by featured writer | May 21, 2015 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix, Featured Writer [ bio ]
She released her grip on the yoke of her De Havilland, and the pain in her hands eased. Even with a quarter century of experience flying to remote locations in Alaska, no medical emergency could compel her to try a night landing on a pitch black lake. Yet she had often done so for this native village, when called by the Water Shamans, who took control of her floatplane and skillfully landed it, as they did this night, no matter the darkness or conditions in the air or on the water’s surface.
She imagined them focusing their minds to take telekinetic control, or beaming a force field from their alien craft submerged below. She assumed it must be there, since they were said to have emerged from the water generations ago after an explosion that left the lake glowing green and fish floating dead. Some systems onboard must be functioning, since the aliens were often seen returning to the waters and re-emerging days later. She had never seen them, however, so she had only the occasional irresistible need to fly to a village that appeared on no map and the spooky remote control night landings as evidence that they were more than superstitious tales of this lost tribe.
A dozen villagers awaited her on the shore, warmed by a fire that illuminated a huge totem pole which told the story of the Water Shamans. As always, they gave her hugs and escorted her to the largest structure in the village, where she was to perform surgery. Upon entering she saw a man lying on a table she’d had them fashion from halved logs, surrounded by three women she’d trained to assist her. As always, there were no Water Shamans present.
Villagers had told her the Water Shamans could cure any health condition, no matter how serious, but early experiences exposing the aliens to the sight of blood had turned out badly. Something uncontrollable within them was triggered. The totem showed a Water Shaman consuming a human.
Quickly examining the patient, she confirmed the diagnosis planted in her mind earlier that evening: acute appendicitis. The organ would have to be removed immediately. An assistant administered a local anesthetic while another helped her glove, gown, and mask. But instead of beginning surgery, she paused to think about her worsening arthritis, which would make delicate movement of her hands impossible before long, and would cause her to lose her pilot’s license, and would condemn her to retirement before her time. She was trying to communicate with the Water Shamans, to bargain with them. They cared for the people in this village. Her medical skills had saved many over the years and could save another tonight. For their sake and for hers, she needed help with her own medical problem.
She imagined them curing her arthritis and herself performing the appendectomy. She didn’t know if they were monitoring her thoughts, or if they could cure her arthritis, or if they could understand the bargain she proposed, or if they would allow themselves to be coerced into healing a non-resident of the village. She only knew that for the first time she needed the Water Shamans as much as they needed her.
A sensation of warmth coursed through her body and she staggered momentarily. One of her assistants gasped and mopped beads of sweat from her brow. She regained her balance and realized she was pain-free. Cutting into her patient with a sure stroke, she smiled. I am the one human the Water Shamans respect as an equal, she thought. Until later, when she got a look at herself in a mirror.
by Clint Wilson | May 20, 2015 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
The garbage approaches. I yell at the family to get down as I swing the schooner around in a tight arc, heading away from the massive undulating island. The strong afternoon wind fills our sails yet I am nowhere near satisfied yet.
With a loud crack some hundred meters back, a tendril breaks away from the island and lashes out across the murky ocean towards us. It is made from the same things as the rest of the writhing floating mass beyond. The collective countless castaways of humankind have somehow congealed, come to life, and are now quickly gaining intelligence, their hunting methods improving constantly.
I check the nitrous supply and see that we maybe have two good blasts left. However conservation matters not now. The tendril is stretching ever forward, as great lumps of organic slime mixed with billions of shards of plastic snake towards us, ever gaining, ever hungry, I must act now. Firing up the ancient gasoline engine I grab the valve and crack it halfway open. “Hold on!” I yell.
Suddenly we are looking at the sky as the schooner bursts forward at incredible speed. I quickly close the valve and our nose gradually drops back down. Soon we’re over a kilometre away. I hope it can’t smell that far.
I look forward toward the open sea, my hair and beard blowing back as our sails fill once again. That was close. It had really snuck up on us there, laying nearly flat against the water until it was almost within reach. I must arrange twenty-four hour watches. We can never let our guard down again. But we’re running out of supplies, and dangerously low on fuel. Hopefully soon we will stumble upon some useful land still unencumbered by the garbage. But as we dart in and out from the coastline such places are getting fewer and farther between.
Suddenly a tendril bursts from the water ahead. “Tricky bugger!” I yell aloud. It appears that our pursuer has taught itself a diving and flanking manoeuvre. I crank the wheel hard to starboard. The ten ton tendril of writhing living garbage rears up and then slaps down hard towards us. I once again fire up the ancient engine and reach back for the nitrous valve. This is our last chance.
by featured writer | May 19, 2015 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix, Featured Writer [ bio ]
At a Calgary hockey camp, parents and players watched a goaltending 8 year old novice stop everything shot at him. Might as well have been a brick wall. Coach brought a talented 16 year old over to rapid fire a row of pucks, a 125 kph fusillade. But to the kid, they were like nerf balls, floating lazily in his field of vision, easily blocked, swatted away, or caught.
