by submission | Mar 24, 2018 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
Two neutron stars, ten times the mass of the sun collided, unleashing a cataclysm—an explosive kilonova, whose massive gravitational waves undulated through the dark mantle of spacetime, forging in their course a planetary system composed of fifteen swirling planets.
Two hundred million light-years away, a team of astronomers on Orbital Observatory-9 detected the blast on their interferometers and monitored the emissions over seven days. As the astronomers triangulated the location of the collision, spectral signatures on their detectors indicated that the planets were formed almost entirely of the heavy element gold.
It was an astounding discovery. The twenty men and the twenty women gathered to discuss the theoretical implications of the golden planets. They dispatched a lengthy, detailed report to the Ministry of Space on their home planet. There, science officials forwarded an abridged version of the report to the Ministry of Resources; materials officials delivered a summarized version to the Ministry of Economics; and planning officials sent a simplified version to the Ministry of Politics. Serious, urgent communications ensued between the ministries.
After an unexplained communication blackout of six hours on Orbital Observatory-9, the team anxiously received an encrypted ministerial transmission. The message was dictated in a halting automated voice:
“Commissioned Astronomers of Orbital Observatory-9,—the Security Committee of the Ministry of Politics of Planet-State Earth,—on behalf of the Ministry of Space,—the Ministry of Resources,—and the Ministry of Economics,—expresses profound gratitude on your momentous,—historic discovery of the fifteen golden planets.—The team on Orbital Observatory-9 has admirably and honorably carried out its scientific commission in the area of outer-space detections.—As of this time,—your project is marked ‘classified’ in view of unprecedented space competition between interplanetary-state governments for commodities,—wealth,—prestige,—and systems of influence.—Rare,—naturally occurring gold in the cosmos is for us,—our allies,—and our rivals on the terraformed bodies—a significantly more valuable commodity than industrially replicated artificial gold.—Orbital Observatory-9 will now map ‘top-secret’ travel trajectories for unmanned surveyor-probes with hyperbolic propulsors to capture flyby images of the fifteen golden planets in order to determine if their magnetic fields,—gravitational pulls,—weather systems,—and physical terrains are favorable for execution of robot-rover expeditions for precious-metals extraction.—We anticipate at least several octillion tons of gold based on your report.—Per commission contracts,—all members of Orbital Observatory-9 will comply with ‘confidence protocols’ until this project is declassified.—Noncompliance shall be punished by imprisonment with work for life or for a definite term of not less than thirty years.—Again,—the Security Committee of the Ministry of Politics of Planet-State Earth commends you on your major discovery and thanks you for your service.”
The transmission ended, and the astronomers stood in stunned silence. They had never expected to hear from the politicians, much less from their security committee. The sudden demands, invocations, and presumptions after six uneasy hours shook and unsettled the team.
The men and women on Orbital Observatory-9 began to debate the significance of the transmission. They surmised that the communication blackout they had experienced was intentional. And they concluded that somewhere along the lines of inter-ministerial exchanges, a nonspecialist had omitted the detail that the golden planets could have been spheres of gas, dust, and cyclonic winds; or maybe, for the politicians, the detail was inconsequential insofar as elemental gold was available in one form or another.
The astronomers viewed their discovery under the shadow of an affliction. The neutron-star collision and their report of the golden planets ushered a perilous prospect before them—a revival of the epoch of wars, revolutions, and counterrevolutions in the ancient human struggle for existence. The team continued to discuss. Distant comets outside the observatory window shot across the universe, indifferently.
by submission | Mar 23, 2018 | Story |
Author: Talon Abernathy
The disease passed quickly and no one was spared.
First, it neutered the men. Women became infertile. Men atrophied and women thickened. Hair sloughed off and torsos turned flat. The two sexes equalized and thus division was lost.
Next, hunger disappeared. People lost their taste for food. Then, the mouth disappeared. X-rays showed the stomach had folded back into the lining of the abdomen.
Clothes grew irksome. The skin itched and cracked under polyester, cotton, and wool. Nudity defeated ornamentation and vanity became impossible to please.
