by submission | Dec 19, 2010 | Story
Author : Mark Wallace
Charles walked in holding a couple of loose pages of manuscript, written in his small, precise hand.
“What ya got for me?” said the agent.
Charles handed him the manuscript.
“Handwriting, dude. Why didn’t you type this up. You’ve got a laptop in your room, right?”
“I am not familiar with the workings of computers.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me, right?”
“No.”
“Dude, get with the program. We need to get you online fast. That’s what it’s all about today. Look, don’t worry, I’ll send one of the IT guys up with you later on. It’s simple. Ten minutes max.”
The agent fell silent as he read Charles’ manuscript slowly. Finally, he looked up:
“Hey, you know, this isn’t bad. I like it.”
Charles bowed slightly: “Thank you.”
“Bit old-fashioned, but hey. Let me just run it through our LitCrit program to see if it passes the test.”
The agent quickly typed up Charles’ story and watched the screen while the LitCrit program performed an analysis. Finally, he said:
“Ok, this is good. LitCrit just has a couple of issues.”
“Yes.”
“Well, first of all, there’s no sex scene.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“How about you show us a bit of the action. I mean, Edwin and Helena are getting it on, right?”
Charles grew pale, and spoke in a strained but steady voice: “Excuse me, but if you are referring to what I think you are referring to –“
“Ha! You Victorian guys. You were all about covers on piano legs and stuff, right? But I know you guys –“
“Sir, I beg you to refrain from indecencies if you wish this conversation to continue.”
“Ok, ok,” the agent raised his hands, palms out. “Let’s move on. Second thing is, no graphic violence. I mean, our readers love all this literary stuff, but violence is where it’s at. You know, it’s fine, literary stuff, blahdy blah, but then you’ve gotta hit ‘em with the violence. Kind of like a reward for making it through.”
Charles’ face wore a sad, tired expression: “Very well. I will bear it in mind.”
“That’s the spirit, Charlie. As I said, we want to renew your contract, and we’re totally happy to pay your mind reactivation and maintanence like we’ve been doing, but you’ve gotta help us out. You’ve got the chops, it’s just a matter of using them in the right way. And I’m here to help you do that. It’s all about the bottom line, right?”
Charles was silent.
“Ha! Yeah I’m right. But, no, this is good. I like it. We’re gonna put it out Friday. How’s that?”
“Very well.”
“Can’t do it tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Franzen. The guy’s washed up, but whatever. And Thursday’s Lindsay Lohan. She just did 90 days for possession. Again. Exclusive inside look. Flash factual. That’s why we’re the best. And then Friday: ‘First new work from Charles Dickens in 160 years.’ How do you like that?”
“Thank you. I am most honoured.”
“You should meet Lindsay. Actually, she’s just out in the corridor now. I’ll introduce you. She’s awesome, and let me tell you, Lindsay Lohan is what the 21st century is all about. You could learn a thing or two from her. It’s not enough to be good at what you do, you gotta sell yourself. Can you sell yourself, Charles?”
“I’m not quite sure what you mean.”
“Come on, I’ll introduce you to Lindsay. She’ll show you the ropes. I think you two will really get along.”
by submission | Dec 18, 2010 | Story
Author : Martin Berka
Captain Mu Wharton peered over the rocky outcropping, and was rewarded with humanity’s first glimpse of an alien species. Certainly, the Eurasian Union’s Mira 17 telescope had been the first to notice activity, but in terms of “first contact,” this was hopefully it.
It was fairly anticlimactic due to the fact that the individuals of interest were several kilometers distant. The suit had to triple its radiation representation spectrum before Wharton saw the faint shapes moving towards the human scout group, and signaled for the others to remain hidden while he and Lieutenant Damiana Zeitzev left cover.
The figures, four in all, stopped about 50 meters away. Several minutes passed, and Wharton was consulting his crew about approaching, when two more figures appeared in the distance behind the first group, carrying between them a featureless sphere, perhaps a meter in diameter. They rolled it across the uneven wasteland; hovered several centimeters above the ground, and stopped halfway between the two groups.
The floating sphere emitted a series of brief, low-intensity bursts on a variety of wavelengths, with slight variations, and kept this up for several minutes. Wharton concluded that if the aliens meant harm, they could already have done so, and radioed the five remaining party members to join him. The emissions from the sphere briefly intensified, and then settled into a gentle wave; Ensign Branislav Adani guessed that they represented some form of rapid scanning.
About fifteen minutes passed, during which the six aliens barely moved, and the humans experimented with flashing lights and sending radio messages. Suddenly, the sphere settled on the ground and extended a large screen towards the humans. It displayed the words “For English, wave 1 appendage. For Chinese, wave 2. For Russian, wave 3…” with each language represented in its own alphabet. Every language spoken by a human present, was listed. Glancing at the others for confirmation, the captain raised his right arm up in the nonexistent air.
