by submission | Mar 29, 2011 | Story
Author : Sevanaka
It is an unnatural sensation. A man is meant to stand; two feet solidly planted on the ground. Oh, for the sweet touch of earth between toes, grassy shoots tickling bare feet. Instead there is only a sinking sensation while the wind whispers its secrets; its guarded words lost to the noise of a singing hull slipping through the sky.
One by one the stars fade. Streaming clouds and slowly forming atmosphere obscure the shining motes. Constellations dim, and vanish. The radiance of the heavens, now reduced to a dull blur beyond the screens. This man is going home.
His hands ache from the grip he keeps on the console before him. His head throbs from the swinging acceleration. Planetfall used to be much worse, he knows, but that doesn’t mean he must enjoy the transition. Yet a ragged smile teases his lips with its presence – it had been ages since he had last seen home. He ponders, for a moment, the woman he is returning to. It has been a year. He has seen the stars, in all their glory, unfazed by clouded nights or city lights. He has been to the far reaches of human space. The quiet blackness that threatens to take you into itself. The edge, where the stars themselves beckon the souls of men with songs of light and brilliance, echoing secrets of a furious inferno.
And still he returns, to the woman he once loved. He stares again at the picture taped to the console. Stares and wonders. He remembers the struggle, out on the edge of sanity, where the pull of those fiery pins of light was almost too great… where the tug was in fact too great for some of the crew. She will not remember this. He remembers the fight, the struggle, to turn the ship back. He remembers the men that lost themselves to the blackness, who walked off the ship and into the nothingness. She will not. He remembers the siren call of the stars, how they begged for his company. She has never heard them speak, let alone sing.
He tries to clear his head, to shake loose these lingering thoughts of the stars beyond the stars, as the capsule jostles his tired body. A sharp jab of turbulence catches him off guard and he bites his tongue. He hears a curse growled in the cabin, and is surprised to realize it is his voice echoed back to him. Turbulence means atmosphere. Turbulence means he is moments from… his scowl quickly turns to a laugh: one of relief, of satisfaction – this man is going home.
But to what? It has been a year. The smile in the photograph seems so unfamiliar. But the feeling that tightens his chest, that feeling the stars could never provide, reminds him.
Falling. It is such an unnatural sensation.
by submission | Mar 28, 2011 | Story
Author : N. Thomas Parshall
Intro to Quantum Mechanics was the hardest class that I took during my junior year. String theory, field theory, and the Planck constant battered against the walls of my mind, and I was grasping none of it.
Weeks, than months passed and my grade continued to fall to the point where I was considering dropping the class. I had finally worked up the nerve to approach the professor when we had a guest lecturer that changed my mind and my life.
He called himself Dr. Charles Dodgson. From the chuckles, only two of my classmates got the reference. Dodgson shot the three of us a secretive little smile.
“What I’m here to talk about today is the mistaken belief of many of my colleagues in the wave function collapse of the Heisenberg Uncertainty. Now, now Professor. You know as well as I that the Multi Worlds Interpretation only gives the illusion of collapse in a single framework of observation.”
“But, what if, what if a mind could be trained to see past that illusion and follow all of the different wave paths? The observer always affects the observed. So I ask the question. Wouldn’t such a mind eventually be able to affect and interact with the observed wave paths?”
See, this is the part where everybody starts calling me a liar. I swear it’s true.
He turned and walked to the edge of the stage while standing still. He didn’t split in two like in the movies, or blur and morph. It’s just; one instant there was one and the next, two. They both grinned out at us.
Before we could call illusion, they both walked up to the professor and picked him up from either side. Putting the wild eyed man down, they continued to lecture in a bizarre stereo.
“What you have just seen is my interaction with a single alternate wave function, pulling another me from a different MWI. But, each action that each of us takes has trillions upon trillions of wave functions.” And they both turned and walked a few paces while standing still. “But they are all equally valid, and a trained mind can interact with them all. You may not believe me, but while I am here talking to you, I am also talking to classes in other cities, working as an auto mechanic, writing my third novel, and robbing a bank.”
He smiled his secretive little smile at us again.
“Actually, that last is happening in the quantum that you all perceive. And I’m sure all of you will shortly be questioned by the authorities, probably multiple times.” Three of him winked at us, turned and were gone. “All I can say is tell them the truth.
