by Patricia Stewart | Nov 25, 2010 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Viisas signaled the plaintiff that it was ready to receive its opening statement.
“Your Honor,” transmitted Rotalutsop, “Reus sold me a planet that is completely unusable, and I want a full refund.”
Viisas processed the opening statement for several microseconds. “I should remind you, Mt. Rotalutsop, that case law is explicit in matters dealing with property transactions. You cannot revoke an offer of contract, even if the celestial object is unfit for ordinary purposes.”
“But, Your Honor,” pleaded Rotalutsop, “Reus actively concealed latent defects in the planet. That makes it fraud. Therefore, by statutory law, I’m entitled to a full refund, in addition to compensatory damages.”
“Did you receive a Real Estate Sales Disclosure Statement at settlement in compliance with the Seller Disclosure Act of 565.951?”
“Yes, Your Honor, and I’ve scanned it a hundred times. There is no mention that the planet was infested with parasites.”
“Is the Plaintiff’s accusation true, Mt. Reus?”
“Of course not,” replied the defendant. “Rotalutsop is exaggerating. I would hardly consider eight billion humans an ‘infestation’. And besides, Your Honor, whether or not humans are technically ‘parasites’ is still under debate.”
“Not in my universe, Mt. Reus. I order you to transfer the full selling price, plus thirty percent, to the Plaintiff’s account before ninty standard free neutron decays. You’re lucky that I don’t have the authorization to deactivate you for this kind of uncivilized behavior. Next case.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 24, 2010 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Nicola pushed the throttle further forward, feeling the massive airframe surge as he tripled the speed of sound.
“There are now eight aircraft in pursuit, finger four formations, over under,” Sev, the aircraft’s control system, broke the silence, “speed increased to overtake.”
Nic flexed his fingers away from the sticks, the maglocks holding his palms firmly to the controls. “Ok Sev, establish passive lock on the leaders and prep countermeasures if they go hot.”
“Confirmed.” The onboard flight system would do on instinct what he was instructing, but she maintained the illusion that he was in control out of respect. “I should remind you that we have only three remaining air to air missiles, and at this speed guns are unavailable.
“Understood.” Nic checked the current flight line on the HUD. “We can’t make target at this speed, we’ll need to shake ’em off, and quick.” Outside the cockpit, the horizon curved perceptibly with the altitude. “Listen for radio chatter. Tell me what you can about who’s flying what back there.”
There was a moment of silence while Sev recorded radio signals and cracked the encryption. “I have identified six male and two female pilots. Point on the lower formation has the lead. Instructions are to overtake and shoot us down.”
“Keep a passive lock on the leader and the women.” Nic eased up on the throttle. “With no lead, the boys hopefully will try to save their planes. The women never let it go. When they get close enough, Kulbit, then take them out.”
“May I remind you that a Kulbit maneuver at this speed will render you unconscious?”
“You can tell me all about it later.”
The aircraft began to throttle back. “Understood.”
Nic watched the HUD, heart racing as their pursuers closed the distance with ever increasing speed, weapons lock indicators flashed while Sev torqued the plane to stay just out of their grasp.
As the first of the locks stabilized, the gimbaled exhaust of their fighter turned abruptly skyward, pushing the tail of the aircraft violently, first towards the ground and then forcing it to aggressively overtake the nose. Nic felt his flight-suit tighten below his chest, head pounding, blood rushing in his ears. His vision irised in and out as above his head the sky was replaced with the nose cones of a flock of metal birds, then the ground. There was a brief flash of a pilot craning his neck backwards as canopy shot past within meters of canopy. The fighter continued pushing over, the jets almost at right angles to the stabilizers. There was a quick view of the exhaust of their former pursuers then the tail snapped around again to return their plane to its original position in the sky. The gimbaled nozzles straightened and the engines returned to full throttle, afterburners engaged. Nic heard chatter in his headset, vision nearly completely black, Sev closing the distance to the now fleeing pack ahead and letting loose the three remaining missiles as the planes broke formation. Before they could regain offensive positions, the three chosen targets were tumbling from the sky in bright smears of burning fuel and shattered metal. The remaining planes turned tail and ran, leaving Sev and Nic alone in the sky.
“Nicola?” Sev undulated the pressure in his flight suit until he groaned, eyes slowly opening against the bright blue sky.
“Welcome back. We have a clean inbound vector to target, and some time to make up.”
Nic pushed the throttles all the way forward, grinning despite his aching head as the seat back pushed against his spine.
“I killed three inferior AI’s today Nic.”
