by submission | Apr 16, 2014 | Story |
Author : C.T. Jackman
There was no flash of light. There was no puff of smoke. Such a waste of energy would have been unacceptable during the teleportation, and so Dr. Mueller was very happy to have missed the flower and its pot disappear when he blinked.
His colleagues on the other side of the room let out a cheer. “It worked!” Dr. Hendricks exclaimed, “Come look, the scans say that the flower has been reassembled in its entirety: a full one-hundred percent!”
Mueller looked over the results himself, and then at the daffodil, which was sitting in a class case under the second teleportation module in the room.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mueller said to the half-dozen scientists in the room, “we are the first to have successfully teleported life.” His associates broke into applause, and many handshakes and pats on the back were exchanged.
They had spent years reworking their calculations and technology to reach that day, and many different objects had to have been disassembled on the atomic level and then rebuilt at in another point in space before they finally reached a level of one-hundred percent matter transference. At that point, Mueller declared that it was time to begin the tests on basic life-forms.
It had worked. He had just witnessed the very first subject recreated successfully, and that made him confident that when the time came for human testing, they would be no error involved.
Muller turned to Dr. Hendricks and said, “Take the plant into the lab for further analysis. Then bring in another.”
Different flowers and plants were teleported with the same results every time: one-hundred percent transference. His assistants monitored every step, and while there were still many more hours of dissecting the data, Mueller began to grow more and more confident that they had perfected the process.
Just as the final teleportation of the day was about to be performed, Mueller told his assistant, “Bring in a lab rat instead.”
Hendricks blinked at him. “Already?” she asked.
“I think we’ve waited enough, don’t you?”
Hendricks smiled and left to fetch their next subject. A few minutes later, a white rat was sitting under the first teleportation module. Mueller watched it sniff the glass as scanners traced its position, and then the computer beeped and the rat was gone.
The other side of the room was silent.
Mueller pushed through the crowd of scientists and saw the rat lying motionless in the receiving end of the teleporter. It was dead.
The computers couldn’t identify the cause of death. There was no brain activity, and its heart sat motionless between two lungs filled with air.
“I don’t understand what’s wrong. Everything was teleported successfully- a full one-hundred percent transference,” Dr. Fredrick said, analyzing several screens at once. “Everything is there.”
“Maybe its body just couldn’t handle the stress,” someone suggested.
Mueller shook his head. “We’ll find out tomorrow. Don’t forget that we’ve accomplished a miracle here today; this is only a minor setback. Everybody go home and get some rest. We’ll continue the tests after we see what the data tells us,” he said to everybody, and they filtered out of the room. After they were gone, his smile drooped.
He collected the dead rat and brought it into the lab where the plants had been taken following their teleportations. All of the flowers were tagged and sitting on a lab table, but Mueller noticed something was wrong: they had already begun to wilt.
The leaves drooped at his touch, and one petal fell off as he grazed it. “I don’t understand,” Dr. Mueller said. “Everything is there…”
by Desmond Hussey | Apr 11, 2014 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer
“The Vulturi Zoological reserve is home to the most dangerous collection of species within the galaxy…”
The dull-as-Arcosian-Slug-Art tour-guide is a spastic, Mark-VII resembling a stick-figure assembled from recycled gas cylinders, aluminum coils and rubber bands. Whoever programmed it should be boiled in their own gastric juices. It’s yammered non-stop since we left the Deep Space High School three hours ago, droning an incessant litany of factoids as it jerks up and down the aisle of the 0-g passenger hold.
I try to tune it out and simply stare morosely at the scene slowly enlarging beyond my portal as we near the tiny, blue-green moon; our final (thankfully) destination on this tour through the Vulturi system. The lush satellite is dwarfed by its host, a milky-white gas giant, marbled with vibrant orange and yellow stripes, which swirl in intricate eddies around its equator.
As we blaze though the upper stratosphere, every passenger clinging desperately to their crash belts, Mark-VII, suctioned to the forward bulkhead, recites a shopping list of redundant data pertaining to atmospheric pressures, gravity ratios and mineral compositions of the moon.
Once we’re within the lower atmosphere the outer heat-shielded hull is jettisoned and suddenly, we’re all suspended mid-air, strapped to our respective seats and linked to each other via spidery struts and cables.
“The entire crew compartment is encased in a high-impact, transparent orb providing a nearly 360 degree panoramic view,” Mark-VII commences to outline the procedure in excruciating detail. He then points out our odds of survival should we find ourselves beyond the protection of the shuttle craft.
