The Quickening

by | Feb 15, 2007 | Story

Author : TJMoore

Lightning struck her left wingtip sending a twinge all the way down to her ribs. Finally it had begun. She flapped her enormous wings, increased her speed and altitude. She needed a body strike.

It had been twenty rotations since she had mated and the time was right. She could feel the clutch of eggs, dormant and unmoving in her womb, waiting.

Another lance of lightning flashed in the swirling clouds above her and she started her localized spiral up into the maelstrom.

She had never been pregnant before so she was a little nervous. The unknown was always two sided.

Suddenly, a blazing hot arc of static electricity that enveloped her whole body in a corona of blue energy slammed her, causing her to shudder. That was a good one, she thought.

She could feel the energy pooling in her womb as the eggs reacted to the static charge. Some of the eggs would burst and some would char, but a small percentage would transition to the second phase of development and become children.

Unsure of how much energy was required, she circles in the permanent storm getting hit time and again by the ferocious bolts until, finally, unwilling to risk burning another egg, she dove down to the relative calm of the lower stratosphere.

The orange clouds of Jupiter surrounded her like lilies on a pond as she flapped toward a distant flock that was her family, a bluish train of ions trailing after her leaving sparkles in the sky.

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Temponaut

by | Feb 14, 2007 | Story

Author : Duncan Shields

The good news is that my time machine works.

The bad news is that the laws of the universe will only allow it to go forward.

I don’t know what I was thinking. We sent it forward two minutes and then three minutes and then a month. All tests were green. No time passed for me but the people in my lab saw me disappear for four weeks. It was a success. There was talk of a government contract. We didn’t dare do a test back in time yet. The causality equations were still being worked out.

I just wanted to impress Jenny. I’d been drinking. It was late. I wanted to go a few hundred years into the future, find something amazing, and bring it back for her. It seemed like the most romantic thing anyone had ever done to my drunk lovesick scientist mind. I took a deep breath and hopped in and dialed in the tempordinates.

I hit the go button. Everything worked perfectly. I stared at the exit door, took a deep breath and pulled the handle.

With a crack and a hiss I walked out into the darkness. Immediately, floodlights came up and a loud horn made me freeze like a scared dog. It looked like I was standing in some sort of parking lot but it was hard to tell with the light shining down on me. I shielded my eyes with an upraised hand. I squinted into the darkness.

“Quin do lave track temp shift over max chain” said a booming voice from a loudspeaker.

“What?” I stammered back “My name is Dr. Jenkins. I am from the year 2008. I, uh, I come in peace.” I finished lamely.

My stomach was really not enjoying the celebratory whiskey anymore. I was scared like I hadn’t been scared since I was a child. I staggered forward onto my knees and vomited noisily onto the pavement.

That was all six months ago. Turns out they’d been waiting for me. This tempstation had been set up like a barrier across all of local time. It catches us illegal time travelers like tennis balls thrown against a net. I was the thirtieth one that they had caught so far but I was a semi celebrity seeing as I was the inventor of the first time travel machine.

Unfortunately, it meant that they had to tell me the bad news that every time traveler since me already knew. It’s not a return trip. You can’t go back.

They say they’ll let me out of the holding cell soon. I have a support group of temporal displacement counselors and fellow temponauts waiting to help me adjust to this new future society.

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The Path Not Traveled

by | Feb 12, 2007 | Story

Author : Patrica Stewart

Kathryn Duncan sat in the waiting room of Alternative Realities, surrounded by her husband, her two sons, her four grand children, and her seven year old great granddaughter, Wendy. Wendy sat in her lap, while the others gathered around her recalling stories about their childhood (usually exaggerated, fabricated, or both). They were all laughing and poking fun at each other. Talking about everything except why they were there. Kathryn had just turned 75, and was now eligible for her one legal opportunity to temporarily “do-over” her life. For the modest sum of $1,999.99, she could enter the “chamber” for two hours and experience a lifetime of events and memories “as real as reality itself,” to quote the holocommercials. She simply chose a date in her life where she made some key decision, and the temporal computer would manipulate space-time to send her back (virtually) to that moment in time. But in this alternate reality, she could choose a different path. Then, she would live out the new timeline (virtually and accelerated) to the present date, unaware of the true timeline until she was removed from the chamber. Once revived, she would retain both sets of memories, and would know the answer to the nagging question the haunts most people…”What if…”

Wendy, who was somewhat overwhelmed by the gathering, innocently looked at her great grandmother and asked the question that no adult would. “Great grandma, what are you goin’ to change?”

The room suddenly turned silent. Nobody ever asks that question, primarily because the change could involve you (or more likely, their life without you). As it turned out, Kathryn hadn’t made her final decision, although she had narrowed it down to the standard options:

1. (Marriage) Marry Scott instead of Joe.

2. (Children) Finish my PhD before having children.

3. (Career) Accept the vice presidency in the Lunar office.

After all, these were the logical alternative timelines. Would she have been happier, more fulfilled, or more respected if she had chosen a different path? She looked into Wendy’s beautiful crystal blue eyes, then at her loving family, all staring at her expectantly. They had all been so supportive, especially Joe. He had “gone back” last year, when he turned 75. Kathryn had never asked him what he had changed. Only naive, innocent children ever do that. But he was not the same afterwards. Nobody else seemed to notice, but after being married to him for over 50 years she knew he was affected, at least sub-consciously. Maybe it was regret, maybe it was only her imagination. Kathryn couldn’t be sure. But it made her wonder why everybody was obsessed with going back. Maybe 90% of the people confirmed they had made the right decision, and 10% didn’t. Maybe it was 50-50. You either climb out of the chamber no better off than when you went in, or you had a lifetime of regret to deal with. It seemed like there was nothing to gain, but an awful lot to lose.

