EMERGENT BEHAVIOR

Deepak Bharathan

The first time I walked into the room, I melted. And no, I don’t mean that figuratively. It wasn’t pleasant. Dying almost never is.

Then the Consciousness Conveyor took its sweet time in getting to me. ‘Under 30 minutes’ was the worst marketing slogan that the Hospital ever came up with. But, for some reason, they stuck to it.

The re-lifing process left a sour taste in my mouth every time and increased my insurance premium – both of which I didn’t enjoy much.

“Mech Harren, right? Just making sure I re-lifed the right guy.” He hollered with laughter. The only thing worse than dying was re-lifing to a Hospital Tech with a bad sense of humor.

“You caught us right on the dot, ‘muv. Another couple of hours and real-time support for this section of Luna goes off-grid. It ain’t fun waiting for four days for re-lifing.”

I was licking my mouth to get rid of the taste. That sometimes helped. Then I realized that I lost forty-eight minutes from the memory stream this time. I was hoping that they looped the surroundings program by the time I came back round – but they hadn’t. All I was left with was a slight headache and a forty-eight minute difference between my memories and the internet chronograph.

“Sorry, ‘muv. For some reason, the program hasn’t looped yet. We’ll send you an update soon. Try not to die again in the next four days.”

Before I could tell him how disgusting it was that the Hospital thought it was okay that I walk around with a forty-eight minute blank in my memory, the tech was gone.

Lunar mining was a one of those fancy projects where automatons took care of the entire operation and once a year an unlucky Mech had to come up here and check that things were running smoothly. And, this time, I was that agony aunt to $8.3 trillion dollars of trinkets extracting Helium-3 from moon rocks. And on day one, the trinkets had already killed me once. This was going to be one long week.

The mining company had the worst HR policies. In the thousands of years that humans had been mining on Earth and beyond, that’s one thing that had remained consistent. I reminded myself again why I stuck around: the money was good.

I double-checked the radiation levels, triple-checked thermal safeties and quadruple-checked temperature ranges in the mining chamber before entering again. This time I didn’t die. So far so good. The paperwork on why the thermal spike did not register on my equipment the first time was going to be painful.

After the first series of mining chamber checks were done, I tried to catch a movie on the holoviewer. The quality was so bad that I gave up after 10 minutes. Those cheapskates at HQ! I promised myself again that I was going to look for a new job when I got back home. It looked like entertainment was not on my agenda. I decided to call it a night – earth night, because Luna was still 8 earth days away from ending her day.

Before drifting off to sleep, I wondered again why half of humanity was on a non-addictive drug called ‘Molten Java’ which made you stay awake for 72 hours with no side effects. Half the population was giving up on sleep, it was ridiculous.

The first item on my agenda: external mechanical abrasion test – which was just a fancy term for manually sweeping the exterior of the station with my scanner to check for micro-asteroid dents. I’ve got no clue why we still did this stuff. Someone once told me that it had to do something with off-Earth insurance rates.

I suited up, pulled down the outer shell and walked out to inspect the inner shell of the mining station. Kian called as soon as I stepped out. She was mad about me forgetting Tris’ birthday. I asked her why poodles needed birthdays. Probably not a good idea, but the upside was that she hung up immediately. I continued looking for those phantom abrasions.

Two hours in, unsurprisingly, no abrasions turned up. One of these days I should just call up HQ and freak out that there was a huge crater on the shell just to see what the reaction would be. Of course, that wouldn’t really work because my visor was constantly pinging HQ relaying real-time stats.

Then my helmet went crazy. I thought it was Kian calling up to give me an earful, but then I realized there was no incoming call. It was a meteor shower warning! Or more accurately – a meteor shower without warning. In all my years of coming up here, this was a first! The satellite sensors had not picked it up. And I needed to get my ass back to the dome and put up the outer protective shell or these little dust mites were going to bore into the mining operation. And, of course, drill into my space suit. Dying two times in two days? The company would blow a gasket when they saw the expense report.

Four minutes to impact.

I rushed back to the door of the dome. Seventy eight meters in lunar gravity sounds easy, but the off-white monkey suit made it painful to make any sudden movements. After I finally made it to the door, it wouldn’t open. The doors of the center were coded to respond to the security imprint of the Mech’s suit, so that they just sort of swoosh open as soon as we show up in front of it. I just stared disbelievingly at the door for twenty seconds before realizing that it definitely wasn’t going to open.

Two minutes to impact.

I went over to the back entrance forty meters away – no avail. The security system did not like my suit today. There was only one way to get the outer shell up. They were not going to be happy, but it was far better than having holes on the mining center. I dialed HQ. Thankfully, Kat picked up. She was one of the good ones and she liked me. I encouraged it. It was always a good idea to have a service operator on your side.

