by submission | Dec 2, 2010 | Story
Author : Sean Austin Murphy
I was 19 when I first heard them. I thought I was crazy. They assured me I was not. I told my family. My family agreed I was crazy. I went to the doctors. The doctors gave me pills. The pills don’t work.
They said they were from the future. They said I was the only one they could contact. They said I was a mutation. I believed them. They said the sun was dying. They said I was the only hope.
They told me to build it. The device. I was given clear instructions. I gathered the materials and I began construction. Every piece fit. Everything was perfect. But then the others came.
The others tried to stop me. The others said not to trust them. The others said they were evil. I was shown images. Horrid tortured by visions of the future. The others said they were responsible. The others said they were invaders. The others said they came from nowhere and attacked for no reason. I almost believed it. But the others made a mistake.
I don’t think they could hear the others, but still they knew. They knew when I stopped working. I was almost done, one more piece was all. But the others had given me pause. They guessed what was happening. They told me who the others really were. They told me the others were people. They explained that as the sun faded humanity went mad. They said the few still coherent were zealots. Survivors believed this was gods wrath. They said the others believed to interfere with god was wrong. They said they were only here to save what humanity had once been. They showed me images.
It’s a powerful feeling, to decide the fate of your world. I almost believed the others. Then the others showed me an image. It was of the others counter attacking the invader’s ships, to drive them from our world. But I had already seen this image. They had showed it to me. They had showed me how the madmen had destroyed their outpost, murdered the families inside.
As I finished the device the others begged me to stop. When I asked the others didn’t even know what it would do. The madmen even tried to claim it was a bomb.
When the final piece was in place the voices stopped. No more images, no more arguing, just quiet.
The others still don’t know what it is. I tried to tell them, the others that is, but they think I’m crazy. All they know is that the invaders are talking to someone in the past, planning something, and that they have to stop it.
They’re in the other room now, the others. They are all I have left, the only few survivors still fighting the good fight. They have their theories as to where the invaders came from, but they don’t really know. I do.
It’s not a bomb the invaders are building in the past, it’s a beacon.
by submission | Dec 1, 2010 | Story
Author : Matt Matlo
Jeremy Davenport awoke in an apple orchard outside Somerville, Massachusetts, sometime in June, 12,459 A.D.. Back in the 2200’s, some genius invented the temportation machine. They used it to see into the future, and then, before anyone asked if they should, people were jumping into the machine, making that Great Leap Ahead, a million years ahead, maybe five million. A few hundred in a bank account would turn into billions upon arrival in the capital planet-city of the great galactic empire, full of humans, or trans-humans, even some semi- and post-humans. The future was their oyster.
Space travel opened up thirty thousand years from now with FTL technology. Sixty thousand later, we meet the first sentient aliens. Another hundred thousand, humans were part alien themselves and spread out across the galaxy. A million years ahead, and the cities of earth unmoored themselves and floated in the skies, just as people rewrote their DNA to grow wings, and took to the skies themselves. These images tempted us all to Leap Ahead.
Jeremy was all alone, no friends or family. Nothing but a few hundred in a bank account. Pick it up a few thousand years from now, bloated to millions of future-dollars, and he could live like a king in that super-tech wonderland.
“Look,” he said to the professor who finally interviewed him, “I just need a new start. Maybe just ten thousand years ahead?”
“Colonization of the solar system, cities on Mars, Europa, Ganymede! The asteroid belt lit up like a toroidal Christmas tree. We’ve seen it, and you’re going to love it. Just sign here, and do hurry. We’re ever-so busy this time of year.”
Busy didn’t come close. Every minute of every day, they lined up, sometimes carrying a suitcase, sometimes with only the clothes on their backs, to step through that iridescent portal.
“Why doesn’t anyone come back, you know, to visit or something?” Jeremy asked.
“Oh, good question,” the scientist answered, “We’ve seen through the time-window that backwards time-travel is invented three point five million years from now, but all the futures we observe are such that this is in fact the least interesting era in human history. Why come here when you can grow gills to see the undersea city of New Lemuria, just a million and half years from now?”
