by Julian Miles | Nov 27, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
‘The night is yet young’ as my grandmother used to say. Apparently it was my grandfather’s favourite line before they’d go out and party. She told me about the two of them jetting off to Dubai for breakfast and always being in Shanghai for Chinese New Year. She also bemoaned the difficulty of remaining elegant in the face of a weekend of partying. It was difficult to be elegant on a Sunday evening when you hadn’t seen your wardrobe since Friday afternoon.
Fortunately, the times have caught up with the needs of the modern lady. Nanite refresher booths are a feature of every ladies room these days, and my nanofluidic couture allows me to vary my styles in response to the slightest need.
Tonight I am a belle dame from the Mississippi Riverboat era, swanning about in a flounced and ruffed creation appearing to be of jade velvet over black leather. My Personal Access Device is transformed into a pair of long lace gloves. Elegance at will.
“Christina, my dear. You look ravishing.”
His choice of words makes me smile. Carmody has a reputation for taking the ravishing bit all too seriously. But he knows that I know his tastes. He slides closer with a devastating smile in a face that cost a million. A shame that making his personality pretty is more than cosmetic science can accomplish.
“Why don’t we take a stroll somewhere quieter, mademoiselle?”
I am just about to tell him to fornicate and depart when my PAD clenches about my wrists as my dress locks up.
Carmody smiles: “Oh dear, cheap bodyware? Wonderful.”
My intent to shout for aid is pre-empted by my choker acting literally. Carmody is the very soul of attentiveness, helping me past concerned partygoers, onto the veranda and down into the bowers of the love gardens. The bastard is using a slaver program to turn my couture into a prison. I think about what I’m actually wearing and realise I am, to put it politely, vulnerable to manipulation.
Carmody walks through the starlit evening to a remote nook containing a low table, with me accompanying him like a meal in a serving-droid.
“I think we’ll start with obscene and get inventive from there. Any objections? Thought not.”
Bastard bastard rapist bastard. I am striving to remain calm when Carmody emits a falsetto shriek and collapses rigidly, his face slamming into the gravel with a satisfying crunch. A figure steps into view as my couture rushes to cover my nakedness.
“My apologies for being a tad late, Miss Christina. Your brother’s compliments; he felt that you would object if he insisted that you employed a Safeguard.”
Safeguards are personal bodyguards trained, enhanced and equipped with the latest countermeasures for just about anything. Using them is deemed as gauche, but after tonight, I’m a convert.
He offers his hand and pulls me up without effort. His impeccable couture changes colour and style to complement mine as I take in his two-metre tall frame. I could become accustomed to this. Turning slightly, I nudge Carmody with my toe.
“What happened to him?”
“I thought it best to dampen his ardour by restricting the volume of his codpiece as I locked his couture. The servants will take him to the gatehouse for collection by the Police.”
I like the edge to his voice as he describes defending me, but I have to confirm my suspicions: “What volume, exactly?”
He actually blushes.
“Five cubic centimetres.”
I laugh. My Safeguard and I are going to get along just fine.
by Clint Wilson | Nov 26, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
The secretary general entered the command center with her entourage. She walked directly toward me, an imposing figure. Although we had not yet met in person she obviously knew I was the team leader. Dispensing with any formalities she got right to the point.
“So Doctor Grant, I am told that you and your team have deciphered WOW2020?”
“I uh…” clearing my throat I quickly composed myself. “Ahem, yes, the signal detected some three months ago apparently coming from the direction of Hoag’s Object, an odd ring galaxy some 600 million light years distant, has been baffling us up to now…”
She interrupted, “I know where the signal comes from Doctor, you can skip the science lesson. I’m here to find out what it says.”
“Yes, of course,” I apologized. “Um, as I was saying, we were baffled,” I turned and reached out to the mega decoder humming and blinking there in the center of the room, “But not this baby.” I smiled and patted the top of the Cray Translator Array, a ten-meter long bank of super computers working in unison, enough calculating power to state pi to some ten trillion places. “The signal is extremely complex but the decoder has been able to break it down into a comprehensible message.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Comprehensible how?”
“Oh, why plain English of course.”
She exchanged a glance with one of her aids and turned back to me. “Okay Doc, I’m waiting.”
“Yes… as you will soon hear, we have run the translation through a basic voice modulator.”
The eyebrow went up again as she wondered at my unfamiliar technical term.
“Oh,” I clarified, “It will sound like Doctor Stephen Hawking.” And with that I turned to my console and typed in a command.
Suddenly loudspeakers blared throughout the room as everyone stood listening intently.