Kathryn wrapped her arms around Wendy, and stood up. “Yes, honey. I’ve decided to change…nothing.” Hugging Wendy like a life preserver, Kathryn left the waiting room, and headed home, content in the knowledge that she had made all the right decisions, including this one.

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Babel

by | Feb 11, 2007 | Story

Author : Robert Niescier

We didn’t know what to think when we first saw it. The case, shiny as a mirror, surviving down in the bottom of the ocean God only knows how long, resting in the shadow of some strange underwater mountain. We had never seen anything like it.

I caressed the rectangular box gently, searching for a button, a clip, any sort of seam that might signify a way to reveal the contents inside. Finding nothing, I placed it back down onto my desk and sighed. Three days, and still no luck. Our submergible had only a few days worth of fuel left, and it would be months before we’d be able to return.

I looked out at the inky blackness of the ocean floor, at the ominous jagged mountain reaching up towards the deep blue ocean sky, and placed my palm flat on the case, expecting to feel the chill of metal on flesh but instead a very warm tingle began to crawl through my fingers. My eyes shot down at the case and found that it had begun to glow red, like heated metal. I struggled to move my hand away but only succeeded in sinking it deeper into the mercurial shimmer of the red-hot case, the heat rising farther and farther up my arm, sinking behind my eyes and into my brain. I blacked out.

Cheers exclaimed in a foreign tongue rang out all around me, and I opened my eyes to find myself in the midst of a vast celebration. People dancing, laughing, screaming, pointing. A grand tower stretched towards the sky in front of them, so high it seemed to touch the heavens above.

Their cries abated as a vibration shook the ground beneath their feet. All stood still, their eyes transfixed on the bottom layer of the tower as it began to radiate a sky-blue glow; climbing story after story until the whole structure was ablaze, shining like the sun against a pale sky.

A loud BOOM echoed through the air as the light rose to the top of the tower, a pinpoint barely visible from the ground. Fervent cheers rose, then fell as winged men exploded like fireworks out from the top and poured down onto the crowd. No one ran, not until the first round of innocents was slaughtered by the angelic warriors.

I turned and dashed away, and found myself face-to-face with an old man, holding a shiny metal case like a refugee mother holding her child.

The history of our world.

Thirty years have passed since the history, the knowledge of our true ancestors was implanted into my mind. Into all of our minds. Conflicts have ceased. Cities have prospered, and risen up like leaves of grass on an open field. We are a people of one flag, one language, one ideal.

We are going to build the tower again, but this time things will be different. The weapons from the wars still work. We will be ready for Him this time.

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Something In My Eye

by | Feb 10, 2007 | Story

Author : Chris Court-Dobson

“Stop, there’s something in my eye.”

The spore had crash landed in his eye, and people were emerging. Light was blotted out as he rubbed, but the people were unharmed.

“I think its gone.”

The people had nuclei, flagella, membranes, thoughts, emotions, roles and beliefs. They screamed as bacteria engulfed the stragglers, but through their superior intelligence fought them off and then captured them. They began to farm the bacteria for their rich cytoplasm, then they began to build.

“My right eye is itchy, I hope its not infected.”

A city made of calcium grew out of ocean of tears. Bacteria swam in pens before their slaughter. The people were prosperous, but could not remember their home, the long journey in the spores had robbed them of that.

“Doctor will I be ok?”

“It’s just an eye infection, drop this in your eye.”

Deadly chemicals fell from the sky, but the people prevailed and reinforced their stronghold. Soon their civilization grew to encompass the entire ocean, except the middle where the ocean floor was dark, this was considered a holy place.

“It’s getting worse, it looks terrible.”

The city became overcrowded, there was civil war over whether or not to build over the black centre. The priests said it would anger the ocean and make the deadly rain fall again. The others scorned, the deadly rain was no match for them. Eventually the priests left the city and struck out across the desert mountain in search of another home. They were attacked by monsters and many fell to their deaths on the slopes, stragglers were left behind. Meanwhile in the city, the centre was quickly built over, to much rejoicing, at last they had they had thrown off the shackles of religion.

“I woke up this morning and I was blind in the infected eye, is there nothing you can do?”

“I have never seen this before, it seems to be a new disease. We’ll work on a cure.”

The True Believers came eventually to a new ocean of tears, the same as the last one. They rejoiced and began to build.

“The infection has spread.”

They built great buildings, statues and art.

“We’re working on it.”

The first city heard of the second and were jealous, with their violent ways they marched an army across the mountain and took the second city by force. Then they built over the sacred space.

“I cannot see, my sight has gone. Doctor, I’m afraid.”

“We’ve found a cure, genetically engineered micro-organisms, they’ll clear the infection right away and attack the cause as well.”

Monsters fell from the sky, they ate through the walls of the city and the bacteria flooded the streets. The statues fell and the museums were crushed. Soon the people were gone. With nothing left to eat, the monsters died. The peaceful bacteria reclaimed the ocean and continued with their peaceful existence.

“Thank you Doctor, I’m cured.”

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