by submission | Dec 18, 2010 | Story
Author : Martin Berka
Captain Mu Wharton peered over the rocky outcropping, and was rewarded with humanity’s first glimpse of an alien species. Certainly, the Eurasian Union’s Mira 17 telescope had been the first to notice activity, but in terms of “first contact,” this was hopefully it.
It was fairly anticlimactic due to the fact that the individuals of interest were several kilometers distant. The suit had to triple its radiation representation spectrum before Wharton saw the faint shapes moving towards the human scout group, and signaled for the others to remain hidden while he and Lieutenant Damiana Zeitzev left cover.
The figures, four in all, stopped about 50 meters away. Several minutes passed, and Wharton was consulting his crew about approaching, when two more figures appeared in the distance behind the first group, carrying between them a featureless sphere, perhaps a meter in diameter. They rolled it across the uneven wasteland; hovered several centimeters above the ground, and stopped halfway between the two groups.
The floating sphere emitted a series of brief, low-intensity bursts on a variety of wavelengths, with slight variations, and kept this up for several minutes. Wharton concluded that if the aliens meant harm, they could already have done so, and radioed the five remaining party members to join him. The emissions from the sphere briefly intensified, and then settled into a gentle wave; Ensign Branislav Adani guessed that they represented some form of rapid scanning.
About fifteen minutes passed, during which the six aliens barely moved, and the humans experimented with flashing lights and sending radio messages. Suddenly, the sphere settled on the ground and extended a large screen towards the humans. It displayed the words “For English, wave 1 appendage. For Chinese, wave 2. For Russian, wave 3…” with each language represented in its own alphabet. Every language spoken by a human present, was listed. Glancing at the others for confirmation, the captain raised his right arm up in the nonexistent air.
Immediately, the screen was filled by a closeup of one of the aliens. It resembled a crocodile, assuming that crocodiles were six-legged, eight-armed cubes without facial features, and were in the habit of plugging wires into their chests. An unfamiliar voice appeared on the humans’ communications channel.
“That took a while. Still, you people are pretty normal, and the psych-bio profile’s done. We’ve finished refueling, so we’ve got to be on our way. Nice meeting you!”
The screen began to fold up, or perhaps melt, into the sphere, two of the aliens were already walking back toward their ship, and Wharton quickly broadcast a message in the visitors’ direction.
“Wait! We represent the six inhabited bodies of this solar system, and are honored to have the opportunity…”
“Oh, we’re your first?” the voice replied. “Okay. Our government will send you some representatives in a few orbits. In the meantime, work on filling out this application to the Spacefaring Nations Organization. It should be compatible with your tech. We’ll leave a relay here; the app will tell you how to send the data once everything’s filled out. We’d love to stay and chat, but corporate will be ticked if we don’t reach the Norma arm in a few days.”
The sphere spit out a small rectangle and flew after the aliens, who were already skittering away. The parting gift, reminiscent of the old memory cards, glided into Zeitzev’s hand. Wharton turned back to the select crew handpicked for the mission.
“The media will not be pleased.”
by submission | Dec 17, 2010 | Story
Author : CJ Bergin
Mathius was a watcher. Simply put, he watched; if it happened within the 22nd district of Virginia, he knew about it. Beyond his assigned territory, it was up to the other watchers on Uncle Sam’s payroll. But here, in a godless era, Mathius was God. Lights flared up on the computer screen:
17 Photos tagged of Jessie Ambler, Grace Peterson, and Emily Rothschild from a security camera on Colombia drive.
Mathius’ eyebrow crept upward. The snapping sounds of plastic keys filled the room, while the sound of monitors hummed all around him. He looked down at his keyboard as he typed, away from his cocoon of computer screens. He was surrounded on three sides by dozens of monitors, humming and flashing in rhythm like choreographed fireflies. Behind him stood a single ominous screen connected to a separate keyboard and another similar object with several large buttons on top in the place of traditional keyboard keys. When the humming stopped, Mathius looked up. A picture of a young woman holding a kitten filled the one of the screens.
Jessie Ambler
Age: 18
Relationship Status: Single
Location: Maryland 54th District
“Pedigree”
Father: George Ambler
Mother: Mary Ann Ambler, Maiden Name: Ziebarth.