“… If you look left you will see the first specimen on our tour; the Giant Gorger rescued from its home world before its sun went nova. Known for its terrifying speed and ravenous appetite…”
The maroon dragon is a thing of beauty as it wings majestically through azure skies. I snap a few pictures for the kids back home before it dives into the clouds below.
Soon our sky-bus-bubble soars over a lush savanna, teeming with diverse wildlife. A herd of bounding, fluffy monopods is pursued by, what appears to be, dun-coloured blurs, slithering through the grass at dizzying speeds.
“…The Torthian Grass Snake only stops moving when it has gorged upon a sizable prey, in this case…”
One of the monopods bursts into a mist of blood and fur. What remains is a bulging, coiling mass of reptile beginning its long, digestive bask in the hot afternoon sun.
Hours later, we are hovering over an adobe dwelling. Two semi-clothed bipeds stand outside looking up at us, forlornly. Mark-VII informs us that these are the infamous Homo-Sapiens of Earth.
“…These tool users will kill not only for food – often enslaving and breeding their prey in foul conditions before slaughtering them – but will also kill for pleasure, territory, resources, abstract concepts and bizarre religious motives unknown in any other parts of the galaxy. Their misuse of primitive technology was particularly destructive, responsible for the mass extinction of many species and the poisoning of their home planet’s air, land and water.
“This is the only remaining pair in existence, bred in captivity after the survivors of their home world were rescued by Vulturi Zoologists. Alone, or in small groups, they are relatively harmless, but if left to breed unchecked, they are capable of global devastation within a hundred generations. Easily one of the most dangerous species in the galaxy.”
Boring. I snap a few pictures anyway before we bank east.
“And if you look to your right…”
by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 31, 2014 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Baxter stood in the atrium of Marpo One and gazed up through the greenery, through the clear observation port above and into the blackness of space.
Three years he’d called this home, he with the sixty three other lost souls that had signed up for the one way trip to the red rock. They were a motley crew, all skilled in their fields; geologists, ecologists, survivalists, mediators, physicians, and each with nothing to lose by leaving Earth and everything behind them and living out their days as pioneers.
There had already been two births on Marpo, which wasn’t supposed to happen this early, but confine men and women together and it’s a practical inevitability.
Baxter would be happy if he’d just had a partner for some recreational non-procreational activity, but nobody wanted anything to do with him.
Something about him had changed, maybe the long sleep to get here, or the time spent in a self perpetuating cycle of loneliness. The more marginalized he felt, the more people left him alone, which made him feel even more isolated, and that made for a Baxter people really didn’t want to be around.
He kept to himself, did his job, and didn’t think twice when the voices came to him, first in his dreams, then in his waking hours.
They reaffirmed the things he already knew; Janey the Botanist was a bitch, and should be run through the organics recovery mill at the earliest possible opportunity. Markus the Manslut was jeopardizing the future of the colony, and should be flushed through an airlock in his sleep, a sleep that would be blunt force trauma induced.
Not right now, however, for right now Baxter was on route to the atmosphere chamber for what had become the de-facto nursery wing to blow it the hell up.
He bypassed the alarm and wedged the door on the atrium end of the tunnel, shouldered his welding rig and marched towards his grim obligation.
“Alright Baxter, stand down.”
The voice in his head was familiar, but the message was new.
“I’m going to do what we agreed needed to get done, this is important for the safety of the mission.” Baxter shook his head as he spoke out loud, confused at the sudden inner conflicting instructions.
“When you’re ready, lockdown corridor three, opaque and disable.”
Baxter felt a new height of anxiety; the voices were still in his head, no longer speaking to him, now clearly speaking about him. Dropping his rig he took off for the door he’d come in through. Half way there the lights went out, then the tube filled with electric blue lightning and Baxter travelled his last few feet in searing pain into a heap on the floor.
“It’s always the isolated male that cracks. We need more women with lower expectations.”
Behind him, a section of the observatory ceiling opened, and a pair of black suited figures dropped into the hallway.
“Do we bring him out?” One of the figures looked up through the opening, awaiting instructions.
“No, everyone thinks he’s on Mars, so we can’t really have him walking around here, and the rest of Marpo Nine thinks they’re a hundred million kilometers from home, so we can’t really have him just disappear, can we?” The voice was clinical, matter of fact. “Load his welding rig up, open the gas and light him up when you’re clear. Un-wedge the door so the fire seal holds, he’s not using hot enough fuel to breach.”
The figures worked quickly, stripping the bypass and closing the atrium hatch, then dragging Baxter back to the middle of the tunnel before strapping him into his welding rig. One of them pressed a nicotube into Baxter’s mouth to moisten it, then rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. He waiting until his partner had climbed the rope ladder back through the ceiling before pressing the igniter and tossing the tube down the hallway. He opened Baxter’s tanks wide and then pulled himself clear and sealed the hatch behind him.
