by submission | May 5, 2023 | Story |
Author: David Barber
1. Pauli Neutrino Telescope, Antarctica, 22nd July, 15.05 GMT
Elusive particles flash through the array buried deep in the Ross Ice Shelf. Outside, at 50 below, the wind howls like a ghost in the machine.
The latest plan is to run the PNT remotely, while Beckman insists we stay on site. How do we confess the electronics need constantly tinkering? But in the new round of cuts, even McMurdo Station is being mothballed.
Beckman is in Washington, pestering the National Science Foundation for funding. He video-calls us from his hotel.
“How’s it going Prof?” says Glen brightly. Glen’s on his own sleep cycle, stoked by coffee and the absence of sunlight.
Beckman shrugs. Through the window behind him the skies are cornflower blue.
“It’s this Man In The Street policy,” he says. “If it’s not useful, it’s not funded.”
“Still got that bug in the phasing software,” I say after a while.
Beckman frowns, but it’s not the Recession or the new Administration, it’s something he can fix.
“I’ll look at the code again—”
Then every monitor lights up.
2. Wow, 15.24 GMT
Clusters of neutrino spikes race across our screens, while Beckman’s tinny voice rattles from Glen’s laptop, demanding to know what the hell’s happening.
Either the whole array’s gone bad, or someone with a reactor has technology we’ve never heard of.
The neutrino signal grows so strong we can use the array as a directional antenna as the Earth spins. In ten minutes, Glen has coordinates.
About two hundred thousand years ago, out in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a candle was lit in the dark.
3. End of Signal, 23th July, 21.06 GMT
“Looks like binary code,” we tell Beckman, helpless a world away. “What physics does that?”
“Tweaking a sun,” breathes Glen, watching neutrinos pulse like a heart in distress. “Should have known radio was for newbies.”
“For God’s sake,” Beckman implores me. “Keep Glen off Twitter.”
We chase the source star for thirty amphetamine hours, until a vast tsunami of neutrinos throb from its stellar core. Type 1a supernova signature. Then nothing.
“But you’ve got it all recorded?” Beckman keeps asking. He’s sent the coordinates to the Astronomical Union.
I caution Glen about calling it a signal.
“Not aimed at us,” he concedes, and sweeps his hand like a lighthouse beam. “We were just in its path.”
Converted to numbers, an endless string of 1’s and 0’s unwind across Glen’s laptop. He sighs.
We have no idea where to start.
4. Anomalous Neutrino Output From The Small Magellanic Cloud
There’s no point Beckman flying back from the States. We’re being shipped out with the McMurdo personnel.
“How long will the array work without us?” I demand, angry with Beckman for things not his fault.
The brightness in the SMC is fading. If the signal had come just a few months later we would have missed it.
Beckman shrugs defensively. “It’s all on the Internet. And I’m writing a paper. What else can we do?”
Glen thinks they pumped a star to generate the neutrinos and we should be watching for replies. But then, Glen believes all questions have answers.
I think suns burst with fathomless indifference to flesh that thinks, that they saw the supernova coming and were saying goodbye.
These days I work on SETI at the Green Bank Observatory.
Our headphones hiss with ancient radio noise from galaxies lost in time. We guilty survivors listen late into the night for voices, for someone to tell us it is otherwise.
by submission | May 4, 2023 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
“Thanks, and repeat whatever the lady is having.” Telman directed by lifting his shot of premiere whiskey towards a striking redhead in a tight chartreuse dress with a revealing leg slit sitting on the last stool at the end of the ritzy hotel bar.
“Roger that, buddy. It’s slow. You’re the last two here. Good hunting.” The burly, bearded bartender reached behind and grabbed an expensive wine to balance out his evening’s paltry tabs.
Telman adjusted his posture, pulling his pinstripe suit sleeves so an inch of midnight blue shirt poked out for emphasis. He tightened his silk tie closer to his throat as he ignored the stunner, now turning to stare as she received his free offering.
Clicks from high heels alerted him as she swayed toward the chair next to him. She did not speak, waiting for his opening line. There was none. She cleared her voice to hint. It didn’t evoke Telman’s response.
