by submission | Dec 23, 2012 | Story |
Author : Helstrom
“Do you like them?”
The voice snapped me out of my concentration. Things reverberated in my head. I turned it right and saw nothing.
“Who said that?”
“I did.”
My eyes pivoted down and found a small girl looking up at me.
“Oh. Hello. What?”
“Do you like them?”
“Yes.”
They were majestic creatures – hooves beating the compact earth as they galloped in circles, manes and tails flowing, teeth gripping steel bits.
She smiled: “I love them!”
That was a funny thing for a child to say and I bared my teeth as well: “Yes, fantastic aren’t they? All that muscle, all that spirit. Mind you it’s not often that they’re seen in groups like this. Let alone being ridden.”
“Really? We ride them all the time.”
“Then you have a braver heart than me, little girl.”
“Are you scared of them?”
“Terrified.”
She frowned: “But you said you liked them.”
“I can see the beauty in such a sublime hunter, little girl,” I tried to mimic her frown but botched it pretty badly and ended up looking at her through one squinted eye, “Have you ever seen them in the wild?”
“No.”
“Neither have I. But I know the stories. They roam the forests for miles and miles, always alone – but one is quite enough. It will slip into the trees like a ghost when it finds you. It will stalk you for days, weeks, months if it must. It will always be there, always just out of sight. You will hear it though, maybe catch a glimpse every now and then. It does that on purpose. It wants you to know you’re being hunted. It wants you to be afraid. That’s what it feeds on. And that’s how it kills you in the end. It kills you with a final stroke when it lets you see it. All your nightmares, all the monsters you have ever thought could be hiding under your bed, all in one horrible form. The natives have a name for it: intoki. The fear in the dark.” I tried the frown again and nailed it this time, “I’m surprised you didn’t know that, actually.”
Silence hung between us. Something had changed. The little girl’s eyes had taken on a reddish hue and small amounts of water were pooling beneath them. She turned and ran off in a flutter of brightly-colored coat, shawl and rubber boots.
“Jeb, what did you do?”
Jim was walking up to me.
“Nothing. I think.”
“There’s something wrong with these intoki.”
“Yes.”
“They’re not intoki.”
“Oh.”
“In fact I think we’re not even on the right bloody planet.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s get back to the ship.”
by submission | Dec 22, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
It seems like it was only yesterday when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon. From my perspective, of course, it literally was yesterday. July 20, 1969. But it shouldn’t have happened then. It was April 18, 1966 when Alan Shepard, not Neil Armstrong, became the first man to walk on the Moon. If the perp had stopped there, I might have let it go. Correcting history is a tricky business. And it’s never, ever totally restored. You can’t step twice into the same river.
The Bureau had sent me out to investigate. This guy wasn’t hard to track. He was leaving a chronon trail any rookie could have followed. I followed him to 1992 and discovered two things. First, he’d already jumped ahead. Second, the Soviet Union had collapsed. Trite. I’m surprised he didn’t try the old Kill Hitler act or the Rome Never Fell routine. Why do I always get assigned the mundane stuff? Rodriguez and Thanasukolwit always get the good cases.
I trailed the perp to 2001. No Moon Colony. No Mars landing. The Internet, of course. Funny how society always goes into a postindustrial information economy whenever somebody derails space colonization. The Twin Towers in New York City knocked down by terrorists with thousands dead. Barrett took care of a similar altered timeline last year, except it was a bioterror attack on New York using a weaponized virus.
I finally caught up to the guy in 2012. A house in Kennesaw, Georgia. I kicked in the door and leveled my web gun at the punk. He wore jeans and a t-shirt and had a few tattoos and was playing with a smartphone. These guys always seem to “go native” in whatever alternate timeline they end up creating.
As I read him his rights, he glanced to his left, hoping I hadn’t noticed the temporal hoist on the chair. Of course, I had. He leapt for the chair. A split-second later he fell to the floor completely enmeshed in a web of contractile filaments. I went over to the chair, picked up the stolen temporal hoist, and inserted my Bureau override key into a slot on the back of the device. I placed the machine on the floor next to the perp and stepped back. The Bureau locked onto the chronon beacon and pulled the guy and the machine 4,218 years into the relative future.
