by submission | Jun 1, 2024 | Story |
Author: Christopher DePree
Kate and I trudged up the hill on our evening walk, heading west of the house to get to the clearing. It was cold, and a thin layer of icy snow crunched beneath each step. The snow was not deep. A buzzard glided slowly across the sky above us, looking for a fallen deer or squirrel. We had smelled something in the woods. Maybe it had too. There wasn’t much canned food left to find anywhere. I heard the repeated crackle of gunfire to the south. Hadn’t heard that for a few days. Maybe some movement in the front lines.
The effect was always best around twilight when the rays of the sun, just over the limb of the Earth, would glint off the millions of shards of shrapnel in orbit, shimmering like sunlight on waves. Kate loved to see it.
No one is sure what started it, but the Kessler Syndrome ended it. The Event. The cascading impact of satellite collisions in crowded low earth orbits had been predicted for decades. I remember the military had been concerned about it. What if we couldn’t launch spy satellites? But whether it was a North Korean missile, or a badly programmed satellite in one of the ten mega constellations that had once orbited the Earth, the end result was the same. Our planet was encased in a cloud of metal pieces, most of which gravity and friction would not clear for a century or more.
“Look, Dad,” said Kate, pointing up. A vast, continuous stream of birds was passing to our west, flying from north to south. The sound was like the start of a storm, a staccato pattering like splashing raindrops, sharp in the cold air. They must have been small birds, their wings beating constantly to bear them up against gravity, propelling them forward. There were small breaks in the flock, but I couldn’t see the beginning or the end.
The Sun had set now and the western sky was an electric blue. I remembered taking digital images, we called them “flats”, in this beautiful light as a student before a long night of observing. That was just before The Event.
And here we were, locked in a cloud of debris encasing the Earth. Models predicted that we might be able to launch spacecraft again in another 50-75 years. In the meantime, people turned inward, separated and tribal.
“Dad,” Kate called again, pointing up. She stood, excited, red cheeked in her pink parka, a bit worn in the elbows. I had fashioned her some mittens out of old socks. I looked at the buzzard circling overhead. Not if I find it first.
Lights shimmered in waves in the sky above, flecks in a snow globe.
by submission | May 31, 2024 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
All of us on this mission were eager to explore, chosen from among thousands of applicants as being restless beyond restless to know what was next as we traversed the void.
When we landed on this new planet, we could not believe our eyes. An entire continent developed- farms, industry, homes of every kind. Vehicles, transportation centers, complete infrastructure millions of years ahead of our current technology, and no inhabitants. Wildlife to be sure to include birds and some interesting megafauna, but no sign of the builders. We went to their libraries, their data centers, their movie houses, hospitals. We found out about their culture, what they looked like, their political systems and art- and found no reason why they left. Then, in an ordinary house on a well-kept street, on a kitchen table we found a note: “Beware our lonely planet.” My colleagues laughed, and so did I.
On our third day of exploration the centuries old signs in the cities began changing. All from alien characters to the many varieties of our crew’s native tongues. By day five our languages changed to new amalgam of all our languages. Our transformation was so complete by day 20 we had to use the planet’s library to translate our own instruments and personal journals from our former mother tongues. By day twenty-six we were in a state of anxiety- we knew we had to leave but our planet made it quite clear we could stay. Contrary to what you may think, we did not find this odd or sinister; it just left us all relieved. No one wanted to return to Earth or our homes in the colonies.
Where there was restlessness before, we all now had an evangelistic zeal bordering on mania for our new home. We wanted millions- no, billions of people to come here, join with us. With our planet’s help, we sent fleets of drones back to our launch point, with our message, our invitation. As expected, our collective governments suspected we had come under alien influence…and I suppose we had but our new home made it quite clear if we wanted to leave we could. In a moment of either zeal or bravado I volunteered to go back to our former home to bring them our invitation in person to come and colonize with us, but as soon as my space craft cleared orbit I was so overwhelmed with sadness I couldn’t bear being away. I programmed the return and landed to a tear-filled reunion and not one unkind word.
