by submission | Jun 2, 2013 | Story |
Author : joe malone
“Can we watch Michelangelo work today?” my wife said, at the breakfast table.
“I have to go into the future today,” I said.
“The future? You said that you would never go into the future. You said going into the future is like a man opening his girlfriend’s mail. Ignorance is bliss, you said.”
“I’m only going ten minutes forward, max. To test and prove my theories.”
“Your equipment works,” my wife said. “Isn’t that proof enough?”
“We now know that we can observe the past. We can’t interact with it. We can’t change it. We can only watch it, like a movie. My calculations tell me that the same is true for the future, but I haven’t tested that yet.”
“The universe does not permit paradox, you always say.”
“My calculations prove this. Yet I must test the theory.”
“Will it be dangerous?”
“I don’t think so, but…”
“I want to be there.”
“This won’t be like our travels into the past. Nothing exciting will happen.”
“Nevertheless, I want to be there.”
I nodded.
“OK,” I said.
After breakfast, we cleaned up and dressed. Angela followed my out to my lab behind the house. The day was clear and warm.
In the lab, we sat down side-by-side, facing the counter that held my setup. I ran through my startup procedures and calibrated the central nexus. We put on our helmets.
I switched on the apparatus.
“I don’t see any change,” Angela said.
I moved the mouse and as we sat, we seemed to float backwards, so that we were watching ourselves from behind.
“I’m fast-forwarding,” I said. “Ten minutes into the future should take us only two.”
We sat quietly for two minutes. In front of us, we sat quietly for ten minutes.
I watched the timer and clicked the apparatus off after one hundred and twenty seconds.
“Now what?” Angela said.
“You saw us. For the next eight minutes, we sit here.”
“So?”
“Neither of us stands up during that time. We can test this. Do you understand?”
“Not exactly,” Angela said.
“If we can see into the future and then act to change it, we can create a paradox, just as we could if we could change the past. We know we can’t change the past. We can only observe it, observe the universe’s stored hologram of spacetime. Now, however, we’ve observed future events in that same hologram. Suppose I stand up?”
“I don’t think you should,” Angela said. “I don’t think you will. We neither of us did. We just sat there.”
I stood up. I stepped away from the chair and looked back. I was still sitting there.
“What the…,” I said, or thought I said. No sound came out.
“Perhaps you’re right,” said the me sitting in the chair, to Angela.
“No!” I said, soundlessly.
I stepped back to the chair and reached out. I couldn’t see my arm. I looked down. I couldn’t see myself. My hand passed through the me in the chair.
“My math is clear,” said the me in the chair. “The universe does not permit paradox.”
by submission | Jun 1, 2013 | Story |
Author : Stefan Aeschbacher
The look down the barrel of a gun was frightening; much more frightening than I ever imagined it to be.
‘ID yourself citizen’ the cop behind the barrel barked.
I moved my left wrist, containing the ID tag, towards the reader. Much faster than I expected to. Must have been the gun. My picture and all my details appeared on the screen inside the cop’s eye. At least that’s what I guessed.
‘What are you doing here at this time of the night’ the cop asked me, as if any other time of the night would have made a difference. The curfew started at 23:00 and lasted the whole night.
‘Had to fetch medicine for my mother’ I lied
‘Medicine, I see’ he replied.
He started searching my jacket. That was bad, he would find it. My knees started to tremble. I’m sure he noticed it, but it didn’t matter anyway. After discarding some used paper handkerchiefs and my keys, he finally took it out of an inside pocket of the jacket.
‘What is this citizen!’ he shouted.
‘Nothing’, what else could I have said?
‘We’ll see about that!’
He contemplated the device thoroughly. The camouflage was good, very good, some of the best money could buy.
Nevertheless, he seemed to know what he was looking for.
‘This is no pen’ he proclaimed.
‘Sure it is’
That’s when he fumbled open the hidden cover and found the plug. It was nothing fancy at all, plain USB 8.2 nothing you expect in a pen anymore. I was surprised that he had a cable at hand. Maybe he wasn’t as regular a cop as I hoped him to be. He connected the pen to a specially secured connection analyzer. Nah, definitely no regular cop, they don’t have those.
The box started to play, at a very low volume. I recognized it immediately; it started at the top of the playlist with ‘shine on you crazy diamond’.
‘That’s settles it, you can explain this to the judge!’ he said while pressing the gun to my head.