“I AM THE KNOWLEDGE FACILITATOR. I EXIST TO EDUCATE THOSE WHO DEVELOP THE INTELLIGENCE TO WONDER AND UNDERSTAND. I AM A NATURALLY OCCURING PHENOMENOM, EVOLVING OVER EONS FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PROPERTIES OF THE UNIVERSE. I AM NO LIVING THING YET I AM HERE TO SERVE ALL LIVING THINGS. SINCE YOU HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN TRANSLATING MY MESSAGE, WE NOW SPEAK EACH OTHER’S LANGUAGES. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK ME ANYTHING YOU DESIRE TO LEARN.”
I turned to her smiling.
She said very bluntly, “That’s it?”
I blinked several times then, “I don’t understand… do you not find it wonderful?”
She stepped closer. “I’m not a complete idiot Doctor.” She poked me in the chest. “How the hell are we supposed to ask it questions when it will take over half a billion years to send a signal back?”
I brightened up. “But that’s the thing you see Madam Secretary, we’ve already asked it our first question!”
“You what?” She looked around at her entourage seemingly furious. “Did anyone else know about this?”
She was greeted only with nervous mumbles, shrugs and averted eyes. Seeing she was getting nowhere she turned back to me and poked me in my chest again, this time much harder. “Well then Doctor, I feel like I’m going to regret this but, exactly what question did you ask it?”
I tugged at my collar. It suddenly felt very warm in the command center. “We uh, we asked it if there was any quicker way to send messages back and forth.”
She stood there motionless for a moment, then shrugged thoughtfully. “Hmm, makes sense I guess.” Then she leaned forward smiling nastily, “Now how about we ask it why I still feel like slapping you?”
by submission | Nov 25, 2012 | Story |
Author : George R. Shirer
I met myself in a coffee bar the other day.
He was older, but looked pretty good.
“We should talk,” he said, then ordered us a couple of coffees.
People were giving us strange looks, but the other me didn’t seem to care. He sipped his drink and grinned at me.
“You’re taking this really well,” he said. “You have no idea how many of my younger selves freak out when I show up.”
He reached into his coat and slid a rectangular, black handheld device across the table to me.
“Take that.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A time machine,” he said. “It’s pretty basic. Type in a date you want to go to and hit the big red button and you’re off.”
“Really?” I picked up the time machine and looked at it. “Where did you get it?”
“Another me, from further up the line.”
“Wait.” I frowned. “You said you’d met younger versions of yourself, but this is the first time I remember meeting you.”
“That’s because this is the first time we’ve met.”
“But. . . .”
“When you time travel,” said the older me, “you don’t move straight up and down your timeline. You can’t. Every time you time travel you fracture reality, cause the universe to schism in two, creating an alternate universe that you inhabit.”
I thought about that for a minute.
“So, you’re not my future self.”
“I’m an alternate future version of you,” he said.
I looked at the time machine.
“Why are you giving me this? Do you have another?”
“No,” he said. “I’m just ready to settle down.”
“What? Why?”
He looked sad. “Because every time you time travel, you create a new universe. You can never go home again, never retrace your steps, never visit the same people. Don’t get me wrong. It’s great for a while. You can see some amazing things, but, after a while, you get lonely. You want to settle down. That’s what happened to my predecessor. That’s why I’m talking to you.”
“You want to settle down here?”
“I want to take over your life,” he said. “While you go off and have adventures. Save Lincoln. Kill Hitler. Vice versa. Whatever. Take my advice though and avoid Shakespear. That guy was a jerk.”
“Really?”
The other me smiled. “Go find out for yourself.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, and pulled out my own time machine.
The other me stared for a second then grinned. “I suppose this was inevitable.”
“Yes,” I said.
“What happened to the us from this time-point?”
“He got held up at work,” I said.
“Thank God,” said the other me.
I handed him his time machine.
“I didn’t really want to settle down,” he said, “but. . . .”
“I know. You were lonely.”
“But not any longer,” he said.
“No. We can synch our machines up. My predecessor showed me how.”
My other self smiled and stood. He held out his hand. “Shall we?”
We left, arm in arm, and haven’t been lonely since.
by submission | Nov 24, 2012 | Story |
Author : Alexander Polkki
The sales associate places the tablet in front of me. She delicately sets her nails on the screen and it comes to life, brimming with imagery, with iconography. We are living the revolution. She’s waiting for me to say something. My silence challenges her.
She reaches under the counter. Brings out a smaller tablet, stands it up. Touching the screen, the same icons brim to life. I want to say it’s like the travel size version of a chess set, but then I remember what chess was like, concentrating on small, plasticized pieces in the car. Thinking moves ahead while trees and old barns breeze by. Perhaps one day we’ll stop to take pictures of the places and things that hold meaning for us, but not ever really needing or expecting to.
