by submission | Jan 29, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The President of the United States watched the viewscreen in the Oval Office as it displayed what appeared to be mist condensing on the lens of the camera that had recorded the video. After a few seconds, the tiny droplets started coming together and sliding to the edges of the screen in rivulets.
“That’s helium-neon rain, Madam President,” said the administrator of NASA seated next to her. After a few minutes the mist dissipated and the video showed a dark, copper-colored liquid flowing slowly around the camera. It gave the impression of the view from a submarine sailing through an ocean of maple syrup.
“That’s liquid metallic hydrogen,” said the administrator. “We’ll jump ahead because this pretty much stays the same for most of four hours.”
After he advanced the video, something started to appear in the flowing liquid. Over a span of two minutes, a few circular objects materialized. The circles multiplied and resolved themselves into dome-shaped structures. A few people in the room gasped. Lines started forming, connecting the domes together. Small oval shapes moved along the lines. A few spherical objects appeared to float above the domes, moving slowly in various directions.
“Is that what it looks like?” asked the President.
“We believe so, Madam President,” answered the administrator. “We think this image is an ‘aerial’ view of a city.”
“There’s a city on the surface of the core of Jupiter? So at Jupiter’s core conditions are Earth-like?”
“No, ma’am,” said the administrator. “The pressure inside that part of Jupiter is around 600 million gigapascals.”
“In English?”
“Normal atmospheric pressure on Earth is a little less than 15 pounds per square inch. At the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, the pressure is eight tons per square inch. The pressure inside Jupiter at that depth is on the order of 300,000 tons per square inch. That’s why the Jupiter Deep Exploration Probe was so expensive and took so long to build. Whole new technologies had to be developed to survive the conditions that deep inside a gas giant.”
“Even at the bottom of oceans on Earth,” said a Senator seated across the room, “we find life. Could life on Jupiter adapt to that pressure?”
“Not life as we know it,” replied the administrator. “Even matter itself behaves strangely under those conditions. The atmosphere above the city is composed of hydrogen in a supercritical state, neither liquid nor gas. And the probe registered temperatures in excess of 60,000℉. The core itself appears to be solid, which was theorized for some time. But no one imagined anything like…this.” He gestured at the frozen image on the screen.
“Could we communicate with them?” a congressman asked. “Radio, maybe?”
“Sir, we don’t know if what we’re looking at is the Jovian equivalent of New York City or the Jovian equivalent of a coral reef. It looks like a city, but it may not be. If this is a civilization, we don’t know how or even if their technology could receive any kind of signal we can send.”
“If that’s a civilization,” said the President, “we’ve already sent a signal. Even to beings so different they can live in that kind of environment, the probe would still be recognized as something obviously artificial, made by intelligent creatures, wouldn’t it?”
“There’s no way to be certain, Madam President,” said the administrator.
“Send another probe.”
“Madam President, the cost–”
“You’ll have the money.” The President smiled. “And to think that jackass I’m running against just announced he’d cut NASA’s budget if he got elected.”
by submission | Jan 28, 2015 | Story |
Author : Michael Jagunic
Brick stands motionless as mechanical arms snap the exosuit around him: torso first, then limbs, weapons, and finally helmet.
“It’s like God creating life, you know?” he says. “You start with a soul, slap a body around it, and then send it shrieking into the harsh light of the world.”
He’s trying to lighten the mood. He’s failing.
Outfitted in my own exosuit, I lead Brick down the dimming corridor. The dying lights are on purpose—no reason to maintain full intensity up here. Still, power has been ebbing for weeks. A few weeks more and the rest of the lights below will be just as dim. And then dark.
We waited as long as we could. We hoped as long as we could.
“Think they’ll be waiting for us?” Brick asks.
“Yes,” I answer. “And they’re legion.”
At the end of the corridor, we come to the hangar, where the last three Hoppers loom like dusty dragons before the hangar door. The hangar once housed twelve Hoppers, but the other nine are no more than scraps of mangled metal now, lost somewhere out there beyond the bunker walls. No matter. The only Hopper I care about is the one Maddox was flying when he tried to save us.
Maddox, Brick, and I had been thick as thieves even before the Solar Army landed this planet, and we stuck together through everything: the Door opening up, settling this bunker, the Anti-Event. Them pouring through from the other side, slaughtering us in droves, clawing our Hoppers out of the sky and cracking our tanks as easily as they did our skulls.
