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.”
by submission | May 16, 2013 | Story |
Author : Jay Hill
Corporal Hawkins woke to a loud ringing in his ears, the sound muted only slightly by the rush of pain swimming across the top of his skull. He undid the strap on his Kevlar helmet and ran his hand through the blood and sweat pouring down from his high and tight haircut. Probing with his fingers, he felt the raw flesh above his right eye, fingering the gaping fold of skin above his brow. A thin shred of shrapnel had sliced a long line in the space between the top of his shooting glasses and the lower edge of his helmet.
“That’s gonna leave a scar,” he said to himself.
A loose wet groan emerged from the mound of flak jacket and camouflaged utilities less than a foot away.
“Gunny,” he called over to the Gunnery Sergeant. The sniper lay on the ground. The laser targeting system that pinpointed his rifle, then heated the 50 caliber ammunition to nearly 621.5 degrees – the melting point for lead – caused the weapon to explode in his hands, turning each bullet into shrapnel that ripped his upper torso apart. A Chinese counter-assault weapon, made with technology stolen from the Japanese. The proximity to his chest, added to the magnitude of the detonation and the absorption limits of his protective armor left the young Marine severely wounded, but not yet dead.
“Gunny,” the spotter repeated, “You okay?”
“Hawkins,” Gunnery Sgt. Dickerson roused slowly. “Hawkins, you gotta go,” the scout sniper said. “You’ve got to leave me.”
“What are you talking about? I can’t leave you.”
After a hundred years of struggle in the Middle East over oil deposits, the United States found themselves once again poring over the Ghazni province in Afghanistan. Following the Great Recession, the U.S. lead the global conversion from fossil fuels to battery operated vehicles, but batteries need lots of lithium and vanadium. The latter proved abundant, but the former, lithium was abundant in only two places: Bolivia and Afghanistan. Once Bolivia emptied, it left only the old mountainous terrain.
“There’s nothing you can do,” the sniper retorted. “And I out rank you. Get back to the base and give them this intel.”
Securing the optimal locations for mining was never going to be easy, but with the recent advance by the Chinese front, Marine reconnaissance teams were stretched thinly over a wide and desolate region.
Still, the spotter hesitated.
“Corporal, I’m giving you an order!”
“But we never leave a man behind.”
“Mission first,” the sniper said, holding out his fist in a defiant gesture.
Hawkins placed his hands over the top of it. “It’s been an honor,” he whispered.
“Besides,” Dickerson continued, “They’ll send somebody out to make sure we’re dead.” He pulled the pin on his grenade and clutched it between his chest and arm, letting the weight of his torso compress the charge temporarily, then did the same with a second grenade.
“And when they roll me over.…”
Boom. Neither of them said the word, but both Marines understood the concept.
The spotter had enough water to last two days, enough food for three meals. Using the map, he estimated it was 150 to 160 kilometers to the closest thing resembling friendly civilization. If he averaged 80 kilos per day, about four miles per hour over the rough landscape, at ten hours a day, then he could make it before he ran out of provisions. There was little room for error, and practically no time for resting.
He plotted his direction and trudged off alone.
by Desmond Hussey | May 13, 2013 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer
17th Day, 8th Lunar, 1860 N.E. (New Earth )
09:47:23 I look to the west; to the future. I meditate on how close we came to not having one. Our predecessors, our degenerate, self-obsessed ancestors destroyed themselves. We’d be naught but savages now if not for the Founders. They changed the course of history; gave us a second chance, a chance to build a better world. They found the Crystals, which in turn, supplied us with endless power. All praise the Founders!
09:56:43 My droids hum industriously, completing final diagnostics on the Chronoscope. The sound is vivifying. I’m so close! I’ve longed to know what minds could have constructed such monuments to civilization as this long-dead metropolis spread out before me, now crumbling into ruin. High in my laboratory atop the only structure remaining of this vast, ancient city, I wonder: What was life like in those massive, overcrowded cities? What happened to our ancestors who disappeared mysteriously so long ago?
A dark veil has been cast over history, obscuring any knowledge of that time. The Second Dark Ages. Overnight, they simply vanished.
All but 500,000. The Founders of New Earth.
