Carl T. Ward
Jun 9, 2016 | Sci-fi, 1st pages
INTRODUCTION
In downtown Philadelphia, a slight breeze compliments the unusually warm weather. The upper 90 degree temperatures during late autumn are uncharacteristically warm for the northeast states, but no one can explain why. Many experts blame it on the sudden increase in mining operations while others point at the shrinking polar ice caps. However, the government officials consider their theories as simply “theories” and continue to do what they think would be best for the economy.
A few short years earlier, the discovery of Trevistium had the entire world buzzing. The new metal was dense, yet solid and infused with diamonds. Its stock nearly tripled that of any other. Almost every country took part in the race to acquire what was commonly referred to as T-Grade. Thus far, none of them had been able to gain an edge. One thing was for certain though: whoever controlled it would be established as the one true global power.
Geologists gave warnings about the consequences involving the increased mining activity. However, no one listened because they seldom had proof to back their claims. There were similar doomsday predictions early in the twenty-first century, but thus far none had come to pass. Congress was starting to get frustrated with their inaccuracies and discussed cutting their financial support altogether.
There was another issue starting to get the attention of the powers that be. Nearly ten years earlier, a slew of diseases nearly wiped out half of the population. Somehow, these diseases were able to adapt and ultimately became immune to treatments. Now there was a new threat taking the world by storm.
Remotollinaextraverdia, or Rx as it was known worldwide, was unlike anything they had ever seen before. Rx contained traits of Sickle Cell Disease, autoimmune diseases, neurological conditions like Myasthenia Gravis and Cerebral Palsy, cancer, and Lupus. A series of unexplained seizures and collapses led to its discovery, and shortly thereafter, the death rate spiked.
Alexander Ferrick
Jun 3, 2016 | Sci-fi, 1st pages
Prologue
In the year 2043, the World changed for the worse. No one really noticed it at the time, but the ramifications of the technology event that occurred would alter the course of history. A young man named Jordan Reagan and some of his friends from college launched a start-up. Jordan was a computer programmer, and among his colleagues were a neurologist, a surgeon and an electrical engineer. Their company didn’t have an IPO. It didn’t get any coverage in the news at the time, but their little start-up put an end to life as they knew it.
It all started with a rather innocent idea: What if everything we currently see on screens and read in books, we could instead experience? What if we didn’t just watch our entertainment, or read our messages? What if we could see, feel, hear and smell all of it? Jordan and his friends asked those questions, and they devised a technology that could answer them. A little chip, implanted in their hand, and a chair that emitted very specific wavelengths of light into their eyes, and they could trick their mind into seeing whatever they wanted it to, and they could make a computer on the other end respond to the mind’s impulses. With that little chip, Jordan and his friends gave birth to a new generation of interactive virtual reality, which would become known as psycho-cybernetics, but they really did much more than that.
As the technology grew, the government noticed, and they were more than willing to use this new source of information. The CIA assassinated the little start-up’s founders, and the government seized the chip’s copyright from Jordan’s widow, citing national security. By 2054, almost every man, woman, and child in the developed world had a chip. They became so ubiquitous that no one really noticed when the last few conscientious objectors were rounded up and put in prison.
The year is now 2072, and although Jordan may be dead, his creation lives on.
Tom Greenwood
Jun 3, 2016 | Sci-fi, 1st pages
‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ – Clarke’s Third Law
Wullum Groth: Part 1
Year of the Tuatara
Lost in his thoughts, Wullum Groth drove across the darkening Estoonian plain towards the multi-coloured Spoke. He was now alone and on the final stretch of his drive across two continents. Even though it had been a long couple of weeks, it was strange how everything you accept can change so radically so quickly. With hindsight, the insurrection was obvious, but at the time, it had been unthinkable.
He felt himself falling asleep; he tried to alleviate the boredom of the drive by thinking about the coup. What was its first sign? Perhaps it was the assassination of his friend Pol Lon and the disappearance of Pol Lon’s partner.
He started to cough. He knew his lungs had been damaged in the gas attack and the subsequent fight which he and his four now-deceased friends and colleagues had had on the northern coast of Estoo. He suspected that the gas had done too much damage to his lungs for him to survive much longer.
Nevertheless, if he could outrun his pursuers and hold on for a couple more days, he would have succeeded.
As the inner sphere grew opaque and night fell, he got his first glimpse of the Spoke that attached the ground to the sky. He desperately hoped that the insurrectionists had not reached it first.
Wullum drove on through the night. His eyes grew heavy and the wound in his left arm ached, there was no point stopping to rest now. The truck drove over a pothole as he felt his eyes close, jolting him awake. Concentrate on the mission.
Then as the sky brightened, revealing the red sun high above him, something made him look back. Under the indistinct horizon, where the ground curved up to meet the cloud-line, he thought he could see one, no two aircraft. “Shit!” he said. They would be looking for him and his prized cargo.
I. James Forrest
Jun 3, 2016 | Sci-fi, 1st pages
It suddenly appeared from the cold vacuum of hyperspace.
The black vessel materialized stopping instantly with its leading edges still glowing bright orange, the consequence of folding space. It was the size of a small comet, with a length of four, half that in width and a quarter that in height. The majority of the ship’s mass was concentrated in the center before tapering off to a fine edge in all directions giving it soft organic curves. Within minutes two more identical shaped vessels appeared taking up station on either side. These ships were gargantuan in comparison, ten times the size.
They had jumped out of hyperspace perpendicular to the heliocentric orbital plane in this solar system, above an asteroid belt. Beyond these barren rocks, in the direction of deep space, were three planets, gas giants; little else could be detected beyond that.
