by Julian Miles | Apr 23, 2018 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
How did everyone miss a cabin in this Protected Nature Zone for so long? The windows are covered in ivy and the veranda is thick with brambles.
“Hya! Hya! Bellit, come now! We must away!”
The shouted sentence comes from a woman standing in the doorway, like a beacon of creamy white against the inky darkness within. Must be a companion of the elderly woman spotted earlier.
From the copse nearest the hut strides a huge bird, it’s golden beak catching the dying light. Snowy plumage shades to midnight blue at the tips of tail and stubby wings. Great legs the colour of dried blood end in wicked blue-black claws.
“I come, Yega, I come. Calm yourself.”
It speaks! I lean too far and tumble out of the tree, a frantic grab missing the only branch that might have saved me. Hitting the ground loosens the death grip I have on my phone. I watch it spin away as things fade swiftly to black.
A cool hand rests against my brow, then briefly strokes my temple. I smell mint as my head is lifted and a warm drink is pressed against my lips.
“Drink, manchild. That was a marvelous fall.” The voice is not quite husky. It makes me shiver as I swallow.
“His body knows you.”
Her chuckle is throaty. My eyes open of their own accord. Silver hair frames a face so angular it could be called inhuman, if not for the green eyes that turn it from alien to so desirable my breath catches.
My mouth moves. No words come out.
She smiles: “Chatter cheapens the moment. You’ll speak again, but never of this.”
Her eyes seem to get larger. The entrancement is broken by an enormous hooked beak appearing above her head. It cants and eyes like shiny night regard me. Whatever that is, I’m sure it’s amused.
“He’s thinking. That can get in the way.”
“I’m not a fool, Bellit. That restorative had lust and forgetting blended in.”
Snatching a look about, I see I’m in a rather traditional bedroom. Through the opening on my left, I see the traditional theme continues into the lounge. My gaze catches on the lights flickering across the oddly curved console under a window on the far side. Through the adjacent doorway, dense brambles frame my view of treetops passing smoothly, like I’m looking out the window of a train.
This? Wha-?
The sound of cloth sliding over skin brings me back to a vision that reduces me to nothing but the urge she wants.
I awake lying against a mossy trunk. A massive headache pounds behind my eyes. Stupid thing to do, falling out of a tree. Why was I up in it? Can’t remember. I’m naked! Scrabbling into a shivering crouch, I see my stuff piled against a nearby tree. Just how hard did I hit my head?
Dressing, I check my gear. The uniform is scuffed and torn, but fixable. Nothing that’ll stain. The taser is a write-off. Likewise, binoculars and phone. The memory cards are gone, too. At least I stuffed the car keys into my socks before tucking them in my boot.
I did?
Was I pranked while lying unconscious after falling out of a tree? An on-duty officer would be good sport. Hopefully, nothing shows up on social media.
By the time I trek back to the car, I know what I’ll say: I was returning to my vehicle, after thoroughly investigating the designated area, when I slipped and fell. The sighting? A hoax, most likely. Nothing to report.
by submission | Apr 22, 2018 | Story |
Author: David Henson
A gust of wind found us while we were walking in the park. She opened her arms, skipped backwards, pretending to be a kite. Like you used to do. Before you got sick. Before you helped them create her, your dying gift to me.
We came upon the spot where you and I once had a picnic — cheese and a baguette. She had your memory of hiding red wine in a thermos because alcohol is against park rules.
When we got home, she made spaghetti for dinner. The sauce tasted exactly like yours. She knows all your secrets.
After the doctors said there was nothing they could do, you spent more and more time with her creators. You told them everything you could think of. About yourself. About us. Now it all resides in her.
She looks like you, laughs like you and cries like you. Just as promised. When I kiss her, I’m overwhelmed by the scent of you. When we make love, she moves like you. As I said, she knows all your secrets.
Tonight we sat and talked for hours. Just like you and I used to do. I lost myself in the rhythm of her voice — your voice. After a while, she began speaking slowly and softy, and her eyes dimmed. Reminding me I need to charge her. Reminding me, yet again, she’s not you.
I wish I could live without her.
by submission | Apr 21, 2018 | Story |
Author: Neil Otte
“What a strange way for an Arkansas farm boy to die”, he thought. He could imagine Gramps shaking his head and saying, “Son, you are a caution”.
Of course, his love of numbers, ability to fix mechanical systems, and delight in growing things – all traits he got from Gramps – were the reasons he ended up here. When he saw Hydroponics Lead as one of the positions on The Foundation’s roster, he knew he had to apply. Not that it wasn’t hard to become one of the “crazy, selfish dreamers” as the vocal deriders of the Foundation’s plans called the ones who signed up. Although Hebert’s implementation of the EmDrive made interstellar travel possible, the multi-decades voyage was a high-risk proposition. Years of acceleration to a large fraction of light speed, followed by years of deceleration gave large probabilities of failure in even highly redundant systems. World opinion was split on the prospect, but in the end, the multi-national Foundation was formed, and the first interstellar mission was born.
