by submission | May 13, 2016 | Story |
Author : Rollin T. Gentry
He was one of seven paintings of the faces of cats and dogs.
In watercolor and India ink on stark white backgrounds, they were all rather cartoony, but Hangdog — that was the nickname I made up the first time I saw him — he was something special.
He was the most expensive piece in the exhibition and for good reason: his droopy ears, sagging jowls, and tight frown drew you in from halfway across the room; his half-green half-blue coloration said I’m sad, but you don’t have to be; his uneven eyes made you see a nose that wasn’t there. I felt an inexplicable urge to grab a Sharpie and give him the nose he deserved. It was as if this odd painting demanded interaction, required my whole attention.
He could have been all mine for two hundred bucks, and it would have been a good investment, even if he’d been an ordinary picture. The look on his face alone would have been worth every penny. It was a familiar expression that made me want to reach through the glass and offer him some sort of comfort, perhaps a dog biscuit or a scratch behind the ears.
I’m not sure exactly when or how I figured out that Hangdog was real. It must have been the result of some unseen leakage of psychic energies transferred over many listless lunch breaks. It’s amazing the things you can learn while simply staring at the right piece of art.
And by “real” I mean just that: a living, breathing, thinking “person” for lack of a better word — just not from here — a scientist peering into our world for the first time, his experiment the culmination of a lifetime’s worth of diligent study and persistence. But on his side of the frame, time passed slower than here. That explained why he never seemed to move.
Even though I must have looked like a blur, like a fruit fly in a bottle, wasting away the precious moments of my fast-forward life, he had noticed me. He liked me, in fact. In his notebook he referred to me as Lonely Man, and he wished he could pet my balding head. And I could have been all his — or at least a real-time streaming view of me — for a bazillion, bazillion bones, the price of the entire laboratory where he worked.
But like me, Hangdog was strapped for cash. He did the best he could and snuck a hologram of me back to his doghouse. On the last day of the exhibition, I waited until no one was watching and snapped a picture with my phone — just an ordinary photo, a keepsake.
The next day, Hangdog was gone.
by submission | May 10, 2016 | Story |
Author : Kevlin Henney
Morning light, autumn flickering a shadowplay across the curtains. Bright and windy out there, perfect for a walk — perhaps the woods? No need to rush, but it would be good to get out of the house. The kids will drag their heels to the door, to the car and all the way there. I’ll be telling them to hurry up, but at the first sight of sticks and mud they’ll be off.
Last week was busy. And the week before. And…
Yesterday rebalanced the scales a little, a slow day, all of us glued to screens and couches. We need more days like that, days where we can slow down, repace life, disconnect from a flow that has become a torrent.
I look to the empty half of the bed. Clocks went back last night. This Sunday lie-in has cost me nothing, but you’ve cashed in the extra hour. The household buzz suggests kids, TV, Xbox and dishwasher are all on.
But it feels like too much of the day has passed already. Perhaps my lie-in is not for free? I reach for my clock. Damn. The automatic hour change has messed it up — the minutes are flickering and the hour is way off. Reaching for my glasses, I hold my finger down on the reset button.
Yours too? Purring not ticking, hands race round the face like a track. Not sure I know how to fix that on your clock.
On your manually set clock.
Now through glasses I look again at the curtains. The light is more shadowplay than autumn. Everything has become sharper. Not sharper in focus — which seems to elude me — but sharper in colour. Colours are glowing, vibrant, effervescent. Wrong. Sounds are sharper. Higher. That’s more wavering high-pitched whistle than household buzz.
As I rise the covers fall back with surprising suddenness. I pull back the curtains. They resist and shudder, then sway and tremor with a flourish I don’t intend. But it’s not me. It’s not my intention, not my action, not me that’s at fault. It’s everything — everything else.
Fluorescent clouds race across a cobalt sky, a green-rinsed sun volleys behind them, blurs of colour and long-exposure trails along the street, impressions of cars, auras of people, shimmering trees with pools of blue-tinged leaves lapping at their trunks.
Beautiful. But I don’t understand.
Then a buzz. An insect? No, a whistling cry. I turn. You are standing, off-colour and coffee in hand. In your hand one moment. On the floor, spilt, cup broken the next. You are sketched and retraced, your detail and outline a blur, your mouth flickering, but your face one of constant fear.