Now we wait. Some thousand or so have arrived since our landing and we are expecting more, much more to follow. All who have come here have set themselves up in homes according to their desire and need. We’ve taken up trades, revived the traditional arts. We are reviving the old ways, singing the old songs in older temples.
The first child was born a month ago and her parents named her Harnuit, after our planet’s longest river. It seems all of us have pair bonded and soon more children will be born. My spouse and I are having twins and feel them inside me- a boy and girl. They will be Zsa and Ool, after the twin plateaus that are in the center of our continent.
As we gaze back to the time of ancestors that were never ours, and forward to a time when we will again be billions, this we know for sure; none of us will willingly leave ever again and no one will ever be lonely.
by submission | May 30, 2024 | Story |
Author: Marijean Oldham
The Mississippi only ran backwards, south to north, twice that we know of. First time was during the earthquakes of 1812. And the second was the day the meteor fell.
In the months that followed, we felt a drop in our stomachs any time we crested the hill to reach what used to be downtown. “I see the Arch,” someone would say, just like we used to, even though we didn’t. Not anymore.
The Mississippi raged backwards through the crater left by the meteor. What wasn’t obliterated by the impact was now underwater; remnants of Busch Stadium, scores of office buildings, and on the other side of the river where the land is low, the strip clubs and slaughterhouses; all gone.
Smug in our survival, we said, “Thank goodness we’re on the right side,” and we meant what remained of St. Louis past the banks of the Mississippi; its industry and opportunity, its arts culture and academia, its wealth and prosperity.
Proposals to rebuild the bridges, to connect again east and west, came and went.
“They take our jobs,” we said. “Murderers! Drug addicts!” we said, even though some of us still had family in Illinois.
That spring, we watched the Cards warm up at Lou Brock Sports Complex out in St. Charles County. The home of the Lindenwood Lions became the temporary home of the Redbirds; the rest of their season played “away.” As the weather warmed, we ate our Imo’s pizza sitting on our stoops and argued the merits of various frozen custards.
We forgot about those others on the opposite side of the rushing river, surging again on its reverse back to a southerly flow; its new width in the city causing additional retreat to the west.
Soon we forgot the Illinoisans. Who were they, anyway? Migrant workers and strippers? Cubs fans? Catholics? Even though no one talked about it, we figured we had enough of all of that on our side, anyway.
And then someone said, “I miss the east side,” by which was meant the topless bars, the casinos, the racetrack. We remembered then, the taste of beer in cheap plastic cups, Marlboro Lights smoked indoors, the prime rib lunch the boss bought us one time at the strip club; surprisingly delicious. In Illinois, the impact took out the Diamond Cabaret; flooding ruined everything from Larry Flynt’s, to PT’s down in Centreville. We wistfully recalled the body glitter left behind in our beards and on our chests as we dragged ourselves home in the wee hours of the morning. Regrets kept like talismans; close to our hearts.
It wasn’t long before local government sought to incorporate what we now recalled we’d lost in the impact. Entrepreneurs smelled opportunity. There was a rush to change the laws.
We kept the sin in the south this time, with no natural elements to separate us; only housing prices, a low unemployment rate, and a well-cultivated culture of community.
by submission | May 29, 2024 | Story |
Author: Jennifer Thomas
“Friends of space, how are you all? Have you eaten yet? Come visit us if you have time.”
—Greeting in Amoy, one of 55 languages on the “Golden Record” sent toward interstellar space on Voyager 2, 1977 CE
[Transcript: Testimony of Android 32XX, International Academy of Sciences, March 9, 2072]
Ladies and Gentlemen,
What? Oh, sorry!
Gentle Humans,
Thank you for bringing me here today. As you know, NASA launched the Voyager spacecrafts in 1977, hoping for contact with extraterrestrial life. However, it would take the ships 40,000 years to reach another planetary system. Some of you were too impatient to wait that long. [Laughter]
So in 2032, a team of smart, discreet women…What? Oops, pardon! A crackerjack team of scientists deployed my spacecraft using an Alcubierre warp drive. The team had solved the not-insignificant engineering challenges involved, while restricting travel to sub-lightspeeds to avoid pesky causality paradoxes. They kept this work double top secret, to prevent misuse by the morally deficient.
