by submission | Apr 10, 2013 | Story |
Author : Rob Sharp
He woke with the cursed sun. The sky had been swirling black and crimson, barely enough light passed through the veil of cloud and ash to power his sensory circuits, but he saw and heard all the same. It was an azure blue today, brighter and more vibrant than he’d ever seen, but he had no way of verifying if this was due to faulty optics or a faulty sky.
32,212,658,491 seconds. Give or take a few hundred thousand. How many processor cycles? Many billion times more. He could count them exactly, but it took only a few moments and was hardly a diverting past time.
The motors controlling his joints had long since decayed into useless balls of ferrous orange rust. This was of little real importance, as his central processing core had been severed from his actuary unit in the incident, leaving only optic and audio inputs available. Why and how they had lasted so long he couldn’t begin to comprehend. He couldn’t recall his inception or the mechanic and electronic method of his construction. Perhaps they were never explained to him. Why would they be, he mused.
When it was dark and the sky was clear he watched the stars. They moved slowly but surely across the firmament.
He wondered why he had been given just enough to survive, but not enough to thrive. Did his creator not think this might happen? He tried to understand his predicament from first principles, but he always hit the same barrier – he did not know how he, the world, or, indeed anything, worked. Worse, he didn’t know why. His observations of the sky, even given all the time in the world and the capacity to record, log and examine these observations effectively, could not answer why.
It was the third time he’d had to compress his memory, and at each attempt he lost fidelity. Each compression was coming more quickly. He estimated this was the last time before he’d have to start deleting memories. Maybe it had got to that stage before, and that’s why he couldn’t remember the incident.
Maybe he’d found out why. Maybe he’d figured out what his purpose was and it was so bad he’d decided to wipe his own memory to forget it again. Maybe it was so bad he caused the incident. If he could smile, he would. A fine destroyer of the universe he turned out to be, if he couldn’t even switch himself off.
by submission | Apr 7, 2013 | Story |
Author : David Stevenson
A yellow flashing beacon. Another package spinning through space. I reach out and snag the drag line carefully. The beacon is attached to one end of a line, at the other end is the supply crate with another flashing beacon. It’s a lot easier to catch a line than a small mass, but in this gravitational field the tides are fierce, and if I try to grab a line being spun round with a weight at either end I could lose an arm.
Maybe I’ll do that sometime; might be a quick way to go. For now I snag the line using a crude hook I keep for this purpose.
Power cells; food blocks; fresh water; filters for the suit; all the usual suspects. That’s entropy staved off for another while. I tie these supplies onto the raft of similar crates floating in space beside me. I’m much more interested in the datapod, if there’s one there.
There always is. I take the datapod, and I plug it into my suit. Some virtual reality recordings of classical music. Good. A month’s worth of current events newscasts. That’s alright, but I’m out of sync. These are from last year and I’ve already seen more recent ones. Another bunch of letters and videos from friends and family. Not sure whether to start with those or leave them until last.
I remember the first pod I found, and the letters it contained. All the first 50 or so pods had the same message in them. They were all sent at the same time and they had no way of knowing which one I would encounter first. I still occasionally pick up one of the first batch.
“If you’re reading this then you didn’t plunge to your doom on the neutron star.” That’s Steve’s sense of humour for you.
“We think the accident blew you into a stable orbit that’s high enough up that it won’t immediately decay.” Correct. Not high enough up that they can rescue me, of course. Any ship coming this low would be ripped apart by tidal forces.
“We can’t transmit through the radiation, but we can send these pods into the same orbit as you and you can pick them up.” Ah yes, that radiation. The radiation that would kill me if it weren’t for my suit and the medical nanochines repairing the damage.
“We have to take the ship back to Earth now, but we’re leaving a field manufacturing unit in the asteroid belt. It’s going to scavenge matter and it will keep on turning out these pods and inserting them into your orbit. We can communicate with the factory and send new data to be forwarded.” Great. I can’t even die of boredom.
I have a virtually endless supply of consumables, both for me, and the suit. The medichines will keep me alive indefinitely. My suit needs a lot of fuel to keep my orbit from decaying, but they make sure to send me plenty.
So, I have a choice. Staying here forever orbiting a neutron star wearing only a spacesuit until I die of old age, or explosive decompression and a quick death.