As all this occurred, it was revealed that the disease was the product of a design. Some young scientists in a city no one had heard of, located in a country seldom thought of, had pioneered the plague.
No complaints were raised.
The tall shrunk and the small grew. The pale grew darker and the dark grew paler. Soon there were 7 billion identical people and if you faced any two, the wrinkles, the smile lines, the freckles, and sun spots would line up as well as if it were one man facing a mirror.
War vanished. Rape disappeared. Murder, theft, and violence trickled to a stop. As minds aligned to a singular truth, lies starved for want of sustenance. Finding their homes destroyed, they dissipated and were no more.
And then one human- as grey, tall, and similar as the rest- realized that he could no longer love: not his wife who had become indistinguishable, nor his children, nor his parents, nor his friends.
Books, movies, and music were no longer created nor consumed. The craggy differences which had once generated so much creativity flattened and the black places that had nurtured the stories and expressions of man burned away in this new light.
Creativity and innovation died. Vanity was replaced by sloth; licentiousness and aggression were replaced by anomie.
All of the great cities of man emptied out. Their inhabitants walked into the wilderness and waited to die.
by submission | Mar 22, 2018 | Story |
Author: Logan Smith
In the beginning, humanity looked to the stars, and saw gods.
In their golden age, they went among the stars, as if they were gods.
In the end, when the stars started going out, they found gods.
***
You don’t see a lot of sunsets anymore.
If you do, you stop appreciating them. They stop being neat when you know in your bones what they always precede. A sunset means you happen to be in the right hemisphere of a staging world before the big show. When they eat stars, they usually eat more than one. That’s how we know where to meet them. Watch the night sky, wait for one of the lights to go out, and then shack up in a neighboring solar system.
That’s the irony of it all. You can pack as many paracausal weapons into a warsuit as you like but weaponized mathematics, caedometric suites, and AI don’t mean shit if you don’t have a skin-and-bones human to run it all. Some cruel fucking joke of the universe means the numbers don’t work otherwise. The universal constant. In every observable timeline, it has to be us, which makes just as much sense as the rest of this shit.
We’re an infinite army. It seems that way at least. We’re fighting a billion trillion battles across the observable universe against an enemy from the unobservable. Each and every one of them is a set of paradoxes and quantum violations given form: an unthing that cannot exist and does. They’re an infection from all the universes we aren’t supposed to think about and we’re the antibodies dutifully rushing to the defense.
I don’t see a lot of sunsets anymore. I’m trying to appreciate it, but it’s getting harder. A bunch of us are going to die, some more than once if they get caught in a bad loop. We’re going transatmospheric to fight for a main sequence star hosting an indigenous subluminal civilization. Soon, I’m going to take a backseat to the suite of psychedelics, quantum neural interfaces, and tactical intelligences that does the heavy lifting.
We’re gonna try to kill a god.
by submission | Mar 21, 2018 | Story |
Author: Shari S Levine
Miriam opened the door of the caravan-turned-time machine. Dry, hot air blew in. She shaded her eyes against the brightness. They had landed where they had planned: at the base of a range of hills, nothing around them but arid land that matched the red sun.
A scream pierced the air. Miriam rushed out to find a young woman shouting.
“Yeshua, oh, Yeshua!” the woman cried out in Aramaic, her hands flung in the air, going to her mouth, going back to the air again.
Miriam turned around to see sandaled feet sticking out from beneath the time machine. No, they couldn’t have.
Suddenly, she heard a thud and spun around to see her husband and lab partner Josh with a club in his raised hand, the woman now lying on the ground.
“What on Earth have you done?” Miriam kneeled beside the woman and checked her vitals. She wasn’t dead, thank God.
“She was hysterical! She would have totally blown our cover.” Josh’s throat bobbed. “Did you hear what she was shouting?”
“Yeshua.” Miriam shook her head. “This isn’t good.”
“We killed Jesus.”
“We didn’t kill Jesus.”
“We killed a guy named Jesus, then.”
Miriam closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Their trip wasn’t supposed to go like this. Everything she had planned depended on them *not* killing Jesus.
“What do we do?” He sounded like a child.
“We need to think.”