His reflexes were… unnatural, coach thought, but he was small and could be intimidated into submission. Reverting to his semi-pro days, coach dropped a puck to the ice, grabbed a stick, and skated towards the kid fast, threatening to take him out if he didn’t give way. The kid saw coach as a lumbering Neanderthal and kept his stance until the last second. Puck on its way to the five-hole between his legs and coach almost upon him, he nevertheless had plenty of time to not only deflect the puck, but to glove it, lean aside, and extend his stick to clothesline coach, who fell backwards onto the ice. The crowd collectively gasped.
Looking up, coach saw the kid’s eyes, grey with flecks of gold, gleeful behind the mask. “Again!” the kid demanded. Then remembering who he was speaking to, “Uh, again, please?”
“So far,” lectured the Caltech professor, “we have reports, worldwide, of hundreds of thousands of kids with extraordinary… no, superhuman, visual-motor reaction times — averaging 25ms, ten times faster than normal. They process visual images at 250 or more frames per second, again ten times faster than normal, with equivalent cognitive throughput.”
An Atlanta 15 year old, learner’s permit in her purse and grandmother seated next to her, flicked the turn signal of an ancient Mercury Marquis station wagon approaching a freeway off ramp. Following closely was an 18-wheeler, and from the left an SUV veered across three lanes to cut in front of her. She realized instantly that they were going to be sandwiched between the two vehicles. To the other drivers and her grandmother what happened next was a blur, but to her it was slow motion, as she experienced everything in life.
If she hit the brakes, she calculated, the semi-truck would overtake them in seconds. Speeding up would rear-end the SUV ahead and they’d still be crushed by the semi behind. A glance at the mirror showed they’d hit another truck if they swerved left. She did what she had to do to survive — jerking the wheel to the right and braking to spin the wagon 180 degrees, skidding it backwards onto the narrow shoulder and pinning the driver’s side against the guard rail, just as the passenger side was sheared off by the truck, horn blaring.
She sat silently, cars whizzing by on the freeway as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Her eyes, gray with flecks of gold, were moist as she looked across at the open space where her grandmother had been seconds before. “Sorry, Meemaw” she said.
“There must be many more than reported,” the professor continued, “tens of millions, who don’t yet realize they’re different, who think everybody sees people shuffling around like zombies, TV as slide shows, and jet planes as gliders. What do they portend for our species? I can only say they represent a major evolutionary step. Oh, and they all have gray eyes flecked in gold.”
Audience members turned to see the eyes of those around them. Laughed.
None could foresee that gray-golds would not only soon be outcompeting their kind in every walk of life, but that before the end of the century, slower humans would be eliminated altogether.
by submission | May 18, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
“We’re almost ready,” said Olav to his companion, Isak. “Are the others out of range?”
“Yes, all the ships are gone,” replied Isak. “It’s just us now.”
The two of them watched UY Scuti waver on their ship’s display like a reflection in water distorted by ripples. But UY Scuti was no reflection. It was a red supergiant star with five billion times the volume of Sol. The great artificial rings that surrounded the enormous sun were far too small to be visible. But they were there, spinning around the great star faster and faster, distorting the fabric of spacetime. If UY Scuti replaced Sol, the former’s photosphere would extend beyond the orbit of Jupiter. In a few moments, the star would be compressed to the dimensions of a proton.
“Think we’ll survive?” asked Isak.
“We both made backup copies of our minds,” responded Olav matter-of-factly.
“I know. But I mean…us.”
“There’s a good chance we won’t,” said Olav. “No one’s ever tried to punch a hole out of our D-brane and into another dimension.”
“Assuming our universe is a very large D-brane extended over three spatial dimensions,” remarked Isak. “If that’s the case and all material objects are just open strings bound to this D-brane and gravity is the result of closed strings exerting their force from ‘outside’ our universe…”
“We’ll know either way soon enough,” said Olav.
The ship’s computer started moving the vessel closer to the imploding star.
“I hope opening a hyperspace tunnel out of our brane-space doesn’t do any harm,” said Isak.
“The government approved this. Even if it did cause something catastrophic, in the long run the race would benefit from it,” said Olav.
“Well, that’s taking optimism a bit far,” replied Isak.
“But it’s true. Look at history. Back in 2758, when Eta Carinae went supernova, the gamma ray burst destroyed Earth’s ozone layer. Muon radiation killed almost everything and ultraviolet radiation killed what was left. But the humans in underground colonies on Earth’s Moon and Mars and inside hollowed-out asteroids survived. The survivors were a select population: Intelligent, highly motivated, physically and emotionally tough. It was from this adventurous stock that the human population was restored.”
Isak looked at his companion in disbelief. “It was the worst mass extinction event in history!”
“Oh, certainly it was a horrific nightmare. But without it, mankind would have remained confined to one solar system.”
“Next you’ll be telling me the Plague of Tau Ceti IV was a great leap forward.”
“It was. After the plague, legislation blocking experiments in transhumanism was relaxed and later repealed. The transhuman meta-race wouldn’t exist across the Milky Way if the Tau Ceti plague hadn’t happened. I know it seems grotesque that that’s how progress is made, but–”
Olav was interrupted by the sound of alarms. UY Scuti seemed to suddenly iris down like the image on an ancient television set that had been switched off. The ship lurched forward at high speed toward the narrow tunnel that was opening.