Baxter came to on his back with the stars flickering overhead.
He used to find peace in the stars, as a boy, then as a pioneer before the voices came.
The voices were gone now, and Baxter felt a old familiar calm.
In a flash, both were gone.
by submission | Mar 29, 2014 | Story |
Author : Dakota Brown
His words were calm and thoughtfully processed. Though the harsh and forceful voice wasn’t as evident as it was previously, she still recognized what was at the heart of the matter.
He wanted her to finish the job.
The room sparked and stank of chemicals. The machine had begun its process, its result either finishing her job or extending the pressure.
The gears squeaked to a halt and the hissing turbines fell to silence.
Nothing fell into the machine’s tray. The process was a success.
She held the nothing up, showing it to the project leader. His breathy, monosyllabic retort signaled his content.
From where the project manager stood, his employee held a square of nothingness that showed only the space behind her. She held invisibility. She held the future.
He left her with a smile, a few words of congratulations, and (in his excitement) his clipboard.
On the clipboard she found the plans for her invisibility sheet. It would end war by making war and cease fear by causing fear.
Technology takes time to incorporate other technologies. Hers was the new one, and had nothing to combat it. It was with ease that she printed a larger sheet, destroyed the machine, and left the complex.
Discarded on either side of the Earth are two sheets of nothing, one slightly larger than the other. They were left as trash is, forgotten and useless, because “nothing” can’t stop war or fear.
by submission | Mar 24, 2014 | Story |
Author : Andrew Hawnt
Frozen in time behind the door to Vault Six is an explosion, and it talks to me.
How can an explosion talk to me? I don’t really know, but then again I’m just a guard. I sit next to the door to Vault Six and I read, or I clean the corridor, or I check and recheck the systems which keep the explosion imprisoned in a time bubble.
My name’s John Drake, but the explosion calls me Johnny Boy, or occasionally Drakey when it wants to wake me up. The explosion (or Bang, as I call it when we’re alone) even saved my skin last Friday when it woke me up just before Colonel Trent turned up unannounced.
Me and Bang are friends, even though it’s stuck in a cell and I’m guarding the door. We have an understanding. I don’t tell people it can talk to me, and Bang tells me stories to pass the time.
I thought I was going mad when Bang started talking to me, but hey, I have a mad job. This building is full of impossible things and a fair few staff have lost it over the years, but I can deal with Bang. It explains the monsters in other cells. The ghosts and the aliens and the sentient computer viruses and everything else.
But today, Bang told me a secret I didn’t want to hear. Where it came from. Where it began. I didn’t believe it at first, but then I remembered there’s a guy with horns claiming to be the devil in the next cell, so I figure there’s not all that much which is still impossible.
Bang is the end of this facility. This whole complex. Exploding. Bang told me the explosion was so powerful that it ruptured time and space and seeped through into the present. The department were able to imprison it using an experimental technique which bends time on itself into a loop, sealing whatever is inside it completely.
But the thing is, the thing that’s been making my head hurt all shift long, is that Bang says the explosion began when Bang gets released accidentally. But that means that Bang is both the cause and the result of the incident. An explosion from the future which detonates in the present, creating a paradox which can never end.
The thing that really freaked me out though was that Bang claimed to be me, John Drake, caught in the future explosion which created it and broke time. Bang’s voice in my head is me, my consciousness having become a part of the living explosion when the facility was, or will be, wiped out.
So that means I die here, I guess. Bang says that might not be the case. That I might get out. That it gets my voice because of all the time we spent talking in the past, or the present. That’s when my head hurts, thinking about that.
Get out, Bang tells me now. Get out quickly. It’s started.
Alarms start to chime, then the strip lights along the corridor go red and I hear commotion on the floor above and the floor below. An overlooked weakness in safety protocols. The corridor doors lock themselves. I could scream for help, but it wouldn’t do any good. Bang tells me it’s okay. Bang says it will look after me. Bang tells me in my own voice that this was always meant to be.
The protective bubble around Bang ruptures, and the building is consumed in blinding fire. I am taken away by the bubble’s broken science and the force of Bang’s unleashed energies swallows me whole. I am gone, but I am still here.
As quickly as it begins, it ends.
The bubble reverts to its previous state. Time realigns. I am Bang, and outside Vault Six there sits John Drake. He is a friend. Within the bubble which holds my fire imprisoned, I feel a sense of completion.
“Hello Drakey,” I say out loud, and the guard wakes up, staring at the door to Vault Six with eyes which are so very familiar.
