by submission | Apr 17, 2011 | Story
Author : Marlan Smith
Rob ran into the bar and slammed the black leather bag down on the counter.
“Done! Gimme!” His eyes were wide with fear.
Hal looked at him, then down to the bag. He casually emptied his drink between thin lips and then smiled. “You know the arrangement. Not until I count the money.”
“Come on, Hal. This isn’t funny anymore,” Rob was trembling, a silent countdown running through his head. “I did everything you asked.”
“Oh, I agree,” said Hal. “Next time though, maybe you’ll think twice before claiming such an extravagant loan, eh?”
He looked at Rob from down his long, thin nose. He thought for a moment then presented the liquid-filled, synthetic diamond glass, which Rob snatched away from him.
It was a yellow mixture, on the rocks, and slightly cloudy from the millions of nanomachines that swarmed inside the liquid. Each tiny device, no larger than a single cell was a hunter-killer drone designed to track down and destroy the same number of microscopic robots currently swimming through Rob’s bloodstream. Only Hal knew the exact number.
Rob lifted the glass, but Hal gripped his arm abruptly. A shrill little whine escaped Rob’s lips as he thought he might spill the drink. Even one drop lost could mean thousands of artificial prions roaming unchecked through his brain. He estimated roughly a half hour before they began burrowing like tiny drills through his soft gray matter.
“It had better all be here,” said Hal, his cold eyes level on Rob’s. “Maybe next time you’ll toast a business deal a little more carefully, eh?”
He laughed and released Rob’s arm. The glass trembled. Rob gripped it in both hands, carefully lifting it to his lips. The cocktail slid frictionless over the nano-tempered glass, specially engineered to allow every molecule to pass over its surface unscathed. Not a single drop was wasted.
Rob swallowed greedily, slammed the glass down and ran a hand through his spiky hair, crunching the ice in his teeth. He swallowed and let out a long, lip-pursed breath, a silent “whooooo!”
Hal opened the bag, blinked. “I think we have a problem here, Rob. You’re short.”
“I think you have bigger problems than that,” said Rob, now smiling. “About how much Mad Cow Special would you say someone could purchase with all that money?”
Hal scowled back at him, knuckles white on the handles. Then suddenly his expression softened. His eyes went wide, then glassy. Hal blinked. Looked up at the bartender. The tall man winked back. As Hal’s hand began to tremble, Rob stretched lithely along the bar.
“It can buy quite a bit,” Rob said. “And with money left over to bribe the barkeep.”
A tick formed along one side of Hal’s face as Rob stood up, adjusted his collar and took a second bag, handed to him by the bartender. He then bounced out the door as Hal slumped in his stool, staring at nothing.
by submission | Apr 16, 2011 | Story
Author : David Bastin
It was the third year of the drought of 2130 when San Francisco rebuilt itself, put out to sea, and sailed away.
***
At first, when they heard what San Francisco meant to do, everyone laughed. Nobody thought that the people of San Francisco were serious.
“Do you expect it to float?” they asked.
“Yep!” said the people of San Francisco.
They kept right on building.
***
The people of San Francisco were simple and practical, and they built San Francisco that way. They built it with plastic and teakwood and glass. They shaped it in spheres and donuts and coils, and they put a promenade deck on the top; and they capped the whole thing with a city hall and a bridge and a mast with one sail.
“We’re not in a hurry to get anywhere” they explained.
San Francisco was self-contained and self-sufficient.
“We’ve got everything we need,” said the people of San Francisco.
***
At the end, when San Francisco cast itself off, some people got scared.
“What about the commuters?” they cried. “What are the commuters supposed to do without any San Francisco?”
The mayor’s voice, amplified by a bullhorn, answered the question across a widening expanse of water.
“Berkeley!” said the mayor. “Send the commuters to Berkeley or tell them to Oakland!!”
The mayor’s voice was now fading and faintly audible.
“Or tell them to go to ….”
His final words were lost, carried away on winds blowing onto California’s coast from beyond the Golden Gate.
by submission | Apr 14, 2011 | Story
Author : Ian Sweeney
We sat at the computer and accessed the System.
