how easy it is to lie about it until you’re in the basket of a hot air balloon, headed to heights that even airplanes don’t fly at.
We reach 23,601, and I look down over the side of the basket. If I fell from here, I’d end up as a red smear on the sidewalk of some poor kid’s neighborhood. There’s no turning back now. I have to get high enough to surf away and get far enough out of town before I open my parachute.
“Having second thoughts?” The pilot seems to be reading my mind. Of course, he’s been in the business for probably longer than I’ve been alive. Nothing will surprise him.
Instead of looking at him, I look up. My breath catches in my throat when I see the ribbons of green light, snaking across the black night, reaching their long tendrils out to me. Beckoning me to come to them and learn their ways.
“Never,” I tell the pilot.
My pressure suit hisses as it compensates for the thin air and my ears pop. I check the gauge on my oxygen tank. I’ll be fine for a few hours.
“Ten thousand feet to go,” the pilot says. I nod in acknowledgement, because what do you say to that? Wow, we’re so high. Well, no kidding. You can’t surf waves of light at ground level.
And then we stop climbing.
“Ready?”
It takes me a moment to process the question, before it sinks in that I’m here, I’m really going to do this. Then I hear myself say “Yeah, of course,” and the pilot is checking my parachute and oxygen tank and board, and helps me get my feet strapped in.
He helps me balance on the edge of the balloon, 50,000 feet above the earth, and gives me a final thumbs-up. I return it, and jump.
I’m in free-fall for about a minute. It gives me just enough time to panic and wonder if I’m going to end up as a red smear after all. I look down and see the streams of brilliant green light rushing up towards me and then my board catches and I’m flying, I’m doing it, oh heaven help me, I’m doing it.
My muscle memory from the hours I spent on the simulator kick in and I glide effortlessly across the bands of energy. But no simulator could ever replicate the sound.
There are legends of how ancestral spirits live in the lights. There are more legends of how the lights are divine beings dancing over us.
They are the past. They are the future. They speak to me and sing their songs, songs I’ll never remember and never forget.
And as suddenly as it began, it’s gone and I’m falling again, down through the black night.
Come back, I hear them call. But I cannot fall up.
