by submission | Feb 4, 2010 | Story
Author : Cesium
Each clutching the other’s hand, they waited atop the Green Building.
They weren’t supposed to be here. No one was. But the tallest building in Cambridge, Massachusetts would soon depart the soil on which it had stood for so long, and they couldn’t have missed the chance to be here. To watch the final stage of Daedalus, from the inside.
Some enterprising soul had planted a replica of an Apollo Lunar Module on the roof behind them, likening to the old Saturn Vs the twenty-one-story concrete box on which it perched. A flag hung above it, unmoving in the still air. The motionless silence unnerved her. There should be wind. There should be people walking far below, talking of subjects she would never understand. Yet there was nothing. Beyond the sheath that now enclosed the building, she could see the labyrinthine tracery of streets that filled Cambridge to the north, the cars in their orderly caravans sliding efficiently from place to place, while the sun crept down to the horizon and the fiery clouds above glowed orange and violet.
But within, the Green Building, neatly packaged for transport, rested in preparation for its own journey.
Around them, a huge tract of land adjacent to the Charles lay vacant, fallow dirt under long shadows. It had of course long since gone to the highest bidder, a Dubai company planning to raise an arcology on the site. But that had to wait until Daedalus finished. Until it cleared away this, the last remnant of old MIT.
It was just MIT now, as it had been for decades, since its focus had shifted offworld and “Massachusetts” had become inaccurate (and also, if the rumor was to be believed, so it could sue the pants off MarsTech). For almost as long the original campus, here in Cambridge, had been suffering from declining admissions and increasing irrelevance. Yet its reputation remained untarnished, and history still lived in its bones. So now, as the wealth of the outer system was starting to pour back to the mother planet, the children of MIT, the architects and the chemists and the astroengineers, had returned to lift these old halls into the future. Just because they could.
And that was Daedalus.
Giant engines above had raised the buildings of MIT one by one out of Earth’s gravity well. An unprecedented feat, it had taken years and drawn the awe and fascination of the world. Enclosed in protective organic sheaths, miracles of bioengineering, the buildings floating like soap bubbles among the stars had joined the construction of New Boston, a gigantic space station with artificial gravity. Not all had emerged unscathed, of course, but that most survived had given them courage enough to stand here on this night, looking out over the city spread below them.
There was a slight tremor beneath their feet; the near-transparent sheath rippled noticeably. Cables, pillars and struts holding the building in place adjusted automatically. Her hand tightened its grip on his. It was time.
“Boston is lovely at night,” he said, slowly. “But you have to see it from above–”
They leapt toward the sky.
by submission | Jan 30, 2010 | Story
Author : James King
The gate shimmered like a disk of melted solder. After all this time, the idea of inter-dimensional travel still amazed Alex. Wrapping his mind around the fact that, though it is a new world that is being explored, it’s the same time, same location in the galaxy, just a different dimension took some getting used to.
He stared back watching the rest of the team come through the gate, helpless to stop them. The surprised look on each of their faces as they stepped through reminded him of the first time anyone had ever attempted inter-dimensional travel.
The team was much younger back then, chuckling nervously as straws were drawn to see who would be the first through the gate. Everyone claimed they wanted to be first, but the relief was evident when a long straw was drawn. Alex got the first short straw and has been the first one through the gate ever since.
He was starting to shiver from the cold.
The amount of power required in forming the gateway forced the exploration team to travel through quickly. Safety protocols were established so that each team member was prepared for any possible contingency, whether environmental or hostile. Alex thought to himself that this was one scenario that never came up during the simulations.
He wanted to shout out in the hopes someone would hear him, but he knew that was futile as he floated further from the gate. Devoid of air the vacuum of space was deafeningly silent. Everyone dispersed like droplets from a splash of water hitting the ground, drifting away from the gate and away from each other. He finally realized that the weapon he clutched tightly to his body was useless and let it go, watching it drift away.