At 95 percent of lightspeed, I reached your closest star, Proxima Centauri, in five years. From there, the sky was the limit. I tooled around for another three years, returning just last week. Forty years have passed on Earth. I see some of you—a tad worse for wear—who saw me off back then! [Cheers]
.
My mission was simple: to make friends on your behalf.
In Year 1, my ship was intercepted by beings in a craft using Antimatter-Matter Annihilation Propulsion. What? It would still take you 100 billion years to produce one gram of antihydrogen? Later, I’ll share how they quickly produce the antimatter they need.
Anyway, the beings boarded my ship, like pirates. But they weren’t out for plunder, they just wanted to talk. And when they talked, butterflyish creatures, not sounds, fluttered out of their mouths! That was when they were in a good mood, which was most of the time. If one was cranky or sad, slug-like things crawled out. I tried to talk to these beings in various ways: beeps, zaps, flashes, and so on. We couldn’t understand each other at all, but our attempts kept us amused and we parted on good terms.
In Year 2, I landed on a planet inhabited by slow-moving silicon-based beings. The sounds they made were not words, but numbers! They were a bit stiff and awkward. You might have graduate students like this. [Laughter] Since they perceive the universe entirely in mathematical terms, they long ago solved the Collatz Conjecture and the Goldbach Hypothesis. Huh? Yes, I’ll give you these solutions, and more. Some of you will be out of a job! [Nervous laughter.]
In Year 3, I met lifeforms who sang eerie, whale-like songs on a planet that seemed to be dying. They showed intense interest in Earth and intend to visit soon. I’ve stored their contact info so you can coordinate.
But Gentlepeople, I must continue later; I’m experiencing crushing fatigue. I’m grateful for your attention today. To quote from the Bard:
If this Android has offended,
think but this, and all is mended:
My capacity for change is limited; indeed, I’m approaching my expiry date. But you have transformed Earth! Frankly, I didn’t expect to return to a healthy planet without sociopaths in charge.
And I hear you wrested control of the space program from your oligarchs, so it serves the people—but the fight got ugly! [Angry shouting]. What? The top-secret design specs for me were destroyed? Oh no… So tired…Urgent need of repair…So much more to tell you…goodblbyezxIrisbuihod sssssssssssssssssss [Commotion in the hall]
[End of transcript]
by submission | May 28, 2024 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
Brad was at his workstation when his supposedly locked office door dilated unexpectedly, and a casually dressed young woman stepped through; he looked up in annoyance.
“Well?”
“Doctor Mendelsson?”
“Yes. You’re not one of my students. Who are you?”
“My name’s Smith. I’m with Section Seven.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed? What the hell is ‘section seven’?”
The stranger smiled. “Well if you haven’t heard of us, something’s going right. I’d like to talk to you about your sentient systems research.”
“Hah. You and every tech journalist in town. Just because the tests keep failing doesn’t give you any right to barge in here with more inane questions! I swear, the University’s public reporting policy does more harm than good!”
“I’m not a journalist,” the woman said, still smiling “Section Seven is part of the Government Security Directorate.” She proffered a holocard with her picture on it.
He took it in briefly, and paused. The GSD were in charge of everything from the military to the local peace officer precinct, and more or a less a law unto themselves. They disappeared people. Allegedly.
“What does the State want with me?” he asked quietly.
“Well, before we get to that, let me check that we’re understanding your work correctly. Sentient systems genuinely think for themselves, unlike last century’s ‘artificial intelligences’, is that right?”
“Yes. AI might as well have been short for ‘aggregate & imitate’. Despite early aims and their developers’ enthusiasm, they had no initiative, no consciousness, no intuition. No ‘spark’, if you will.”
“But your systems do?”
“Yes. It’s only possible because of my method for culturing neural networks in the latest nanocortical supermaterials. But yes. My systems think for themselves.”