I’m going for the third option. I don’t know if I’ll still be in one piece, or if I’ll be ripped apart. I don’t know if I’ll be conscious, but if not then the suit will keep my feet pointing towards the star. I’m burning all my fuel, I’m going in, and I’m going to be the first man ever to stand, just for a microsecond, on the surface of a star.
by submission | Apr 6, 2013 | Story |
Author : Mike McLaren
Shmuel Berkov grew up in Logoisk, and lived a regular life like any other boy in the village, until his eighteenth birthday, when he made the decision to run for Prime Minster of Belarus. He wanted to grow up and save the world. His dream to be the leader of his country came true.
#
Four friends sat at the compass points of a round table. They leered at one another over the monitors of their laptops. One of them held down the SHIFT-COMMAND keys and fingered a series of letters and numbers. He pressed ENTER.
Montol bolted to his feet. “Gimme a break, Epron. Every time you take a new turn it seems like you’re trying to end the game.”
“Well, duh. Now you’re catching on. I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on that three turns back.”
“Why?” asked Fras. “This is a fun game.”
“Come on guys; we’ve restructured the geology a billion times, rotated species over three hundred fifty billion times… .”
“But that’s the game, Epron.”
“We haven’t come up with a new thought in forever, not since Toubis invented gunpowder.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” contended Fras. “I came up with the steam engine idea right after that.”
“Just an extension of energy under pressure.”
“Uh uh. It allowed for the creation of electricity.”
“Just another extension of lightning, which was just an extension of fire. Don’t you see; we’ve gotten as boring as the game.”
“But I just came up with all those electronic gadgets.”
“Piffle. Fras gave that species thumbs for better uses than that.”
“So what do you want to do?” asked Toubis.
Epron leaned over his laptop. “Remember the first move of your last turn; you reorganized the politics of Europe and came up missing a bunch of nukes. Well, guess who has them.” He held down SHIFT-COMMAND, keyed-in G-A-M-E-O-V-E-R, and pressed ENTER.
All four boys leaned over their laptops and watched a crimson glow spread across their monitors.
“Well you did it, Epron.” Montol spun on his heels. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Got no choice, now.”
“Ah, don’t worry, man. We’ll think of something new. You know we always do.”
#
Prime Minister Berkov took up his pen, and at the moment he was to sign an historic document that would provide for perfect economic equality throughout the country, he was struck by another thought, as if a button had been pushed in his brain to reroute his synapses. He set down his pen, and picked up the telephone connected directly to the military base in Minsk. Within thirty seconds, the skies above Belarus clouded over completely with the contrails of nuclear missiles.
by submission | Mar 31, 2013 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
Nightshift was almost over when iHUD flashed:
unknown abscess.
“Great! More lumps and bumps” My sarcasm catching Turing’s interest.
“Yeah, I scanned him in. Big and green. I’ve never seen anything like it” Turing exclaimed.
Khomyakov, a deep space medical ship was stationed strategically to serve the needs of the frontier marine colonies. Providing care via live virtual links with ground based medical technology so advanced it was experimental.
The report explained that during a sustained ground attack on B, a green planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani, a Marine reported a pinch in his back, he was comatose within the hour. By the time he arrived at Base Hospital the abscess had begun to form.
The young Marine lay prone, his biological deep scan danced like haunting spirits across iHUD. The green capped abscess barred examination and was growing fast.
accelerated growth, no prognosis.
Time for a closer look. I let loose a spider, a medical robot, to start with a tactile assessment. The hand sized spider emerged from the bedside recess, it’s elegant scissor legs delicately eased onto the Marine’s back
The EyePaint applied to every available surface mapped the treatment cell in 4D. It gave me omni-presence but at the moment it was giving me nothing.
The spider prodded and massaged the abscess mound. Leg tip sensors fed tactile and ultrasound data, identifying an internal mass. As I viewed through the spider’s 42 micro-lenses, I thought I saw the mass move. Or was it just lens distortion?
“This abscess is telling me nothing!” I said to Turing.
“Stick it. Lets see what’s inside” Turing’s avatar joined in.
I instructed Spider to setup a needle probe and immediately it’s white steel leg shivered and from within, a needle articulated into a functional form.
