by Clint Wilson | Nov 16, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
This is what I’ve been waiting for my entire adult life. All my work has come to this. From the moment I signed up for theoretical physics as a youth, I was destined to arrive at this day.
Countless alternate universes with a finite number of combinations means one thing and one thing only. It is most certainly mathematically probable that somewhere out there there is an exact copy of this universe, identical in every way, right down to its smallest detail. And that means that somewhere out there there is also an exact copy of me, just as creative, just as smart. Everything I have ever done, he has done. Everything I will ever do, he will do. So obviously since I have concentrated all my efforts into building a device to bridge our two universes, he has done the exact same thing over on his side. And this is good.
My fractal amplifier will indeed begin to open a hole in the froth of space-time. But it will be a funnel, narrowing to a finite point, leaving me unable to peer into that other side. Luckily for me though there is an exact copy of myself who has built the exact same device, and if his machine opens a coinciding funnel in space-time at the exact same frequency in his universe, then the two will touch at their points, and if we are correct, they will help each other open the rest of the way.
I sit in the protective booth and key in the final commands. There is a hum as the giant capacitors begin to take on their full charge. City officials will be banging on my door soon enough as I’m sure the power grid is quickly draining in my direction right now. No worry, the laser array sends a bright flash through the room and just like that, the porthole is suddenly open in the middle of my lab.
It is very much a circular hole about three meters across. It looks like a mirror, as on the other side is an identical laser array set up in front of an identical glass booth. This is when I notice me sitting in there.
Ignoring safety protocol I remove my goggles and step out of the booth, just as does the other me. We walk toward one another silently.
“I knew you’d come,” we say in exact unison.
“Of course you did,” we reply. Then, “It’s the only way this would have ever worked.”
I step up to the hole and place my hands palm forward, as he does the same. But unlike a mirror where one feels cool glass, we feel the touch of each other’s skin. Then we suddenly look up and around. “The hole is starting to close! I knew it wouldn’t last long.” The opening is now only two meters across and shrinking fast. What to do? There is so little time. Then the light comes on in his eyes as we share the same idea. “Hurry!” we say.
We twirl one another through the door, me spinning into his side and he into mine. Then as we let go our hands we crouch and catch one last glimpse of one another as the inter-universal porthole snaps shut.
I stand up and look around, knowing he is doing just the same in my lab. And I know that when I speak aloud, so does he. “Now, let’s see just how identical this place really is.” I smile and go to answer the knocking door.
by submission | Nov 8, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
I set the display to pan to the constellation of Canis Minor. The holographic celestial sphere rotates all around me until the Smaller Dog comes into view. I wave my hand over the controls. The display zooms in on Procyon A. The white main sequence star fills half the room. The image is a real-time picture, at least as real-time as 11.4 light-years of distance will allow. The Procyon system has no planets, but if it did I could zoom in on an object the size of a deck of cards on the surface of one.
All across the solar system telescopes of every variety continually search the sky. Sensors scrutinize gamma ray sources to determine if they are the product of an antimatter propulsion system. Detectors search the void for hints of Bremsstrahlung radiation that could come from the plasma confinement system of a fusion reactor. The possible visual signature of a photon rocket? Cyclotron radiation that might be a sign of an operating magnetic sail? A radio signal or modulated neutrino pulse of an extraterrestrial civilization? There are devices to detect all of them and more. And all of that data is sent to observation and early warning stations like this one.
We’ve been watching the skies for decades, watching for any telltale sign of an impending invasion. A second invasion, that is.
January 18, 2098. That was the day the human race finally made contact with an alien civilization. Much to everyone’s surprise, the signal came from Mars. To this day, we have no idea where they originated. We know it wasn’t Mars. They’d come from another star system and claimed Mars for themselves. In fact, they claimed the entire solar system. Earth was ours, their transmission said. And we could maintain satellites in orbit. But that was it. No manned missions and no more probes beyond Earth orbit. Even the Moon was off limits. The entire solar system outside of Earth was their territory. This ultimatum was the first, last, and only communication humanity ever had with the aliens.
The Chinese didn’t listen. Nine months later, they launched an instrumented probe to study Saturn. Three weeks after the launch, Beijing was annihilated. Antimatter weapon, the physicists who examined the aftermath said.
For six years after the destruction of Beijing, Mars was minutely studied by telescopes both on Earth and in Earth orbit. On July 9, 2106, the alien facilities on and in orbit around Mars were struck by 75 nuclear weapons. The Greater United States, China, the European Union, and the Russian Federation had developed stealthy vehicles that could approach the alien stronghold undetected. Each nuclear-armed probe had secretly gone up along with some other innocuous payload like a weather satellite and then surreptitiously proceeded to Mars. The aliens were obliterated.