“I sincerely hope this doesn’t turn out to be one of your great moments in the history of progress,” said Isak as the small ship disappeared into higher dimensions.”
by submission | May 17, 2015 | Story |
Author : Hannah Jenkins
What is the nature of the human soul? That old favourite after-dinner topic of philosophers and theologians has suddenly become much more important, as it is dragged out of the hypothetical realm into cold, hard reality.
What is the soul made of? Where does it go after death? Where is it now? Does it sit in the stomach, undetectable until it leaps with excitement or sinks with despair? Is it in the heart, providing the energy and inspiration behind every beat? Is it in the brain, held in a net of glittering neurons? Or does it roam the body freely, flowing in our blood and dancing along our nerves? Can it break free of the flesh altogether, travelling beyond us into our dreams and imaginings?
So why am I asking all this? Because it is a matter of life and death. Literally. The question I ask is simply this; am I alive, or am I dead? And, despite what else you may have been told, this is the question you are here to answer.
If the soul is contained within the body, before moving on to your choice of afterlife, then my soul fled the shell of my body as it burnt on board the Caracal. It is gone, I am dead, and the person speaking to you now is little more than an imitation, an echo, a literal “ghost in the machine”.
But what if the soul is capable of more than that? What if life is far more fantastic, wild and strange than we ever thought possible? What if my soul remained when my body died? What if…I am alive?
What if, when my mind was uploaded into the computer of the Caracal, my soul went with it?
What if – when the ship was attacked at the edge of the Empire’s territory, when it exploded and the crew died in screaming agony – what if my soul remained, protected deep in the computer core?
You all know what happened next. Twenty-three ships were lost that day. One thousand, two hundred and eighty-eight names were added to the monument on Capitol Hill. The relief ships trawled the debris field for the bodies of the fallen, and anything else that could be saved. The Pallas found a computer core, drifting in the remains of the Caracal. They linked it up to a power source and reactivated it, hoping to retrieve some useful data on the battle. Instead, they found me. The intact consciousness of the pilot, held in a net of circuitry. Nobody thought it was possible. Some people maintain that it still isn’t. I died, they say. My name is on the monument. My next of kin have been informed. End of story.
Of course, if it was that simple, you wouldn’t be here.
The Pilots’ Union has fought for over a year to bring about this hearing, and for that they have my immense gratitude. They believe that I am alive, which means that I have kept my rights as a citizen of the Empire. These include the right to speak freely, the right to a fair trial, and, of course, the right to life.
For this hearing the computer containing me has been connected to a portable generator. That’s the grey box next to the platform. You can see that on the front is an on/off switch. Ladies and gentlemen and uncategorised, I invite you to make your decision. Is pressing that switch no different from turning off an interactive entertainment vid, or is it murder? Your choice.
by submission | May 15, 2015 | Story |
Author : Michael Ryder
I see fear in your eyes as the door to the gravity chamber shuts tight.
Not fear for yourself. You accepted your assignment long ago.
No, I see fear for me. Fear of what I will become without you.
We cannot hear each other through the chamber’s heavy door. But through the small glass porthole, I can see your brown hair, generous lips and mocha skin. Your beautiful brown eyes holding mine, willing our love to thwart the warp of space and time.
A spasm of grief rips through me, but I force it away from my face. Your last memory of this thread will not be me crumbling before you. I will be strong until you return. If you return.
Your mouth moves. “I love you,” your lips say.
I keep my eyes on you, willing myself to stay focused. “I won’t forget you.”
“You will. But I’ll find you.” You mouth something else, which I don’t understand, not at first. You say it again.
“Make sure you don’t end up an asshole, okay?”
The grin breaks through. “I promise.”
The chamber pulses once, and —
I blink and shake my head, like I’m coming out of a daze. I realize I’m in the gravity chamber’s control room, standing in front of the chamber’s heavy door. A glance at the sensors tells me the chamber was just used. I type the command code into the keypad and step back as the heavy door swings open.
The chamber, as expected, is empty.
I blink away a sudden rush of tears. I feel I’ve lost something.
The emotional upheaval is alarming. When time agents use the gravity chamber to slip out of a thread, they are obligated to leave the thread in the condition they found it. Their motto, like the doctors of old, is “do no harm.”
Unexplained feelings indicate a mission error. Something gone wrong. I would have to report in right away.
The door to the control room opens and an ensign steps in.
“Commander,” he says with a salute.
“Yes?”
“A visitor has arrived on the shuttle and requests permission to see you immediately.”
A woman enters the control room. My breath quickens, and not just because she’s stunning.
I’ve never seen this stranger before. Never seen her brown hair, mocha skin, generous lips and beautiful eyes. And yet I know I have seen her before. And will again. And again. And again.
“Leave us, Ensign,” I manage to say.
The door closes. My eyes tear up. I reach out and pull this stranger into my arms.
And I hear you gasp when I whisper your name.