When it got down to just the three of us and our distress calls were still going unanswered, Maddox couldn’t take the waiting anymore. He offered us a quick goodbye, and then flew a Hopper directly into the Door. I watched the whole thing in the control room while Brick said a prayer in the chapel. The vidlink showed a view of Maddox’s cockpit as he took one last run at them.
And that’s when I saw something.
“Brick. We need to talk about the plan.”
“I remember. Stay stealthy, sneak away.”
I look at him, knowing that all he can see is my black visor. “No. That used to be the plan. Not anymore. You remember when the Door first opened? Solar Army tried to pass a drone through.”
“Drone just kept on flying like the Door wasn’t there. It’s a one-way door, for them.”
“No,” I reply. “It’s not. When Maddox flew into the Door—”
“He passed right through, just like the Drone.”
“His Hopper passed through. But when Maddox hit the Door he disappeared. He didn’t pass through…he passed through. His ship crashed, but in the second before it did, I saw. He wasn’t in it. The door, it must have to do with organic matter or…or I don’t know, but…”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because I know how crazy—”
“Yeah, it’s crazy. They came from that side.”
“You have a better plan? If we have to die, don’t you at least want to see what’s on the other side first?”
“The other side? Those things came straight from hell!”
“Maybe. Or maybe they’re guarding the gates of heaven.”
Seconds pass. An eternity.
“Okay, Johnny,” Brick says. “Doubt it matters whether we die in this universe or the next.”
“Right,” I smile. “Let’s go take a peek behind the curtain.”
With the slam of a lever, the hangar doors yawn open. In the distance, the first of them takes to the sky.
by submission | Jan 27, 2015 | Story |
Author : Lindsey McLeod
When the doorbell beeped, Henry didn’t bother looking up from the Independent Galactic Dispatch. It would beep again in a few moments, once the customer had glanced around the shop and decided that there was nothing they wished to peruse further. Even a potential purchaser, as unlikely as that idea was, could wait. Henry’s knowledge of the debate on legal rights for robotic cup holders was shabby at best, and the Indy was currently helping to rectify this.
A shadow fell across the page. Henry swallowed a sigh. “Can I help you?”
The woman was studying the dusty radio on the counter with a hint of disdain. “Yah, yah. I’m just looking.”
She didn’t immediately slide away from the counter though, so he was forced to politely endure her umbral encroachment with a thin smile. He watched her in annoyance, unable to fully devote himself to the grand pursuit of wisdom as she meandered about the room, picking up various objects with increasing ennui. One listless tentacle caressed a withered photograph of some twentieth century President Nobody. Prime Minister Something or Other. He wondered whether he could pass the coffee stain off as blood. A bit of tangible history.
The same tentacle fondled the engraving on an open silver locket with a gesture which was, if not a sibling then definitely a first cousin, of complete boredom. Her shoes made syncopated clicking noises.
Henry returned his focus to the Indy, drawing his sprkker-weave cardigan closer around him. The Courts versus V-Type Holder 1138775 could wait until later. The advice column this week was about introverts. Interesting. Perhaps it had some useful information he could use. The subheadings read: Try reaching a new goal; Interact with people; Choose your own boundaries. The shadow fell again. He took a calming breath. If only interacting with people didn’t actually involve interacting with people. There was a whole galaxy out there and he’d be quite happy if it stayed that way instead of repeatedly barging into his little shop. “Can. I. Help. You?”
“These fortune telling cards,” the woman said, brandishing said item. “Have you tried them?”
Henry squinted at her. “Fortune telling is entirely outwith the realm of science.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He felt hopelessly adrift. “Then no.”
She opened the pack and started shuffling them one by one. “Pick a card, any card,” the woman drawled.
Most of her eyes were a deep, lustrous brown. Challenging. He looked down at the Indy. Then back at her. He drew a card and glanced down. She eyed him impatiently. “Was it the Lovers?”
“Does it matter?”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Then yes.”
by submission | Jan 26, 2015 | Story |
Author : chesterchatfield
“What’s that supposed to be?” The student guffawed. “Some kind of dragon or something?”
The professor gave her a look completely devoid of all amusement. “Dragons, do not exist. This creature is reptilian and has the ability of flight—after that all similarities to any fictional creatures cease.”
She tossed her blonde hair. “Well, I’m no expert, but taking the laws of GRAVITY and PHYSICS into consideration, I’m pretty sure there is no way that dragon, could ever get off the ground. Its wings are too small.”
Through my distaste of this bubble-headed teen, I had to admit she had a point. The animal did look like a dragon, and its thin, leathery wings most certainly did not have the width or length to keep its scaly mass in the air.
