by submission | Feb 22, 2020 | Story |
Author: Janet Shell Anderson
“The extra dimensions of spacetime are sometimes conjectured to take the form of a six-dimensional Calabi Yau Manifold.”
I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t mean a lot to me right now when there’re riots in West Palm and I’m nearby at my cousin’s estate, Florabella, in Delray/Gulfstream, Florida. At his entrance by the Atlantic, only a couple blocks away, I can hear shouting and maybe gunfire.
But the speaker’s interesting even to my cuz’s wife, Tatiana Romanova Baldwin, the most luscious woman in the world according to TODAY TODAY and ULTRAGOOGLE. He’s Chad Simmons, son of a famous film star and the last astronaut, young, horribly handsome, face like a Greek god, body ditto. An astrophysicist. I’m not sure if Tatiana thinks his being an astrophysicist’s an asset, we’re more in need of goons and lots of them.
My cousin, Perry Austrian Baldwin, the USA Vice Prez, needs help. I’m a divorce attorney mostly operating out of the Space Coast, not much help. My apt, my one-room hole in the wall, with no noticeable rats, my one Maine Coon cat, it’s probably a lot safer. Wish Thor, the Maine coon, were here. Or maybe not. I see myself as moderately successful although the last divorce trio I worked for stiffed me. And remarried.
But Perry called and I came over. Nothing to do on a Friday evening anyway. Perry’s pygmy mammoths are all gathered by his infinity pool as if they think they could make a break for it to my cousin’s yacht. Perry’s been studying the 25th Amendment, always a bad sign for everyone, including the current Prez, who’s insisting he has the right to be reelected for a third term.
“Calabi Yau Manifolds have properties such as Ricci flatness.”
Tatiana looks at Chad like he’s a piece of forever forbidden pie. She’s no genius, went to a soup kitchen in a gilded, sequined dress that flashed out gold holograms saying “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.” “Let them eat cake.”
I didn’t know she knew any French.
“The canonical bundle of M is trivial,” Chad opines and stretches his beautiful legs on the lounge beside the pool, unaware of the gunfire, the shouts, the navy vessel coming up the Coastal Waterway, my cousin crossing rapidly to the pool area. Perry’s thin hair flaps over his high forehead. Like most Vice Presidents, he’s good for attending funerals and standing beside the Big Man, looking inconsequential.
Something like a helicopter churns overhead, a round plastic thing, a time machine, circus prop, whatever. No pilot. The pot-bellied pigs race toward hedges shaped like horses and squeal in German.
“Washington’s on fire,” my cousin cries. “The White House’s surrounded. There’re tanks on Pennsylvania Avenue. No one knows who’s driving them.”
Tatiana slips off her bathing suit top. Her skin gleams. The astrophysicist notices for the first time, takes a sudden breath, doesn’t care about DC.
“M has a holomorphic n-form that vanishes nowhere.” He certainly has a way with words. “We can vanish among the multiple dimensions.”
The round flying object has only room for two .
My cousin smiles at Chad, takes his hand and the two men get in the round clear object which bounces into the cloudless sky and disappears into the sunset.
Tatiana says a word I didn’t know she knew.
That about sums it up.
The canonical bond of M is trivial. Perhaps that will be on her next dress if we survive.
by submission | Feb 21, 2020 | Story |
Author: Kevlin Henney
You get all types here — the good and the bad. The ugly? No, it’s all the beautiful types here at the Nakamoto. You want ugly you go to Zom Zom’s. Gets real ugly. You wouldn’t want to be seen dead there. But seen then dead is how you’d be. Rough joint.
Sure, you get the beautiful types here, but the Nakamoto ain’t high class — and what happens here ain’t classy — but it’s better than Zom Zom’s. Newcomers are here to wash something away; regulars come to soak in it. That ain’t always how it plays it out, but they’re all here for one reason. They come looking for something because they’ve got nothing, sweet nothing.
What can you find at the bottom of a glass? Emptiness. Emptiness and plastic — yeah, even the glass ain’t real. You want more of the anaesthetic of the masses, you ask, you pay, you reach the bottom again. Redemption? You won’t find it. Questions? Always. Answers? Sometimes.
The doll along the bar from me is weeping “What’s she got that I haven’t?” into her ersatz drink, the kind her type likes to drink. Satoshi says nothing. Sure, he knows the answer, but good programming makes for good service — being literal ain’t something you want in a bartender.
“A young model… I thought he loved me!” She knocks back her fauxdka.
“Another for the doll,” I say. Satoshi pours her another, like he always does. Always straight, never watered down. No point, nothing is ever as real as you want it to be — the truth is a cold, hard plastic place.
