by submission | Jul 13, 2013 | Story
Author : Susan Nance Carhart
It's always good to see Mom again.
Exasperating, too. There's always that moment of mental groaning; always that “Here we go again!”
That said, it's good to see her alive.
July 15, 1964. I'm back. Always the same date. I'm about to start high school. I know that my father will die from his heart condition next April. I've never been able to do a thing about that, so I no longer try. I do drop hints to my mother about her smoking.
We have the same old fight about Latin versus typing. I know the right buttons to push now, so she calls the school and makes the arrangements. I confidently promise to learn typing in the next month. Then I buckle down to the awful suckiness of high school. And the discipline of not using words like 'suckiness.'
It's not all bad. There are the Sixties to experience again, the Beatles to hear afresh, a host of superb movies to see. I anticipate September 8, 1966, when I can watch the first episode of Star Trek again, tears running down my face. It never gets old.
And after so many years of it, I am probably the greatest high school student ever. When did I last miss an algebra problem, or a question on a history test? When have my essays been anything but exemplary? It's good to be a prodigy. In various iterations, I've published books, hosted radio programs, played in concerto competitions. I've had some false starts, too. I once got into serious, ridiculous, embarrassing trouble about a book I wrote. The principal actually called my mother. After that, I stuck to pseudonyms. This is the Bible Belt, after all.
I've now been to over two dozen different universities, studying all sorts of wonderful things. I've had remarkable careers, and some not so remarkable. The foreign service thing in Kabul in 1976? Not so good. Ouch. The trip to the Outback in 1983? A very unpleasant way to go. That said, the only pleasant way to go is a thoroughly organized and well-prepared suicide. Oregon is very pretty in the fall.
After my first life, I got very observant. Now I spend quite a bit of time preparing for the next-go-round. And I become very rich at a very young age. That's something to look forward to. On the other hand, my various children have been Chaos Theory in action.
Nobody else seems to remember. I have no idea why I do. It's like living forever, like being immortal, punctuated now and then with a horrific grand pause. Sisyphus rolls the stone up the hill; it rolls back down and crushes him. And so forth. I've never lived beyond 2048, which is fine, considering what happens that year.
I used to think I was progressing; that if I became good enough or smart enough or changed the world enough, I would ascend to some higher level. I don't think so anymore. I think this is it. I think this is my life— my eternal life— and I have to make the best of it. There are still infinite possibilities before me. Just once, though, I'd love to meet someone else in the know.
Mom sends me out to the store for milk. I smile at my old blue bike, and settle gingerly into the saddle, peddling off down Farmer Avenue. I vaguely recall the loca—
Whoa! I totally did not see that car coming! Well… that was… brief…
But it's always good to see Mom again.
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by submission | Jul 12, 2013 | Story
Author : Gabriel E. Zentner
I first saw the ocean many, many years ago – of that much I’m certain. Still, at my age, memory has a way of slipping away in the night, unbidden, to return again but never be the same. If I were younger, I’m sure I’d be able to recount every detail of that seminal day with vivid clarity. No matter, though; what is important is this.
I came to Titan with my parents when I was a child, back at a time when the outer Sol system was a chest of wonders to be unlocked by the most brilliant and intrepid minds humanity had to offer. I believe it was something called the Solar Command that really began the exploration of the Sol system in earnest, but those details really do tend to get away from me these days. Can you imagine? Humanity confined to a single system? It boggles the mind. How many systems has humanity colonized now, anyway?
Three hundred ninety-six? My word, how times have changed.
Where was I? Oh, yes, of course – Titan.
We hadn’t been on Titan long before I saw the ocean, I recall that much. I recall staring out a window, seeing the bruised, slushy landscape, perpetually wreathed in twilight, and thinking it was oddly beautiful. And then, I caught sight of it. The ocean.
It wasn’t like any ocean I’d ever seen before, having newly arrived from Earth, with its rich expanses of cool blues and greens, teeming with a mind-shattering array of life from the beautiful to the bizarre. This was… different. What other word can I use? I was transfixed.
I remember asking my mother if I could go for a swim. Apparently, I was too young at the time to understand that I would have died, had I attempted that.
Forty years later, I still wanted to swim in that ocean, that frigid, hydrocarbon ocean.