“Nice gesture. We don’t need to be strangers.” She hesitated, waiting for him to turn to her. He didn’t. “I’m Celeste. And you?”
“Not interested, lady,” Telman muttered, after throwing down his shot.
“What…I…” Celeste sputtered–eyes wide. Telman watched her in the mirror behind the bar.
“I’m celebrating, that’s all.”Telman continued, staring straight ahead while raising his right arm with the empty glass, gesturing for the bartender’s attention.
Celeste twisted her neck, adjusting her composure. “Lonely place…your isolated celebration. Care to share? It was dismal until you came along.” Her voice was carefully patterned cadence to arouse male interest.
“Here,” Telman said to the waiting bartender. “No more of these. I’ll be hitting some gin tonight. Get the London Dry and make a couple of gin fizzes if the lady wants to join my party. I just landed tonight. I need a break. Get cracking!”
“Sure,” Celeste agreed, as Telman finally turned to stare into her hypnotic deep-green eyes. “I’ll give it a try if he’s buying. The red wine was thin.” She complained, placing her gold purse on the counter, then tapping her red nails as she stared back. “You’re an odd one like you don’t even see me. That’s rare.”
“What, because I’m not an easy mark?” Telman replied, stunned almost to silence by her pale beauty, but protected by his training. He moved away from her touch as Celeste reached out to caress his graying hair. He turned back from her again as the bartender arrived with two tall glasses of new drinks.
“Okay. I get it. Gay or something? Married?”
“Nope. Just particular who I drink with. You’ll do.”
“I’ll what!” Celeste snapped back.
“First, a drink…a good one. Then we’ll get to business. I don’t play games.” Telman took a deep swallow and motioned Celeste to do likewise. She followed the script.
Celeste sighed afterward, reorganizing her thoughts. “A player! I should have known. So what’s the deal?”
“No deal, honey. You’re a Trojan whore. We can’t let this situation go on. You’re making it tough for the rest of us visiting Earth. I landed here to clean up your Varjan mess. Hunting season is closed.” She twisted hard, grabbing her swollen neck. “That’s the first sign: painful gill itching. Yes, I can see them sealing. You won’t be feeding on any more male humans. I was betting you didn’t know your race is highly allergic to juniper berries. Don’t mind me as I walk away while you melt into pink goo.”
Before leaving, Telman slapped down a hundred-dollar tip to cover the bartender’s cleaning costs.
“By the way lady, nice dress.”
by submission | May 3, 2023 | Story |
Author: Evan MacKay
The holographic simulacrum was a perfect image of her mother. Same long flowing black hair that framed her heart shaped face. It was almost like seeing her in person. Maddi fought back the urge to reach out and grasp for her mother’s hand, knowing she would only find air, and instead rocked back on her heels.
“Jeremy, and Max were out late again last night,” Maddi said. “I heard them come in. I think they were at the Harrington’s. Drinking.”
The last part would have made her mother mad once, but the simulacrum’s only response was to scrunch up its face and tilt its head, just like her mother would have done when confused.
“It’s hard with you not being here. Dad, he’s…he’s not the same. None of us are. I tried to get him to come see you. He won’t. I know that must hurt you,” Maddi said.
Again, her mother’s simulacrum just gave her that confused look. That look spoke on the true nature of their relationship, of the distant gap that was now between them. Maddi tightened her jaw and kicked the stone headstone, momentarily causing the simulacrum to waver before regaining solidity.
“I just wish you were back, Momma,” Maddi said. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” the simulacrum said. It was the same voice–her mother’s voice, spoken with the same inflections, the same soft confidence. It was too much for Maddi, and she felt the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Please, Mamma, please come back,” she said, gasping for breath. “Please, please, please…”
“But, Maddi,” the simulacrum said, causing Maddi to look up at the face of her mother. “I can’t come back. I am dead.”
Maddi stared up at the eyes of the simulacrum, as she wiped the last of her tears from her cheeks. The simulacrum looked back at her, though it did not see her. Its audio sensors were simply picking up on the sound waves of her mouth. Not for the first time Maddi was forced to remember that this was not her mother. This holographic projection, which looked so life-like, which had been programmed to mimic all the physical quirks of her mother, was in fact not her mother.