“Sam,” I say.
She raises an eyebrow. “Me too: Samantha.” Yeah, classic doll.
“Samuel. But only my ID card calls me that.”
She spills the story before pitching me the same “What’s she got that I haven’t?” sob. Like Satoshi, I’m too polite to call up the specs to compare and tell. “Sure, she’s younger — newer — but I’ve had all the upgrades! I’m as good as the latest model.”
I let her finish her drink before I lean over and whisper in her ear — part of the pick-up routine, what they like to call sweet nothings. She sits back, upright, giving me that look. She’s ready to go.
All the world’s a stage? Maybe. Maybe not. But we’re definitely players, each with our part, each with our script.
“Another for the road, ‘Toshi.”
What I offer might not be redemption but — squint at it right, through the bottom of a plastic glass — it might — just might — look like an answer.
She’s still, pupils as dark and as wide as the hole she’d been feeling in her life. With the reset code I whispered — ones and zeroes, but mostly zeroes — she could stay like that for hours. But others might start to notice. Sure, everyone’s here for one reason… but it’s different in each case. Don’t want to make mine any more obvious. Besides, waiting around doesn’t get the job done.
The company’s happy when each line is new and selling by the container load. The company’s happy for them to be yesterday’s models, living their dream living someone else’s dream, being — and wanting to be — your whatever-you-want. But wandering the streets and bars, unowned, desperate with preprogrammed love? Not what they’re designed for. Doesn’t make the company look good.
The company has policies. One of them is No Returns, No Refunds. Redemption is never on the cards. The company has… other policies.
We all have our parts to play. This one’s mine. I finish my synth-ab and we leave.
by submission | Feb 20, 2020 | Story |
Author: Ben Coppin
The only thing protecting me from Titan’s vicious cold is my fourth generation spacesuit, the result of decades of experimentation, engineering and design work. Suit sales have been in decline lately, and my marketing people assure me that a forty-kilometre walk on the coldest inhabited rock in the Solar System is the best way to build consumer confidence.
I pull up my messages as I walk. Just one, from my Chief of Staff, Mary.
“Hello, Michael. I have something I need to say, and this seems like the perfect moment.”
Mary’s voice, usually friendly and warm, is strangely cool.
“I want you to understand how I see you, Michael. You’re so proud of your engineering prowess. But you’re sloppy. There’s always an army of flunkies behind you, picking up the pieces, keeping it all together.”
I’m briefly distracted by the pale clouds my breath is forming in my helmet.
“All these years, you never asked about my family, never wondered if I had one. If you had, I wonder if you’d have recognized my husband’s name? Oh, yes, I was married, once.”
My whole body is shivering now. What’s happening?
“Those first-generation suits. So much promise, but so flawed. Your over-confidence led you to put the lives of strangers on the line. And one of those strangers was my husband, Charlie.
“You’d be surprised how easy it was for me: getting that first job, slowly working my way up to Chief of Staff. And then I just had to wait for a chance like this. No-one looked twice at me, carrying that old suit, the one Charlie died in. And it took just a minute to switch it with your new, safe spacesuit.”
My breaths are icy shards. My head is swimming. I can’t remember why I’m here.
“Goodbye, Michael. I’d say it’s been a pleasure, but it hasn’t. Your hubris cost me my husband. And now it’ll take your life.”
I fall to my knees. Someone was talking, but I don’t remember who it was, what they were saying. Where am I? On another world, I think. I’m feeling sleepy. I should be afraid, but I have nothing to fear. My suit will keep me safe.
by submission | Feb 19, 2020 | Story |
Author: Katlina Sommerberg
Snow piled over trees, rendering them unidentifiable lumps. In the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, it was early spring, but Charlotte thought of Christmas.
Over eggnog, Grandma always gave her lessons in writing Traditional Chinese, often with the stars and planets’ names. Grandma’s love for the stars propelled her North, intent on capturing the last beauty to arc across the sky.
After months of trying, tonight was her last in the Arctic Circle, and the last for the Northern Lights. Astronomers, professional and amateur alike, warned the interference in the magnetosphere would stop future auroras.
The world decided the next technological marvel mattered more.
Five airplanes crept across the sky, blinking against the black night. The only other lights came from satellites; even Venus remained lost in the void.
The aurora blanketed over the artificial stars, colors fading in and out like a dream. The deepest purple clashed against the lushest green, stretched from the heavens down to the trees.
She captured swirling magenta against fading greens, blue plumes threaded through like wispy veins, and more with everything from modern imaging equipment to retro cameras.