The list continued and contained all of the girl’s information: bank statements, social security number, body weight, and of course, a photo album filled with thousands of photos from her entire life. With the ease of public surveillance and instant face-tagging technology, Uncle Sam kept a complete photo album of all his children.
“Maryland…” he mumbled to himself. That explains a lot. Virginia had recently lowered the legal age for alcohol consumption back down to 18. Of course, purchasing alcohol here wasn’t illegal. Neither was transporting the booze across state borders, thanks to the full faith and credit clause. But the minute she imbibed back in her hometown, she had better be indoors with the lights out. And she had better remain coherent when it was time for her mandatory citizen status update. If her local watcher thought he saw anything suspicious it would lead to a civil servant investigator on her tail, in person. This would most likely lead to a series of state punishments, and a serious black mark on her record.
Of course, Mathius could start such an investigation on her too, if he wanted.
Casually, he turned to the single computer screen behind him. Without any hesitation, he typed out Jessie’s full name and social security number. Then he looked down at the black box of large buttons.
Those beautiful buttons. He had one for every occasion, murder, domestic violence, armed robbery, driving violations, sedition, and of course, drug and alcohol abuse. He hand hovered over the buttons, as a smile crawled onto his face.
Divine.
Pushing one button up here causes someone’s demise down there. Of course, this divinity did have its limits. America was still free after all. Mathius only had the power to punish the legal indiscretions of man; punishing the social indiscretions was left up to the masses. After all, its not like Mathius had a monopoly on the social network, everyone was logged in, everyone could watch. Mathius was just the government employed whistleblower. Husbands could legally cheat on their wives, but the collective conscious of the masses manifest in the web would discover their infidelity, and the resulting civil unrest would be worse than any government mandated punishment. Of course this was all a product of a civilian achievement. The sheep easily lined up willing to put their lives on display. All Uncle Sam had to do, was log on.
by submission | Dec 16, 2010 | Story
Author : Cesium
Professor Sean Katz walked into his lab the next morning, and Katherine was waiting for him.
“So, how did the trials go?”
“You'd better come see for yourself.”
He glanced up from his Blackberry. She looked as calm as usual, but there was a tinge of worry in her voice. He followed her down the corridor, brilliant sunshine streaming through the windows on one side, graphs and xkcd posters plastering the wall on the other. They turned a corner, and Sean stopped short.
The lab's very expensive new electron microscope was blackened and charred, and emitting a thin trickle of smoke which was slowly drifting toward the ceiling.
“Dr. Ko reported a breakthrough at around 3:30 last night –”
Sean's sense of doom was suddenly offset by indignation. “3:30? How late were you up?” He noted the discarded cans of Mountain Dew spilling out of the recycle bin.
“She insisted, after reading the report for herself…” Katherine looked apologetic.
“And this?”
“So after my apparent success, I decided to examine the atomic structure of the spoon… and, well, not only did Aristotle not believe in atoms, he didn't know about electrons, or electricity. He would have described them as little bits of fire, I suppose. Hence…” Dr. Ko waved helplessly in the direction of the wrecked machine.
Sean suddenly felt dizzy, and he leaned against the counter. “It actually worked.” He looked around at the other two. “We can change the laws of physics at will. No, more than that. We determine the laws of physics by studying them. God, the effectiveness of mathematics in explaining the universe is probably just because we expect physical laws to be mathematical in nature, so they are.”
“We can control matter by thinking about it,” offered Katherine. “Magic.”
“Exactly.”
They looked at each other for a while; at the microscope, symbol of a paradigm that now seemed so limited; at the spoon, which was apparently currently composed of mostly earth, with some fire and water and air.
“Well, you know what we have to do now,” said Dr. Ko.
They performed further experiments and tests, and once they were sufficiently convinced of their results, the manuscript was submitted to Nature.
Katherine walked into Sean's office. “How are you feeling?”
“A bit nervous. Once this thing hits peer review, news will spread, and every scientist on the planet's going to want to test it for themselves.”
“You know, something occurred to me. When Newton and his contemporaries started trying to explain the world through mathematics, the spread of the Enlightenment probably changed it into a form that could be understood that way. That might explain why reports of supernatural sightings and miracles have decreased since then.”