Maddi pressed the button on the raised plinth beside her, and the simulacrum wavered before disappearing back into the holographic projector built into the headstone of her mother’s grave. Reaching into her bag she pulled out a bouquet of flowers and gently set them down in front of the headstone. Then she turned and left the cemetery.
by submission | May 2, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
If you believe in monsters, you believe in Bechevinka.
As child refugees growing up in New Beijing on the southern tip of the subarctic Kamchatka Peninsula, we’d heard all the stories. Tales of fire and ice, volcanoes and glaciers, radiation and mutation.
Always beginning with Bechevinka, the remote inlet where in the early 1960s the Soviet admiralty built a nuclear submarine base. A top secret military facility of the highest priority–until it wasn’t. Bechevinka got ghosted, taken off the maps. Half a century ago, severe radiation leaks from the base’s experimental breeder reactors spooked the high command into quarantining the area.
But abandonment doesn’t mean surrender. Life is eager, opportunistic, hungry.
Atomic decay is slow, yet quite satisfying to certain cellular processes looking to gain quick competitive advantages. Cell by cell, mitosis by mitosis, Bechevinka’s failed breeder reactors began to breed surprisingly successful variants. A progeny transforming their radioactive wasteland into a mutant wonderland.
For decades, as the Sino Protectorate’s imperial reach expanded into Kamchatka, local squatters, looters, and adventurers fed stories of the fantastic until the region became fat with reports of behemoth wolves, moose, reindeer, bears, elk, and wildcats. Fierce enough giants, but there were even more intriguing tales of strange hybrids, deviant species, impossible beasts. Monsters.
So much for Bechevinka stories. The Protectorate wanted science.
A field team went in. Nothing came out. A second. Then a third. That’s all I was ever told, though I could see well beyond the Protectorate’s official consternation to their unspoken dread. Why else would they come to me? A fortune teller.
Through war, famine and drought, my mother risked her life many times to get me to a safer place, to a much fuller life. She told me I had a gift. That I was a seer. She said I could not only see the future, but make it a better one.
Right. All I’d ever done was hide behind a crystal ball and lose myself in tea leaves, divining convenient truths for New Beijing’s ever-superstitious elite. Until the officials came asking what I could foretell about Bechevinka. They wanted answers.
So, I gave them what they wanted: permission to exterminate themselves. I told them I foresaw Bechevinka’s promise. Superhumans. Unassailable power for their ruling class. But they must go themselves. Expose themselves to Bechevinka’s transformative elements.
Enough went. Enough high officials perished that I felt I’d fulfilled my mother’s prophecy of a better future.
You see, my mother was beaten to death by Protectorate thugs because she’d helped me escape from child traffickers who paid those same high officials huge kickbacks. She died giving me the gift of freedom. My gift, my clairvoyance, couldn’t save her from simple greed and ruthlessness. Our real kryptonite.
It’s not hard to see that Bechevinka isn’t the only place which breeds monsters.
by Julian Miles | May 1, 2023 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Nine hundred ordinary people have experienced portal transit to Nambinull with the help of a Candamar grant. Nine hundred lives transformed thanks to the generosity of our donors, many of whom come from impoverished zones themselves.”
Doffen Stahl looks up from the prompt screen, the lenses of his contacts strobing green in the barrage of flash photography his raised head causes.
With a little smile, he turns his head to one side, then continues.
“The Candamar is the greatest humanitarian effort since the Tidal Bastion Projects at the end of the last century, and,” he turns back, seemingly gazing into some private distance, “I believe it represents a path forward, rather than an escape from the consequences of the past.”
There are a few murmurs of quiet outrage, but the majority seem to agree.
A lone hand is raised. Doffen points to it.
“Your question?”
The hand drops. A woman’s voice fills the silence.
“Nancy Tarn, Excelsior Intergalactic Network. What percentage of those transited does this represent?”
Doffen brings up a personal holo and rapidly gestures in a query.
“The latest ratified figures do not include the most recent migration. Up to that, the nine hundred represents three percent of those transited.”
There are expressions of disbelief. The susurrus of query is along the lines of ‘why is the total so small?’
Doffen raises a long-fingered hand.