Immediately, the screen was filled by a closeup of one of the aliens. It resembled a crocodile, assuming that crocodiles were six-legged, eight-armed cubes without facial features, and were in the habit of plugging wires into their chests. An unfamiliar voice appeared on the humans’ communications channel.
“That took a while. Still, you people are pretty normal, and the psych-bio profile’s done. We’ve finished refueling, so we’ve got to be on our way. Nice meeting you!”
The screen began to fold up, or perhaps melt, into the sphere, two of the aliens were already walking back toward their ship, and Wharton quickly broadcast a message in the visitors’ direction.
“Wait! We represent the six inhabited bodies of this solar system, and are honored to have the opportunity…”
“Oh, we’re your first?” the voice replied. “Okay. Our government will send you some representatives in a few orbits. In the meantime, work on filling out this application to the Spacefaring Nations Organization. It should be compatible with your tech. We’ll leave a relay here; the app will tell you how to send the data once everything’s filled out. We’d love to stay and chat, but corporate will be ticked if we don’t reach the Norma arm in a few days.”
The sphere spit out a small rectangle and flew after the aliens, who were already skittering away. The parting gift, reminiscent of the old memory cards, glided into Zeitzev’s hand. Wharton turned back to the select crew handpicked for the mission.
“The media will not be pleased.”
by submission | Dec 17, 2010 | Story
Author : CJ Bergin
Mathius was a watcher. Simply put, he watched; if it happened within the 22nd district of Virginia, he knew about it. Beyond his assigned territory, it was up to the other watchers on Uncle Sam’s payroll. But here, in a godless era, Mathius was God. Lights flared up on the computer screen:
17 Photos tagged of Jessie Ambler, Grace Peterson, and Emily Rothschild from a security camera on Colombia drive.
Mathius’ eyebrow crept upward. The snapping sounds of plastic keys filled the room, while the sound of monitors hummed all around him. He looked down at his keyboard as he typed, away from his cocoon of computer screens. He was surrounded on three sides by dozens of monitors, humming and flashing in rhythm like choreographed fireflies. Behind him stood a single ominous screen connected to a separate keyboard and another similar object with several large buttons on top in the place of traditional keyboard keys. When the humming stopped, Mathius looked up. A picture of a young woman holding a kitten filled the one of the screens.
Jessie Ambler
Age: 18
Relationship Status: Single
Location: Maryland 54th District
“Pedigree”
Father: George Ambler
Mother: Mary Ann Ambler, Maiden Name: Ziebarth.
The list continued and contained all of the girl’s information: bank statements, social security number, body weight, and of course, a photo album filled with thousands of photos from her entire life. With the ease of public surveillance and instant face-tagging technology, Uncle Sam kept a complete photo album of all his children.
“Maryland…” he mumbled to himself. That explains a lot. Virginia had recently lowered the legal age for alcohol consumption back down to 18. Of course, purchasing alcohol here wasn’t illegal. Neither was transporting the booze across state borders, thanks to the full faith and credit clause. But the minute she imbibed back in her hometown, she had better be indoors with the lights out. And she had better remain coherent when it was time for her mandatory citizen status update. If her local watcher thought he saw anything suspicious it would lead to a civil servant investigator on her tail, in person. This would most likely lead to a series of state punishments, and a serious black mark on her record.
Of course, Mathius could start such an investigation on her too, if he wanted.
Casually, he turned to the single computer screen behind him. Without any hesitation, he typed out Jessie’s full name and social security number. Then he looked down at the black box of large buttons.
Those beautiful buttons. He had one for every occasion, murder, domestic violence, armed robbery, driving violations, sedition, and of course, drug and alcohol abuse. He hand hovered over the buttons, as a smile crawled onto his face.
Divine.
Pushing one button up here causes someone’s demise down there. Of course, this divinity did have its limits. America was still free after all. Mathius only had the power to punish the legal indiscretions of man; punishing the social indiscretions was left up to the masses. After all, its not like Mathius had a monopoly on the social network, everyone was logged in, everyone could watch. Mathius was just the government employed whistleblower. Husbands could legally cheat on their wives, but the collective conscious of the masses manifest in the web would discover their infidelity, and the resulting civil unrest would be worse than any government mandated punishment. Of course this was all a product of a civilian achievement. The sheep easily lined up willing to put their lives on display. All Uncle Sam had to do, was log on.
by submission | Dec 16, 2010 | Story
Author : Cesium
Professor Sean Katz walked into his lab the next morning, and Katherine was waiting for him.
“So, how did the trials go?”
“You'd better come see for yourself.”
He glanced up from his Blackberry. She looked as calm as usual, but there was a tinge of worry in her voice. He followed her down the corridor, brilliant sunshine streaming through the windows on one side, graphs and xkcd posters plastering the wall on the other. They turned a corner, and Sean stopped short.
