by submission | May 23, 2011 | Story
Author : Colin O’Boyle
Edgar Miller was a convict. Currently, he was an escaped convict, and that was the way he intended to stay. He’d broken out of prison through a series of well-laid plans, noticed opportunities and a bit of luck, not to mention violence.
“I said, ‘Give me the money!’” Edgar waved the gun in the storeowner’s face. The man, a balding African-American gentleman, was quaking in his boots, and from the smell, had peed his pants. That, plus the smell of the sweat on the man’s shiny palate were starting to irritate Edgar, so he decided to give off a warning shot to convince him that he was serious. He did so, the shot thunderously loud in the enclosed space, and the storeowner gave up hope that someone was going to stop this madman.
With pudgy fingers, he emptied the drawer of the cash register into Edgar’s canvas bag. Edgar, not wearing a mask of any sort, considered killing the man, but the lack of security camera gave him pause. As he ran out of the store and took off down the highway, he told himself it was because people in stressful situations don’t make good eye-witnesses.
The actual reason, however, was somewhat different.
“Ladies and gentleman,” said Dr. Johnson from his podium to the roomful of reporters, “I’d like to thank you for coming out to the cave today.” He gestured to what was behind him, a device that could only be called a pod. It was roughly the size of a couch, but was shaped like a transparent egg. Metal arms cradled it, and strands of colored wires emerged from its sides. Resting securely within this metal contraption, on a bed of gel and foam, lay Edgar Miller.
“We call it the cave after a famous thought experiment by the Greek philosopher, Plato. In this thought experiment, people were born and raised in a cave and forced to sit and face a single wall. On the wall, a light would be projected, and the people…essentially the wardens, would make shadows on the wall. Now—” Dr. Johnson pushed his glasses back up his nose, “—the people in this cave, since they had never been anywhere else, would see these shadows and, for them, that would be the world. We here at the Virtual Correctional Institution are a bit more technologically advanced.”
Dr. Johnson gestured toward the pod. “Mr. Miller is aware that he was placed in prison. He remembers everything in his life up until that moment. After that, however, things get a bit tricky. Mr. Miller was selected for our project as he was considered by the psychological staff that evaluated him as an incorrigible criminal, and that the best one could hope for was for him to be contained.” Dr. Johnson smiled. “We thought we could do a little bit better than that. In the cave, we control every aspect of our subject’s lives, far more so than any normal prison. Thus, when a subject makes a good choice, he can be rewarded and, eventually, be introduced back into society a rehabilitated man.” Dr. Johnson paused, allowing this to sink in a little, before saying, “Now we’ll adjourn to the atrium where I’ll take any questions you might have.”
As the room cleared, a journalist happened to look upwards as he walked out of the doors to the atrium. Above the doors to “Plato’s Cave,” was a quote by the Institute’s founder:
“The perfect prison is one in which the prisoner thinks he’s free.”
by Patricia Stewart | May 16, 2011 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Earthmen first encountered the Sprites in 2384. The Sprites were fist sized glowing spheres that emitted a pulsating white light. However, the light defied known physics. Normally, a prism would refract white light into a colorful spectrum, but not the white light from the Sprites. When passed through a spectrum, the light simply vanished, but would reappear as white light if passed through a second prism.
It was originally assumed that the Sprites were a natural phenomenon, like ball lightening. But as scientists attempted to collect them, it became crystal clear that the Sprites were both evasive and intelligent. All attempts to capture the Sprites were fruitless. Eventually, it was concluded that they were a harmless interstellar life form, so they were permitted to roam freely among the stars.
Initially, the apparently harmless Sprites began following small recreational spaceships, similar to the way pilot fish swim alongside sharks and stingrays. Among the élite, Sprites became a type of status symbol. The more Sprites you had attending you spaceship, the better. Over the years, the sprites also began attending interstellar passenger liners and large cargo ships. Since the Sprites didn’t interfere with ship operations, most captains tended to ignore them. Eventually, crews became accustomed to their presence, and even felt apprehensive when signing onto ships without Sprites. Sprites were considered good luck omens, and by the end of the century, they were attending all non-military space faring vessels.