“On the quantum level, I’m not really here.”
And he turned and was gone.
The police came and asked their questions. They left unhappy with the answers, but the video of the lecture backed up all of our stories.
I did see Dr. Dodgson again. After my second interview with the police he came to me and offered me a position as his pupil.
I realize this makes me an accessory after the fact, but you see, officer, like Dr. Dodgson:
I’m not really here.
by submission | Mar 27, 2011 | Story
Author : Eric Poch
“So there’s nothing I can do?”
“That about sums it up, yes”
Martin had been pacing in a damp field for the better part of an hour, speaking to his companion in increasingly hostile tones.
“Then why the hell did you tell me!?” Martin rubbed his hands together. His palms were becoming soggy. The friendly tone of his companion did not change.
“Please understand, it’s nothing personal. It’s simply protocol, Martin”
His friend did not shout, or pace, or sweat. He simply stood in the wet grass; staring dreamily into space.
Martin increased his pace.
“But why do you have to tell me? Why do you have to tell anyone?”
There was a period of silence, during which his friend did not avert his eyes from the stars. Finally he answered.
“Guilt”
Martin stopped dead in his tracks and allowed himself a burst of hysterical laughter.
“Guilt?! Telling someone makes you feel guilty? So, what- the knowledge that you are destroying a planet isn’t enough to make you feel bad? You have to tell someone!?”
“Yes”
“WELL ISN’T THAT JUST PEACHY?!”
“Martin, please. You must understand…the process-”
“Don’t tell me.”
“But protocol dictates-”
“Don’t!”
“Martin-”
“LALALALALALA-”
Very well, said a cool voice in his head. If you will not listen, I will show you, Martin Denson.
Martin, who had clapped his hands over his ears in an attempt to drown out his friends voice, found himself suddenly staring into the empty void of space. The damp grass was no longer beneath his feet. In fact, there was literally nothing beneath his feat. The cool november air was sucked out of his lungs. He screamed, but there was no sound.
Don’t panic, said the voice in his head, You will not die.
The voice was soothing. Martin could feel his heartbeat slowing. He breathed in, and his lungs expanded, but not with oxygen. He breathed out, but it wasn’t carbon-dioxide.
Out of the darkness he began to see tiny pinpricks of light. As they swarmed around him, Martin realized they were stars. He reached out to one…
They are 36 light years away, Martin. You cannot touch them. Please, watch.
Martin look down- or more appropriately- beneath his feet, and saw the Earth. He watched it spin silently through the void.
Now…listen.
Martin closed his eyes.
…
He heard nothing, save the beating of his heart.
…
Then there was only silence.
…
Then… something beneath the silence… something that had been there all along. It was as old as the moon and the stars… a deep, bone-shaking wail of pain that he could feel the in back of his skull.
It was the Earth.
He began to cry. The tears froze to his face. He knew. He knew why the earth wept.
Watch, Martin.
He saw every human being; Every man, woman and child. He saw them going to work, skipping class, eating lunch, playing, murdering, screaming, praying…
And then he saw them fall asleep. All of them. All at the same time. They simply stopped what they were doing… laid down their heads ..and fell asleep.
And that was it.
Martin closed his eyes. He was back in the field. His friend was gone, and he was alone; standing in the wet grass.
He stood there for a while, staring into space. Finally he sat down, laid back on the grass, and closed his eyes.
For the first time in his life, Martin felt the earth turning beneath him.
by submission | Mar 26, 2011 | Story
Author : John Tudball
A chorus of personalised beeps and buzzing erupts from our laps and in record time we’re tapping on our Panels to see if this is the one, if this is the vote we’ve been waiting for. A chorus of groans, Pete swears at his screen. It’s not.
“What did you all go for?” Pete asks the room.
We all voted against. Before the PopularVote app was released, I’d stay up all night watching elections, cheering the political parties on. At work the next day running on just a couple hours sleep I’d always be shocked at all the fresh faces checking their news feeds and learning there and then who ran the country now. At night it felt like everyone cared, like everyone was with me. I hated finding out I’d been the minority. I couldn’t understand the apathy. Well this time I know I’m not alone. There’s nearly a hundred million users logged in.