For close to 50 years, humanity has studied the remnants of biology and technology left behind after the destruction of the invaders. As a result, we’ve advanced much faster than we otherwise would have. We’re all over the solar system now. There’s even serious discussion about a manned mission to Alpha Centauri before the end of the century. The dream of humanity exploring and colonizing space has finally come true. But it’s not the old science fiction vision of the human race evolving into something nobler and embracing its destiny among the stars. It’s a nervous necessity that drives mankind out into space. And we never stop watching the skies.
by submission | Nov 6, 2012 | Story |
Author : Susan Nance Carhart
“There’s no way to program my time machine remotely. Not really,” Solberg told his friends. “I can’t perform a unmanned test. I can’t even use an animal for the passenger. But the modeling works. It all comes down to me.”
The friends caught each other’s eye and shook their heads. Solberg’s private laboratories were in a separate wing from the rest of his facility, and even more amazing. Cool blue light suffused the shining interior. Before them was the device that Solberg had dreamed of for thirty years.
“You tell him, Royce,” muttered Julia. “He won’t listen to me.”
Solberg stared back at them, and then put up his hands. “What? What is it?”
“You always think it comes down to you, Jack,” Royce grunted. “Real science can’t be done by one person these days. And it should never be done in secret. You have a team to vet your ideas. Bring them in on this! You need free discussion. I don’t care if you have more money than God. If you had to look for funding, you’d have the challenge of informed analysis and constructive criticism—”
“I might as well send my research to the Chinese,” Solberg sneered. “This is going to revolutionize human life. I’m getting all the credit this time. Do you want to see the test, or not?”
“Yes, we want to see the test,” Julia shot back. “We want to know what happens to you. I think this is insanely reckless, but there’s no way to stop you now. What’s the plan?”
“A short hop, really. I’m going to go back in time one month exactly. I know that no one was in this laboratory at that moment. To prove I’ve been moving in time, I’ll scribble a message on that wall.”
He pointed to the white and pristine tiles facing them. “You’ll be here, and as soon as I’m gone, those words should appear on the wall. Then I’ll come back. It shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes in absolute time. Don’t move into the space occupied by the device… that could be bad.”
“You are completely crazy, Jack,” Royce sighed. “You know that, right?”
Julia took him in her arms and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Good luck, you idiot.”
Solberg grinned at her, shook Royce’s hand, and climbed into his time machine. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’ll just be in this exact spot, one month ago.”
A crackle of light enveloped him, and he vanished.
They waited.
They waited all day.
They waited until nightfall, with aching hearts and fading hopes. They called the Head of Research just after midnight. Doctor Philip Carmichael was at the facility in half an hour, and poking through his employer’s holy of holies in another ten minutes.
Balding and sardonic, he heard their story, and gave it some thought.
At length, he ventured, “You know what Galileo said to himself, when the Church forced him to swear that the Earth was the center of the universe?” He paused, and then told them.
“‘And yet, it moves.'”
Illumination. Each saw, in a mind’s eye of awe and terror, the time machine winking into empty space: in the exact position on the Earth’s orbit that the planet—and Solberg Laboratories— wouldn’t occupy until one month into that time’s future.
by submission | Sep 22, 2012 | Story |
Author : Brian McDermott
“This could be the single most important event in the history of our planet,” Jake leaned over the formica. “I think I’ve been friended by an Alien,”
Amir’s stunned silence was broken by the sounds of his legs peeling off the vinyl bench. Jake slowly lowered his Triple Bacon and Sausage Burrito and leaned closer to Amir.
`
“Extraterrestrials. First contact. This changes everything.”
Jake and Amir had been sci-fi fans, physics savants and best friends since fourth grade. They met every Saturday at Tito’s Pork Corral to discuss issues of great scientific importance. Recent topics including whether the babes of Star Trek were hotter than Next Generation’s and ‘HAL vs. Yoda – The Ultimate Scrabble Showdown.’
“Do they have a profile pic?” Amir asked looking around to see if anyone was listening.
“It’s an alien. It’s not like they’d have a black and white yearbook shot from Epsilon Eridani Senior High” Jake said between swallows. “Their profile has virtually no information.”
“But why you?” Amir could speak and chew simultaneously.
“I think it’s because of my association with the NASA Exoplanet Program. They sent me three messages. Each one was an oddly worded question about my work.”
“You’re an intern.” Amir leaned in. “You don’t have work.”