“I know Sev. Sorry I couldn’t keep my eyes open to watch,” Nic powered down the HUD, “why don’t you tell me about it.”
by submission | Nov 23, 2010 | Story
Author : Clint Wilson
It always felt lonely when the ship sailed off to tow more rocks. After all, being the only companions for eighteen light-years Jim didn’t want to see them wander too far. But somebody had to stay here in the processor and make sure things ran smoothly. The constant mechanical hum carried through the station as he looked out the window to the splendor of the brilliant gas giant below. Besides this and the field of rocks in-waiting the only other thing visible against the starry background was the tele-gate, their doorway to home, six kilometers distant, motionless in its matched orbit.
The com sounded. What could they want? They just left. He activated the monitor array and there appeared the face of Commander Hunter. There was not a hint of emotion in his demeanor.
“What’s up Hunt?”
For a couple of long seconds his superior said nothing, showed nothing, just stared at Jim through the monitors. Then he uttered the words that Jim almost certainly knew would come one day. “It’s over Jim. I know everything.”
At first he tried to act aloof, knowing he had nowhere to run, nowhere to turn. “What do you mean sir? What’s over? I don’t get it.” Jim hadn’t called Hunter Sir in nearly two years. He had already given up on the lie, and the lowering of his eyes toward his feet pretty much confirmed it.
Hunter exploded in sudden rage, sending spittle toward the camera in his com station aboard Lifeboat. “You KNOW what the FUCK I MEAN!” Then he slid his chair to one side showing an utterly horrible scene. There were the other three crew members; Hanson, Desebrais, and the commander’s wife, Colonel Jillian Hunter. They were all very distressed looking, bound and gagged. Jill looked as though she had been roughed up.
“My god, what are you doing to them?”
“Don’t worry Jimmy, they’ll be fine. I just don’t need them interfering with your punishment.”
He did not like where this was going but what could he do? Whatever Hunter had planned for him, he knew it would be sinister. It was obvious that the affair was now out in the open. Had they missed a security camera? Not in any of their spots he was pretty sure. Certainly not a pregnancy, they had discussed this, they were both fixed. Maybe Hunt had simply gotten an intuition and had somehow coerced a confession out of Jill. She was too good and pure to lie. Jim cursed himself for ever putting her in this position.
“So spill it Hunt. I can hardly wait to hear how you’re going to kill me.”
“Oh I’m not that stupid. I know murder is the only thing left that can get you the death sentence. I plan on living a long and happy life in a federal institution while you wait the… he stopped, mock calculating, tapping fingers back and forth on his palms to build suspense …let’s see, including acceleration and deceleration you should see a replacement tele-gate in about thirty years.
“Hunt! Please man, I know this is bad, but think of our friendship. Please don’t do this to me!”
Commander Hunter looked almost regretful for a split second and then straightened back up. “You’ve got enough food and water you prick. See you when we’re old men.”
Jim turned to the window in time to see Lifeboat flash out of existence through the tele-gate and then watched as the tow line followed until the three-hundred-million ton asteroid, far too large for the porthole, smashed his doorway to home into nothingness.
by Duncan Shields | Nov 22, 2010 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
She was giving me a lecture and I didn’t like it. However she was the captain so I listened.
“If you go any faster than 2C, you start to travel backwards as you travel forwards. You get to your destination before you leave. That is impossible and it tears the ships apart. No one wants that. Light and a half. That’s the sweet speed when the universe stops. The universe slows once you go past the speed of light and stops completely at 1.5C. Now, the thing about navigating at C and a half is that you have to be traveling that fast to navigate.”
I’d just come back inside the ship. Yes, I was a first-year telengineer but she was so full of herself. I left the plate off of the forward buffer sails during the initial checklist. Big deal. There were seven thousand plates on the buffers. I knew it was my first mission and that she was in charge but her voice was really starting to make me wonder what it would be like to see some fear on her face. I don’t like that feeling.
“Are you listening? The entire universe becomes a three dimensional, unmovable photograph. Once you’re holding steady with the buffers keeping us at 0 in space but 1.5 at lightspeed, it’s possible to send out a pulse through the super strings. Y’know, like a bat. Do you know what a bat is?” she asked like a children’s show narrator. She waited for a reaction.
I nodded, glowering.
“A very accurate picture of the obstacles on your journey comes back to the ship. After that picture is analyzed, you can nudge the ship forward in space to 1.6C and the magic happens. You are transported to your destination milliseconds after you left. You see?”
She clapped her hands once to get my attention, raised her eyebrows and smiled at me sarcastically. I looked sullenly at the wrench in my hand and tightened my grip on it. I couldn’t take another ten minutes of her condescension.
“Do. You. Hear. Me?” she asked.