You point. Not at the time-lapse world playing through the window but at me.
You point. It’s a question.
“What’s happening? I don’t understand,” I answer.
But you are gone. Between moments, one frame and the next, you disappear, a lingering impression of wide eyes and an open mouth. I miss what must have been the scream.
by submission | May 8, 2016 | Story |
Author : Tanmaya Dabral
The Earth was dying. And all the genius of human beings couldn’t do anything about it. They had terraformed even the most uninhabitable regions of Earth: the Antarctic enjoyed lush green forests and loam covered the entire Sahara. And yet, it was not enough for a population of 38 billion. More Earths were needed.
Shay looked to the heavens for the millionth time that morning: clouds, birds, planes, drones, the Sun, and of course, the Arc. And for the millionth time that morning, the sight filled her with motherly pride. It still seemed a bit unreal to her. It had taken an immeasurable amount of human genius distilled over seven centuries and several generations to birth that colossal structure.
In 1994, when Miguel Alcubierre had first suggested the possibility of faster-than-light travel without violating General Relativity, the world had laughed at him. The absurdity of the proposal aside, the logistics had made it utterly unthinkable. A dozen solar masses worth of energy was required to set up the warp. But the humans found a way, like they always do. Seven centuries of tweaking the shape of the warp bubble had finally brought the required energy down to a few thousand kilograms. Compared to her predecessors, Shay herself had played a relatively minor role in it. And yet, it was under her leadership that the physical construction of the Arc took place. It was her secret guilt. But she knew that it couldn’t have happened at a better time. Terraforming of Kepler-186f and Tau ceti B had to be started now, if the human race was to have any chance of survival. She cursed the fragile human body when she realized that she would be dead millennia before the terraforming completes.
Hearing her name called out from the numerous floating loudspeakers broke her out of her reverie: “… only be fair to welcome the director of RAM, Dr. Shay Snow, to say a few words on this momentous occasion and initiate the launch sequence…” She sighed inwardly as uncountable cameras targeted her. This is not what she signed up for. She stole a glance at the Arc for the million and first time that morning, then shifted her gaze to the terra-pods, ready for launch, before finally settling it on the biggest camera she could find. “Thank you, Dr. Greyjoy”, she started. “My fellow humans, as we all know…”
From the other side of the event horizon of V404 Cygni, the Watchers observed their favorite universe. Their countenance twisted into what a mortal could only decipher as lament. The cancer had metastasized.
by submission | May 7, 2016 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
“Everyone back from Charon?” Captain Swanson paced about the control center of Abraxas. His bullish voice rattled younger officers as Swanson towered above at seven feet, his glimmering blue eyes set against his callow Cajun skin.
“Sir,” replied Ensign Pallute, fresh from the Saturn Academy. “All present. Doctor Reynolds requests an immediate conference, sir.”
“Does she? Tell her to meet me in sickbay after she’s been decontaminated.”
“Aye,” replied the timid ensign. Her hair shimmered in twists of colored bands specific to her tribe. Her extra fingers slid over the control panel lights, sensing hundreds of ship conditions.
“Transfer control to my visor, Pallute. I’ll be with Reynolds.”
Swanson stepped into the transfer tube, proceeding to rendezvous while commanding remotely. He entered sickbay with disregard for isolation protocols.
“Thank God,” Reynolds said, sweeping her raven hair away from her face as the cleansing fans blew used decon virals off her suit. “We’ve got to turn back. I witnessed those holographic eyes while translating the carvings. The ruin’s messages penetrated me with a flush of electrical charge…and knowing.”
“Edith,” Swanson interrupted, “This is science, not religious fervor. I only want to know if mountains of processed rare earths are there, as our probes showed. Then we’re on our way, outside the system. I just heard the Charon Message Protesters on Mars are so insane that some jumped from the Face yesterday, claiming disaster if we proceed. Surely you aren’t supporting that hysteria?”
“Yes, the priceless minerals are all there, waiting like cheese for us, but that wasn’t a warning someone left on Charon—it was a threat. We must not go deeper into the Kuiper Belt.”