The environmental containment suit he wore provided oxygen and some protection from the harsh cold, but it wouldn’t last long. He wonders if they will attempt to send another team to locate them when they don’t return, understanding this to be an academic question, since they all would have long since expired from the cold or lack of oxygen before this possibility would occur.
No one ever thought, especially after all the worlds they had explored, that traveling to a dimension where the earth no longer existed was a possibility. A contingency never planned for and a lesson learned the hard way. Alex watched the gate, looking like the surface of a dark pond, getting smaller as he drifted further away. He marveled at the beauty of space. Alex had always wanted to be an astronaut. Weightlessness is even better than he imagined.
by submission | Jan 29, 2010 | Story
Author : Helstrom
“What are you doing?”
I looked up from the astrogation table and into the curious eyes of a five-year-old girl hovering in the access hatch.
“Hey, hey,” I said, “I don’t think you’re supposed to be here.”
“I wanted to see out the window. Captain said it was okay.”
Of course he had. The captain was a ‘fourth generation’ spacer. Back in my time, with mining operations just beginning, spacers were recruited from the ranks of kumpels, roughnecks and sat-divers, resulting in strongly reeking ships populated by loud men with short necks and the very strong absence of curiosity that comes from living in an environment where any moving part you don’t know intimately can probably kill you. These days the profit margins were so huge they were shipping out whole families who would spend most of their life on one of the colonies – including their children.
“Okay then,” I smiled, “But just a few minutes. I’m doing important stuff.”
She flashed a grin revealing a few missing teeth and pushed herself through the hatch, deftly settling into a corner between the tracking telescope and the cupola frame. Children adapted to free-fall in next to no time at all. At the turn of a switch, the cupola blinds withdrew and space unfolded before us. She glued herself to the window for a while, but deep space isn’t much to look at and she soon took more interest in the myriad of astrogation equipment in the room.
Settling herself in the cupola, she asked: “Is that the map?”
“No, not really. I don’t use a lot of maps. This is a plot, it shows me how much time it takes until we have to make another burn, like when we left. Remember how you had to stay in bed and got real heavy? That was a burn,”
She scowled, “I know what a burn is, silly. So it tells you where we’re going?”
“Well, pretty much, yes.”
“Then it’s a map!” She giggled triumphantly.
“You’re smarter than you look with those missing teeth.”
“Don’t you have a computer for this?”
“I do – three, in fact. But computers can be wrong sometimes, and most of the knobs and dials in here let me check things for myself. If it gets really bad I can even do it on paper.”
“What if you’re wrong too?”
“Well, that depends on how far wrong I am We could crash into Venus instead of going into orbit. Or we could shoot past her, pick up a gravity boost and fly into the sun if we’re too fast for a rescue boat to catch up with us. But my job is to make sure that doesn’t happen so you get to your new home safely.”
She nodded, a serious frown on her face, “That’s very important.”
It was the nicest thing anyone had said about my work in a while – I laughed and gave her a hug before pushing her back towards the hatch: “Now, go back to the ring and let me work, okay? I’ll show you more after dinner if you want. Oh, and if you see the captain, make sure you tell him how important my job is.”
by submission | Jan 14, 2010 | Story
Author : Katie West
“I’ve figured it out you know,” I said it casually as we ate lunch at our kitchen table. Right before I took a bite of my sandwich.
“Figured what out?” He looked at me questioningly, and then with annoyance once he realized I had filled my mouth with food just to prolong the anticipation. Looking at me with exaggerated exasperation, he watched me finish chewing and then swallow in silence.
“Time travel,” maintaining that same casual tone to my voice. I watched his reaction; he didn’t laugh, or shake his head in disappointment over having to share the table with someone so out of her mind. No, my husband, he had excited eyes and a mischievous mouth.
“Tell me.”
“I figure, we go into the future, no one’s there yet. We go into the past, everyone’s already left. The only place where anybody’s gonna be, is right now. So, time travel could only be for people who want to be alone.” I took another bite. Swallowed. Thought about barren landscapes void of people, eerie cityscapes impossibly still. “Really alone.”