If little is known about Old Earth, less is known about the Founders. No historical records exist before the year 100 N.E. Seemingly intentionally, as if the Founders deliberately wanted to forget the past. Why? Why did they survive and an estimated seven billion disappear without a trace? These remain mysteries to this day. Mysteries I aim to uncover.
10:03:56 Alerts chime. Diagnostics complete. All systems green.
10:05:04 The brass and silver Chronoscope resembles a telescope suspended from the ceiling of my observatory by a multi-jointed, mechanical appendage. A complex array of spider-like, titanium limbs encases its objective lens. I aim it west.
10:06:03 Activate Chronoscope. Rpms accelerate rapidly. The Temporal array spins, whining and blurring.
10:06:45 Engage Temperal-Field Distortion. The tip of each limb flares into an incandescent blue spark, carving a ring of electric fire just beyond the Chronoscope’s lens. There’s a strong smell of ozone as tachyons bombard the fabric of space/time, penetrating deep into the past.
10:07:14 I step up to the eyepiece and look away from the future. I look to the past now, seeking answers.
10:08:32 Through the viewer I see a long tunnel, its walls rainbow-hued quicksilver, which terminates in a glorious spectacle – a vision of the past!
I’ve pierced the veil!
Wherever I aim the Chronoscope a thriving civilization fills my vision. I watch amazed as the ancient necropolis surrounding my tower springs to life, it’s citizens moving in real-time. Their lives are written on their faces. So indomitable! So intrepid!
10:18:27 Recalibrate the Temporal Dampeners to 1 yr/sec.
Days strobe endlessly past. Sunrise. Sunset. Buildings get taller. The city expands.
The population flourishes. Then multiplies. Again. Again. Again.
10:23:23 Then they’re gone. I stop. Rewind 5 yrs. Recalibrate: 1 mo/sec.
10:27:35 Nothing different but for a slowly settling fog, even in fast-motion. Bodies appear. Many bodies. A black flurry of activity. Something from the sky. Then nothing. They’re all gone. It’s over in seconds.
10:35:57 Rewind. Recalibrate: 1 day/sec.
10:38:46 I watch, horror-struck, as the city succumbs to the killing fog, released by black planes criss-crossing the skies. Black dump trucks arrive with white-clad drivers. The bodies are removed and piled in parks and parking lots. Ships come. Many ships. Alien ships. All bear the sygil of the Founders.
The bodies, millions of them are quickly loaded. Then the ships are gone, leaving behind great, pulsing green crystals.
Our payment.
by submission | May 11, 2013 | Story |
Author : K Esta
Time travel is impossible. Or so Charlie had always been taught to believe.
He stood shivering in the darkness of the November morning, his breath creating puffs reminiscent of his long-past smoking days. Worrying about cancer seemed so trivial now.
His leather gloves squeaked as he scrunched his hands inside them to warm his fingertips against his palms. Looking across the playground, motionless under a layer of frost, he ached to be home in bed curled up under the covers.
Watching from the shadows, Charlie saw the earlier version of himself arrive. The slightly-younger Charlie walked hesitantly passed the swing set, the slide, and the jungle gym to the archway sitting innocuously beside the perimeter fence. He strolled around it, getting a good look from all angles, before stopping to run his hand over the crumbling brick surface.
Charlie remembered being that man. The awe he’d felt from the knowledge of the structure’s history and how it had become linked to an infinite mass in subspace. He recalled the butterflies in his stomach during that first step through.
He knew instantly that he would be successful, for he caught a glimpse of a figure, his future self, on the other side looking back at him. The arch began to spin around him, first slowly, then faster and faster, dragging space-time with it like a swirl of chocolate being stirred into a bowl of cream.
With a deep breath and another step, he emerged over the threshold just in time to turn and watch his previous self step through and disappear. He actually giggled.
A few hours later, he would learn the consequences of what he’d done. Anna. Not just Anna, but every sign of her. Their apartment had been transformed from a cozy home to a stark bachelor pad.
This was Charlie’s fourth attempt to undo the damage. He had first tried to talk his previous self out of the trip, but hearing from his own future had caused the earlier Charlie to back away in alarm, and unwittingly stumble into the arch.