Swanson felt her terror but shook it off as simply her symptoms after visiting the flashing vistas first discovered in 2032, emanating from the Kubrick Mons. Charon hallucinations affected anyone studying the light show, even from video recordings. The phenomenon was studied for years before the decision to send Abraxas into deep space.
“What threat?”
“The exact translation? Do not go past this ring. You are impure. The punishment is relinquishment.”
“Hogwash, Reynolds. Those are myths for the mindless, not us. That feeds those mobs on Mars chanting their ring-pass-not pabulum. We’re better than that. I don’t scare easy. Maybe those carvings are ancient…but most likely, they are the work of the Moon cartels that want to control mineral rights out here through intimidation. You know the Moonies are famous for head games. I could care less. I appreciate your report, but we’ll make way. This is one captain that is not going to relinquish an inch.”
Swanson pressed pads on his control belt, alerting his command ensign. “Pallute, go to full power and chart a path through the Belt. Increase the magnetic shields in case we encounter one of those pockets the probes detected two years ago.”
“Aye,” Pallute replied—the last word she would ever speak. Threads of violet sparkles rose from Charon, penetrating the ship’s hull, touching each crew member. At each infiltration sizzling spittles of light shot back from the Abraxas, back to the origins of the crew’s DNA. The ship disappeared, then colonies throughout the planets, and then human life on Earth as the history of the human species was erased for all time.
A crew of reptilians was next to hover over Charon, waiting for their crew’s archaeologists and miners to return and report before their first attempt at penetrating the expanse of the Kuiper Belt, beyond the flashing lights coming from Pluto’s largest moon.
by submission | May 5, 2016 | Story |
Author : Ian Clarke
Professor Rogers said, “The way we measure and mark points in time is completely artificial and irrelevant to time travel, using clocks and calendars to locate points in time is impossible. Without a reference point we have no means to locate the time we want to go to.”
The student replied, “Yes I agree but what if we could step out of the time stream then select the time location and re-emerge there?”
The Professor thought about this as he sipped his coffee, these conversations usually depended on fantasy. This time however he decided not to dismiss it out of hand but to see how far David had developed this idea. “How would you do that?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“OK,” David began, “we know that all elements have their own resonant frequencies and by harmonizing with it’s frequency, we can affect the structure of an object.”
The Professor agreed, “Yes, like sound breaking glass.”
David continued, “If we manipulate the resonance of an object correctly, then it would shift out of this dimension and time, by controlling the parameters of the frequency, we control the shift.”
Professor Rogers acknowledged the logic but an obvious question occurred to him,
“To control it, it would have to be self contained with a power source and complex frequency generator all with exactly the same resonant frequency, how is that possible?” he asked.
“By building a shell from one pure element and isolating the mechanism inside from the shell, only the shell needs to resonate and when it shifts out of this dimension it carries everything inside with it.” David explained.
It seemed like he was being drip fed enough information to raise the next obvious question.
“So how would you find the event in time that you want to travel to?” Asked Rogers.
“When you alter an objects resonance it becomes transparent, from inside you can see where you are in the time stream,” David said, “by carefully adjusting the parameters of the frequency you can control the speed, distance and direction of travel.”
There was something about the way David said this that made Rogers think he had already experimented, “Have you tried this?” he found himself asking, he was reluctant to think it was possible but followed up with “Do you have a prototype?”
David reached down into his backpack by his feet and produced a metal capsule about the size of a wine bottle without a neck, he gave it a twist and it came apart in two sections exposing the innards. It had a couple of simple controls inside, he pressed a button, screwed it back together, laid it on the table and in a few seconds it vanished.
Professor Rogers was stunned, “Wait, what happ…? Where did it go?” he blurted out, uncertain if he wanted to know the answer.
“It’s still there” said David “but no longer in this dimension. It can only be controlled from within so this model has a predetermined time shift, our timeline will catch up in a minute.”
Rogers frantically tried to absorb it all, “Is it that simple?” he thought to himself, “No Wormholes, no Warp Drive just a simple change of frequency?”
As he stared at the empty space, the biggest question in his mind was, “How could a student come up with this?”
When the capsule reappeared Professor Rogers had a sudden and shocking realisation,
“So you have travelled back in time to demonstrate this to me.”
“Yes” David said “but it was important to locate the time when you were ready to accept it, come with me.”