The geneticists, the bioengineers said it couldn’t be done. There were limits to human physiology that couldn’t be overcome, no matter how far our science had come.
I’d like to think that I’ve matured enough not to gloat, but damn if I wouldn’t love to say I told them so. Thing is, they’re probably all millennia dead by now.
That’s all right.
I am one with Titan.
I am one with the ocean.
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by submission | Jul 10, 2013 | Story
Author : J.D. Rice
Robots aren't supposed to travel through time, forget what the movies tell you. Aside from the incredible amount of electromagnetic activity that a temporal gateway puts out, the act of time travel itself is incredibly damaging to a robot's psyche. The ones you send to the future just obsess over returning to the past. While the ones you send to the past simply shut down. The First Law prevents them from making any changes to the timeline, no matter how small. I guess somewhere in those positronic brains they've figured out the scope of the butterfly effect.
Knowing everything that I know, I can't help but wonder who it was that cracked the robot code. How did they send this robot back in time?
“My name is Flux,” the robot says, standing on the delivery pad in the testing center. I stand with the other scientists behind the bulletproof windows, surrounded by beeping equipment. We're all equally flabbergasted. “Your alarm is understandable, Doctor Harker.”
All the other scientists turn their heads to me. In response, I lean my head forward and press down the microphone key.
“Greetings, Flux,” I say, voice shaking from both excitement and nervousness. The robot's design is unusual, featuring a white, fibrous underbelly covered with silver, metallic plating.
“May I step down now?” Flux asks, still standing in the center of the delivery pad. Our written procedure for potential test passengers is to send a message through the portal first, followed by the traveler, who would await permission to disembark. The system was designed to prevent any mishaps from unexpected future-to-present transfers. This robot had sent no message ahead, despite seeming to be aware of our other procedures.
“Robot Flux,” the voice is that of our program director, Doctor Wesley, who is standing at the mic on the opposite side of the control room. “If you are aware of our procedures, then you should know that no message of intent preceded your arrival. We do NOT give you permission to leave the delivery pad at this time.”
“My apologies,” the robot says, offering our program director a slight bow. “Our records from your time are incomplete. I will of course wait here until you give me clearance to step down.”
“Thank you,” Wesley says, taking his hand off the mic and motioning for me to do the same. “What do you make of it, Harker?”
“It's possible he's been sent from far enough in the future for records of our procedures to be lost,” I say. “But if this robot really is the first successful traveler in history, then it's likely that we won't develop a stable robotic traveler prototype in our lifetime.”
Several of the other scientists present voice their approval of my theory.
“I agree,” Doctor Wesley finally says, before leaning down over the mic again. “Robot Flux, please state your mission parameters.”
The robot responds immediately.
“Verify time and date, ensure all digital records of my journey be deleted, then enter cold storage until I can be recovered in my own time,” it says.
“Standard test drop,” I say. “He must be their first long-range prototype.”
“Robot Flux,” Wesley says. “I hereby give you permission to disembark. We will greet you at the door.”
With that Wesley motions to me, and the two of us make our way down to the testing area. Along the way, I excitedly regale Wesley with my hopes for what this robot could mean in the future, for the information its creators will glean about history, technology, philosophy. The possibilities were unlimited. I'm just getting into the implications on modern sociology when the test bay doors open, and the robot leaps through, landing astride Doctor Wesley and snapping his neck in one stroke. As I jump away in shock, it stands up and calmly faces me.
“Robot Flux,” it says. “Mission complete.”
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by submission | Jul 9, 2013 | Story
Author : David Stevenson
My uncle Frank was the first man ever to be killed by an interplanetary baked potato.
He had fought in the first war; the war between our beautiful planet of Prutashka and the savages of Binkaret, one planet nearer to our sun.
This war was fought by conventional means, and since our bountiful planet had abundant supplies of fossil fuels and fissionable materials whilst their backwards hellhole had neither, we soon triumphed and made them our slaves.
We made sure that they had no access to any military technology so that they would never again be a threat. This was purely for their own good, of course. We only allowed them to develop their agricultural economy. Soon they were producing millions of tons of vegetables each year for export to our planet.
