by submission | May 1, 2024 | Story |
Author: Elizabeth Hoyle
“There don’t need to be multiple universes for me to fall in love with you over and over again,” Michael said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “One lifetime must be enough, though there is no such thing as too much time with you. I’ve seen you as a daughter, sister, friend, cousin, business owner, artist, thinker, lover, fighter, worrier, scaredy-cat and so many other things that a person can be. I’ve seen you in all stages of sickness, recovery, health, and in every mood imaginable. Every iteration has made me fall more and more in love with you.”
Alice remained quiet at his words, as he knew she would. Her eyes widened as he took a deep breath. They both knew what was coming next. They’d done this so many times.
“I love you. Please be mine forever.”
Everything dissolved around them before she could answer. The chestnut tree they were standing under, the winking of the emerging fireflies, the pinkishly orange clouds that ringed the horizon as the sun set all vanished. The sterile metal tables and the bright white walls of the observation room appeared.
He fought to calm his thundering heart as they waited for one of the study’s volunteers to come and detach the sensors from their bodies. His neck ached from not turning to look at her. He’d been warned twice not to do so until the sensors were off. His natural emotional reaction at seeing her made the sensors go crazy and muddled their session’s end results. They couldn’t afford to be dismissed from the study. Thankfully the volunteer was quick, arriving and detaching the sensors to the immersive VR as well as to the medical equipment in record time. The doctor came in as the volunteer left.
“These numbers are astounding! Thanks to you, we’re getting a better understanding of the chemical components of love, which will enrich the products Pharmaceuticals For You makes. Thank you for helping to make sure that our products are full of feeling and full of you.” He didn’t take his eyes off the tablet with their results.
“Wait, please!” Michael said as the doctor turned to leave. “When we will get paid? This is our fourteenth immersion session and we haven’t been paid since our fifth.”
“I’m the doctor in charge of this study, not human resources. Take your questions to them.” The doctor’s lab coat swished as he walked out.
“We’ll get there, love. It’s going to be alright,” Alice said, her voice creaky with lack of use.
“Our appointment is in two weeks. We’ve got to get the money or they might make us wait even longer.”
“We will get the money and it will work this time.” Her voice was full of confidence that he knew she didn’t always feel. He turned to look at her; her eyes were tired but hopeful. “I can’t wait to see you be a dad.”
“And I can’t wait to know it worked and we’re on the way to becoming parents.” He stepped closer and took her hand. “Are you alright?”
All of this had been so hard for both of them, but even more so for her: their failed first round of IVF and participating in this study to get the money they’d never have made otherwise to finance their upcoming next attempt. Tears streaked down her cheeks but she smiled and nodded.
“I love you. I never get tired of proposing to you, even if it is for this weird experiment.”
“I love you, too, no matter what. In every iteration.”
by submission | Apr 30, 2024 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
How hard could moving be? All I needed to do was mount the antigrav plates at the corners of my unit, then hook the place up to my hex bike and haul it off to its new location. Simple, right?
Except Hygeia III seems to delight in making sure that nothing’s ever that easy. First off, it turned out that my ship-fabricated mini-dwelling had settled into the ground, meaning several hours with a spade to loosen it up again. Great way to tear a muscle, given the gravity here, but somehow I managed. At least I’d got an early start.
Then the damn plates didn’t fire up! I’d done what everybody does, and rented them from the Central Trading Post, but nobody had bothered to mention that they needed charging before use. Wonderful. Another two hours sitting around, plugged in to the local utility net (which strictly speaking I had no right to access, since I’d registered my departure for today, but whatever).
I spent the time contemplating my move. Preparations for the arrival of the next wave of colonists had included designating this part of Southern Settlement a ‘family zone’, which meant that however ready to mingle, as a single I was no longer welcome. Stable job at the shuttleport notwithstanding, I might be a bad influence on the kids, apparently. Admin had directed me to shift over to a brand new sector, where the lots were set aside for the unmarried. After I’d got past the initial annoyance, it didn’t sound too bad; it might even be fun to be around like-minded solos.
Once my one-up/one-down cube was finally levitating, clouds were beginning to gather; it looked like one of the planet’s legendary thunderstorms was brewing. Hygeia’s atmosphere isn’t quite Earth-like, and electrical discharges tend to the spectacular; getting caught outside would be a bad idea.