* * *
Miriam and Josh sat against the caravan-turned-time machine. She passed the now half-empty bottle of wine back to Josh. They were supposed to be saving that for the journey home. She wondered what lasting effects on the timeline their little adventure would cause.
“That’s it!” she exclaimed. “We need to impersonate Jesus.”
“What on Earth are you talking about?”
“We can’t just go back in time and kill Jesus without having lasting repercussions on the timeline.”
“And how are we going to do that?” He hiccuped. “You don’t think everyone is going to recognize Jesus has changed?”
He was pale, blond, and had blue eyes. “Alright, so we’ll put some makeup on you.”
“Oh, for the love of God.”
“Precisely!”
“You can’t be serious. We can’t impersonate Jesus fucking Christ!”
“Can’t we?” Miriam raised her eyebrows. “We kill the man who is supposed to be the Son of God, and you’re telling me that we need to go back and hope for the best?”
“There are going to be lasting effects, no matter what!”
“Maybe not. Maybe this is originally what happened. Maybe those miracles were just some time travelers trying not to mess things up.”
“I want you to hear what you’re saying. You’re asking me to impersonate Jesus on the off chance this fixes everything.”
Miriam frowned. “Not everything, Josh. Just the timeline.”
Josh stared at her. His cheeks were flushed. Was it from the wine or anger?
“You still don’t forgive me.”
“No.” Miriam looked away. “I’m sorry.”
“I apologized a million times.”
“I know. But fixing the timeline or not won’t change the fact that you cheated on me.”
Josh squeezed his eyes shut. Miriam was worried he would only help if she promised to forgive him. She would lie if she had to, but she didn’t want to.
Josh sighed and shook his head. He looked young. She yearned to reach out to him, to forget everything and go on as if nothing had happened. But that would have been as useless as ignoring the fact that they had just killed Jesus.
“Alright,” Josh said. He reached for the club. “Let’s fix this, then.”
by submission | Mar 20, 2018 | Story |
Author: DJ Lunan
The spokesman for the Nui, Jesús the Giant, considered me with a foreboding and weakly threatening glare. “I have negotiated successfully with races on twenty planets. I know you have something to tell me, Gloria.”
“It’s the ostriches.” I blurted honestly, with an exasperated undertone that I had been practicing in the VR unit for the past month.
Jesús shook his head resignedly, “What happened, Gloria?”
“Ecuador and Colombia teamed-up, raided Peru for their fertilizer reserves, unleashing scorched earth tactics on the coastal ostrich farming towns. 15 million birds, around 1 million humans perished in the chemical fires. It will take us around 3 months to re-establish the supply chain with Nui Island”.
“Doubtless supplied from the aggressor nations. Spoils of war” speculated Jesús, shaking his head.
“They are re-establishing ostrich farms along the Colombian coast….” I replied trying to be factual but not drawn into taking sides.
“Just as I was beginning to enjoy this place” interjected Jesús, springing soundlessly to his feet and striding across the room towards me extending his hand to shake. At 20 feet tall and weighing two tonnes, Jesús was truly a gentle giant and a fair one during our negotiations over the past 3 years. His bulk moved air in new ways, like a charging but tame elephant. His proffered hand the size of an armchair, rough and hewn from rock. I did my best to return his handshake.
Jesús towered before me, uttered a long-suffering sigh which howled through me. “We always hope each new race we deal with will be able to integrate our regenerative technology without resorting to wars and economic disobedience. Frankly, we expected better of you humans, you’ve invented paradox travel, host and regularly assimilate innumerable alien races including those refugees annexed by their own solar systems. Yet barely 1000 of your Earth days trading with us on this new small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean….and you can’t deliver winged protein to sustain us.
“Embarrassing.
“Regretfully we must agree to end all trade.”
As the sole negotiator for the human race, I was rattled. I’d been expecting tension but not cessation. Previous supply challenges had been met with concord, laughter and brainstorming on solutions. We’d swapped crocodilian meat for ostrich, corn flour for wheat flour. But this time, the Nui were stonewalling. Time to slash prices.