“We cannot rush this. No matter how much political pressure, Nambinull can only support a small population until infrastructure and crops are established.”
There are nods of grudging acceptance.
Doffen signals me with the hand he didn’t raise. I hasten up onto the stage. Raising my hand to prevent lip reading, I whisper nothing in his ear. My job is to give him an opportunity to leave.
“Regrettably, I am needed elsewhere. Please download today’s information pack should you wish.”
There’s a round of applause as he leaves the stage. I trail behind his two protection drones. Looks like he’s heading straight for our limotruck.
The hatch seals shut. With a sigh, Doffen sags into the support couch.
“I’ll never get used to a whole gravity. How do they do it?”
I chuckle.
“They evolved here, remember?”
He blinks, then laughs.
“Oh yes. Slipped my minds.”
Jade lenses slide free, revealing pupilless white eyes. He looks at me.
“Do you ever take those sunglasses off?”
“Only when I sleep.”
He nods.
“I saw a caution marker when I looked up the transit statistics. What happened?”
I knew he’d notice.
“Two of the ‘ordinary people’ were security agents. We kept them in a daze until all the replaced were complete, then let them go along with. It’ll be a good test of the masquerade.”
Doffen sits up a little.
“If they suspect?”
“We’ll secure them, mindscan and replace them, then correct whatever tipped the originals off.”
He nods and settles back.
“Good enough. When is our colony ship scheduled to arrive at Nambinull?”
“Seventeen months.”
“The Nambinull disaster will officially happen a week after unloading completes?”
“Yes. Earth will mourn another lost colony. After a two-month wait, Candamar will push for the establishment of a portal to the next habitable planet on the list, Fexune.”
“How many more times can we get humans to provide funds and fuel for us?”
“Predictions say once more. After that, public opinion will turn. Candamar will fail. Doffen Stahl will perish in a fire, with no remains. Meanwhile, we’ll be on the way to Fexune.”
Doffen sighs contentedly.
“With our people saved, and sufficient docile originals to form the stock of a useful slave race.”
by submission | Apr 30, 2023 | Story |
Author: Matthew Wollin
In the beginning, everything was everything, and nothing was nothing. This lasted for an infinite period, which was no time at all, because time did not yet exist.
Then the everything split into something, and something else. The something was called Quark, and the something else was called Lepton.
As something, Quark wanted children. Quark’s children were called Down and Up, and Quark kept them very close. When Down and Up eventually had children, Down’s child was called Strange and Up’s child was called Charm. Finally Strange gave birth to Bottom and Charm gave birth to Top, and the generations of somethings were complete.
As something else, Lepton wanted siblings, and split into Electron and Electron Neutrino. Electron and Electron Neutrino each split again to make more siblings, who were Muon and Muon Neutrino, and then still more, Tau and Tau Neutrino. Because they were siblings, the Leptons traveled independently, unlike the Quarks, who all traveled together.
As the Quark children and the Lepton siblings grew older and explored the new universe, they eventually came into contact with each other. Because neither had ever had to communicate with a different kind of something before, the somethings and the something elses communicated the only way they knew how, by splitting off little bits of themselves to carry messages back and forth. These messages took on a life of their own and became Bosons.
Since Bosons were created to communicate, they were much faster than their progenitors, and they began to explore faster and faster. Eventually the Bosons explored so fast and so close to each other that the force of their movement took on new life of its own, called Atoms. As more and more Atoms emerged, the universe became so crowded that the Atoms were forced together into novel configurations, called Stars and Planets.
Like their composite Bosons, Stars and Planets wanted to move and communicate, and sent out Gravity and Magnetism to explore, which twisted and turned the universe into new shapes. Eventually the right shape was found for a new kind of life, called Humans.
Humans felt the same urge to explore as the beings they came from, and split off pieces of themselves to do so, called Emotions and Thoughts and Microscopes. These pieces grew more complicated and crowded until eventually a new being emerged from the evolving chaos, called God.
God is the youngest of all beings and thus the most capricious. As God begins to search for other Gods and explore, a new being will eventually be born. In this way infinite beings have been created from a single moment of splitting, and their attempts to communicate with each other constitute everything in our universe.
