by submission | Dec 28, 2014 | Story |
Author : David Botticello
“How was your vacation, Professor?” Huxley asked, glancing from the display in front of her.
“Oh, you know the Paradise Worlds, they always leave you feeling so relaxed…and yet unfulfilled at the same time,” responded Professor Tibbetz, nodding in acknowledgment to the other lab assistants. There were two of them—cosmology just didn’t attract the same crowds as physics, chemistry, biology, or actually any of the other disciplines. Even economics.
The professor sighed, nostalgic already. “So, how fares the monkey habitat? Have they done anything interesting in my absence?”
At this Huxley brightened—the monkeys were her pet project, so to speak. It was an effort to silence the critics really. See, theoretical cosmology was all well and good, but every so often the religious organizations would react to pure theory in a manner that was..less than encouraging. The last time, several years ago now, the critics had gone and done something rather rash. They had asked for proof. It was a new tactic, to be sure. And so, the cheerily dubbed ‘Infinite Monkey Project’ began. The hubbub all centered on a thought experiment: in theory, if infinite monkeys were given infinite typewriters and infinite time, they would eventually type out the entire works of the great poets, completely by accident.
Funding had been a nightmare, but eventually, a pocket universe was created and a world placed there. The trick was spinning up the time cycle so that it wouldn’t take forever.
And then a week before Professor Timmetz’ sabbatical, it was ready. An infinite number of monkeys was, sadly, beyond their meager budget—they went with ten thousand, figuring that the monkeys could reproduce and they could always warp in new typewriters.
The horrible little creatures had promptly smashed their typewriters, and by the time he was leaving on vacation they were busy sharpening the debris into weapons. He let the students handle it. It was an annoying project anyway.
“So, you remember how they broke all the typewriters we gave them?” asked Huxley.
Her professor nodded gravely.
“Well, we didn’t want to give them more; they were killing each other with the ones they already had. So we left them alone, hoping their violence was a temporary phenomenon. And when I came in on Wednesday, they had discovered fire, and were busy torching their forests.” Noting the professor’s unimpressed face, she continued on hurriedly, “but then yesterday, just when I was leaving, they started making their own typewriters. Not as good as ours, to be sure, but really, quite impressive. I was just going to look into it when you came in.”
“Ah, yes Huxley, good. Carry on.” Professor Timmetz had almost escaped into his office when the student spoke up again.
“Uh, professor? They…I think they did it. I’m getting text here. The script is a bit strange but, this is systematic, metered…it’s poetry.”
Professor Timmetz turned, surprise and alarm measuring simultaneously on his face, much to the amusement of the other students. His brow furrowed as a scanned the data hurriedly, moving inexorably toward the same conclusion the student had made. “Um…what…hmmm. Which monkey did this, exactly?”
“Right,” Huxley tapped a few parameters into the console. “Here it is, it looks like,” she paused, pondering at the pronunciation of a monkey language before deciding it didn’t really matter, “his name is Shakespeare.”
by submission | Dec 15, 2014 | Story |
Author : Lawrence Buentello
Five billion years ago, two members of the Fraca species stood staring at the stars from the balcony of their laboratory.
They had worked ceaselessly, along with thousands of other scientists and technicians, to formalize the seeding project many thought impossible. On the following morning all the orbiting engines would release their rocky projectiles into space toward precisely determined celestial targets. A thousand projectiles would travel untold light years toward a thousand other stars, and the planets orbiting these stars.
The two astronomers had been discussing the philosophical implications of such an endeavor.
“If even a few succeed,” the one called Jangus said, holding his long arms before him like a priest from their ancient past, “we will be the creator of these species.”
“A millions years,” the one called Zoris said, “or a billion years hence.”
“We will have created all these beings.”
“Yes.”
“I hope our people are still alive when these others are capable of contacting us.”
The Fraca were the single intelligent species on their planet; and they had never, in the course of their twenty thousand year-old civilization, found evidence of another intelligent species in the universe. Their science was highly refined, but the stars remained silent.
And so it became imperative to the Fraca that they not remain the solitary intelligent species in their galaxy, or perhaps even the universe. Once their biological sciences had refined the means by which to manipulate their genetic material masterfully, a great plan was drawn to deliver carefully coded amino acids and other chemical combinations to other planetary systems suspended in the corpus of comets.