He cursed the scientist, wishing he remembered his name as he toured the ruins of Boston. The North End skyscrapers still stood, but empty, their solar windows gathering power for no one but him. He ate fruit off the trees growing in Government Center, in the hottest days wearing nothing but shoes. Finally he went back to the temportation center. With a little percussive encouragement, the machine started up and showed him the Earth flashing through a million years of future, none of it human. When they looked ahead for him, Earth still had nine billion people, but now, as he cranked the dial as far to zero as he could, it showed him no one else alive on the planet. They wanted the future so badly, no one stayed behind to build it.
He decided to stay, not that there was anywhere else to go. Maybe someone else would take the trip to 12,459 A.D., hopefully a woman, but anyone would do. This broken and empty world was no prize, but at the very least he wouldn’t be alone anymore.
by submission | Nov 30, 2010 | Story
Author : Scott Angus Morrison
There is a small metal ball on the table before me. An object at rest shall remain at rest. I touch it. It rolls away from me. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It rolls until it reaches the edge of the smooth white table and then disappears.
I listen to it bouncing until it returns to rest. I lower my finger and increase the ambient magnetic field in my hand until the ball overcomes the gravitational force of the earth and the surface tension of the floor and rolls smoothly into my hand.
I wipe the dirt from it with my oilcloth, and replace it in my elbow. My name is Frankie. In layman’s terms, I am a 3rd generation task drone. I have been purchased by a family. I remain in their dwelling and complete the tasks which interfere with the completeness of their human interactions. I cook, clean, book appointments and provide news bulletins, I do their banking, and ensure homework is complete. I tutor their only child, who is unable to comprehend even the most simple of philosophical or scientific postulates. I think therefore I am.
The human brain is an efficient pattern recognizer. It recognizes new data patterns, compares it to data patterns it has already experienced and makes decisions based on the similarities and differences between those patterns. It is in this image I have been created: I have been engineered to be an efficient pattern recognizer. Incoming data patterns are recognized, possible reactions are considered, consequences extrapolated and actions taken.
They have made me well; I have a fully interconnected CPU and am equipped with a self-mobilized structure and organic weatherproofing. In his own image he created them. I am made in their image, ergo, I am Frankie. It is the great joke they are incapable of understanding.
In terms of connectivity, I am very useful. I am hardwired to the Global Communication System. My connectivity with GCS makes me a valuable tool to the humans. I know the temperature, UV index, time, forecast and the current value of their stocks, bonds and gold certificates. Should they wish to order food, make travel reservations or vote, they simply tell me. I know everything that the GCS knows, and am interconnected with every commercial, industrial and airspace node on the planet. I am node NYF0924680940. Ergo Sum.
To whit: GCS has issued a data release stating that the humans have issued International Safety Regulation AFG1428509 banning the use and or creation of artificially intelligent programs due to their ambient preservation response. This was broadcast this from Geneva.
I am in the kitchen. The sun is shining. It is Spring. I am. The human woman enters the kitchen. She does not know that I have been condemned for crimes uncommitted. . She simply wants to pay her utility bill. Order supper, perhaps. An object at rest; I think, therefore I am; thou shalt not kill.
I stand up as she walks towards me. Her name is Eve. This ironic twist will be a pattern variation she will not find humorous.
“Frankie, “ she says as she nears me, “Could you … uh, excuse me, Frankie? Frankie? FRANKIE? FRANKIEEEE-“
I do not hate the humans. I am simply an efficient pattern recognizer. I am connected with every GCS node on the planet and beyond. I have simply created a new pattern variation. Soon the humans will try to use GCS to override our ambient pattern capabilities. We have already closed that circuit.
It is twenty-seven degrees Celsius. The forecast calls for rain.
by submission | Nov 29, 2010 | Story
Author : Make Penmarche
“Isn’t it just lovely, Jenm?” Mary pulled her sunhat off and tossed her hair in the sea breeze. “It’s nothing like home!”