The lab's very expensive new electron microscope was blackened and charred, and emitting a thin trickle of smoke which was slowly drifting toward the ceiling.
“Dr. Ko reported a breakthrough at around 3:30 last night –”
Sean's sense of doom was suddenly offset by indignation. “3:30? How late were you up?” He noted the discarded cans of Mountain Dew spilling out of the recycle bin.
“She insisted, after reading the report for herself…” Katherine looked apologetic.
“And this?”
“So after my apparent success, I decided to examine the atomic structure of the spoon… and, well, not only did Aristotle not believe in atoms, he didn't know about electrons, or electricity. He would have described them as little bits of fire, I suppose. Hence…” Dr. Ko waved helplessly in the direction of the wrecked machine.
Sean suddenly felt dizzy, and he leaned against the counter. “It actually worked.” He looked around at the other two. “We can change the laws of physics at will. No, more than that. We determine the laws of physics by studying them. God, the effectiveness of mathematics in explaining the universe is probably just because we expect physical laws to be mathematical in nature, so they are.”
“We can control matter by thinking about it,” offered Katherine. “Magic.”
“Exactly.”
They looked at each other for a while; at the microscope, symbol of a paradigm that now seemed so limited; at the spoon, which was apparently currently composed of mostly earth, with some fire and water and air.
“Well, you know what we have to do now,” said Dr. Ko.
They performed further experiments and tests, and once they were sufficiently convinced of their results, the manuscript was submitted to Nature.
Katherine walked into Sean's office. “How are you feeling?”
“A bit nervous. Once this thing hits peer review, news will spread, and every scientist on the planet's going to want to test it for themselves.”
“You know, something occurred to me. When Newton and his contemporaries started trying to explain the world through mathematics, the spread of the Enlightenment probably changed it into a form that could be understood that way. That might explain why reports of supernatural sightings and miracles have decreased since then.”
“Hmm. That could –” Sean stopped. If the efforts of relatively few scientists over centuries could change the way the entire universe worked… and just about now, every scientist hearing the news would be trying it with their own favorite discredited scientific paradigms, which were probably incompatible and almost certainly dangerous. The charred hulk in the corner of one of their rooms was testament to that. He reached for his keyboard, intending to compose an urgent email.
But it was too late.
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by submission | Dec 15, 2010 | Story
Author : Steven Odhner
Charles is scared, which is understandable. If I had to guess I would say that in his head he's attempting to dial the police right now, over and over, even though I've blocked all transmissions. The lab has to be heavily shielded for my experiments, the fact that it helps with this kidnapping is just a happy coincidence. The tiny jerks of his eyes stop and he focuses on me.
“Walter… please. You need help. Don't do this. Don't kill yourself.”
I have to smile at that. “I'm not trying to commit suicide, Charles – although it's true that the machine will destroy the planet upon activating whether it works or not. So, yes, there's at least a ten percent chance that I'll kill myself… but those odds are acceptable. I have one shot for this, one chance to meet my maker. In one way or another I'll be walking in the footsteps of God.”
The reaction will begin at the core of the planet, if I've done everything correctly, and just before it tears the Earth apart I'll be flung backwards in time. Impossible, according to all my peers. Insanity, according to Charles. He's trying to get my attention again, encouraged by my mention of God. I've avoided his religious debates in the past, but here at the moment of destruction I see no reason to hold back. I take the double-crucifix pendant from his neck and snap the chain. “This? This is a lie, Charles. There is no afterlife, no soul.”
“There is a God,” he says, “and you can turn to Him! Walter, God loves you and wants…”
His voice dies off as I point the gun at him. I will enlighten him, but I don't have time for debate. The device is nearly ready.
“Before the big bang, there was only God. God was without limits and without time, and was one with Himself. God knew that nothing could exist while He did, because God was all and all would be God. And so He chose to die, to explode and cast His body into the universe we know. Time and Space are the corpse of our dead creator, and we are maggots crawling within. You say there is a God. I tell you there is not, and the proof is all around you. Look upon His scattered remains and weep in mourning and in joy. You foolishly ask me to enter into a relationship with Him, but the truth is that God is a mother who died in childbirth – He never met us, never knew our thoughts or wrote books to guide us. All we can do to know Him is to look at what is left behind, the laws of physics that he used to commit suicide.”
I step into the chamber. The reaction is already building, the Earth eating itself from the inside. The readings are excellent. Charles is screaming something, but I can't hear him over the machines. They all told me it was impossible. But they never thought large enough. They need to go to a time without time, a point where no physics yet exist to say what can and can't be done. I'm going to meet God, right now.
—
For a timeless instant God is aware of an arrival. He notes the relevant information: Elapsed time, 13.82 billion years. Complex DNA present. Method of termination? Pre-event time travel. And God saw that it was good. God ponders Himself, and resolves to try a 0.005% higher matter/antimatter ratio for attempt number 497.
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