First, we needed to select the reason for our application. We scrolled through the options. Domestic violence. No. Infidelity. No. Incompatibility. Linda looked at me with sad eyes and I nodded.
Next, the System wanted examples of how this incompatibility manifested itself. Just a short statement. 250 words or less.
“Shall I do this?” Linda asked.
I watched her words appear on screen. She wrote so effortlessly, so fluidly. As if she’d put this case a thousand times to the imaginary jury in her head. Linda’s description of the situation was as thorough as you’d expect from a solicitor. She outlined our differing values and attitudes to work. This, quite rightly, formed the bulk of her argument and it all sounded very convincing.
I had never lied to her about my aspirations. I was content to remain a jobbing graphic designer. It wasn’t steady work, but it was fun and it left me with plenty of spare time. Time I mostly spent on my own, resenting Linda for putting her career before me.
Linda had always been ambitious. And I liked that. But things were different now that she was successful. She’d often tried to explain why she worked so hard, but the more she talked about her responsibilities, the more insignificant I felt.
Now, the System wanted to know about our sex life. There were two questionnaires in this section. One for each applicant.
“You go first,” I said. “I’ll make some coffee.”
In the kitchen, I tried to remember whom the coffee machine belonged to. Strange to say, but I couldn’t recall much about the week I’d moved in. The apartment, of course, was hers.
Before being partnered with Linda, I’d been renting a place with Sarah. I went straight from living in a damp ground floor flat, to Linda’s riverside penthouse.
“You’re good to go,” Linda called from the living-room.
I brought two cups of coffee over and she disappeared into the bedroom while I filled in my half of the sex-life questionnaire. I made it all sound worse than it was. The System doesn’t like couples that don’t get on in the bedroom. It knows that they are less likely to have children. Which is the only thing that really matters.
Linda wandered back in.
“All done?” she asked.
I nodded and she tapped the ‘send’ button.
We sat together in silence. There was nothing we could say to make the moment any easier.
As I thought back to the time we’d spent together I couldn’t help thinking that we’d been lucky. It was easy to end up with someone you liked and respected, but for the System to partner you with someone you fall in love with – even if that love is flawed – was rare.
The computer beeped and the words ‘Break-up Accepted’ appeared on screen. I looked at Linda. Her eyes were red and wet. She gave me a sad smile and wiped a tear away.
The System informed me that it was dispatching moving boxes and that I should vacate the premises within two days.
Then two profiles appeared: our new partners. The System had clearly diagnosed the cause of our break-up as a career mismatch.
Fran was a graphic designer and had recently been widowed. She was pretty, had red hair and a kind smile. Brett McNally was a solicitor. He was older than Linda, but was slim and good-looking. His suit looked expensive.
“Linda,” I said. “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?”
by submission | Apr 12, 2011 | Story
Author : Jason Frank
“Now, it’s just the two of us. Why don’t you start by telling me what it is about you that is special?”
“…”
“Come now, there must be something… some small ability you keep from everyone, some extra talent that no one else seems to have? You wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t something.”
“There could have been a mistake.”
“We are here only to talk about you. The competency of our Fifth Alignment’s Inquiry Board is not under discussion, though I would like to add that we don’t make mistakes. Relax.” He got off his stool and disappeared into the circle of darkness that surrounded her. The darkness was so thick, so palpable that it could have concealed anything.
Her mind worked on the darkness. Anything could be there beyond her field of vision but some things were quite unlikely. There was very little chance, she thought, that her friends and family crouched in that opacity, struggling to keep themselves from busting out and yelling surprise before the proper time. Her birthday was weeks away but her family was known to go to extremes to ensure surprise when surprise was called for.
“So…” he’d had a drink of water and used some of it to anchor the sparse hairs on his head more forcefully to the side they already favored, “… if you don’t feel like talking about how you might be different than other people, perhaps you wouldn’t mind going over some of the ways in which you feel you are just like everyone else.”
