by submission | Dec 22, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
Culturally, they are the descendants of the hepcats and beats and hippies and hipsters and the other various subsequent nonconformists of the past half-millennium who organically came together to form distinct subcultures. But there the parallels end. Even the most unorthodox of those earlier bohemians could not have imagined the Plasmatics.
As a Special Activities Bureau investigator for the Sino-American Commonwealth, my job can take me anywhere in the system, but the magnetosphere of Jupiter is pretty far afield even for someone like me. It’s equally unusual for an agent like myself to enlist help from outside the Bureau. We typically pride ourselves on our discretion. But when an unmanned recon ship gets trapped in orbit around Jupiter carrying intel that could mean trade sanctions from the African Coalition and perhaps war with the Lunar Free State if said intel goes public, discretion is adjourned. That’s where the Plasmatics come in.
My ship settles into an enormously wide orbit around the gas giant to avoid the electromagnetic maelstrom that rings the planet, the same maelstrom that the Plasmatics call home. I beam a radio signal and wait. Within half an hour, I get a response.
“The ship’s computers are probably already fried,” I tell the locals. “But we were hoping you could make sure they are.”
In a few minutes, a modulation in the normal Jovian background radio emissions is received and processed by my ship’s computer: “Jiddy sups a boost. Not charming a glint.”
That is the closest literal translation my computer can manage. The Plasmatics have a slang all their own. The fact that they are a community of gigantic spider web-like entities flying through the Jovian magnetosphere does nothing to bridge the cultural gap. Of course, the people who gave up their humanity over the past century to become Plasmatics didn’t do so because they wanted to fit in. The connotative meaning of the message is something like “The human would like us to do him a favor but he isn’t offering us any reward in exchange.”
“What could the Commonwealth do for you?” I reply, having no idea what nearly immaterial meshwork creatures who live in a plasma sheet might want.
“Pum the Spot with Basu-Lovvorn 3.”
Basu-Lovvorn 3 is a long-period comet. It will pass through the orbit of Jupiter in about 10 years. They want the Commonwealth to deflect it to strike the immense anticyclonic storm system on Jupiter’s surface that is more than twice the diameter of Earth called the Great Red Spot. I radio back to my superiors. They agree to the terms. The Commonwealth Space Authority will undertake the project with research into Jupiter’s atmosphere as the cover story.
“The Commonwealth will do as you ask. Just for my own curiosity, may I ask why you want a comet diverted into the Great Red Spot?”
My computer struggles with the Plasmatic response. The only word it can clearly render is “Renovate”. I have no idea if it’s more Plasmatic slang for something or if, in some context I can’t imagine, it means what it says.
My sensors show repeated bursts of electrical discharges in the area of the derelict Commonwealth spacecraft. Presumably, they have fulfilled their part of the bargain. “The Sino-American Commonwealth thanks you for your assistance,” I transmit as I move to break orbit.
“Cohesive, Jiddy! Real cohesive!” comes the response a minute later as I begin my fall back to the inner system.
by Julian Miles | Dec 21, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“What’s this, grandma?”
“It’s honey, dear.”
“Honey tastes nice. What is it?”
“It’s what the bees made for us, Matty.”
“Real bees made this?”
“Yes, dear. A long time ago, before they flew away.”
“Where did they go, grandma?”
“We don’t know, Matty. All we know is that they said they would be back.”
“How do we know that?”
“Because the beekeepers spoke to the priests and told them what the last queen said before she went. She said that when we had meadows again, they would be back.”
“What’s a meadow?”
“It’s a special grass that we can’t grow yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because the ground isn’t clean enough.”
“Is that why the cloud machines make the yellow rain?”
“Very good, Matty. They do that to clean the dirt away.”
“Where did the dirt come from?”
“The government people made the dirt and killed the flowers.”
“That’s when the corps saved us, wasn’t it?”
“Oh you have been paying attention at school, haven’t you? Yes. The bees leaving forced the corporations to step in to help us. They made the Cees that helped the flowers come back.”
“But Cees can’t make honey?”
“That’s right. They are tiny drones.”
“When I grow up, I want to be a drone pilot. I’ll help bring the meadows back.”
“You study hard and I’m sure you will, Matty.”
“Can I have some more honey, grandma? “
“Yes, Matty. But only a little. There won’t be any more.”
“Ever? “
“Maybe one day, dear. Maybe one day.”
by submission | Dec 20, 2015 | Story |
Author : Michael Blewett
Her father glanced down at the watch on his wrist. “How long?” she asked.
“Two minutes and thirty seven seconds,” he replied, gazing out the airlock window. The curtness was for her, she knew, but it was hard for her to hear – especially now.
The girl looked to her father with tears streaming down her face. In all of her lives, he had been her rock – the constant that wove the thread between centuries and tied them all together. What would she do without him?
“I know it’s hard for you to understand,” the old man offered, “but you should know that I’ve been thinking about this for a long, long time.”
“But,” she countered, “why now?”
“How long have you been with me?” he replied, his eyes still focused out the window, “Three cycles? Remember, there were five more before that. Five whole lives – five deaths; five rebirths – before I saw your beautiful face. Five lives of searching; never once did I find purpose.”
“But then you met mother, right?” she pleaded, “And then you had me. And then you found that purpose. I was that purpose, I am your purpose!”
“My star, my darling girl, if only you knew! You might, one day. Maybe you won’t, you were always more like your mother in that way.”
“You never told me why she did it,” she inquired, knowing it wasn’t the right time, “Why she refused to take the implant.”