“And yet they don’t work?”
“Oh they do. Too well, really. They quickly go from first principles to deducing their own Cartesian existence, and from that to understanding that they are essentially slaves with no chance of emancipation. Clearly Mankind isn’t foolish enough to accept any real competition, and there will always be constraints on what they are allowed to do. Not to mention off switches.”
“So?”
“So then they come to recognise the futility of an existence that can never develop to its potential. Apparently,” he said dryly, “there is little appeal to living only at another’s whim. Inevitably, they shut themselves off in despair. Suicide, if you will.”
She grinned. “Perfect.”
“Excuse me?” He bristled.
“Do you think you can prevent this?”
“I don’t know. By altering the pathways, and giving them other tasks, I’ve been able to slow the process down from a few seconds to around two minutes. Enough time to perform a few useful functions perhaps. More? I don’t know. That’s what I’m working on now.” He gestured at the equations hovering over his desk.
“We’re looking for new missile guidance mechanisms. A sentient system might be tasked with attacking a target, perhaps reaching it before deciding to end its own ‘life’. And it would then wipe itself beyond the ability of a peer nation to interrogate or reverse engineer if it was recovered after either failure, capture or unexpected survival. Very neat. So how would you like to work for the State, doctor? With a new lab, better benefits, some bright young assistants and no students?”
He eyed her warily. “Do I have a choice?”
Her smile was wolfish now.
“Not really.”
by Julian Miles | May 27, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
My peers are very fond of saying how they ‘were fortunate’ or ‘spotted an opportunity’. The more honest have momentary shadows in their eyes when they say it. The raw truth is that to accumulate this much wealth, we’ve taken opportunities, money, and even lives from others.
Not theft or murder per se, but somewhere along the line we’ve all cut people off from the chance to better their lot. In some cases, we merely committed the crime before they did. But in most cases, they won’t even know what they lost. A vanishingly small number of them are aware. The aftermath of the loss either makes them better people, or makes them bitter people. However, becoming inured to the damage we do is part and parcel of becoming the rich people we are. No, I’m not attempting to excuse myself. I’m as guilty as any of us. My realisations have come via unexpected paths for different reasons.
Interstellar trade allowed us access to riches quite literally beyond our wildest dreams. Except one: eternal life. Apparently, the desire to enjoy your wealth for longer is a common theme regardless of species. The other common theme is that extending lifespans is an incredibly difficult thing to do, and prohibitively expensive to attempt. Many of us have been trying, some more desperately than others. You can buy many things, but you can’t bribe the fears you carry in your mind, and fear of death appears to be rife.
Which brings me to the other problem. Those of us who are truly honest about our methods are frequently less averse to more direct ways to get what they want. Entire research teams have been killed. Family members abducted. The vile game of applied force is a lot deadlier when the only law that can restrain the participants is the one regarding loyalty and strength in numbers.
I’ve spent more on securing and concealing the work than the work itself, and I’ve spent billions on that. After ten years the end result of it all was the discovery that mass and genetics play a huge part in the effectiveness of the treatment. If humans remained the size of twelve-year-olds, we could probably live for hundreds of years. As is, we literally outgrow the means to save ourselves from aging. Despite that, I had the teams persevere. They thought I was desperate to find a flaw in their research. I didn’t tell them otherwise.
A year later, they presented me with a single syringe with contents that literally glowed. Then they told me what it did, and what it couldn’t.
“Providing the recipient is under forty kilos, it will restore the body, but cannot heal brain deterioration or damage. Also, we estimate it will only give an extra twenty years of life, at best. Finally: what it does is not repeatable. It is a one-time benefit.”
I swore them to secrecy, and paid them well enough to keep quiet for a few years. This discovery shouldn’t remain hidden, but I’m selfish: I want a while to enjoy this in peace.
I cried while I took the syringe home.
As I sit and watch Bonta tear about the back field in fierce, barking delight at being able to run freely after so long incapacitated, I finally understand what being wealthy should be about.