“I… I am happy to be a part of the Fifth Alignment.”
“Unfortunately, not everyone feels the same as you. Trust me. What else?”
“I want my parents to be proud of me. I want to be the kind of person that is well liked. I want to do what is right. I want to be closer to the me I imagine. I want all the cratecatchers on my block to celebrate me in song. I want to have a partner for the third dance of every sponsored shaexit. I wonder what other people think about me.”
“Perhaps your specialness has to do with being typical, perfectly typical. Perhaps it is your complete lack of specialness that is special? Could that be it?”
“It is possible_”
“Ha ha ha, I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. That is assuredly not why you are here. Think harder. Think about any differences you’ve noticed in yourself, no matter how seemingly insignificant.”
“…”
“Come on, we don’t have all day. Ha ha ha, again, I’m sorry, we have all the time in the world. Don’t feel any pressure.”
“I imagine things.”
“Yes? What kinds of things?”
“Well, when you walked off to where I couldn’t see, I imagined that my friends and family were standing there in the darkness, waiting to yell surprise and laugh at how they had me going.”
“Hmmm, very interesting. You were rather accurate.” He waved his hand and the room lit up to reveal a startling percentage of her friends and family, bound as she was to lightly slanted, upright beds. Unlike her, their mouths were covered. Very much was being said by their watery eyes, however.
“Finally, we are getting somewhere. I would classify this as some rudimentary form of ESP at the very least. Hmmm, perhaps it’s time we move on from talking to more… productive tests.”
by submission | Apr 10, 2011 | Story
Author : Steven Odhner
“I can already tell you aren’t interested in the admittedly confusing equations I’ve taken the time to write out, which is fine. So to give a quick and imprecise summary I will use the tired metaphor of Schrödinger’s Cat, where a cat is placed in a box with something toxic that will be released with a fifty-percent likelihood, triggered by radioactive decay of something else in the box.
“In the Many Worlds interpretation the universe splits, and in one the cat lives while in the other it dies. Obviously we only get to see one of the two, but both happen somewhere. In the Copenhagen interpretation, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead until a measurement collapses the wavefunction to just one option at random. In the Stockholm interpretation, the cat falls in love with the scientist that locked it in the box.
“Nothing? Well, my wife thought it was funny. At any rate, while the Copenhagen interpretation is currently the most accepted there are problems with all of the theories and they are all devilishly hard to test. In large part this is a philosophical question rather than a scientific one, until we can get more data. Rather, until they can get more data. I already have it, and know the answer. I’m just not sharing it yet.
“Imagine, for a moment, that the Many Worlds interpretation is correct. That means that entire universes are unfolding constantly, an unimaginable number of them every moment. Some have speculated that we could find a way to travel between them, see the alternate versions of Earth that might have been. That’s a pretty thought, and something that might come to pass someday, but what I’ve discovered while working towards it is far more productive – and profitable.
“The device you see before you provides limitless free energy. This one prototype could power every device in the world at once if you could find a way to plug everything in. Every instant our reality is remade along with an infinitely expanding fractal cloud of others, and this device just… nips one in the bud. All the energy of the big bang, for free. All for just one lost option, one that will never be missed.
“Destroy the universe? Not this one. No, it’s quite safe. Technically speaking it destroys a universe every ten seconds or so, but they’re more like proto-universes. It’s not a big deal, really. It very nearly collapses them before they exist. Very nearly. Honestly, you don’t need to look so horrified. We’re talking about free energy here. This is the holy grail of science. It’s… excuse me?
“No, I told you it’s perfectly safe. It can’t break in a way that would do any more harm than a transformer exploding – You would have to deliberately turn it into a bomb if you wanted it to do anything serious. Well, yes, in theory. I’m not sure that’s a productive use of free energy, but I suppose with the right design you could release a minute fraction of the harvested energy as an explosion before the device obliterates itself. Call it one-one millionth of a percent, enough to level New York. No, no. The state.
“But we’ve gone off-topic. Back to the matter of free, clean energy for… Pardon me, but I’ll thank you to put away those guns.”