“Last week I started compiling data on the Ruprecht 147 cluster. This creature not only figured that out, it knows way too much about Ruprecht 147. The kind of stuff you would know only if you were part of a serious research program… or actually from Ruprecht 147.” Jake paused for the waitress to pass. “And some of the questions are so advanced they imply answers beyond our current technologies and understanding of space travel.”
Amir was now completely ignoring his Chorizo and Ham Patty Melt. Jake pressed on.
“I think it’s no coincidence that it’s using a social media site to make first contact. My theory is that this alien must be part of a collective intelligence. A social media site would be the Earth phenomena that most resembles a collective intelligence. So instead of landing a ship and physically looking for contact, they connected with a massive network.”
Amir paused to consider everything. “We need to think this out.” He sat up. “Have you answered any of their messages?”
“No.”
“Good. Since you haven’t contacted them in any way…”
“Um, I may have.” Jake said sheepishly. “Sort of.”
“What do you mean ‘sort of’? Did you give them any specific work information? Any relevant life details? Any knowledge that could be used against us?”
Jake hesitated. “I asked them to join me in Mafia Wars.”
“WHAT?” Amir was nearly standing now.
“I was desperate. You have to reach level 17 to expand your crime family from New York to Vegas. They were so helpful. Together we’re running guns in Cuba now.”
Amir sunk back into the sparkly red vinyl.
“And they love Farmville.”
As Amir shook his head, Jake’s smart phone beeped. Jake looked at the screen.
“It’s a status update from the aliens. Ohhh they just planted a rainbow tree!”
And thus with the help of an unwitting intern on the world’s largest social media site, the first invasion of earth began.
by Julian Miles | Sep 7, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I’m not in the moment. I am the moment, locked in by law-enforcement combat conditioning. Beyond my fixed perceptions, there is nothing. The instructors told us to take in the whole enhanced experience at these times, letting the moment become us instead of becoming our madness.
There’s a nanopede traversing the barrel of my gun, its tentacular manipulators working devotedly to provide gecko-like traction in the sheen of tarnish-repellent gloss upon the burnished alloy. The legs move in waves, reflecting little coruscating showers of light as it makes its way about its incomprehensible business.
“One.”
The stock of my gun is jammed tight into my shoulder, so tight my clavicle aches, but I can’t diminish my grip. The sights are aligned to the probable target vectors and the filament to my combat eye swings rhythmically in time with my heartbeat. My peripheral vision shows my team and headman distributed for optimum coverage.
“Two.”
The warehouse is silent. Our stealth gear means we are invisible even to a Tabino, the plastic addicted rodents famed for denuding citizens in moments. Thankfully the only citizens nearby are in the passing air traffic that illumines the darkness fitfully with bright beams through the torn roof. They strobe by like the strides of giants made of light.
“Three!”
The darkness is hurled back by the phased pulse of six demolition charges that turn air into energy with an efficiency that can suffocate the unprepared. Which is what we all hope our targets are. As the expanding rings of blue fire flash along exposed conductive materials, the bass thrum of a grazer amped from it’s workcycle of plasma cutting up to illegal death dealing autopulse reveals some of our targets were very prepared.
My legs are a separate entity, hurling me forward on an irregular course. My sights show no targets yet the autopulses increase from one to eight, stretching out towards us like ribbons of purple light. They must be cycling the grazers without regard for cooling.
“I’m hit!”
One of the ribbons intersected with my headman and his right thigh has been blasted to superheated mist. Now I understand why they’re running the grazers so hot – they can chop us down. I desperately try to find them, overriding the sights to fire at the originating end of the nearest lethal ribbon of light.
“Bastard!”
The scream over open comms coincides with the ribbon I was using to orientate my fire winking out. I’m just fighting my single-minded kill directive to rediscover speech, so I can pass the sight-override manoeuvre on, when two of the ribbons slash sideways and bisect in my chest, vapourising my forearms and detonating my gun. I watch in macro-awe as the nanopede executes a flawless pike off the gun barrel and drops from view behind the expanding pink and silver ball composed of gun shards, denaturing chest armour and limb fragments. Then the physics happens and I am dropped off the impaling spears of energy, falling behind a thankfully solid stanchion.
The medical unit on my belt exhausts its entire repertoire in under five seconds. I am going to live, my arms and weapon having reduced the death dealing beams to merely searing.
Released from combat mode, I open our tactical channel and tell my remaining team-mates about overriding their sights. Wordless growls of thanks make me smile.
The moment stretches and snaps, normal time and senses are resumed and I manage to race the pain into the welcoming embrace of sedative oblivion.