What judge I thought, I knew the laws concerning possession of illegally copied music…
by Julian Miles | May 31, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The moonlight is cut off by drifting clouds as I hurdle the wall and drop into the shadowed mess that comprises the unfinished foundations of what will be the Chibakan headquarters when they finally find some new backers.
Behind me I hear the too-rapid crunching of my pursuers using assault speed, trying and failing to get me before I disappear down below and their advantages shrink again.
“There’s no use running, you little puke! Flesh can’t outrun cyber!”
Nice mister cyberpsychosis is technically correct, but all the adverts show hapless escapees running through open malls and down streets. Of course they get taken down by the cheetah-like cybergoons.
I used infra-dense smoke to waste their heatsight and pepper-fleck to trash their sensors. Personally I thought the ten litres of used motor oil was a genius touch on the fire escape, but the screaming profanities as they skidded and in some cases failed to stop before the eight storey drop let me know my talents were unappreciated yet again.
I scoot down the unfinished stairwell and drop further into darkness, sticking another infrasmoke bomb to the crossbeam I pass just before I land. Its little beep as it sets itself for massed circuitry is reassuring. I run left and drop off another ledge into what I presume will be the sub-sub-basement and grab the aerosol I left behind a couple of days ago.
I spray the freespace-rated instabond generously across where they have to land, then do the nearest uprights and scaffolding too. Never know when someone’s going to brace themselves to get the ultraglue off their shiny cyberfeet or boots. As the crashing above indicates my fan club has arrived, I orient myself, take three steps backwards and jump up into the ducting that starts here and extends all the way to the storm drains on the other side. I leave a bodyheat radiator in there, swing out and grab the scaffolding as a pop and a hiss tells me the first winner is about to land.
Climbing the poles in pitch darkness validates my weeks of practice. At the top is a workman’s sling and I wrap myself completely in the totastealth sheet before settling for a doze. Nothing to do until the cybersupermen discover they’re not so super after all.
The shouting and yelling lulls me into a light, refreshing sleep. The silence wakes me.
Sticking my arm out I scan for life using the specialised sensor built into my gauntlet; nothing.
The cyber and nano crazies have their uses, but the archtyptural ‘street samurai’ are a joke. While cybertech has advanced beyond belief, battery technology and similar energy sources have not. Most cybergoons have solar charger pads integrated into their armour and even their tattoos. Put them in the dark and make them angry enough to believe their own hype and they will literally kill themselves as the technology overwhelms the body’s ability to power it when stored energy is exhausted. It’s actually a very short time from out of juice to out of body potentials.
Half an hour later I have a floatrolley loaded with fifty kilos of tech and ten kilos of organs. The scavengers are already gathering beyond the circle of my guardfield.
By tomorrow I’ll be set for another couple of months and Chibakan will be down another four idiots. I’m doing them a favour and they pay me handsome scrap values for weeding out the fools.
by submission | May 30, 2013 | Story |
Author : W Hunter
“Where is everybody?” Enrico Fermi, 1950
The enormous space craft slid out of the hyper-dimensional matrix in the orbit of one of the gas-giant planets. It gravitated towards the inner planets smoothly, gathering data by the millisecond. Within a short time the thousands of remote detectors had transmitted a gargantuan amount of data to a massive computer network. The data was immediately analysed and collated into a report which was then arranged and organised into an executive report by an Assessment Officer.
Commander Xent was deeply engrossed in Interthought when Assessment Officer Hettel entered the chart room.
“Excuse my interruption, sir, but I need your opinion on my analysis of this planet.
It took a fraction of a minute for the Commander to adjust his attention. “I’m sorry Hettel, I was engrossed in an intriguing exploration of 11 dimensional topographies with two time dimensions with the Chent brothers.
“Sorry to intrude” said Hettel.
“Not at all, my Command duties take priority. How can I help?”
“Well,” said Hettel, “I have completed my analysis of the third planet in this system and I need your opinion on my conclusion. I will upload my report onto your Thoughtscreen now. May I talk you through it?”
“Go ahead” said the Commander.
Hettel resolved to be brief and to the point. ”As you see, we have a 96 % conformity with our own preferred physical environment: Atmosphere: 80 % Nitrogen, 20% oxygen, traces of carbon dioxide and Helium. Surface: Large areas of saline water and a variety of land masses, some extensive fresh water areas and tributaries. Suitable temperature zones. Biologically: Mammalian species, dominated by intelligent bipeds, somewhat aggressive but not dangerously so. Warm blooded avian species and numerous cold blooded reptiles etc. No surprises here”.