Sabotaging his research, even shooting his younger self in the back of the head, every tactic Charlie tried to stop that first foolish mistake was similarly thwarted. And each trip back had taken a casualty. His little brother, his best friend, his mother, they were all gone now.
And here he was, trying again, daring to believe it could be different this time. He watched the second Charlie arrive and approach the first. Then another Charlie appeared, pulling out a gun. He took careful aim and fired.
Charlie remembered this moment also. He’d intended to hit the first Charlie, but the pistol’s kick had been stronger than expected. He’d grazed the second Charlie’s ear instead.
As the first Charlie staggered backwards toward the arch, the second clutched his searing ear, and the third tried to line up for what would be another failed shot. This was his chance.
Charlie rushed them. Grabbing the coats of Charlies two and three, one with each hand, he pulled them forward—fighting repulsion from the sensation of sticky blood congealing on the injured Charlie’s sleeve. The three of them plowed into the first Charlie and they all crossed the threshold together.
The arch shuddered in protest, but began to rotate as it had before. The universe contorted, and Charlie’s memories fogged. It felt different this time; his body was consumed by prickling snaps of energy. The figures surrounding him blurred and vanished. Finally, the arch became still.
No one emerged. Time travel is impossible.
by submission | May 9, 2013 | Story
Author : Alex Skryl
“Computer, report!” yelled the Captain.
“Sir, all primary systems are online but the star orientations do not match anything in my database.”
“What was our entry confidence?”
“It was six nines, sir.”
Captain Nurbek swallowed hard, “Show me the trajectory map.”
It looked like a water droplet in zero-g, slowly morphing while the computer was busy plotting all the possible routes the ship may have taken. Nurbek was temporarily entranced by it's beautiful complexity.
Lost in thought, he recalled the great men of the past. Men who believed in a deterministic universe, where one could predict the future by simply knowing enough about the present. It was an idea that was hopelessly wrong, yet perfectly seductive, because it made men feel like they could become gods. But much to Man's dismay, the real gods had other plans.
Space has no shortcuts, he mused. Dreams of determinism died at the hands of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. But would he be any less screwed if the Universe was actually a Laplacian dream? No, it made no difference. Determinism was still susceptible to chaos, the law of nature which was responsible for his current snafu. Chaos is what made the long jumps effectively unpredictable and extremely sensitive to small errors in entry calculations. He simply made a wrong guess in a profession where bad guesses were the worst possible offense.
Six nines. Six fucking nines. He needed at least nine nines for a jump of this magnitude. But he was in the middle of a war zone. Any longer and the ship would have been blown to bits. Would waiting another second really have killed him? He would never know. All he knew was, he would be looking at the familiar starscape of the Virgo Cluster had he just waited. Instead he was here. Somewhere. Nowhere, as far as the computer was concerned. He glanced back at the rotating shape on the screen.
He suddenly remembered his old physics professor running different colored threads through a blob of silly putty.
“Imagine the strings are flight trajectories and the putty is our little cosmos. Where would you need to enter the blob in order to come out with the red string?” asked the professor.
“Where the red string enters,” I replied, not seeing where he was going with this.
“What if you messed up your calcs and entered at the green one next to it?”
“Then you would come out close to your intended destination, where the green one does.”
“Right,” he said, “this is how space travel would work if space was linear. You could make a mistake and still get to where you were going.”
He mashed the putty in his hands for a few seconds, keeping the entry points of the strings untouched.
“Where do the two strings exit now?”
“Far apart,” I said after locating the strings in question.
“So what would happen if you messed up your entry calcs in this case?”
“I'd be totally screwed,” I responded with an air of understanding.
“Good, this is how real space travel works. Except the strings are infinitesimally thin, and your room for error is almost non-existent. The lesson here is, get your calcs right, always! And then maybe well get to have this conversation again some day.”
Nurbek snapped back to reality, finally gathering the courage to ask the lingering question.
“Computer, based on your survey of the cluster, will we make it out of here alive?”
The computer paused for a few seconds, as if to heighten the suspense.
“Unlikely, sir, but I can never be certain.”
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