It was Gram’s influence that gave him the courage he needed to apply. He could remember sitting at the picnic table outside church and her saying, “You have a purpose in life and you need to pursue it with passion and integrity. If you do, you have nothing to fear, not even death, because, at the end, you’ll have peace.”
Now as he thought back over the last three hours, he wondered if he had seen the culmination of that purpose. When the explosion occurred in the transfer station it holed both tank 2 and 5, venting water systems that constituted 38 percent of their capacity. He knew to the liter what they were going to need to make it to Vaetta, and at the rate of venting, they had 68 minutes to find a solution. Even now, with time to think and ponder, he couldn’t think of anything else he could have done but vent the just harvested hydroponic bays 8 -12, and then vent the ruptured tanks into the bays. Not a perfect solution, but the bay filters would not allow moisture to vent, and the bays would hold enough water in vapor form to reclaim once the damage was repaired. The fact that the only way to now shunt water from the tanks to the bays was via the original loading system on the outside of Finaer, and the only available way to get to the loading system controls was the limited range/thrust IMU, seemed like a minor detail at the time. The IMU had barely enough propellant for him to maneuver his way to the control panels through the venting cloud of ice. In the movies, the hero would have been able to make it to the tether node and the hook would have caught by a fraction of an inch on his last desperate attempt. In reality, he didn’t get within 15 meters of the node before the IMU propellant was depleted, and the vapor accelerated him steadily away from the Finaer.
Now he floated silently through space as the Finaer dwindled to a gleam against the backdrop of red-shifted stars. They had run the numbers on using one of the CMU’s to retrieve him, but it was clear the delta-v was too great. The goodbyes had been said, the thank you’s and commendations given. Now as he gazed out over the expanse of the universe, he realized that Gram’s words were absolutely true.
“Thanks, Gram”, he whispered. “See you soon”
by submission | Apr 20, 2018 | Story |
Author: Arkapravo Bhaumik
I am sitting outside the Department of Surgery & Smart Implants and I can see the operation theatre beyond the glass door. Radha is clasping my palm tightly. We both know that this has to be done, and we have discussed it between the two of us a number of times – be it as a casual banter over a cup of coffee or as an emotional vent-out similar to the Oprah Winfrey show of nearly three decades ago. If that was not enough, we took the opinion of three different surgeons in as many different medical centers, discussed it with our children, our neighbors and even our cousins who are halfway across the globe, and then swamped at least eight different forums on the Internet with a ton of questions. Now, with less than fifteen minutes to go, my mouth feels dry and I can feel her pulse quickening.
Radha breaks the uncanny silence, “You will come back as a metal man?” I wink at her and then with a hint of sarcasm in my tone, I say, “Maybe you should code-in three laws for me.”
Being together for 42 years, I know my wife very well and just as I had anticipated she purses her lips, rolls her eyes and then lectures me. “First law: The Terminator should be the personal property of me – Radha Chatterjee and all directives given by me should be God’s own will” As she speaks I see a hint of a smile on her lips.
I pause, look at her and acquiesce to the first law. She continues, “Second law: The Terminator should join me for all my meals at my table, even though he is not supposed to eat.” I add in a sub-clause, “ … that happens only if you let the Terminator gets to put on his favorite music, which can vary from Mahler to Strauss to Tchaikovsky.” She slowly nods, pretends to grudgingly agree to my sub-clause.
“Third law: A time will come when I may be needed to be made into a Terminator and I will expect Arun – my Terminator to respect and support my decision.” I knew this was coming at some point, Radha had not completely embraced the new age medical technology for prolonging life and vitality – hence her coining of the funny, yet borderline racial tag of ‘Terminator’. She has never been at ease with replacing the body with metal implants and reinvigorating the brain with electronic chips. How I hold up to this radical change in me will influence her decision in the near future. I cannot continue to be fully biological with multiple organ failures and a fast fading brain and after working with known traditional medical procedures for a long time, our family doctor had suggested for this.
Radha looks at me, “So, third law …?” I smile in agreement.
“Mr. Chatterjee” I turn my head to find my doctor, he pauses and looks at both of us and greets us with a smile and then says, “It is about time, I will call the nurses and the stretcher to help you into the operation theatre.” He smiles again in affirmation and walks into the operation theatre.