However, when the war broke out with the Epsilon Reticuli Empire, Sprites became a strategic military asset when it was discovered that their normally white light turned crimson whenever a Reticulian warship approached within a light year. As the war ramped up, military vessels actively sought Sprites as early warning devices. The potential military value of the Sprites even prompted the Earth Alliance President to issue an executive order requiring citizens to surrender their Sprites to the Government. At the height of the war, the bulk of the Earth Alliance Fleet, including sixteen Battlecruisers, thirty-two Destroyers, were poised to engage the Reticulian fleet in a pivotal battlefront along the outskirts of the Denebola System. As the opposing forces aligned their starships in preparation for battle, the Sprites glowed bright red. As if fearing the Reticulian forces, the Sprites began to nestle closer to their Alliance ships in an apparent effort to seek protection. Then, in rapid fire succession, the Sprites blew themselves up, severely damaging the propulsion and weapons systems of their host ships. On cue, the Reticulian warships swooped in and finished off the helpless and bewildered ships of the once powerful Earth Alliance.
by submission | May 12, 2011 | Story
Author : J. Rohr
“I’m not taking the job.”
Melissa sighed. Rubbing her temples, not relishing the impending migraine, she said, “You have to.”
“I’ll find something.”
“It’s been six months.”
“We can wait a little longer.”
“No, we can’t.”
Bob opened his mouth, rebuttal at the ready, but fell back in his seat, shoulders slumped, “No, we can’t.”
Melissa stepped over, drying her hands on her apron. She didn’t like to break Bob’s resolve. But it had to be done. The fact she’d been saving water in a bin from the dripping tap to do the dishes proved the point. Smoothing Bob’s hair back, trying to pet some calm into him, Melissa said, “It’ll be all right.”
Without looking up, Bob patted her on the hip and rubbed, “I know.”
#
“Sir, you’re next,” the tech announced.
“I know, I know,” Bob stepped forward. He felt sweat seeping through his suit. In the future he’d wait till he’d arrived and change at work. Part of him hoped the commute would get better over time, however, he knew himself too well. Even on the days his mind might stray from what it knew, held perhaps too tightly, Bob felt sure he’d always fear the Stream.
“Any solar flares today?” Bob asked the tech.
“Lets go buddy, the weather’s fine,” someone called from the back of the line. Murmurs of agreement rippled through the crowd. Old hands impatient at any delay.
Recognizing the consternation on a commuter’s face, the nineteen year old tech said, “It’s going to be a smooth ride.”
Swallowing hard, mopping sweat off his forehead, Bob nodded. These things look too much like coffins, Bob wanted to mention but impatient murmurs and tapping feet urged him forward without a word. Squeezing his eyes shut, he turned in the tiny space. He informed the tech he was ready with a quick nod.
The surge of power hummed in his ears. Sweat went cold across his body. He’d made sure to tell Melissa he loved her before leaving. At any second the machine would engage. He thought about the dry wall in the basement. Who would put it up when he didn’t come home? It felt like melting. The humming stopped. Bob tried to open his eyes. Nothing but white filled his vision. “I’ve gone blind,” he thought, “Thank god I’ve only gone blind.” Being blind certainly beat traveling the Stream, a relay of energy carrying commuters in particle bundles. At least blindness didn’t mean being scattered across the stars or reassembled improperly. One didn’t have to come back a freak with limbs in the wrong places. A few cells out of place and the brain misfires or the heart won’t beat or the skin isn’t thick enough to hold anything in or etc. His mind went over all the terrors that being blind seemed better than, all the worries that made him hate the commute.
And then colors reappeared, first as pinpoints, gradually in more defined shapes. Bob stumbled out of the Stream Port on Europa station. Fortunately, a tech caught him before he fell off the platform.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m not blind.”
The tech smiled, “First time I take it.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’re all right now. Have a good day at work.”
“I will,” Bob said, a weak grin on his face, “I will.”
by submission | May 10, 2011 | Story
Author : Aradhana Choudhuri
“John, I’m done. I’m getting rid of all of them.”
“Go for it. You don’t need to ask me.”
“Do you want something? There’s lots of vid, from when mom was little.”
“Where would I put it? Just…just flush it, ok?”
“Tomorrow. Federal Data Bureau will certify the wipe. Then I can sell the things. Do you want a part of the cash?”
“Nah, you keep it.”
“There’s a lot of them.”
“Wait a mo…” the vid-screen goes blank as John puts her on hold. So she counts the drives, in her head.
The oldest ones, each as big as her palm, black and utilitarian, are already on the truck. Then there are the cutsie-wootsie ladybugs and ballerinas and an entire array’s worth of koala bears from the thirties, barely a hundred TeraBytes each. They did get smaller for a while, till the superparamagnetic threshold was breached. The newest drive in the house is twenty years old, a striped orange cube the size of a small child.
The screen clears and John is back. “We’re doing ok, sis. Jill says you should buy yourself something.”
“That’s really nice of you two.”
“You’ve been paying Mom’s Datatax for years…” something in the background distracts John. “Mo…” He puts her on hold again.