The Commander nodded.
“Cell nuclei contain coding molecules similar to ours, same bases, phosphate bridges and sugars only slightly different. Amino acids same or near identical with ours, two less in number. General conformity 97%.
Micro organisms of the single cell variety, coding chemistry types 2 and 3. Large variety of molecular cell invaders. Overall similarity rating 89%.
That’s more or less it, sir, unless you require more information?”
The Commander turned his penetrating gaze on Hettel. “So what’s your recommendation?”
Hettel was confident. “I had high hopes for the suitability of this planet when we made our long distance assessment. Now that we have this detailed data I have no hesitation in rejecting contact totally.”
“I agree entirely” said the Commander. Far too close a match. Early contact with planets like this were disastrous- invasion of all our life systems by micro organisms, nothing on the planet digestible, 100% mortality.”
“I find it quite depressing. We seem to be stuck with finding planets with barely developed life forms, very different from ours and then completely sterilising them before colonisation. Co-existence with other species would be so stimulating if we could just find the right non-invasive systems.”
“I share your sentiments” said Hettel, morosely.
“OK, then” said the Commander heavily, “I’ll direct that we leave this system forthwith and continue our exploration on the planned route. For the record, Hettel, what does the intelligent species call their planet?”
“They call it Earth, sir” said Hettel.
by submission | May 28, 2013 | Story |
Author : Ray Daley
The Misthkthos had been on Earth over a year when I talked to my first one. They’d come in peace, landed in a quiet region and strolled out of their ship into the night to check out our planet.
Easy enough to spot them as aliens you’d think? Then you’d be thinking wrong because they look just like me and you. Admittedly with subtle differences but you could have sex with one of them and never know it. Don’t worry, no chance of them getting you pregnant or leaving you with a nasty alien STD. Our blood chemistry differed slightly.
But that slight difference was enough to mean we couldn’t catch their diseases and they couldn’t catch ours.
So how did I spot him?
Sitting at a table in the truck stop diner wearing a faded red plaid shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. He looked like every other wanna-be cowboy in the joint.
“Mind if I sit here?” I asked, gesturing to the empty seats opposite him.
“Help yourself, free country or at least that’s what they say.” He had the twang of the accent and the world-weary cynicism down to a tee.
I started eating my burger and fries. “Damn good food here.” I said.
“Ain’t that the truth,” he replied “I always stop in here when I’m in these parts.”
He hadn’t blinked, his poker face was near perfect. His one mistake, the subtle tell that gave him away.
I figured I’d see if I was right.
I lowered my voice. “Hello Space Boy.”
He said nothing. He took another gulp of his coffee with his right hand.
“Tell me I’m wrong then.” I said quietly.
Again he said nothing.
I fixed him with a gaze. “I could repeat it, only louder if you want? Or you can tell me I’m wrong?”
He put his coffee cup down onto the table and looked me right in the eyes. “What was it?”
“What gave you away, you mean?” I said.
“Yeah. I thought I had this whole routine perfected. No-one ever noticed before.” he said.
I glanced toward at his left hand. “Pass me the salt.”
He was probably unaware he’d been fiddling with the salt cellar from the moment I’d walked in and almost certainly from the second he’d taken his seat.
His people had a glut of many of things on their planet. Salt however was in very short supply. They’d seen our oceans full of the stuff and made their way across the stars to trade with us. But as they’d learnt our many languages from TV and radio transmissions they thought they had a good idea how visiting aliens were received.
IE:- very badly and with deadly force.
So they’d chosen to hide amongst us until the time to trade was right.
“Damn. Was it that obvious?” he asked me nervously.
“Only if you know what to look for. And I did.” I replied.
“So what’s it going to cost me to keep you quiet? You know we hate violence. I’ve got plenty of great technology I can trade?” he asked me.
I smiled at him. “I guess that ship of yours is pretty well hidden?”
He nodded.
“Good,” I replied “then you can give me a lift home. I’ve been stuck here ever since I crashed in Roswell a few decades back. I promise I won’t tell if you don’t?”
He smiled at me. “When do you want to leave?” he asked.
I looked over to the counter and called to our waitress. “Miss, can I have this to go please? I think I just got a ride home.”