If their extensive calculations were correct, the introduction of the coded sequences would initiate the creation of complex organic forms, leading to a long, slow evolution of increasingly complex organisms, culminating in a subtly programmed intelligence.
When the galaxy was filled with new species, and sentient beings, the Fraca would no longer be alone.
“Do you ever wonder,” Jangus asked his colleague, “if this was the manner in which our species was created?”
“Wouldn’t we have found others like ourselves by now?” Zoris replied.
“That’s a logical assumption. But perhaps the equations are not in our favor.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps,” Jangus said, nodding at the stars, “time is a barrier a sentient species simply cannot surpass.”
“Time is an illusion.”
“But entropy is not.”
“If you’re correct,” Zoris said, considering the stars, “then we’ll never know, will we?”
“I very much hope that we do.”
The next morning, the mission proceeded as planned. The launch was a magnificent success, and the Fraca waited a hundred thousand years to receive even a primitive communication from another species.
But the Fraca never did; they died alone, never knowing if they had brought light or darkness to the universe, and never realizing that they had brought both.
by Julian Miles | Nov 21, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The seasonal rains have set in; bringing the battle for the planet we call Tango to a bogged-down halt. High above, the grey clouds flash blue-veined white as miniature suns blossom in orbit. The war continues across known space, committed men and women laying down their lives for a cause that became tenuous months ago.
I’m not here to contemplate the vagaries of politics. Like all hierarchies, we have our share of champions, villains, and those who simply do the best they can for the people they represent. They couldn’t do my job. I couldn’t do theirs. Neither of us would want to trade places.
“Hangman Seven, this is Gallows. What’s feeding the crows?”
I smile. Someone has a darkly appropriate sense of humour back at headquarters.
“Eight this morning. Awaiting this afternoon’s first customer. H-7 out.”
A long time ago, men in trenches never lit a third cigarette – an early form of chemical inhaler – from the same match. This was because enemy snipers would have ranged them from the first two ignitions, and the third recipient would die.
These days, all the battlefield drugs arrive by patch or spray. Nothing to betray a position. The beams from combat lasers are invisible to an unaided human eye, which is all I have. My people joined the war when the enemy decided that our homeworld was more valuable as a vast open-cast mine than a place of ancient forests and sky-piercing peaks.
For centuries uncounted, we hunted fairly. Man versus beast, intelligence our only advantage. When command found out about our far-sighted hunters, they tried – and failed – to fit us into the armoured warrior ethos they had fostered. Then a smart man asked us what we needed to kill our foe. We took body paint that hid our heat and did not run in any liquid, then learned about rifles. What they made for us are short, very accurate – and place us within range of enemy rifles. That is only fair. When we told them to let the enemy know, many regarded us as lunatics. A few nodded and smiled coldly.
Our prey is hyperaware that we are nearby. They know we have to be within range of their guns. They cannot use area devastation because of that caveat. Their initial contempt has turned to fear, because they cannot stop us. We are far better unseen hunters than their technology, or skills, can neutralise.
Forty feet away, a bored enemy watch-sniper idly vapourises a raindrop. The little puff of steam is not detectable, as far as he knows, but I see it. To honour tradition – something that has always separated us from the beasts we hunt – I wait until he does it a third time before putting a silent projectile into his nasal cavity, which explosively removes the back of his skull as it fragments.
My first for the crows of the afternoon.
by submission | Nov 8, 2014 | Story |
Author : CR Briffett
Welcome to Perfect Match. Please sign in through one of your professional or social media networks.
Thank you, we will now gather all of your digital data.
When you are ready to meet a perfect match, simply come down to one of our centres, donate a saliva sample and we’ll take care of the rest.
Jay shut down the monitor of his phone. It rolled back inside the device and he locked it with his little fingerprint.
“Hey, what are you up to?”
Jay looked up to see his housemate, Marc, had wandered into his room.
“I, uh, just signed up to an enhanced matching service.”
“Wow. I didn’t even know you were looking to settle down. I guess I’ll need to find a new housemate soon. When are you going to start the process?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I wonder if I shouldn’t just try it the old-fashioned way. Meet someone I like the look of and just see how things go.”
“See how things go? Who does that when they’re looking for a long-term relationship? That approach so clearly didn’t work. If it had there wouldn’t have been such a high divorce rate for generations. These matches are as close to perfection as you’re going to find.”
Jay sighed. “Maybe.”