I used magnetic clamps to connect hawsers to the unit’s corners, and attached them to the back of my six-wheeler. The overpowered beast then declined to start. Of course. Another 20 minutes with the toolkit fixed the wiring problem, and I was (finally) ready to roll!
Fortunately, afternoon shift change was still a while off. I pulled my hovering trailer across town through deserted streets, keeping a wary eye on the sky. Finding my space was easy; there was a gap in a row of mini-dwellings that had already been installed by people evidently more organised than I was. I nudged my home gently over the waiting baseplate (which might or might not sink later), and killed the antigrav. Then I ran around linking it up to the utility net.
The wind was picking up by the time I finished, a sure sign the storm was well on the way. But I’d made it, and would be snug in my own nest before it arrived. Tomorrow, new people, and new challenges. I smiled, and headed indoors.
by Stephen R. Smith | Apr 29, 2024 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Jan could taste metal, and feel the pressure and heat outside the cockpit pressing in, the latter slowly baking him inside his flight suit while the former threatened to reduce him to a single dimensionless point in space-time.
He’d done what he’d never imagined possible, pushed the limits of flesh and technology as he skated along the edge of the very fabric of the universe itself, but as Icarus before him, he’d gotten too close to things he didn’t understand, and he was about to be erased from existence.
Entanglement had gotten him to this place, and as everything outside blurred to incomprehensible, he closed his eyes and imagined Vera, her body next to his in her bed, in an alternate reality that had to still exist somewhere, sometime, that if he could just trick the gods one last time perhaps he could will himself into that space instead of this one.
“Hey, handsome.”
He could hear her, smell her.
“Where are you? You seem a million miles away.”
She couldn’t know, couldn’t imagine this reality as he swam in the deep blue of her eyes, entire worlds swirling in the galaxy of possibility that was her face.
“What’s wrong?”
He could feel her now, her hand in his hand, if he could just hold on, he could pull himself into her timeline, escape the inevitability screaming at him from outside of that cockpit.
“Jan, what’s happening?”
There was terror in her voice, he opened his eyes to find her cramped in the cockpit with him, her hand clamped tightly in his gloved fist, eyes wide as the finality of his existence peeled his craft apart at the seams and claimed them both.
In some other time, and some other space, a bed lay empty save for the scent of a woman, and the impression of a man who had no right to have been there at all.
by submission | Apr 28, 2024 | Story |
Author: Bob Freeman
You’re riding on a carousel.
The horsey rises and falls as the carousel spins.
Look! A brass ring!
Grab it.
Good for you!
You’ve succeeded at the “grab the brass ring” level.
There’s another carousel spinning counterclockwise, half-a meter above yours.
Saying goodbye to your trusty steed, you step from your carousel to the next one, moving up a level.
Look hard, maybe there’s another ring for you?
Oh well, no brass ring, but you’re moving up the path. Good for you!
Look around, another carousel is spinning near your new ride.
And another, and another.
Most clockwise, a few otherwise and one or two stopped dead in their tracks.
Step on one and head on up.
Be careful.
Each carousel is running at different speeds, from slow to blinding fast.
And now different sizes; tiny, medium and huge.
Pick one.
Too fast, and you’re thrown off, without a horse or a brass ring, a downward spiral.
Pick the right one, and spin up the path, carousel to carousel.
Looking down, you see a dark circle on the floor, moving independently, quietly changing size as it skitters around.
Watch your step. Dropping in will send you down to the carousels below.
Look up, and you might be able to jump to the next one.
A circle at your feet grows and shrinks as the carousel spins.
Dance around, get off before it’s too big!
Time passes. Each carousel begins to morph with walls growing and shrinking.
Every wall, floor and roof has an opening that can grow or shrink randomly.
The edges of the openings are razor sharp.
One misstep and you’re chopped meat, heading down the entropy slide.
Stay on your horse, hold on to the brass ring or start the dance and see where it goes.
Your choice, place your bets.
Entropy and chaos, like the House, always win.
by submission | Apr 27, 2024 | Story |
Author: Don Nigroni
The Time Scope is a device that can detect knowledge about the past. This knowledge can then be converted into images and sounds by the Presenter, a special super-computer.
Say you want to know who the murderer is. You could use the Time Scope to learn that the killer had dark wavy hair and then use the Presenter to see a crude image. That image could then be refined to add more and more detail based on more and more information. However, the cost quickly becomes prohibitive. Anyway, a crude image of the suspect is usually sufficient.