One minute to impact.

For a second I hesitated whether getting the shell down or the door up was preferable. The dome was more expensive than my body. Ugh…the sour taste of re-lifing – again!

“Kat, I need you to override the outer shell control,” I shouted into my visor

“OK. Let me get the log files…”

“NOW, Kat! Aren’t your sensors picking up the meteor shower?”

“What meteor shower?” At that precise moment, my visor stopped flashing. What the…?

“The weather service shows no meteor shower anywhere in the area. Where are you getting the data from?” she asked.

Talk about awkward conversations – a Mech who can’t read his visor properly. This was going to crack up the service operators down there.

“I… saw a weather service warning flash up on my visor. It’s gone now,” I sounded unconvincing even to myself.

“Gone? What do you mean gone?”

“Exactly what you heard. My visor was going crazy with the warning a minute ago.”

“Our diagnostics show the suit working optimally. And we didn’t register any warnings,” she was adamant.

“Well, what can I say? I saw it. Anyway, nix the service request. I’ll run a diagnostic on the display later up here too.”

“Have you been exceeding the recommended dose of Molten J?” she asked. I could sense a tinge of concern in her voice.

“No. I’ve been sleeping. Like people ought to be doing. Bye.”

This trip was not going well at all. Getting back home, despite the poodle’s birthday, was starting to sound better every minute. The rest of the sweep was, thankfully, uneventful. Jin, my supervisor, called up right after to give me an earful on how my trip here was causing him a massive pain in his surgically retrofitted rear, and made it clear that he did not care to hear another thing about me until I got back down there. I mumbled an apology, which I’m sure the bastard did not bother to hear.

After a few more routine checks, I was ready to hit the sack. Since there was no other entertainment available, all I could hope for was to fall asleep quickly. Then the lights started blinking.

Off… On… Off… On… What the…? I waded to the control panel. System diagnosis was blinking a nice green indicating that everything was fine. Oh joy! I tried rebooting the lights panel, but it did not respond.

Two more minutes of this blinking and I was ready to run out of the airlock without my suit on. So, grudgingly, for the sake of my sanity I decided to call HQ. Kat picked up again.

“Kat, the lights are blinking…,” I croaked

“I’m sorry?”

“The fucking lights in the center – they are blinking,” I hollered.

She hesitated for a second before speaking again. “The panel logs says all systems are normal,” she offered.

“Yup, I’m staring at a nice green light on the panel which says that too. But the lights are blinking nevertheless.”

“Hold on,” she said. After what seemed like a lifetime of night-and-day blinking past me, she came back on. This time her voice sounded gravely concerned. “Are you okay?”

“I would volunteer to say no. Since it feels like inside the mind of a drug-infused rock star in here,” I told her.

“Your records show that it’s been twenty-two months since your last psych diagnostic” she said quietly.

“My last psych…?” Did she think I was going crazy?

“The video feed shows no lights blinking,” she said.

Oh yes, the center had video feed automatically spooling in the HQ data center. I couldn’t see the feed myself because those cheapskates had installed no terminals here.

“Kat, the lights are blinking,” I said louder. I remember thinking that I shouldn’t have shouted – the poor kid was only trying to help. Either this was the worst practical joke ever, or I really needed that psych evaluation pronto.

“Can you take the recommended dosage of Molten Java? Maybe sleep is putting additional strain on you.”

“Sleep does not…,” I started, but there was no use explaining it to her. But I sure as hell wished someone would explain all of this to me.

“I think maybe a stroll outside would help.” I volunteered, mostly to myself.

“Maybe your re-lifing left a few bumps. I’ll let the Hospital know.” she offered

“Thanks.” And I cut off communications.

I suited up and walked out of the station. The next series of checks were not due for three hours. As I wandered through the relatively empty landscape, I could see the faint lights of Copernicus Prime – the largest lunar city on the near side of the moon. It was about 350 kilometers away from here. Maybe I should go there and get a drink instead of returning to that broken station, I thought.

But even as I thought that, I considered if it was the station that was broken or me. Despite the commonplace occurrence of re-lifing, the process was still not completely riskless. Statistically 1 in 100 produced some sort of anomaly – a ‘bump’. Most issues were minor, but in some acute cases the memory stream was corrupted and the new body wouldn’t ‘take’ the brain pattern. It was a rather slow drifting into oblivion for the patient. The Hospital called it Memory Stream Alzheimer’s after a now-cured disease from the last century. I desperately hoped that this was not the case with my re-lifing yesterday.

Of course, there was an upper limit to the re-lifing process itself – after a few tens of times, systemic error in the brain wave pattern made it impossible to reliably transmit without errors. About 10% of humanity, the paranoid lot, had not even hooked up to a memory stream storage service – opting out of re-lifing completely.