“Hmm. That could –” Sean stopped. If the efforts of relatively few scientists over centuries could change the way the entire universe worked… and just about now, every scientist hearing the news would be trying it with their own favorite discredited scientific paradigms, which were probably incompatible and almost certainly dangerous. The charred hulk in the corner of one of their rooms was testament to that. He reached for his keyboard, intending to compose an urgent email.
But it was too late.
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by submission | Dec 15, 2010 | Story
Author : Steven Odhner
Charles is scared, which is understandable. If I had to guess I would say that in his head he's attempting to dial the police right now, over and over, even though I've blocked all transmissions. The lab has to be heavily shielded for my experiments, the fact that it helps with this kidnapping is just a happy coincidence. The tiny jerks of his eyes stop and he focuses on me.
“Walter… please. You need help. Don't do this. Don't kill yourself.”
I have to smile at that. “I'm not trying to commit suicide, Charles – although it's true that the machine will destroy the planet upon activating whether it works or not. So, yes, there's at least a ten percent chance that I'll kill myself… but those odds are acceptable. I have one shot for this, one chance to meet my maker. In one way or another I'll be walking in the footsteps of God.”
The reaction will begin at the core of the planet, if I've done everything correctly, and just before it tears the Earth apart I'll be flung backwards in time. Impossible, according to all my peers. Insanity, according to Charles. He's trying to get my attention again, encouraged by my mention of God. I've avoided his religious debates in the past, but here at the moment of destruction I see no reason to hold back. I take the double-crucifix pendant from his neck and snap the chain. “This? This is a lie, Charles. There is no afterlife, no soul.”
“There is a God,” he says, “and you can turn to Him! Walter, God loves you and wants…”
His voice dies off as I point the gun at him. I will enlighten him, but I don't have time for debate. The device is nearly ready.
“Before the big bang, there was only God. God was without limits and without time, and was one with Himself. God knew that nothing could exist while He did, because God was all and all would be God. And so He chose to die, to explode and cast His body into the universe we know. Time and Space are the corpse of our dead creator, and we are maggots crawling within. You say there is a God. I tell you there is not, and the proof is all around you. Look upon His scattered remains and weep in mourning and in joy. You foolishly ask me to enter into a relationship with Him, but the truth is that God is a mother who died in childbirth – He never met us, never knew our thoughts or wrote books to guide us. All we can do to know Him is to look at what is left behind, the laws of physics that he used to commit suicide.”
I step into the chamber. The reaction is already building, the Earth eating itself from the inside. The readings are excellent. Charles is screaming something, but I can't hear him over the machines. They all told me it was impossible. But they never thought large enough. They need to go to a time without time, a point where no physics yet exist to say what can and can't be done. I'm going to meet God, right now.
—
For a timeless instant God is aware of an arrival. He notes the relevant information: Elapsed time, 13.82 billion years. Complex DNA present. Method of termination? Pre-event time travel. And God saw that it was good. God ponders Himself, and resolves to try a 0.005% higher matter/antimatter ratio for attempt number 497.
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by Roi R. Czechvala | Dec 14, 2010 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
He made his way down a battle torn street, his T field absorbed multiple plasma blasts harmlessly while the chemical reaction ammunition bounced impotently off his reactive armour. Though better armed than the rebellious colonists, he did not raise a weapon against them. He had a larger goal in mind. He was a man on a mission.
Rounding what remained of one of the pre-fab houses, he walked directly into an ambush. “Oh Shit,” was all he managed to get out before a shoulder fired rocket screeched from its launch tube. He turned and let his back absorb the blast. Even as the fireball swallowed him, he turned towards his attacker. “Sword,” he yelled. At his command a searing blast of white plasma sheathed his right arm and enveloped the rebel, immolating him where he stood.
“Dumbass.”
He continued on. His destination of utmost importance. He didn’t have long. He had first noticed the symptoms only an hour before. It had started with a slight discomfort, but was becoming worse. Incapacitating abdominal cramps were not far off.