Of course, allowing them ships to transport these goods was out of the question. They had a space elevator which could lift the exports out of their gravity well. The potatoes were coated in a metallic foil which both preserved them and also provided something for the linear accelerator to grab hold of. Several times a second a solitary potato was launched towards our planet. With no preservation problems, and no crewed spaceships to worry about they could be launched along highly energy efficient orbits, taking months to complete their journey. Tiny adjustments in acceleration and angle of launch meant that their time and place of destination could be accurately defined. Most arrivals were scheduled for mealtimes in the large cities. Large induction hoops, miles above the surface, grabbed the foil wrapped potatoes and decelerated them safely. Re-entry into the atmosphere and electrical induction heated them up so that delicious, individually wrapped meals arrived with the minimum of fuss.
We thought we had tamed their warlike instincts, but we could not have predicted the horror that their treachery would unleash.
Five years ago, they had a bumper crop of potatoes. The excess potatoes were launched in the usual way, but were sent on long, slow orbits which would take five years to complete. Their economy was working well now, and every year they increased their vegetable output until, by last year, we estimate that one in every three potatoes launched was being put in a delayed orbit to arrive on what has become known as P-Day.
It was a terrible day.
Millions of potatoes, all arriving in the same one hour window, completely overwhelmed the normal reception arrangements. We got only a few hours warning of the onslaught before piping hot, metallic wrapped missiles began hitting military targets. My uncle Frank was vaporised early on, and my aunt still bears the scars from a jet of scalding chili which hit her. I myself have lost an eye to a vicious gout of red hot coleslaw.
Now their entire output is being launched on short, fast orbits designed to impact and cause maximum damage. Our spaceports are destroyed, our military are mostly dead, and our cities lie ruined beneath giant mounds of potatoes.
I have no idea how we’ll fight back, but at least we have plenty to eat.
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by submission | Jul 8, 2013 | Story
Author : Sierra July
She never contemplated a lack of hands. Limbs constructed while the mind dottled, trying to catch up. Limbs operated when the mind was elsewhere.
Limbs were what they wanted when they came down in dazzling light; the ship seethed it titanium molding, red-hot form air travel, travel that would have split lightning in two, jagged.
Broken.
She wriggles her phantom fingers, memories of appendages that grasped thoughts and dreams when her mind wasn’t yet made up. Brains hi-jacked control from hands, that’s what she believed. Neurons and synapses and the like firing signals to themselves, each other, couldn’t compute to all that she was.
Wrinkles, creases littered her hands when they were hers (still hers, unattached) maps connecting and crossing to form her life in retrospect. And they didn’t have her brain’s dingy grey coloring. Scars from burns and abrasions spoke incandescent stories to whoever studied them. Things that felt hard, unbreakable as quartz, went out like air whipped flame.
Voices tickle her consciousness.
“Subject: #101773. Name: Hisano Sora. Here for limb transfusion.” The man’s voice grows prickly. “How the devil did she lose her hands anyway? Cuts are clean.”
“The Visitors, sir.”
“Ah . . . Perfect subject for the transfusion.”
“Yes, sir.” A younger voice, a male not yet struck by puberty.
A device touches her, she thinks. She can’t be sure. Her neck brace is keeping her from seeing, metal jaws clutching at her jugular. Before she can feel the panic, the brace on her neck is called off, as are the ones on her wrists and ankles. She bolts up and studies her hands. (Hands?) Yes, she has them, flexible and solid, and blue.
“What is this?” she says aloud.
“Plutonarium Ice Fixtures, sweetheart,” she hears the older man say. “They did Pluto a discredit, hacking it off the planet list. Pluto ice makes the best prosthetics. Can’t melt, can’t break.”
What is a hand? A mere tool or a part of her? She misses the marks that were hers, the memories. The new hand is close to her face, the left one. She’s transfixed by the sheen, the glassy glow. It reacts, gripping her neck.
“Oh no, now it looks like she’s experiencing a delayed side effect. There shouldn’t be any . . . unless of course her arm . . .” The older man’s voice sounds unconcerned, like he’s watching television. Her vision blurs.
“The Visitor’s love arm manipulation, sir,” Young Guy says. “Her hands were the least of her worries.”
Her arms? That was her problem? She looks at the flesh of her arms for the first time, a shade too dark. Or was that the blackness swallowing her? Were these her arms or . . .
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