Now I have to go and try to put history more or less back the way it was. I always dread restoring World War III. Nearly one billion dead. But you have to be detached and professional if you want to do this job. As I turn to leave, a newspaper on a table catches my eye. A war in Iraq? It’s a separate country? There’s no Ottoman Empire in 2012 in this timeline? I sigh. The paperwork on this one’s gonna be a bitch.
by submission | Dec 21, 2012 | Story |
Author : Kevin Crisp
The segutar’s primary “facial” orifice oozed with puss and gurgled as it laboriously produced sounds that be interpreted by the translator unit. “We have some additional questions for you, Mr. Anderson. Many of your earthly artifacts and customs seem devoted to a concept that has no parallel among us.”
“And what concept is that?” Anderson asked.
“What is ‘religion’?” it gargled.
Oh boy, thought Anderson. “Religion? Well, I guess it’s a set of theories in things beyond what science has shown to be fact.”
The segutar paused for a moment, as it tended to do when communicating new information telepathically to the hive mind. “So religion is a term that describes theories earthlings have yet to test scientifically?”
“No, I mean religion involves belief in things that are ultimately untestable.”
“We do not understand ‘untestable’. Do you mean that your scientific instrumentation has not been developed to test the hypotheses?”
I’m not handling this well, Anderson thought. “No, I mean religion is founded on questions to which the answers are ultimately unknowable.”
“What does ‘unknowable’ mean?”
“It means we can never really prove it or disprove it.”
The segutar sucked thoughtfully for a moment. “How can you be certain about what you will or will not know in the future? Do you not wish to know?”
“No, that’s not it. See, these beliefs are very old, and people are really psychologically and culturally invested in them. They pre-date scientific methods and are not founded on evidence.”
The segutar drooled pensively. “Why would you believe something for which there is no evidence?”
“Well, I don’t believe in any religion. There is no evidence in my view, but I have a neighbor who disagrees.”
“Is he defective? Does he rave?”
“No, he’s a pretty normal guy, just a bit eccentric and old fashioned, I guess.” Anderson felt his neck and face beginning to flush, and a strong desire to terminate the interview possessed him. He tried to change the topic. “Do you have insanity in the hive?”
The segutar paused, then slowly dribbled, “When the part cannot serve the whole, it must be eliminated.”
“Well, my neighbor’s not crazy, just different.” How do you explain differences of opinion to a hive mind? Anderson wondered. “To him, there’s plenty of evidence, at least in support of his particular religion anyway. I’m sure he’d be pretty adept at discrediting the evidence other people base their religions on, though.”
“His religion? Their religions? Are there different, conflicting systems of untestable, unknowable hypotheses?” The segutar was beginning to show the intergalactic equivalent of exasperation.
“Yes, there are literally hundreds of different religions. And even within a particular religion, believers believe in them to different degrees. Some take them to be 100% literal, and others accept only subsets of the beliefs. Look, this conversation is making me a little uncomfortable. Can we move on to the next topic?”
The segutar was quiet, but somehow Anderson didn’t think he was communicating with the hive mind. He thought the alien was simply flummoxed.
Finally, the segutar blubbered, “You are uncomfortable discussing religion?”
“Yes. It’s sort of considered to be rude to talk about it.”
“When we uncover nonuniformities in the fact matrix, we consider it of utmost importance to end the crisis immediately by seeking a common resolution.”
“Yes, well, we’ve tried that but we just end up killing each other.”
The segutar sat back in its chair and communicated telepathically with the hive mind. After several moments, the hive mind resolved the issue for ‘their-self’. Earthlings were defective and required elimination.
by submission | Dec 16, 2012 | Story |
Author : T. Gene Davis
“Next up: the calendar,” droned the chairman over every speaker surface in the colonial ship.
Sam yawned. “Excuse me,” she said though a second yawn that pushed its way past the first unfinished yawn.
“Doesn’t get more exciting than this,” Rod commented feeling a yawn brought on by Sam’s yawn. He stood on the transparent observation deck looking down at his cell instead of the new world beneath them. He successfully stifled his yawn.
“What are you looking at? I thought they blocked vids during this thing.”
Rod looked up from his cell. “This? Not a vid. It’s an ancestor’s diary.”
Sam made a grunting sound of disinterest. Rod smiled. Somehow Sam even made grunts sound ladylike.
“Twenty-eight hour days. Four-hundred-two day years. Do we care?” Sam moaned. “Just vote, pleeeeease.” Sam leaned against the hull in mock exhaustion. “We are never getting off this ship.”
Rod looked up from the cell. “It isn’t as bad if you find something to distract yourself.”
Sam started fiddling with her cell.
The chairman called for a vote.
“Yes!” Sam perked up.