He subvoked the com menu on his visor and pulled up the base comlink. “White One Bravo. This is White One Victor, over.” Static was all that greeted him in response. “Damn it. They whacked the relays in this sector.” His breathing was becoming laboured. The pressure in his stomach was beginning to build. The painful cramps, the beginning of an unpleasant end, were closer than he had expected. He had to hurry.
“I’ve got to get out of this armour.” Sweat was running freely downs his face and back despite the armours environment comfort level set to Earth Standard temperate. Again he jacked into the base comlink freq, “White One Victor to Vostok Base. If anyone is monitoring this frequency, I need a medevac on these coordinates immediately.” He shot his location along with the message, knowing that the cobalt60 blue sky would never allow his transmission to reach its destination. Soon it would be all over. The sardonic grin that had been plastered across his face only minutes before had been replaced with a gruesome rictus.
Time was growing short. He clutched vainly at the interlocking plates of armour that covered his torso. He stumbled and fell against a wall. He clutched the corner of a tumble down house. Looking up, a welcoming sight met his eyes. He could scarcely believe it. He shook the sweat from his eyes. The image remained fixed before him. A fuelling station. Battered by plasma bursts to be sure, but the structure stood. He prayed it held what he sought.
The building was small, not that it mattered. He quickly found the door he sought. “Locked. Damnit.” The keypad beside the handle of the sturdy steel door had been destroyed. He saw that it could also be accessed by a key. Antiquated, but not unusual in these far flung outposts. He made his way around to the buildings front office. His spirits fell as he saw that it had been ransacked. He fell to the floor scrabbling amidst the rubble.
He found the key surprisingly quickly. It hadn’t been overlooked in the previous search, it had been deliberately left. For some unimaginable reason it had been affixed by a length of nearly indestructible molecular cord to a large piece of scrap metal. Lugging it back to the door, he unlocked it and fell to the grimy floor of the cramped cubicle. He didn’t care.
He quickly stripped himself of his armour and with a relieved sigh, sat, as the door marked “MEN” swung shut.
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by submission | Dec 13, 2010 | Story
Author : Ellen Couch
I guess there are two things I really remember from that time. The noise, and the feeling of the blood running down my hands.
What was it like? Are you for real? Well, if you really want to know…
When we saw the silver people in their little ship the world went crazy. Some folks were straight down to the park, rollin’ out the welcome wagon. Some got theyselves in bunkers. No idea what happened to them- maybe they’re still there. Maybe they didn’t get ‘cured’ like the rest of us.
Yeah, cured. That’s what the silver people said. Told us they had been watching us. There was so much suffering in our world, they wanted to help. To serve mankind…You ever see that show? Prob’ly not. Never mind. It freaked me the hell out, is all as you need to know. I went back to my apartment, packed a few things, headed out of town. Didn’t do no good, no how. When they opened people’s minds so we could read each others’ thoughts, they did it to the whole damn planet.
Things were very, very bad for a while. All those secrets, spillin’ out to anyone around you. A lot of people did a lot of things they regretted later, includin’ me. A lot more people died- because someone else found somethin’ out, or because it was the only way to stop the noise. So much noise. It’s hard to think straight with so many people talkin’ at you, and no way to block it out. You got no idea- trust me, man, you don’t want no idea what it was like.
The silver people said they could teach us how to block out all but what we wanted to hear. For a price, o’course. They wanted the planet- said their own had got all used up, oh, so sad. And the governments- what was left of ‘em- they agreed! I s’pose they didn’t think we had a choice.
Yeah, it was clever, thinkin’ about it. One little ship full of guys, and they get us to do their dirty work for them. Two weeks later, thousands of them silver people turned up.
But they didn’t know about- you know, that plant we brought with us? That. Didn’t have nothin’ like it. I was one of the first realised it cleared your head real good- then a group of us found that the silver people couldn’t hear us if we was high. Weren’t too hard to steal one of those little silver ships, when they couldn’t see what we was plannin’. The silver guy we tied up was a living instruction manual.
We found this place about a month after we left. Told your guys we didn’t want no trouble, just somewhere to stay. You don’t think like us. It’s a relief. No noise.
Naw, man, it’s OK. S’been a while, we’re pretty sure they ain’t followed us. But we’ll keep our little garden growin’, and an eye on the sky. Just in case.