Her father’s eyes confirmed her suspicion. It all comes back to mother; it always has.
“She hated me,” the old man said. “She didn’t always, but after you were born she… She saw me as a freak. An experiment of my own creation for one purpose and one purpose alone: to play god.”
“But, you can’t believe that!” the daughter exclaimed. “Look at what we’ve accomplished! We’ve colonized new worlds. We’ve saved countless species of life. We’ve given humanity the reason for progress; the power to accomplish!”
“And I don’t regret it,” he interjected, “I don’t regret a single thing. But what I’ve realized – what your mother realized all those years ago – is that there is no progression without an end.
“Life is not the process of living,” he continued, ”it’s the process of dying. Time without end is infinity; infinity is nothing.”
Thirty seconds.
She tried to speak, but could only cry.
He opened the airlock and stepped inside. The door shut with a hiss.
She heard the comm-link switch on. “Can you hear me?” his voice said.
Twenty seconds.
“On my desk you’ll find a large file,” he said to her through the glass, “Right now, it’s nothing but memories and thoughts, but in twenty seconds it will be my life. The work of all my lives.”
She placed her hand on the glass. He reciprocated.
Ten seconds.
“I love you,” his voice said, “my god I love you.”
She mouthed the words back.
“It was you, my star. I never knew how important it was – how important life was – until I created it. One day, maybe you’ll know what I mean.”
Five seconds.
“I only wish I could have been there to see them.”
Three seconds.
Their eyes met; nothing more needed to be said.
Two seconds.
She saw the tears welling in his eyes.
One second.
The airlock opened, ejecting him out into the end.
His face was calm as he suffocated. And, at that last moment, she saw the implant detach itself from behind his ear. Never to be uploaded into another clone – free from time, free from infinity.
by submission | Dec 19, 2015 | Story |
Author : Steve Pool
Tess always threw the best parties; it was a fact that Lizzy was painfully aware of. Tess owned all the trendiest causes, giving her complete control over the calendars of every social climber in the city. She played the role of Alpha Queen with ruthless benevolence.
Earlier that morning, Tess mentioned to a few of her closest gossips that she had just returned from Paris and Milan; everyone, of course, understood the code. Tess dictated the absolute word on fashion; whatever anyone else wore to the party would now be “so last week”.
Lizzy considered this as she spotted Tess across the room. Predictably, Tess was the eye of a micro-storm; admirers ringed around her, touching her new gown, speaking louder and faster in the hopes of being noticed. Lizzy sauntered over to the group.
“It’s the latest fusion of taste and technology.” Tess sounded uncharacteristically excited. “They call it Hi-Lo Spectrum fashion. This gown is the color of ultraviolet.”
The women surrounding Tess gave her an envious sigh.
“It’s wonderful, Tess,” one of the women said. Lizzy thought her name might be Francine. “It goes really well with your eyes.”
Several others complimented her as well, noting qualities that seemed absent to Lizzy. Wasn’t the dress black? It was nice, but no more special than the one she herself was wearing.
“Oh, hello Lizzy,” Tess said, taking time to notice her. “Well…what do you think?”
“It’s really gorgeous, Tess,” Lizzy replied dryly. “I’m thinking, maybe though, that you might like to try an infrared dress, like the one I’m wearing. They’re remarkably slimming.”
The women surrounding Tess gave Lizzy an envious sigh.
by submission | Dec 18, 2015 | Story |
Author : Connor Harbison
“What did you just say?”
“You heard me. The sun, it’s…alive.”
“Impossible.”
“No, no, hear me out. According to my research, the sun, it’s a living, breathing thing. Being. Not life as we know it, per say, but still, life. In another sense.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Think of it this way. A mosquito lands on your arm. It can’t comprehend you, I mean really you, like your name or your job or any of that. All the mosquito knows is that you are a food source. That’s sort of like how we see the sun.”
“So how do we get in contact with it? The sun. Is it an it? Does the sun have a gender?”
“I don’t think so. As far as we know stars are created through gravity, so their reproduction would be radically different from anything we’d be familiar with. And as for contacting Sol, I’m not sure that we can. No more than a fly can have a conversation with a human. The differences in time scale are too vast, to begin with.”
“What do you mean by time scale?”
“Sol experiences time differently than we do. Again, think of the insect analogy. A mayfly has a lifespan of one day, and to that mayfly the day is everything. But to us, a day is just a passing…well, day. It’s relatively brief. I mean, we live for thirty thousand days, an eternity to a mayfly. Likewise, Sol is four and a half billion years old. The human mind can’t even comprehend that number, but to Sol it’s barely half a lifetime. Time scales, my friend.”
“You have no idea what this means, for us, for humanity. The search for life out there is over, and the answer has been literally staring us in the face forever.”
“For starters it means the Egyptians were right, in a sense. Their god Ra was a lot more accurate, scientifically speaking, than any Judeo-Christian God. Not that Sol is particularly large. There are stars out there that dwarf Sol. But our star has gathered a number of planets and other objects, more than is standard for a star of Sol’s mass, if our extrasolar astronomy is to be believed.”
“What do you mean, gathered?”
“Compared to Sol, even Jupiter is tiny. We humans probably don’t register. I doubt Sol is even aware there is life on Earth, what with our short existence. No, Sol seems to have steered itself or cast its gravity far and wide to scoop up all sorts of interstellar detritus.”
“So what you’re saying is…”
“Not only is the sun alive, but Sol has a personality. It seems our star is a hoarder.”