The lunar surface was supposed to have a calming effect on many people. Sadly I was not one of them. Lunar yoga had taken off with a cross-section of vacationers. The stretchy spacesuits looked weird, but were probably better than the gargantuan thing that I had on. But there were no vacationers near the mining operation. Occasionally there were protestors, with neon signs hoping, quite stupidly, to make my employer realize how mining was destroying the solar system. Today, there was nobody. I kept strolling.

I heard the whirring noise through my headset before I saw the rover. It was one of older buggies at the station. No one had needed it in a while. I recall only one mission when a Mech had to use the buggy for a short ride to pick up a piece of electronics that had been ejected from the station; and that was years ago. And now, that buggy – with no one at its wheel – was making for a collision course with me. It seemed straight out of a scene from an old campy horror show.

So, do you run from or fight an unmanned moon buggy? For a few seconds, I wasn’t sure what to do. There was no use trying to outrun the rover. On the other hand, how do you fight a rover? It wasn’t moving too fast – but in a low-g scenario with partially exposed electronics on the rover, I wasn’t sure what the damage would be if it rammed into me. I didn’t want to find out if I could help it.

I moved out of the way and it changed course. I did it again, and the buggy adjusted its course – no doubt, it wanted to sock into me. A rover with no intelligent guidance system, save for a basic hook-up to the lunar SatNav, was heading straight for me for some reason.

I stood still for a few seconds and let the vehicle approach. It was already at top speed, so I knew exactly how long it was until it got to my side. I needed it to get closer – 1.5 meters to be exact. After doing the math in my head, I started counting down – 3… 2… not yet, not yet… now! I shot the handler out of the pouch on the left hand of the suit.

The handler was a 1.5 meter long titanium rope with a hook normally used for scaling lunar craters or the top of the mining station dome if the need ever came to be. It never had for me. I was testing it for the first time on a rouge buggy.

The hook placed right on the dash and engaged the vacuum cups immediately. I tugged at it with all the strength I could muster. The vehicle turned for a second – that’s all I needed. Instead of ramming into me, it swooshed a few centimeters from my body. I jumped into the open rover. An image of taming wild horses suddenly flashed through my mind. As I got into the seat, the rover shut down. No sputtering, no slowing down – just instant shutdown. I just sat there calmly for a few minutes. No sense in getting out and letting buggy-stein chase me again.

Keep Reading

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Jeffrey G. Roberts

I stand looking into my open grave. Except it isn’t in the beautiful white sandy beach I find myself on, but above me – some 5000 feet. Like a wound in the sky, I stare at it; it stares back at me – eternal, immortal, frozen in time. The old phrase, ‘what happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force’ always intrigued me. No more. Now I know. I know – because I caused this. Not God, not the devil, not malevolent nations. Me.

I could warn all the girls on my private island. I could tell my servants and staff to run. I could email everyone on the face of the Earth, to take cover – doomsday is upon us! But what would be the point? They couldn’t hear me anyway. And they never will. For an eternity. The only one that can hear me, the only one I can talk to – is my own reflection. The Earth is silent – except for me.

No, God didn’t cause this, though some might disagree. But he sure as hell is punishing me for it. The ultimate punishment. I’ve run it over and over in my head a million times as I lie on my bed at night, and stare out at the silent stars; at a world made mute by my arrogance. And I wake up the next morning to the birds, frozen in mid-flight. And I have no more answers than I did the night before. Or a thousand soul-searching nights before that. I’m in hell! And I made it, all by myself. Could I have changed anything? Sure. I could have decided to be a decent human being, instead of the son-of-a-bitch I turned into. And now I’m paying the price for it. Oh dear God, please let me go back to the beginning!

“Mr. Bingston, would you be so kind as to input this data on subjects 6-15 into the mainframe?”

“Of course, Dr. McFarland,” the senior technician answered, as he walked up to his superior.

“We’re paid to work here at D.A.R.P.A., Mr. Bingston,” he said sarcastically. “Not to eat. Your last break was three minutes over. Besides, I think you could afford to forego a few donut breaks,” he added, mocking Charles Bingston, as he patted the technician’s stomach.

“Of course, Dr. McFarland.” ‘You royal pain in the ass,’ he thought bitterly. He despised the man; his arrogance, his conceit, and his constant belittling of him, as a sort of indentured servant. ‘I didn’t get straight A’s in college to be treated like a slave. I swear, McFarland, one more sarcastic remark, one more insult…’ Charles Bingston could feel his muscles tightening and his teeth clench, as he began inputting the data. ‘Isn’t there some obscure law in this state against murder? Pity.’