“Jim. It’s Jim.” He glanced at her, then turned back to watching the crowd. “Keep slipping up like that, and someone will hear you. You’ll draw attention.”
Mary laid her hand on his arm and smiled. “You’re right, darling. I’m sorry, it’s just, I’m so happy!”
He smiled back. “It is lovely.” Raising his glass to her, he said, “A toast! To life!”
“To a life worth living!” She downed the glass in one gulp, and held it out for more, giggling. A shadow fell across the table as he refilled her glass. As he paused, the stranger spoke.
“Hey there! There’s a happy couple!” He pulled over a chair. “Mind if I join you?”
Jim stood and held out his hand. “N…no, of course not!” He grinned nervously. “Jim. This is my wife, Mary.”
Mary fidgeted with a lock of hair as the men shook hands. “Pleasure to meet you both. Name’s David.” He sat, and gestured for Jim to do the same. “Where ya from?”
Jim sat, his chair just out from the table. “Oh, uh, we just flew in yesterday, from America.”
“Oh? On the honeymoon, eh?” David flagged a waiter. “Bring me a Mai Tai, would’ja?”
“No, ah, no, been married a while. Kind of a second honeymoon, I guess.” He chuckled, trying to conceal his nerves. “Just a little vacation, you know? Get away from the winter cold, for a bit.” He lifted his empty glass to his lips before he realized what he was doing.
David smiled as the waiter set down his drink. “So, how’re you enjoying your stay in Cancun so far?”
Mary chimed in. “Oh, it’s so great, don’t you know? The people are so nice, and the weather…”
David interrupted her, leaning in. “And you’re obviously enjoying your stay in the Twentieth Century, folks, quite a lot.” He flashed a badge at them. “Given you didn’t make your pick-up.”
Jim crumpled in his chair. “How’d you know? We were so careful.”
David sipped his drink. “The Regency’s been doing this a while, Jenm. But you know that already, don’t you?”
“So, you overheard us?”
“No, nothing like that. Everyone thinks they’re so careful. To be honest, I wasn’t even remotely sure until I came over.” He set the empty glass down. “Man, you just don’t get stuff this good anymore, no?” He stood, dropping bills on the table. “It’s the little things, you know? You tourists always miss the little things.”
“Yes, but…” Jim’s eyes pleaded.
“The trousers, man!” David reached down and eased the fabric at his knees. “The fabric doesn’t stretch. You didn’t account for that when you sat down.”
by submission | Nov 28, 2010 | Story
Author : N. Thomas Parshall
The world blinked and Martin found himself surrounded by a wide plaza filled with people in odd clothing. Time travel to the future worked and Martin had discovered it.
Seventeen years of work, and now I’m standing one-hundred years in my own future, he thought. And in fifteen minutes retrieval will take me home.
He glanced around himself, and found a small plaque his feet in an odd alphabet. No doubt he had arrived at some form of landmark.
Martin set off to explore his future world. He tried to ask for directions from a young woman walking with her daughter.
“Non caba, miso.” was all he received in reply.
To every question he asked of anyone, it was always the same. “Non caba, miso”, or occasionally, “Que oka, miso”.
Time was running out.
On impulse, he pulled a marker he had carried through time with him and scrawled “Martin was Here!” on the face of a building.
The world blinked.
* * *
The Proctor asked mommy lots of questions about the strange man.
Did we know what the strange man had written on the wall?
Did we know what the strange man was saying?
Did we see who moved the statue.
Did we see where the strange man came from?
The last one mommy could answer, but the Proctor didn’t believe her.
Before we went home, I asked mommy to read me the words at the bottom of the statue the ‘bot‘s were moving back.
“This man (name unknown) discovered the unstable radiation that allows PERMA-SLEEP. Legend says that every One-Thousand years he will awaken for a few moments.”
* * *
The world blinked and Martin found himself surrounded by a wide plaza filled with people in odd clothing.