The smaller lead ship with its three member crew launched, at quarter light speed, six hundred circular orbs, measuring an arm span in diameter. Half of the spheres were directed around the current star system and the remaining orbs were dispatched in various directions that would take them to distant stars. Each probe had an energy cell that would power it beyond the next millennium as it continuously transmitted. These probes were identical to the ones dropped on their journey here.
It three sleep cycles the assessment of the outer planets revealed neither sentient life nor the rare element they searched for. Minerals from the outer debris field were blocking the scans. One of the autonomous mining vessels was directed off towards the outer edge in hopes of obtaining a better reading; the lead ship and the remaining autonomous ore processer turned in the direction of the yellow star and trained all sensors to the inner four planets.
In twenty of their planet’s orbit only four scanner strikes were made of the rare mineral, all emanating from this young star system. Movement of their planet, the rotation of these planets and any number of rogue comets and asteroids between the two stars could have affected the results. The scanner contacts could be four distinct sites or only one. It was a promising prospect that their entire planet’s society was counting on and the reason these three unique untested vessels traveled the 1400 light year to find out. Without that rare element the days of space travel and the planets future would come to an end.
One sleep cycle later the lead ship detected the rare element they came for on the third planet with a bluish tinged atmosphere and a small orbiting moon.
Jennifer-Crystal Johnson
May 31, 2016 | Sci-fi
Anna Reynolds didn’t know it yet, but she was caught up in the middle of an interdimensional conspiracy. Her life seemed ordinary enough: a house, a job, a best friend, an SUV, and hardships in her past. She would soon discover a much deeper meaning to her existence that neither she nor her lively friend could have even begun to imagine.
“Hey, you,” Anna said, flashing a bright, happy smile at her best friend. Though she smiled, her head was clouded with anxiety.
“Hey yourself!” Casey beamed. They embraced and took a seat at their favorite table, immediately ordering a bottle of wine.
“You wouldn’t believe the crazy week I’ve had,” Casey confided, decisively setting down her menu after just a couple of minutes. Casey Carlisle always knew what she wanted; sometimes she went a little overboard to get it, but she always knew.
Anna smiled, ready to hear all about her friend’s crazy life to distract her from the strange events that had been plaguing her own. She couldn’t deny it – Casey had a much more chaotic life than Anna did, but Anna was a loner at heart. She liked to be home, to be quiet and surrounded by peace. The rush and chaos of Casey’s life fascinated Anna, but she appreciated that she only witnessed it from afar and didn’t live it on a daily basis. She got exhausted just listening sometimes, wondering how in the world Casey did it all. Then again, she was younger than Anna by about seven years. Maybe that was why she had so much energy.
“So after the stupid cop pulled me over, she seriously accused me of not wearing my seatbelt. Twice! With all three of the kids in the car. And she was so rude about it that it made me hate that cops have any kind of power at all. I seriously wanted to punch her in the throat,” she concluded, giggling. Anna had to laugh because she knew that Casey would never act on her violent ravings.
“Did she end up giving you a ticket?” she asked, wondering if Casey was really over it or just doing her laugh-to-hide-the-anger thing.
“Of course!” Casey exclaimed, feeding the fire in her eyes. “I’m contesting it on principle. There was absolutely no reason for her to be that rude to me or make unfounded accusations in front of my kids. She changed her story the second time she accused me, too, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was a lie and she was digging for something else to give me a ticket for. Anyone who knows me can vouch that I wear my seatbelt to cross the damn parking lot.” She paused, thinking about her kids. “I mean, what kind of idiot cop talks to a mother like that in front of her kids? The kids no longer respect the police. Jason asked me if cops are really the good guys after we left. She just did damage to years of trying to teach them that police officers are there to help!”
Bonnie Milani
May 30, 2016 | 1st pages, Featured, Sci-fi
That woman smelled of trouble the first time I saw her. If I’d known just how much trouble that’d be, I probably would’ve cut and run right then. Probably.
Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have noticed her at all, except it was eight bells, station day. That was too early for my evening crowd, and too late for the poor sots who’d been in here when Bayliss and his Sec team arrived.
The usual run of deckhands and pickpockets hadn’t made it up from Hell yet, because dockside shifts on Bogue Dast Station didn’t change for another hour. So both my bar and the corridor outside it were close to empty when she stopped to read the ‘Rick’s Bar’ sign flashing above my hatch.
The in-draft wafted her scent to me clear as good air: worry, tinged with fear. Nothing unusual in that kind of scent, not down here on V Deck. Nothing unusual in her, either. Her graying hair looked home-cropped, her face gray-tired. Not at all the kind of woman who usually starts gin joint blood matches. She was wrapped in one of those big black greatcoats, the kind favored by quacks and faith healers all across the Commonwealth rim. That coat could mean trouble – folks on the wrong end of quackery don’t usually live long enough to finish paying their station fees.
And another unexplained death in my vicinity was the last thing I needed just now. Only that wasn’t what got my attention. What perked my ears was that somehow she made me think suddenly of warm kitchens and sweet smells and my wife’s good cooking.
“You want help with the clean up?” Calhoun, the younger of my two visiting clansmen, lifted a silver-tipped ear in question. Thanks to Bayliss, my bar was empty except for them. Well, them and a couple of shipless drunks snoring on the counter.
The sound of his voice made the woman squint in at us. Maybe it was the way we all three perked ears at her that put her off. Or maybe it was the amber gleam of our eyes in the dimness of the bar. Lupan night eyes always make human-onlys nervous for some reason. Whatever the cause, she moved on. But I had a feeling she’d be back.
I wasn’t sure I liked the feeling. I told myself it didn’t matter. Calhoun was right. I needed to get the place cleaned up before the evening crowd showed. I shook my head and ruffled the mane between his ears to let him know I appreciated the offer.