He slowly nodded and I could see him thinking it over. Imagining a future where no one exists, and a past empty as a ghost town. “We can’t be in more than one place at once, that makes sense.”
“Right? We can only know our future selves, once we arrive there. Our past selves, only known in memory. We travel within time, through space, and must exist in only one space at one time.”
“Then time travel is useless, giving only strange echoing answers to any questions you might have hoped to ask. That makes sense too. And I only ever want to be here, where you are. What’s the point of being anywhere else?”
I finished the last of my sandwich, looked at the man who would give up the silent mysteries of future spaces and empty revelations of past places to just sit and eat lunch with me, everyday.
“Exactly,” I agreed, dumping more chips onto my plate, looking at him again, “what’s the point?”
by submission | Jan 13, 2010 | Story
Author : Asher Wismer
Jenkis and Layla examined the husky robot. It stood fifteen feet high, maybe nine feet wide at its thickest point, gaping, many-toothed mouth in the front.
“It’s pretty ugly,” Layla said. “Maybe a coat of paint.”
“Maybe a coat of new parts,” Jenkis said. “It’s rusted through to the recycler, look.”
They looked. Layla took out a tension wrench and popped the front panel off. Inside, some species of rodent had built a nest, died, decomposed, and then been replaced by some species of insect, which were also dead.
“Not much insulation left on the wires,” Layla said.
“Not much wire left on the, uh, the thing,” Jenkis said. “And the internals are gone. No point to a Digestor without a recycler. Just… let’s go.”
They stopped in to see Honest Gephart on their way out.
“We don’t want it,” Layla said.
“You don’t want it? That Digestor is in prime condition! It’s practically an antique!”
“It’s a relic,” Jenkis said.
“It’s multi-generational.”
“There are multiple generations of dead things inside it,” Layla said. “You couldn’t sell that thing to a scrap yard. Not even you would buy it!”
“I did, so that proves you wrong,” Gephart said. “Listen, how about I cut the price in half.”
“Half of what you wanted for that robot would buy a brand new one, with better recycling,” Jenkis said. “And a three-year warranty with parts and labor and full replacement on referral.”
“Nobody’s going to buy it,” Layla said. “Your only hope would be a groundhog straight from downside without a clue, and you just won’t find one of those way out here. It’s going to sit on your lot forever, ruining your landscaping.” She grinned at Gephart. “On the other hand, we could haul it off for you.”
“For nothing?”
“It’s worth nothing already,” Jenkis said, “unless you haven’t eaten in a long, long time.”
“Good point. Just sign here and here,” –Gephart held out a sheaf of papers– “and fill these out and you’re fine for it.”
Jenkis didn’t take the papers. “Seriously?”
“There’s insurance, liability, refusal of warranty–”
“You turn your back for twenty minutes,” Layla said, “and then the wreckage is gone. No worries.
“Fine,” Gephart said. “But only because I like you and I need the space. You make sure nobody ever finds out that I let you have it for free, ok? It’ll ruin my rep.”
“Great,” Jenkis said with a huge, fake smile. “Now, let’s talk about our haulage fees.”
“Fees?”
“Fees,” Layla said, pulling up a chair. “Insurance, liability….”
*
“You could have just offered the job first,” Jenkis said.
“It’s more fun to haggle,” Layla said. “You know that. Besides, now he has a great story about how little he spent to have that thing hauled away.”
“To tell all his fellow sharks at the bar, over a cold pint of absinth,” Jenkis said. “Anyway, we’ll break even on it, but why were you so bullish to buy?”
“The insects,” Layla said. “You noticed all the caripaces? They’re rare off this world, and particularly at our next stop.”
“You had me buy that whole thing for some insects?”
“We’ll make about fifteen times the scrap price.”
“You know,” Jenkis said, “every time I wonder why I married you, you go and do something like this, and I remember.”
“How much you love me?”
“How much you conned me before I got wise. You are a sneaky bitch, no question.”
“No question,” Layla said, and kissed his cheek. “Now go strap the gear down. We’re superluminal in thirty minutes.”