Pete and Paula are trying to distract themselves with playing TotalArcade. Megan has a videolink up on her screen, watching the big demonstration in Hyde Park alongside clips from the BBC Comedy channel. I’ve got Gallup on my screen, all sorts of fancy graphs and charts trying to predict which way this will go. In this room, across the whole country, we’re all just waiting and everybody knows this.
Every party, every pressure group, every individual campaigner. Anyone with a license is flooding PopularVote with new legislation, trying to take advantage of the numbers to push their agendas before the main event comes through and we all leave.
You need two thirds support from at least forty million responses for a PopularVote to become law. Generally it takes a couple of weeks, sometimes months even. In the last three minutes sixty four million people shouted down the Defense Of Family’s proposed ban on gay marriage. Ten minutes ago a massive seventy three million citizens landed an even fifty-fifty split on increasing soldiers’ pay and before that a Mr Franklyn Neill lost his PV license when 99.9% of respondants did not back him being named president. What on earth would we need a president for when we’ve got PopularVote?
“Okay,” I say, “it’s going to come through in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… NOW!”
The chorus sings again. Everyone laughs but that stops quickly when check our screens. This is it. I vote For. I regret it immediately. When we argued it out last night it almost came to blows, but we all agreed we’d vote together and take the consequences together. I can barely breathe. In roughly thirty seconds we find out if we just declared war.
by Patricia Stewart | Mar 25, 2011 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
The ship shook violently as it unexpectedly dropped out or warp. The captain was thrown to the deck where he could feel the tell-tale vibrations of explosions occurring somewhere on the ship. He climbed to his feet and activated the communications console. “Bridge to Engineering. What’s going on Chief?”
“Unsure, Captain. We’re fighting several fires right now. I need some time to sort things out.”
“Make it quick, Chief. I want you to brief the senior staff in my ready room in one hour.”
*****
An hour later, Chief Cernan walked into the Captain’s Ready Room into the middle of a heated argument. “I demand a thorough investigation, Captain. I want to know who is responsible for this debacle.”
“You are an uninvited guest on my ship, Mr. Harris. You are in no position to make demands,” rebutted the captain. “Civilians don’t belong on experimental missions.”
“I’m not a ‘civilian’. I am the personal representative of Senator Schmitt, and if you think…”
“I’ll deal with you later,” interrupted the captain without apology. “Chief, what’s our condition?”
“Precarious, Captain. The Alcubierre drive is undamaged, but the subspace heat exchanger is completely destroyed. Since the efficiency of the anti-matter reaction is so low, we’ll vaporize the ship if we can’t bleed-off the excess energy into subspace.”
“So, you’re telling me that we have warp drive, we just can’t use it”
“Not exactly, sir,” replied Cernan. “We can run the wrap drive, but only until it overheats. Then we have to shut it down until the engines radiate the excess heat into normal space. I estimate that we can run the engines for two seconds, with a cool off cycle of 24 hours. At that rate, it will take us about five years to get home.”
“Five years,” screamed Harris. “That’s unacceptable! You can’t expect me to sit around hear while you incompetent fools…”
The captain slammed is fist onto the top of the conference table and yelled, “That’s enough out of you, Mr. Harris. You say one more word and I’ll throw you into an escape pod and we’ll tow you back to Earth.”
The chief suddenly smiled. “Hey, captain, that a great idea.”
“The hell it is,” exclaimed Harris!
The chief waved a dismissive hand at Harris. “I’m not talking about you. I mean we can deploy the sixteen escape pods into two large octagons and fill in the space between them with sheets of polyaluminum. I’ll fabricate superconductive tethers and tie them into the nacelles. That should radiate the excess heat a hundred times faster. We can probably make it home in about three weeks.”
“Still unacceptable,” bellowed Harris. “I have important meetings to atten…”
There was a flash of light and Harris collapsed to the floor. The captain looked at the settings on his phaser and muttered, “Damn, it was set on ‘stun’. Too bad.” The captain looked up and smiled at the shocked expressions on the faces of his senior staff. “Relax, gentlemen. It’s one of the privileges of being so close to retirement. Besides I’ve wanted to do that since that blowhard forced me to take him aboard. He also needs to learn that there are consequences to ignoring the commands of the ship’s captain. Lieutenant Irwin, when Chief Cernan deploys the escape pods, make sure Mr. Harris is in one of them with enough food and water for a month. And please, disable the intercom. I’ve listened to his babbling long enough. Dismissed.”