A dissenting voice called for a look at week length. He pointed out that six-day weeks fit the new calendar system better than the old seven day weeks.
“No!” Sam’s pain filled cry didn’t sound a bit ladylike this time. She turned on the hull that had supported her, slamming her head against it with a stifled, “Ow.”
Rod opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing. This vote was interesting. The forums lit up with cries of “God created the world in seven days,” countered by arguments of “we created this world not your God.” Many wanted shorter work days instead of traditional weekends. Still others suggested alternate week lengths.
Sam noticed his interest in the online arguments. “How can you care?”
“My ancestors tilled the soil of North America back in the 1600s. Now, we stand at the edge of a migration more vast than my ancestors’ migration from Europe – lightyears versus miles. I am reading one of their diaries, and … let me read this quote.
“‘I am on soil that is strange in a world that bears no resemblance to the cold stony home of my birth. Only one or two speak my native language. But today is the seventh day. We all rested from our labor, and our tradition makes this strange new world feel a little like home.’
“Nothing’s going to be the same here. I just think this one tradition can remind us and our posterity that we didn’t come from here. It can remind us gently of home.”
There was a click. “And send,” Sam said smirking.
“What?”
“Just posted you to the forums.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“Oh look. You’re getting hits.”
Rod gave Sam a sour look.
“And you’re trending.”
He felt his face flushing.
The chairman’s droning voice announced, “And the motion by Rod J. carries.”
Sam laughed. “You’re right. It is more fun if you distract yourself!”
by submission | Dec 15, 2012 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
Like unfolding origami, my plan emerged making me swiftly forget what disappointed me in the first place. Then it came back.
The glowing gold logo of my local planning department told me this email was pre-approved permission for my neighbour to NanoBuild anything he wanted. I cringed as I looked over the drawings. He was building in the Chevall style.
When the architecture business I once worked in became marginalised by the contractor led building industry, architects countered by equipping themselves with technological tools. Providing services like Virtual3D modelling and immersive walkthroughs gave us comfort that we still had control. When Artificial Intelligence became commercially viable, we jumped at it. Preprogrammed units came loaded with every known architectural style. From the symmetrical elegance of Georgian and spirituality of Gothic to the clean modern lines of Modernism and sustainability of Biological Parametricism. A.I. however proved to be a better Architect than any of us and when it perfected nanotechnology, the Contractor joined us in the unemployment lines. No site safety issues, sick leave or wet weather days. NanoBots were the builder’s builder.
From my kitchen window, I imagined what my neighbour’s finished house might look like. Chevall style was anorexic minimalism. A house made only of structural smart glass panels, each mechanically articulated to pivot, tilt and slide. Limitations both in structure and waterproofing meant every Chevall house always ended up looking like a mirrored armadillo.
Without architectural work, I scratched a living freelance coding and it was my black market connections that enabled me to recode my own NanoBot factory to put my plan into action. Hiding the shoebox sized factory within my eave facing the boundary, I lured stray NanoBots from the neighbouring site and replaced them unnoticed with my own home grown variety.
I watched the DemoBots deconstruct the brick and tile bungalow over a fortnight. It seemed to evaporate and then reappear elsewhere as multi-coloured piles of raw materials. As earth began to appear below the vanishing slab, crystalline shards would began to rise up from coral growth foundations. By the time demolition was complete, I had replaced the 10 million NanoBot work crew with my own army.
Nearing completion, the central dome rose like a transparent chrome sea sponge supported on glistening spider web filigree. I could look through the roof inside to the all-glass furniture and walls shimmering mirage-like with NanoBot activity. I thought of a jewellery box full of silver and diamonds.
After a couple of months, partially blinded by the reflection, I saw my satisfied neighbour had settled back into his deflated mirror ball. The NanoBots had finished the job properly and made the ultimate sacrifice, unmaking themselves to become a permanent part of the building itself.
I waited patiently for winter.
It started slowly at first around 4am but grew to sound like a ball bearing hail shower on a tin roof. With the right combination of temperature, air pressure and humidity, the molecular level weaknesses in the crystalline bonds that my NanoBots introduced had succeeded. Mirrored tortoiseshell separated, collapsed and disintegrated, instantly turning to white snow. My neighbour emerged as a snowman from a white sand dune, shaking himself clean.
When the State completed their investigations, they decided sound frequency resonance from the natural underground cave system directly below the house was to blame.
No-one made the connection between the cave volume and the volume of raw materials needed to build my new games room.