“Anyway, you approach a woman in a nitecafé or wherever and suggest that, and she will assume that you’re only looking for a fling. No-one gets seriously involved without running a compatibility check first these days. We’re not cavemen.”
“A few people must still chance it.”
“Who has the time to waste? These companies can access everything about you: what you do, where and how you spend your money, where and how you spend your time. They can work out all your key personality traits and then their DNA testing ensures there is chemistry between you and the lady.”
“Sometimes I find it all a bit unsettling.”
“Don’t be a parano. You sound like my grandpa. People protested about their data being used by companies and then they got over it. Or they grew old and died. Whatever. They went quiet.”
“But these programs assume that I want someone who really closely resembles me. Maybe I’d rather someone whose personality complements my own instead.”
“Come on. In the end we all just want to date versions of ourselves. It’s been scientifically proven. What you want is yourself with breasts and a higher voice.”
Jay laughed. “Nice image. But maybe you’re right. I guess I’d better head out to the centre and spit in a tube.”
“If you don’t I might head out and do it under your name. Then some hot girl will be coming over to have great conversations with you, her dream man, and will be surprised to find she is lusting after me.”
“Lusting after you would be a shock to any woman. I’m not sure if that would work but anyway they check your ID when you give the sample.”
“Pity.”
Jay smiled and, saying goodbye, headed out to the clinic.
The metrotrain departed with its usual punctuality and smoothness, and then juddered to a halt. Cries of surprise filled the carriage. The last time public transport had been late it had made the national news.
“Unbelievable,” he said to a pretty brunette next to him.
“It’s rare,” she agreed. “But you know sometimes I like things to be unpredictable.” She smiled at him.
“Me too.”
“Do you ever enjoy just taking a chance and … seeing how things go?”
“Absolutely. My name’s Jay, by the way.”
by submission | Aug 17, 2014 | Story |
Author : RM Dooley
The rogue tampons rolling across the trunk floor and abandoned high heel tell me it’s a girl’s car. Probably this girl’s car.
I can’t move much. Duct tape binds her hands, feet, and stretches over her mouth. The taillight is kicked out and the flashlight next to her flickers in and out of life. She must have tried to get attention before I took control. I doubt she woke up in time for it to do any good. No glow from street lamp or car light slips in through the break, already too far down an empty back road.
Whatever drug he used still pumps through her, giving me a secondary disconnected dizziness. The throbbing head, a physical blow rather than chemical, registers to me more like radio static than actual pain.
The car stops gliding and begins a jolting trundle down an unpaved road.
Dammit. I bang her head against the trunk’s floor. I’d scream if I could. How far away can the driver be? Four, five feet difference in where my consciousness landed? If I’d taken him, she would make it.
I could’ve turned the car back around. Straight to a police station. I could’ve saved her.
I can’t cry. My body is at least twenty miles away, safely slumped across my couch. So she cries for me, hot angry tears over the five feet that killed her.
Not like I can aim. The mind wanders where it will. I should consider myself lucky I found her, working off a name and face until I latched on to one. Desperation more than anything let me find her, mine drawn to hers.
The crunching gravel goes quiet. Her heart thuds as the car door opens and shuts. She’s not aware and I keep my hold. Neuroimaging shows that while I’m in control the host’s brain functions as if in a very deep sleep, near comatose. She won’t know, won’t feel. And I can at least get a look at his face.
He opens the trunk and smiles down at her. At me. Clean shaven, early thirties. Even in the dark I know he’s handsome. Dark cropped hair, straight nose, hungry blue eyes. I carve his face into memory to bring back to my body.
I glare up at him. You’re dead asshole
I won’t report him to the police. No facial composite, no falsifying witness reports so the courts will believe how he was tracked down. Not this one. This is going to be personal. I have his face and I’ll share a memory. That’s enough for a wandering mind like mine to eventually track him down with.
He picks her up, almost lovingly until I start to fight. To me, the breaking nose feels like buzzing discomfort.
Whatever he does, I’m not letting go. And he’s not done with the ritual. One he carries out with disturbing efficiency.
But I won’t let go. She doesn’t have to know this. Let her last memory be whatever final prayer she clung to; another driver would notice bound hands waving out from the trunk. Someone would find her. Save her. She doesn’t have to know the climax to his gentle kiss, the pretty practiced lies he whispered to lure her away.
I’ll leave when she does. The last cut that bleeds us from her body. I can’t save her, but I can spare her. No one should have to experience this.
I would know.