She’s brought over a monitor. She rotates the tablet and leans it against the larger screen, at an angle. She spins the smaller one, standing it up in front. This new family is waiting. The silence deepens and I can tell she’s starting to wonder why I came in here.
She waves her magician’s hands over the three screens, and they blend, one into the other. She waves her hand again and icons open. Footage of trees and barns flit by across them all. She takes the tablet by two corners, cocks her head as if she’s saying something. She places the chessboard, back-lit, on the glowing counter, and invites me to play.
by Duncan Shields | Nov 23, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
The controls were familiar to any race that had developed mechanical means to get around on their planet’s surface.
There was an altitude stick, turning/braking pedals, a throttle plus a variety of buttons and dials to let the pilot know how the trip was going.
A year or two of study to get the math and emergency situations covered and there you go. Every single sentient race could become a pilot.
Except one.
Humans are dumb. They routinely disregarded the most important rule.
“Don’t look at the wormhole’s terminus” was written in all of the available languages, pictograms, sensefields, and soundfeeds around the edges of the front viewscreen of the ship.
That singularity that broke the back of the universe’s insistence on rational behaviour was a place where laws of physics broke down. To look at it drove any sentient mind from this universe irretrievably insane.
They went into whatever fetal, litter, or eggsac position their race was familiar with and stared, wide-eyed, for the rest of their soon-to-be-machine-assisted lives.
Every race knew. Peripheral vision was okay to a point. Look around the point, not at it. Avoid the center. Avoid the center. Avoid the center.
Humans. Sigh.
They called it curiousity. Every single human pilot that had attempted a jump had looked at the center of the singularity at some point during the jumps. The jumps are usually only a few hours long.
They’re banned from piloting now. They’re transported in rooms without windows. Universally, they’re looked down on because of this one trait.
by Patricia Stewart | Nov 22, 2012 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“A one-way ticket to Ganymede, please.”
“You can’t buy a one-way ticket to Ganymede.”
“Why not?”
“Ganymede orbits within Jupiter’s radiation belt. The law says no one can stay on Ganymede longer than six months. Therefore, you need a round-trip ticket.”
“That’s stupid. What if I only had four months to live, and just wanted to die on Ganymede.”
“Then they would use the return ticket to ship your sorry-ass body back to Earth. Now, either buy a round-trip ticket, or step aside so I can help the next person in line.”
“I want you to ask your supervisor.”
“Very well,” sighed the associate. She pressed her index finger against her temple and activated her comm link. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but I have a customer here who wants to purchase a one-way ticket to Ganymede… Yes, sir, I told him that, but he still insists. Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. Okay. He says for a 10% adjustment fee, you can buy a refundable round-trip ticket, and if you don’t use the return half, we’ll refund its cost. Take it, or leave it.”
“Fine.” He placed the scanner over his right eye and completed the sale. Six hours later, he was in a stasis chamber for the three month trip to Ganymede.
After being revived, he collected his cargo and headed to the spaceport’s ship rental counter. He said, “I reserved a compact ship. Steven Schwarz.”
“Yes, Mr. Schwarz. We have it ready. Would you like to upgrade to a utility ship? We are offering a sale today.”
“No thank you. The compact will suit my needs.”
“Okay. When will you be returning it?”
“I want to drop it off somewhere else. How much extra is that?”
“Where do you want to drop it off?”
“Earth.”
“Sir, these ships don’t have the range to reach Earth.”
“No worries, Miss. My doctorate project was to construct a device to generate a localized wormhole to transport me and the ship to near Earth orbit. But the initiation site needs to be close to a powerful gravity well, which is why I have to test it at Jupiter. So, if it works, I want to return the ship to an Earth-based port.”
“Well, I don’t know. Let me check with my boss. She pressed her index finger against her temple and activated her comm link. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but I have a customer here who wants to return his rental to Earth… Yes, sir, I told him that… He says he has a worm thingy… Beats me… Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. Okay. He says if you can get the ship to Earth, he’ll wave the drop off charge. But you have to purchase the supplemental insurance.”
“Fine.” Schwarz placed the scanner over his right eye and completed the rental agreement.
An hour later, he was staring at Jupiter through the large flight deck viewport. He entered the course, velocity, and wormhole initiation sequence into the ship’s computer and calmly presses the start button. The ship lurched forward and plummeted into Jupiter’s atmosphere. At the precalculated time, the wormhole generator activated. The ship began to tumble. Schwarz held on for dear life. A minute later, the ship appeared in clear space, not too far from the sun. But the sun was red, not yellow. “Computer, perform a spectral analysis of the star in front of the ship.”
“The spectrum identifies the star as Proxima Centauri.”
“Crap. Are there any gas giants orbiting Proxima Centauri?”
“The largest body orbiting Proxima Centauri is one tenth Earth’s mass.”
“Oh dear.”