“Yes.” I answered. It was an effort not to shout it at her.
She stared at me.
“The buffers. Doing the impossible so that we can have an accurate picture of the universe at rest. That way, we can move when nothing else is moving. No asteroids, no suns, no DUST can get in our way or we will perish. We can look at the picture and then we can zip there instantly. Do you understand me? The BUFFERS.”
She was getting agitated. She grabbed my chin and looked into my eyes.
“You left a plate off of the forward buffer sails. We are not holding at zero C any more. According to my calculations, we are holding at 0.0000000001 C. Do you know what that means?” she asked.
“It’ll take a little longer for the computer to calculate a safe route before we turn the buffers off, I guess?” I retorted with a sneer.
“Yes.” She answered. I saw her bottom lip quiver. “Do you know how MUCH longer?”
“I don’t know, a few minutes?” I was already bored with this conversation.
“A year.” She said. “Or close to it. Three hundred and eleven days by my calculations.”
“What?” I whispered. I finally started to understand why she was so angry.
I looked at her dumbly. I could see tears forming in her eyes. It was going to be a long year.
by submission | Nov 21, 2010 | Story
Author : Julian Miles
We met at a parts fair. We simultaneously laid hands on opposite ends of an Emptor storage array. She smiled and brandished a handful of gigaflex at me.
“Mine.” She said.
In one of those moments of prescient genius, I replied “Ours.”
It started for real a week later and finished two hours ago, with fifty years in between. We had gone from two lonely computer geeks with a thing for efficient storage to the founders of DataSure.
Yes, that DataSure. The one that can map you into the Alphanet; “Making Death Merely a Transition” as our promotionals say. She’s there now, a Transited, getting used to peripherals that can operate kit in different galaxies. We argued so much about that. She wanted the merge as her body failed; I couldn’t bear to see her go. Her crossing was the end for us. Because a transited consciousness cannot run slow enough to mix with mortals. It just isn’t possible. A machine slow enough to allow us to interface would demise the transited. A certain processing speed is necessary to maintain soulullar cohesion.
Yes, I am wealthy enough to ignore the assisted suicide laws and the mandatory consciousness directives, but my problem is something I cannot buy off.
In amongst the genetic diversity of mankind there is a peculiar combination that although mapped decades ago was a mere curiosity until transit was discovered. It means that a minute fraction of one percent of the population cannot be transited. They are quietly and pityingly referred to as ‘The Bodybound’. Something in their makeup means their consciousness cannot remain cohesive outside the shell they were born into. I have the dubious, lonely privilege of being one of them.
So I lie here next to her precious body, the cortex feed bundle hidden by her still luxuriant white hair. I write this having just completed putting my affairs in order. Now I look at the dark sheen on the barrel of my antique Desert Eagle and hope beyond reason that one day my afterlife will find her eternal circuits, somewhere out there when science and heaven finally meet.
by submission | Nov 20, 2010 | Story
Author : Brian Bartolomeo
Apparently I have a face that invites unsolicited advice.
“Are you even listening to me now?” my brother asked from the driver’s seat of his semi-classic car. “Aren’t you supposed to be a genius or something? What you need to do is to get a job that pays real money and pull your weight around here. We’re all tired of the position that you’ve put us in, so you need to move on.” His tiny, blonde girlfriend in the front passenger seat conscientiously ignored our heated argument in favor of texting rapidly while we all sped down the green corridor of a winding back road.
I tend to stonewall in uncomfortable conversations in hopes that the other person gets bored or shows a weakness, but I had heard enough out of my brother for the day. I leaned forward from the back seat and said, “I’ve done more ‘moving on’ than you have. How many swaggering, self-righteous bosses do you still have anyway? I keep losing count.” His only response was to upshift. I continued, “At least I have something to—” The car flipped.
I stood on the road and watched my brother’s car slide sideways on a patch of sand covering the road, hit the railroad ties lining the steep slope off the edge of the road and tumble over and down, twisting to absorb the impacts. Not twisting enough. I stood in horror and confusion. Wasn’t I supposed to be in the car? Was the sky supposed to flash those colors? Then I remembered. I remembered coming to myself and remembering again and again. I remembered that I wouldn’t allow myself to remember any of my previous efforts while I was in the car. That would defeat the whole point of the simulation.
I dragged myself over to the console to set the simulation up for another run. Maybe this time I would let it continue into the crash itself to see if I could have done anything to save my brother during that final collision. I had to force myself to face that memory again. I had to keep trying, keep tweaking my initial mood or my approach to keep me from provoking my brother over the edge. I couldn’t move on.
I had to know if I could have gotten it right.
