by submission | Sep 22, 2022 | Story |
Author: Bill Cox
‘Welcome to HAVOC. Chaos is just next door.’
It’s a great line and Jacob uses it every time a new research team shows up. The newcomers all smile with polite amusement. They have arrived onboard the High-Altitude Venus Operational Concept; a massive airship traversing the clouds of Venus, fifty kilometres above its surface, where the pressure and temperature are similar to those on Earth.
Jacob thought back to his own arrival, two years ago, as part of the original mission crew. With the earth-bound discovery of Phosphine and other potential bio-signatures in the atmosphere of the second world from the Sun, the scene was set for a scientific mission to confirm whether life really did exist on this turbulent world.
The media liked to say it was a race between explorers on Venus and on Mars, to find the first traces of extra-terrestrial life. Venus won. A number of uniquely Venusian bacterial life-forms had been identified, lofted into the upper atmosphere by the violent storms that wracked the planet.
Jacob played a role in that startling confirmation, in his position as lead of the biological sciences team. His name would go down in history and fame and awards awaited him back home. Once, that fact would have brought him immense satisfaction. Now, other concerns took precedence.
The new researchers would be keen, following their induction in station protocols, to examine the bacterial samples. Jacob didn’t blame them. The life-forms were startling in their efficiency and purity. And why wouldn’t they be? Venus was indeed a hell-world, with crushing surface pressures, sulphuric acid rain and temperatures that could melt lead. Here, natural selection had favoured only the ultimate in survivors, the fittest of organisms.
Not for the first time, Jacob considered the lot of Venusian life, habituated to hellish conditions, constrained by a hostile environment. What might happen to such organisms if they found themselves in a more benign setting? What Jacob knew and what the new crew members didn’t yet realise, was that through human complacency and carelessness, the bacteria that saturated the clouds around them had already found its way into the atmosphere of the airship.
Jacob remembered waking one night, several months ago, realising that he was no longer just himself. He didn’t feel afraid, indeed, he was quite calm about it all. Out of curiosity he did an MRI scan on himself (they had a decent medical facility on board – they were anything up to one hundred and sixty million miles from Earth, after all). The growth at the base of his spine was clear. It was a place that made sense, being a confluence for the body’s nerve clusters. An ideal spot to influence and control the human animal.
He still retained his identity but there was no doubt that his priorities had shifted. He had an overwhelming desire to protect whatever was growing inside of him. It quickly became clear that he wasn’t the only one. Eventually, by dosing the ship’s food and drink with the bacteria, the rest of the crew joined them in their new state.
As the new crew members settled in, Jacob watched the shuttle leave for Earth, carrying those who had completed their tour on HAVOC. Like him, they carried within themselves the seeds of life from another world. Life that would seek out new opportunities in the more benign environments of its neighbour.
Jacob knew that the organisms from Venus would create their own, unique brand of havoc and chaos in the unsuspecting biospheres of Earth.
He found himself quite comfortable with that thought.
by submission | Sep 21, 2022 | Story |
Author: John Arterbury
I hereby affirm I am not making this statement under duress. This is an accurate account to the best of my knowledge regarding all details surrounding the Eruption Experience, for which, as owner and sole proprietor of Tempus Fugit Travels, I take full responsibility. I will answer all questions thoroughly and to the best of my abilities over these coming days.
***
No, we did not know from the beginning that the return would fail. It was not a scam, as some have suggested. We had tested our method several times, including with myself and some of our top investors. You would not believe the places I have been or seen. Of course, this whole affair was quite different from my normal activities. Reinventing an airline as I have done is tiring, sure, but overseeing a time travel operation is another matter entirely. I am, however, a businessman, and I know when a product works or when it does not. I had no indication this would fail.
***
Of course we considered several travel scenarios. We did not choose this one because of sheer danger. As we explained in the marketing material, all journeys are determined by traveler consensus pending sufficient historical understanding of the given context. It turns out this travel panel was a little more adventurous than one might expect, but our expert panel determined that this trip satisfied these criteria. The pending eruption of Vesuvius was immaterial – the timing was immaculate. It is only natural that we cannot account for absolute failures.
***
I have heard the accusations from critics time and again. We are foolhardy. We are irresponsible. Those are the easy ones. The more common one, as you’re well aware I’m sure, is that we are simply faking it. What is this, then? Do you propose we simply disappeared six of the wealthiest men and women on earth after swindling them for a time travel experience? I think, on some level, that accomplishing that would be a more majestic feat than time travel. Please, have some respect for our morals, or at least what little of them those on social media claim we have.
***
I can, of course, furnish proof. If you get with my assistants after this meeting, they can provide the last known location of our lost Eruption Chrononauts. They are believed to rest in a currently unexcavated stretch of Herculaneum. The whole Pompeii choice was a peculiar location, no doubt, but among them there were two enthusiastic amateur classicists. I do not doubt they made a valiant effort to escape once they realized the return would not work but, alas, like Pliny the Elder himself they found the ash too overwhelming.
***
The issue, my engineers tell me, revolved around entrance to the module upon exit. It is necessary for the traveling craft to reach a certain altitude and then speed before the requisite maneuvers to break the space-time dyad can occur. This assumes that the travelers can get back inside the craft: our available radiometric transmission evidence suggests the capsule door malfunctioned, leaving them scrambling for safety as the creaking mountain’s porcupine cloud began to lurch across the sky.