She alone documented the natural phenomenon’s death.
by submission | Feb 18, 2020 | Story |
Author: Mark Renney
People were talking about the exhibition and not just on the Net. Everyone, it seemed, knew someone who knew someone who had visited and who had a story to tell. Someone who enthused excitedly about their experience and how the images that they had seen held a particular significance. Insisting, in fact, that the entire exhibition had been tailored specifically for them.
How could they know? This the question all the visitors asked. They had to wear a headset, of course, but even so ‘how could they know?’ This is what they shouted into the faces of the unbelievers, those who hadn’t yet visited, hadn’t yet made the pilgrimage. ‘How could they know?’
There wasn’t anything necessarily special about the images the visitors described. Nothing original or unique, they were a catalogue of the boring and the mundane; a turgid litany of still life’s, seascapes and sunsets, of cornfields and meadows with frolicking horses. And all of the images were well known, well, no actually that wasn’t strictly true. Many had been all but forgotten but all were recognised by the Art Establishment, were part of the Canon as it were. It would have been impressive if just one of the visitors had described something that their Aunt Edith had painted herself, rather than a print of The Haywain that had hung above the fireplace in her sitting room, but this hadn’t happened, not yet.
For each visitor, there was always one image that had extra special significance. Many claimed to have forgotten it and only when they saw it again did they remember. And it all came flooding back – the memories re-kindled were always positive as they were transported back to a particular time and place. A place where they had been happy and where they felt safe.
The Country was divided. There were the visitors and the unbelievers and the visitors had begun to dominate. Not surprising given that the exhibition was now almost everywhere. It was no longer necessary to travel to the capital as the blank canvasses now hung in all of the cities and in all of the towns. ‘Nowhere Too Small’ – this is what the organisers proclaimed. ‘Everywhere Matters.’
The visitors didn’t listen to the criticism and wouldn’t talk to the dissenters. Many had begun to re-visit, not because they experienced something new nor because they were able to resurrect other memories. No, it was always the same, a repetition and so still they continued to visit.
by Julian Miles | Feb 17, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Unit KB428 XNG is going slowly tonight. Is there a problem? The habitual Thursday night stop at the supermarket was only 2.8 minutes longer than usual. Traffic is moving steadily. If the underspeed persists, I’ll have to notify traffic control.
Looks like Unit GN762 KKL is trying to balance my averages by going too fast for the traffic state, and for the speed limit – I’ll permit the latter for short distances, but not at the expense of the former. I make the call.
“Consignar Monit- Oh, hello Barn8. How’re things in LEO?”
“Hello, Susan No Numbers I Am Human. LEO is tidy because a detritus sweep passed through this morning.”
“I wish you could send one down my road.”
“We talked about this last time. I can’t do that. The recycling vessel would crash and make a bigger mess than you already have.”
“You’re funny.”
“I am?”
I add that to my profile. Psychologist Simms Oh I Am Number One will want to know.
“Yes.” She whispers: “Sometimes I wish you were a person.”
I know that whispering is to be considered ‘offline comment’, so I do not respond.
“Anyway, what do you have for me?”
“Unit GN762 KKL. 59 in a 48, measured over 400 metres and still offending, although averaging only 54 since the actionable offence occurred.”
“Oh dear. That car’s being driven by Ian Bagrhams. This’ll be his third violation this year.”
“Car? Driven?”
She makes a wordless sound of surprise. That’s a new one. I add it to my curiosities stack.
“Sorry, Barn8. Offline colloquialisms.”
I drop them from my reference stack.
“Susan No Numbers I Am Human, I believe Unit KB428 XNG is experiencing unforeseen technical difficulties. It has been moving much slower than average, and is now exhibiting potentially dangerous behaviour. It has just veered out of oncoming traffic for a second time.”
“Oh my. Good grief! Susan Travers has had a stroke! Barn8, action an immediate emergency halt on Unit KB428 XNG.”
It’s not often I’m allowed to intervene. Linking with the override module on Unit KB428 XNG, I see it’s a fully updated control suite. All I have to do is tell it to enter emergency handling mode, pull over, and then stop.
“Actioned. Unit KB428 XNG is now stationary, secured, and awaiting emergency services. Location co-ordinates have been forwarded to the closest Highway Emergency Unit with paramedical clearance.”
“Oh, thank you. How did you know to call paramedics?”
“Five years ago you asked me to route paramedics to Unit SV998 LGM. It had left the road. You mentioned the word ‘stroke’ in the description of medical emergency. I merely added the correlation ‘stroke requires paramedics’ to my reference stack.”
“Barn8, you’re a star. You can return to monitoring.”
I end the call.
Star? I have a correlation for that –
Twinkle, twinkle, little me.