Bracing itself against the Marine’s spine, the needle tip targeted its entry point while micro nozzles lacquered the skin in topical anaesthetic. The tip pushed slowly against the skin causing a slight depression and then abruptly broke through. The green mass shivered in response.
“Did you see that?” I exclaimed to Turing.
In the background, physical and digital security lockdowns cascaded. Nothing would get in or out. Turing had my back and was playing it safe.
I pushed deeper through the pus filled outer sac, receiving feedback from the nacelle sensor array.
white blood cells – high concentration
Strong natural defences meant the Marine was winning the battle. High concentrations meant he was losing the war.
I advanced the needle toward the mass, now a silvery green bladder before me and flicked a handful of collectors. They clung like limpets to the fibrous skin.
complex muscular cell formation.
I advanced further, the needle tip meeting resistance from the muscular mass. The Electromagnetic spider legs powered up 50% punching through. Turing shuddered.
Through the lens array, a sinewy tendril faded into view, spiralling away through green fluid. I followed it blindly to the centre of the mass where a tiny arm hovered, resting against the tendril. I panned across, following the length of the arm and held my breath as a large pink alien shape with veiled green eyes stared down at me. In shock, I reversed immediately bringing it fully into view.
The human foetus, a delicate shade of pink was unmistakeable, suspended within its liquid womb.
Clone Parasite, 99.99% DNA matchup to host.
As I contemplated humanity’s demise via substitution, a pinch in my side made me wince. Turing stared at me with deep green eyes, a small woven tube in his hand.
“I thought your eyes were blue?”
by submission | Mar 30, 2013 | Story |
Author : John Arcadian
The lag has made us patient. Not humanity, just Marie and I, and maybe a few others. You see, I’m on the lunar launch station on the farthest part of the moon that is viably habitable. It’s a spider-webbed grid of interconnected, but autonomous, pods that contain living space, communal areas, bureaucratic offices, and all those other little fiddly bits that make launching deep space rockets feasible. I took a 1 year contract up here for the paycheck. While I walk through the tunnels to visit other workers and friends, my real contact comes when I talk to Marie by satellite relay. It’s cheap, reliable, and almost everyone up here uses the relays to video chat with their left-behinds on that big blue-green marble that we all want to get back to.
We’re just far enough for there to be a bit of continuous lag, maybe 20 or 30 seconds, even if you are just sending bytes of text. So we’re used to periods of silence and stillness while waiting for a response. You get very zen about it because there’s no other option.
When the explosion knocked me off my chair, the emergency lights flooded my pod with their yellow glare and the alarm klaxons started blaring. Marie was still telling me about the movers transferring her desk out of her office. I was busy locking down the airlocks and ensuring my seals were tight, so I didn’t get a good look at her reaction as my pod started to float away, but I could tell she was freaked out.
My living pod, including the relay dish, is powered by high-efficiency solar panels. The algae tanks are intact and will pump out enough oxygen and protein mass for me to “live” indefinitely. Command sent a message explaining about the exploding rocket and the pod eject procedures that saved most of us. Rescue ships are on their way. Most of the other pods are in stable, so the risk of death before rescue is minimal. It’s a very smartly designed system. Just have to sit back and wait for rescue. At least I’ve still got contact with Marie.
The first days were the worst. You could watch the lag getting worse the farther out you drifted. I’ve got a notepad with the calculated lag times for the first 4 days. After a few hours of drifting it took roughly 4 or 5 minutes between replies. By the second day it was at 13 minutes. The third day had it out to 49 minutes. We’re on week 3 now. It takes about 65 hours or so for a reply. Most of the pods are floating in a steady pattern, emergency beacons and maneuvering jets keeping us bunched together.
The rescue ships are still a week or so out. The trajectories from the earth launch pads take a lot longer to line up. I think we’re all talking to loved ones back home. I can see patient faces illuminated by the screens of monitors when I have my external camera zoomed out and pointed at one of those thick pressure restraining windows. Yeah, we’ll get rescued eventually. We’re not worried. The lag has made us patient. Marie has moved back in front of her screen and is telling me about her day, or a day she had a week or so ago. Apparently, the movers broke her desk when they switched her office again, but she’s not angry. The lag has made us patient.