The professor’s jaw tightened. “Well,” he imitated, “Taking into consideration that you know absolutely nothing about this creature, you are correct. Its wings could never lift it off the ground.”
He slipped a new picture into the projector, a beautifully illustrated representation of the creature with a number of odd swirling shapes around the tail and hind legs.
“These,” he flicked at the shapes with a long thin pointer he seemed to pull from nowhere, “are what keep it in the air. Its wings serve only for balance and steering in the flying process; a mere gliding technique. These air currents,” He circled them, “are projected from specialized ducts located beneath the scales all along the tail and legs. They—along with the extremely muscular hind legs—provide the lifting force and power behind flight-”
He was on the verge of launching into a more detailed account of the muscles and processes involved when he was stridently interrupted by the blonde’s even more idiotic friend. She was standing a few steps behind the professor, and he was forced to turn all the way around in order to confront her.
He rotated slowly, a look of supreme irritation on his normally serene face. “Is something funny?”
She took a deep breath, but her explanation was still punctuated by giggles. “I apologize professor, but,” She looked at her blonde friend, hoping she would share the amusement. “But are you saying that the dragon flies by passing gas through its tail?” The last few words came out garbled through a cackle, shared by her friend.
“HA!”
The professor frantically tried to regain control of the conversation, “That’s ridiculous. It’s a simple process of gas exchange–”
I couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle of my own at his unintentional hilarity.
“It’s called wind power! Will you get ahold of yourselves!”
The two were in a fit of hysterics, falling over themselves laughing.
“You’re killing us, Professor! You’re killing us!”
His face was bright red. “I refuse to put up with this! I’m leaving! Ladies! Try to regain your composure!” He stomped out, and the girls could do nothing but wipe tears of mirth from their eyes at his retreating back.
by submission | Jan 25, 2015 | Story |
Author : Willis Weatherford
Cold concrete, suppressed breathing, hands pressed flat to the grey rooftop. Winds whistled by his high-altitude haunt. The clatter of metal caterpillar tracks filtered up seventy stories to tingle in his straining ears, but Diemer was listening for something else: a footfall.
He silently cursed the wind that blew past, muffling the sounds his life depended on. He did not understand the wind – he had never felt it before. It arrived immediately after yesterday’s explosion, and while it had slowed from its initial fury, the charged air still rushed dreadfully past at twenty miles an hour.
There it was again -Diemer’s eyes flicked towards the sound. Sweat seeped from nervous pores. Heart beat. Pinpricks ran through his bare feet. If he was being followed, it must be the State Surveillance Service. If it was the SSS, they not only knew he was breaking ancient curfew laws and the day old No-Travel Law, they knew about the Confederacy. And that left him with only two options: escape, or die. At this point, both seemed agreeable.
Diemer spent a moment planning what might be the last ten seconds of his life, took a deep breath, and…
Push up to a crouch.
He rose, head pointed towards the edge of the flat roof, eyes fixed on the kevlar sheathed filament line stretching between his rooftop and the next. The SSS used it to transmit audio and video files – he was going to use it to escape. He allowed himself a grin in appreciation of the irony.
Plant right foot, push off into a sprint.
As he started to run, he pulled the bent titanium bar from his waistband, and slapped his back pocket to make sure the snips were still there. He heard a yell and the sound of running behind him. What if the agent caught him before he escaped out onto the wire?
Jump off the edge, hook the bar over the line, grasp the other side.
Gravity pulled him into a quick slid, zip-lining towards the next rooftop over. The wind in his ears blocked any sound from his pursuer. Hope flashed through him, until Diemer wondered what he would do if there were more SSS agents on the other side. Well, too late to turn back now.
Swing legs up, hook heels over the concrete edge, pull body forward.
The lithe maneuver brought him, standing upright, onto the top of the high rise. As he turned, he saw with surprise the SSS agent speeding across the line towards him.
“Ah. So somebody else knows that trick”, he thought with a mix of fear and amusement. Quickly pulling the snips out of his pocket, he positioned them around the kevlar line, and squeezed. A sharp ping rang through the air as the line’s tension released. The agent dropped out of sight, screaming until his forward momentum slammed him into the side of the building on which Diemer stood. A few seconds later, Diemer heard a crunching thud on the pavement below.
Adrenaline mixed with relief. Pounding heart pumped blood to brain. He returned the snips to his back pocket, thankful he had brought them in anticipation of the twenty-foot chain-link fence around the city. Turning his eyes toward the glowing crater, he estimated the journey to the forbidden area would take three more hours. The information he hoped to bring back would prove crucial to the Confederacy.