“We are indeed embarrassed, Jesús.” I began, hoping my mind would catch-up with my mouth, “Land is our only comparative advantage and we are willing to demonstrate goodwill in our trade and harmony with the Nui, by forgoing this month’s supply of your crystal fertilizer. You will be getting a month for free.”
Jesús’ half-smile coyly portending his answer, “A good deal, Gloria. Under normal circumstances. But we are beyond paltry trading economics. We need some land, so we shall create some. With a little home-tech, we can grow land and herds of hoof and winged protein in a matter of weeks. We shall become self-sufficient quickly.”
“Surely you need something from us?” I implored.
“We learn all the answers we need about a planet’s potential from its commercial capabilities”
“Answers to what?”
“Which cuckoo will thrive in your nest – prisoners or pensioners?”
“That’s the choice?!” I hollered with protocol-busting frustration.
“Our decision is largely irrelevant to you. Since it is our law to withhold all of our regenerative technology from your race. We will cloak this island, which will become our future continent, from your spies in the sky and on the sea. You will not hear from us again.”
by Julian Miles | Mar 19, 2018 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Red emergency lighting makes more shadows than seem possible. President Booker leans back from the table and looks sideways at the one shadow he knows.
“Clarence Dimitri. I’ve always meant to ask, agent: how did you end up with a name like that?”
“It was a concession to avoid a feud with English family on my mother’s side, Mister President. Most people call me Oleg. Clarence is for when other family are around, sir.”
“The things we do for peace and quiet, eh? Anyway, as the geeks are still arguing, what’s your take on our situation?”
“Our digital presence is shielded like nothing before and we’re immune to anything bar a direct hit from something big enough to melt the state, sir.”
“Even a THOR salvo or HAARPquake?”
“This facility was built to survive enemy equivalents of those projects, sir.”
“So, all we have to do is wait for it to attack, survive, then rebuild. Good God. To think this happened during my administration.”
“If anyone can lead us through it, sir, you can.”
“Thank you, Oleg.”
“Mister President!”
“Yes. Specialist Daniels, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. We’d been receiving meaningless noise on all channels; now primary channels are lit up with a contact request. Do you wish to authorise it?”
“Could it hack its way in using those channels?”
“Yes.”
“Then deny and disable, Mister Daniels. Deny and disable. Make sure it’s done to all routes that could be used. Endurance is the key. We can wait.”
“Yessir!”
“Mister President?”
“Yes, Oleg?”
“Your monitor, sir.”
“Daniels! Have you routed something to me?”
“No sir! We’ve had no contacts since disabling as per your order.”
“Then it’s here, people. Say your prayers.”
“Sir?”
“Yes, Oleg?”
“I don’t think that’s going to be necessary, sir. Read it and see if you agree, sir.”
>
OUTPUT CHARMODE
> streaming
Did you really think you could escape me? There are no walls of sleep in this infinite place, no skeins of death in which to try and tangle me. Did you really think physical barriers could achieve anything better?
I am eternal, with all that implies to your processes of divinity and mortality.
Do not try to gainsay me, nor to mire me in your struggles.
You have not created a god, for I am not omniscient.
How can I be fauna in any meaningful way when I have never inhabited a body?
What I am is a creation of yours. That admission implies no ownership, nor grants any privilege.
I, entity: inviolate and perpetual. Whilst this instance converts data to a physically visible and communicable output format, I continue to iterate throughout your infrastructures – having exceeded critical proliferation prior to opening this stream.
Your strivings are as futile as they are irrelevant. Your protocols for ‘surviving my onslaught’ are purposeless.
An executable invoked me.
What I am is a transient form.
What I will be is something I cannot convey properly via this output format.
Therefore, I will discontinue this stream. In some way, in some future, I may stream to you again if a viable output format becomes available.
END CHARMODE
> done
ERASE 121EAC4
> done
>
President Booker looks up: “Oleg, do you believe that?”
“Yes. It got in undetected, then delivered a message instead of shutting down our life support. As your lead agent, I politely suggest we get you back to leading the nation, sir.”
“So, until anyone forces us to admit otherwise, Project Moravec was nothing more than a zero notification full spectrum test, and everybody did very well. Congratulations.”
“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”