She remembers sitting on the floor, playing with her bright blue rolling pin and ladle and a small sticky wad of dough, and her mother saying how Quantum Storage was just a year or so away. Then it was how Quantum ran into problems, but SpaceFold Memsisters would solve the data crisis. Give it a couple of years.
Her mother had stopped talking by the time she was in her teens. The pile of drives continued to grow, from the study into the spare bedroom and then into the hall.
The kitchen was half-full by the time mom retired. It took another two years for Social Services to send somebody around.
They all sat around the table, and the lady from Social took her mother’s hand, gently, and told her that hoarding pension payments – it took seven months of pension, by then, to buy a 400ExaByte drive – was not ok and there was more data generated every second than there was storage for it manufactured in a year, and did she really think she could save it all?
When her mother died, someone suggested getting it all into a government Anthro-study, but Nonessential Data doesn’t qualify. Some grad student, maybe from Socio-Analytics…But she doesn’t know any students. And renting a room at a Data Warehouse makes the taxrate go up not down, even if it means that she gets the kitchen back.
This time it’s Jill’s face on the screen when it clears.
“Sweetie,” says Jill, “I’m so glad you’re doing this. You need space. You need to make room for your own life.”
“It’s not that…I just can’t afford it anymore.” She hates explaining. Her sister-in-law always gets that pity-faux-therapist look on her face.
“Of course dear,” says Jill. “Tell us how it goes, ok?”
“Sure.”
“Bye sweetie!” The vid-screen goes dark. Only the sensors above the panel, visible-spectrum and infrared and audio and chem-sig, record the fleeting expressions on her face, the slight wince, the microtaste of salt in the air. Nonessential. 6:00 AM sharp on Tuesday, all phones in the 5686 area-code purge their memories. There’s a huge fine if they don’t.
by submission | May 2, 2011 | Story
Author : John Eric Vona
You didn’t see them with planets anymore. After the first billion years of Andromeda crashing into our galaxy, all the planets had been torn away from their stars, lost in the flurry of criss-crossing suns as the two galaxies collided and spun back away from each other, a pair of dancers twirling through the eons and the lightyears. Our sun survived, an atom in the arms and fingers connecting the galaxies, closer to what remained of Andromeda than the dying core of the Milky Way.
We didn’t know where Earth was.
It mattered very little. But then, what did it matter that we were out there at all? We were no longer part of the universe, just watching it. That was Bonnie talking. It took her a couple billion years, but she had gotten into my head.
I knew why we were out there. I was the one who’d taken the expedition from idea to reality, convinced the Neo-Naturalists to bend on their firm stance that the galactic collision was meant to be humanity’s end, played off the sentiment of Perservivalists like Bonnie, the extreme minority of enlightened people who believed we should try to survive the collision. They gave me the ship to take an expedition into the afterlife, to write the prologue to humanity’s existence. Like most, I believed that the human journey had stretched to its end. The ship wasn’t meant to be an ark. We were on the last mission to expand human knowledge.
One of our astronomers had spotted the planet the “week” before. We changed course, a millennia passing relativistically overnight, hoping not to miss a spectacle as fragile as the last planet in two galaxies.
As we arrived, the door to the observatory opened behind me.
“You’ve got to see this,” came Bonnie’s ecstatic voice.
“I am,” I said. “A gas giant twice Jupiter’s size and redder than Mars.”
“After all we’ve seen,” Bonnie said, “we still compare everything in the universe to the objects from our tiny little oasis. But it’s not the planet I’m talking about. It has moons.”
“You’re kidding,” I said, pivoting to look at her. The light from the red sun filled the room, and her brown hair glowed amber.
“They’re habitable,” she said, handing me a computer sheet.
“For what?”
“For us!”
“The galaxies are destroying each other.”
“You’ve lived too long at relativistic speed,” Bonnie said. “On those moons, the galaxies wouldn’t even move in our grandchildren’s lifetime.”
Our grandchildren? We didn’t allow anyone aboard to even have children. I tried to ignore her and examine the data on the solar system, but she grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around.
“Do you feel the sunlight on your face?”
I rolled my eyes out of habit, dismissing her flare for the dramatic, but as the sun and its partner grew steadily before us, I saw a different kind of dance. Even with Andromeda and The Milky Way spinning all around us in their last, anguished throws, two sweethearts, a sun and a planet, slowly stepped in the loving embrace of gravity, the moons but winks of light between them like unborn children.
Humanity didn’t have to end, but we chose to let it.
“I’m not the only one onboard who feels this way,” Bonnie said, but in that moment, with her hands on my shoulders and the space around us suddenly full and warm, it wouldn’t have mattered if she was. Watching the delicate little worlds dance in the sunlight, something long asleep stirred within me.