***
I cannot be responsible for the contradictions of nature, or your doubt in our achievements. Let science absolve me and render me its weighted mercy. Audentes fortuna iuvat.
by submission | Sep 18, 2022 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Currents have always pulled me. When I was a kid, I used to run endless circles inside our three-foot-high, above-ground pool. When I finally felt the tug of the current I’d created, I’d fall back and float in soothing circles. I could do that all day. As a teen on sunny summer days, I’d take an old-school black inner tube to various parks that Lake Washington lapped against: Kenmore, Sand Point, Juanita Beach, Saint Edwards.
I’d shove off and drift. Soak in the skies, feel the chill of the lake pleasantly numbing my buns and ankles, and let the wind and water take me with them. I let the elements drive. Give it up to bigger forces, let nature’s patterns reveal themselves.
On any given day, I got pretty good at predicting where I’d end up. Sometimes though, I’d be totally surprised, carried miles across the lake. Usually a friendly boater would be willing to ferry me back the way I came. Occasionally, I had to pull out on some fancy lawn in Laurelhurst or Leschi and call a buddy to pick me up, but that was part of the draw.
If you just put in and let go, where would the currents take you?
Funny that they took me here.
You’ve probably heard of the Gulf Stream or maybe even the Labrador Current, but there are many other great ocean highways. Kuroshio, Benguela, Canary to name a few. And in this ever dramatized era of climate change, you’ve most likely heard of the effects of El Nino and La Nina on ocean and weather patterns.
But, have you ever heard of the Silicon Jet or Korean Causeway?
Probably not, because I named them. And I haven’t told a soul. Not until now. You see, I don’t do as much drifting on Lake Washington these days, but I do set myself adrift in the great Digital Deep.
I gave up surfing the web long ago, so I could study the tides, bob about in the swells and eddies of the wired world. I developed an innocuous program that I call Thor (not the Norse god, think Heyerdahl) to let me float along the strongest digital currents.
It’s not an aimless cruise along the Internet. That is just one very overcrowded, increasingly polluted puddle in the Deep. I hitch rides on pure ones and zeros, sometimes drawn down into nefarious darknets, sometimes swept up to the cloud and its purgatory of server farms. Mostly, I’ve watched, listened and revelled in our vast cultures of information. Our new languages of connection.
And now I map it. The digital tides, currents and undertows. It’s about the patterns, the shape and form of connectivity. The maps are mysterious and beautiful. And I believe this emerging portrait of the Digital Deep is a guide to our subconscious. Who we are at our most primal level. And I know this will sound pretty trippy, but I’ve got to tell you.
I don’t think we’re completely human, anymore
So, get ready to put in, push off and let go. We’re in for a ride.
by submission | Sep 17, 2022 | Story |
Author: Ruby Zehnder
The last thing I see is her face. I don’t recall what she says at that instant, but I remember her shocked expression. I catch her in my arms as she falls forward. She tries to speak, but her mouth is filled with blood. I turn my head away.
“’What’s wrong?”
There is a young woman in a white lab coat studying me intently. She has brown eyes and dark ebony skin that reminds me of my mother.
“Mom?” I ask. I see the disappointment in her eyes when I don’t recognize her.
“No, it’s me. Tessa,” she corrects me gently.
I am in a hospital bed and have electrodes attached to my body.
“Tessa?” I ask as I recognize her face. She is the woman dying in my arms. I try to pretend that I don’t know her. I don’t want to speak about what I have just witnessed.
“Why did you turn your face from me when you saw me?” she asks. I don’t want to answer.
Instead, I look around the room. I realize that I am in the Temporal Studies lab at the university. They are exploring my ability to diffract time. Tessa smiles at me. It all comes back. We are lovers, and I am her pet lab rat. She has promised to fix me.
“Did you see any ghosts?” she jokes.
“No, but I think I saw a leprechaun,” I respond, remembering the first time we met when I confessed that I saw all forms of demons. She hadn’t recoiled in fear when I spoke these words, and it was at that moment that I fell in love with her.
“Your brain was lit up like a Christmas tree. What did you see?” she persists.
Being able to diffract time, like a prism splits a beam of light, is not easy to describe. Where most people see only the present, I can splinter time into a temporal rainbow. Only instead of colors I see events. I try to change the subject. She mustn’t know that I ventured into the future. She is terrified of this component of time.
She begins to remove the electrodes from my skull, and I am tempted to pull her down and cover her with kisses. I don’t because I know this experiment is being recorded. I brush my hand lightly over her cheek as she bends over me.
“Was it bad?” she asks as we walk to our apartment.
I say nothing. A shiver runs up my spine at the memory of her death.
When we turn the corner, I sense the gunman hiding in the doorway, but it is too late.
The last thing I see is her face.
by submission | Sep 16, 2022 | Story |
Author: JM Advent
Water filled the crevice of tan soil left in the wake of PC749’s hand. The Planetary Cultivator’s visual receptors reeled in scan of the rich tan soil in its palm. It’s masculine lips widened to the test results.
After a year of meticulous manipulation within the thick jungle of the region, harvest zone 59-742-8820 had achieved optimal nutrition retention and micro-biological levels and support systems were fully operational.
PC749 was ready to set off toward the next objective when the planetary defense sensors wailed.
20 foreign objects entering atmosphere.
45.
70.
235.
PC749 rushed to the edge of a nearby cliff where a wide vantage point revealed a sky ablaze with space craft.
For the first time, no information could quench the curiosity. There was no protocol for this, the humans hadn’t logged any approach. This should not be happening.
All attempts to connect to a space craft were met with signal jammers. Why wouldn’t the humans want to connect? PC749 was only trying to guide them to the designated civilization promulgation zone.
It began sending the appropriate coordinates and seconds later the humans launched missiles and over 100 years of PC749’s efforts were incinerated.
PC749 fell to its knees and brought a hand to its lips. The humans then turned their weapons onto themselves.