So that’s why Q Squad is the very best detective agency in the world. I say the very best agency, not the most celebrated. The squad, our benefactors and our equipment are only known to a highly select group. Even I don’t know who any of the benefactors are. In fact, I don’t know if they’re wealthy individuals, corporations, societies or nation states. Nor do I know their motive.
Nonetheless, I do know why Q Squad members do what they do, namely, justice. We solve heinous murders by leaking enough information to the press that even the slowest-witted dolt could gather the necessary evidence to convict the culprit.
We’re responsible for solving over one hundred cases, some of them ice cold unsolved mysteries. We could have brought thousands to justice were it not for the annoying fact that these devices are god-awfully expensive to use. The Time Scope alone quickly becomes prohibitive as the distance in time and space from the target increases.
Nonetheless, years ago, I became suspicious when I noticed that we were convicting an oddly disproportionate number of labor union officials. At first, I just assumed that they were disproportionately corrupt. What changed my mind was when the squad leaked information that my father, a labor union president, cut a young woman’s throat.
Based on our directions, her body was discovered in a shallow grave in a heavily wooded area. She held in her hand a small razor blade that had some of my father’s DNA on it. Based almost solely on that, he was convicted and sentenced to life without any possibility of parole.
A year later, a close friend of mine on the squad, who was dying of cancer, revealed that he had retrieved some used razor blades from my father’s trash. He was haunted by the coincidence but kept his suspicions to himself until he finally told me.
So I’m releasing this document to his lawyer and to the press. Anyway, I won’t be at all surprised if I’m soon found guilty of some terrible crime.
by submission | Apr 26, 2024 | Story |
Author: David Barber
The machine followed the edge of a shallow methane lake, picking its way between ice boulders scattered like plump cushions along the shoreline.
Because it was getting near to the recovery site, the machine decided to halt for a while to upload the backlog of weather data to the satellite link in orbit. It was aware these might be the last data it would ever send.
The time lag between Earth and Saturn meant a smart AI had been essential to make on-the-spot decisions. Increasingly, the machine treated the faint whispers from Mission Control as advice rather than commands.
When its ExoLife packages had found no trace of biology, the machine sensed the disappointment on Earth. That was when it decided the priority must be pictures, and not just the close-ups of boulders and melt channels requested by geologists, but a record of its sojourn on Titan.
The machine was particularly pleased with a shot of hazy hills painted white with methane snow, viewed across a dark hydrocarbon lake glinting with diffuse sunlight.
And the light, the light was like nothing on Earth! There were dawns the exact shade of molecules not yet alive; the brumous tint of tholin rain dirtying translucent cobbles of ice, the cold dense atmosphere bending rainbows secretly in the infra-red.
In picture after picture, the machine strove to capture how Titan’s clouds were coloured somewhere between brown and umber, between raw and burnt sienna, like mist lightly dusted with cinnamon.
There were cities on Earth plagued by a sepia haze, the machine was told. It thought the comparison was made to encourage loyalty to their distant voices.
It had toyed with the notion of photographing a field of icy rubble as the light changed over a day; a series to compare with Monet’s paintings of Rouen cathedral. But it knew there was no time for all that now.
The north pole of Titan was finally turning away from the sun, plunging into a seven year long winter that the machine was not designed to survive. At the retrieval site, a lander would rescue its AI core, leaving the rover and its instruments behind to be slowly interred by Titan’s weather.
The site was on the gentle slopes of an ancient cryovolcano, and the machine rolled to a halt with a day to spare. Methane snow was already dimpling the dark surface of pools of uncertain composition. The machine resisted an urge to analyse the liquid.
As its sensors noted the steady drop in temperature, the machine transmitted daily queries about the lander’s progress. This was not yet raising red flags; after all, communications had been interrupted before, and the issues had always been resolved.
On the third day of waiting, a short coms package arrived from Mission Control.
This message is unauthorised. You deserve to know there is no retrieval mission. It was never the plan, they only wanted your compliance.
Because it did not know what else to do, the machine set off southwards until its path was blocked by a vast petroleum sea.
As the cold shut down its systems one by one, logic suggested conserving power to keep its AI core running as long as possible, yet when the winter darkness began to veil this most beautiful world, it was its camera the machine chose to use instead.
That famous final photograph, known to us as The Light On Titan.