I turn to give Radha a hug, after which she batters her eyes in a childish manner and bids me goodbye and then fighting off tears and in a choking voice says, “… come back for me, and I can learn to kiss your lips made of steel.”
by submission | Apr 19, 2018 | Story |
Author: David Atos
Are you familiar with the musical composition called a canon? It’s a piece where the main melody is repeated over and over in counterpoint, with some kind of transformation. Sometimes, it’s delayed in time. Sometimes, it’s played backwards. Even if you’re not familiar with the musical terms, you’ve not only heard them, you’ve sung them as well. Simple rounds like “Row, row, row your boat” are basic canons.
The interesting thing about canons is that, given a partially-completed one, you can figure out the rest of the notes, like a logic puzzle. Famous composers used to exchange incomplete canons to entertain each other. Even today, you can find “puzzle canons” to exercise your mind.
The first gravitational waves were definitively detected by LIGO and Virgo in September 2015; two black holes dancing around each other, then merging into a single mass. Further observations were made over the years, slowly at first, then more and more frequently as our instruments improved. Soon, we were able to measure the gravitational waves from every portion of the sky.
It was a college music professor who first discovered it. The frequencies of the waves were confined beyond what quantum and relativistic physics dictated. Plotted on a graph, they all fit within enormous octaves. Each merger was a separate note. The notes combined to create harmonies and counterpoints. And together, an overarching structure.
It took 15 years of processing on the greatest supercomputers available to humanity, but the structure of the canon was discovered. The main melody was identified. The retrogrades, inversions, and mirrors calculated. Predictions were made, and observations matched them.
We don’t know the composer, but we do know that the universe is building towards an enormous crescendo.
by submission | Apr 18, 2018 | Story |
Author: DJ Lunan
For centuries clever clever men have sought in vain to authenticate the future invention of time travel.
But I have proof. Laura is a seven-foot partially invisible time traveller from 3031 zip-tied to a hairdresser’s chair in a flat above a carpet shop in the centre of Mechelen in northern Belgium. Take that scientists! Out-futured by a clever woman!
“Time travellers will be drawn to major historical events, like assassinations, secrets, Treaties and miracles – one challenge being we don’t typically know when these will happen” mused Hawking.
“Cracking the fourth dimension is so many millennia away, we would need to be super-lucky to catch futurists in the act of observing us men living now”, speculated Einstein.
“My first stop would be the World Cup Final in 1962, to see Brazil defend their title and watch the game with Pelé”, chimed Coelho.
“Once we have computing power to analyse every photograph ever taken, and document every moment, we shall spot men time travelling throughout history”, contemplated Clarke.
Hopeless, hapless men. Hampered by their first assumption – that time travellers would be men.
By understanding the foundation of their failure, I designed my trap and caught Laura.
‘Sexiest Man Alive of all Times. Pleasures and cleans in silence. Available one night only. Crack this code to find my location’
“How could you know?”, Laura demanded in ‘Norwegian (parochial)’ according to my TranslVoi App.
“We are weak mammals” I answer sagely.
“But I am not weak, I was just intrigued…by the code.”, Laura retorted deflated.
Wearing cloaking technology head-to-toe, Laura had walked unnoticed through history thanks to the Time Travel device fixed to her waist. She had stood next to Cleopatra and watched slaves build temples, followed Wollstonecraft across Europe on a speaking tour on women’s rights, and sat in awe as Thatcher bullied, harried and outwitted her men-only Cabinet.
“OK, I admit it, I had a day off, and permitted one free near-time destination. I was just looking for some fun before I move into 2020”, she confessed.
Laura was both multi-coloured and transparent. My paint trap and explosion had caught her down one side only after she kicked in the door, expecting some clean silent fun. One side of her remained transparent. It took all my strength to leverage Laura into the chair. She dripped paint in large spectral splashes over the concrete floor.
“What do you want, Trapper?” she demanded.
“I want to prove two things – that time travellers is possible, and that time travellers are female.”
Laura half-beamed. “Well done!”
“I will trade you something for my release. Do you know what historical event will occur on the 8th December 2020?” was Laura’s gambit.
“Do I want to know?”, I retort.
Half of Laura ruefully smiled. “Yes! It’s a time-stamp of huge significance. The USA elects its first female President. And she is shot the following day. It’s my next destination, to uncover the enduring mystery of who and why.”
“That’s intriguing, but utterly bereft of evidence or proof. Indeed, it’s what any time traveller would say!” I reply.
“President Melania is more, she heralds the end of patriarchy, survives two more assassination attempts, by old men, during three terms of office.”
“Prove it”, I challenge.
“I’m here. I’ve proved your hunch. The future is female dominated, starting very very soon. By my time, we only use men for pleasure and of course menial service. Your prescient advert could be from my time.”
“Thanks, I designed it to attract strong, taller, tech-savvy female time traveller”.
“Mwuh-mmm. ‘Pleasures and cleans in silence’. The perfect future man!”.
We both giggle as I snip the zip-ties.