There were 50 scientists & technicians working on this secret “black” research program at D.A.R.P.A., but for some inexplicable reason Dr. Ross McFarland seemed to focus his animosity and sarcasm on Charles Bingston. Charles had no idea why – and he didn’t care. He just wanted it to stop. And if it didn’t, he had the germ of a plan to make it stop – and discredit McFarland at the same time.

Unfortunately, he could air his bitterness to no one. This particular D.A.R.P.A. “black” program was so radical, so revolutionary, and so secret, that it was absolutely forbidden to discuss what went on here. To anyone. To do so would result in the most dire of consequences.

Once every six months the top brass from the Pentagon would review all relevant black projects in question; to assess their progress, to see how many untraceable billions might have to be further pumped into them, and to determine their relevance in strategic military operations. Bright and early on a Wednesday morning, they came. There were 12 of them, with so much “fruit salad” on their chests, and “scrambled eggs” on their hats, it looked like a buffet. Dr. McFarland had gathered his scientists and technicians together, just before their arrival. It was supposed to be a pep talk, but as was his style, it was more of a dressing down – and he was looking right at Charles Bingston, with an accusatory stare. “Just keep your mouths shut and don’t say a word, unless they address you directly. And if one of them does, direct the question to me. Is that understood?” All nodded affirmatively. “Bingston, get me a cup of coffee. I missed my breakfast. Chop-chop!”

“Yes sir.” ‘Glad to, Dr. McFarland. Will that be one lump of cyanide or two?’

It was a lab quite unlike anything the Pentagon had ever seen before. They suspected something truly strange was going on here. ‘This isn’t science,’ one Lieutenant thought. ‘This looks more like “para-science”!’

“General Butler,” McFarland began, “welcome to Project Tempus. The 28 men and women in these glass containers are the refuse of society, the dregs of the populace. I assure you, they won’t be missed,” he said curtly, referring to his tablet.

“Are they alive?” Gen. Butler asked.

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“Yes sir. But just barely. They are monitored 24/7, so that we may know the exact moment of their deaths. They are all terminal. But I assure you, they are in no pain.”

“What purpose will their deaths serve, Dr. McFarland?” the General’s aide inquired.

“Their purpose, ironically, will be to part the veil between this world and the next, and capture the energy between the two dimensions.”

There was an unsettling murmuring amongst the assembled brass.

“As you can see,” he continued, “there is a quantum computer atop each glass capsule. Surrounding the head of each capsule is a confined magnetic field. You see, there are seven energy fields in the human aura. It is postulated that the highest of these morphogenetic levels – the seventh – has to do with that frequency popularly known – as the soul. This frequency transcends normal time & space. We believe it is the key.”

“The key to what?” Gen. Butler asked nervously.

“To the afterlife, General!”

Now there was stunned silence.

‘I think I’m going to vomit,’ Charles thought.

“Do we plan an invasion of heaven? No, of course not,” McFarland continued. “That is wading into waters far too deep even for us. But consider this: everyone who has been through a near death experience, or NDE, as well as every verifiable psychic medium who has made contact with ‘the other side’, has remarked on the absence of time in that realm. The passage of time to an immortal is irrelevant. But just how does time cease once you cross over?” He walked over to one of the capsules containing a very old and very sickly man, looked down at his tablet, and tapped the magnetic field apparatus encircling his head. “The frequency of that 7th level, we believe, is the key all souls take with them, to initiate the cessation of time in that dimension – heaven, if you will. It is a particle we have dubbed the Tempus Particle. And this device, on each of the capsules, will capture it before it can sail off into that other plane of existence. We will then transfer it into a portable magnetic bottle for study.”

“Aren’t you worried that you’re playing God, Dr.?” the General’s aide asked.

“Someone has to, young man. Someone has to,” he answered matter-of-factly.

“Let’s assume you can isolate this Tempus Particle,” the General wondered, walking among the capsules of comatose and forgotten individuals, who now, even in death would have no peace. “Towards what end, Dr.?”

“Oh come now, General. You’re a military man. Think of the possibilities! Unleashing the Tempus Particle, in a controlled way, here on Earth, instead of in the afterlife? The ability to stop time? Why, you could freeze whole armies in their tracks, then kill them with impunity. These unfortunate souls,” he said, waving his arm about the giant facility, “will have given the ultimate scientific contribution, ensuring that their sacrifice will guarantee consistent victory for our forces in any engagement.” He then made a few taps on his tablet.

‘What does he have on that, that’s not on the main frame,’ Charles wondered. ‘I think I know. Yeah, consistent victory, while you condemn them to an eternity wandering the Earth in torment, you fat son-of-a-bitch!’ he thought.

Whatever bug McFarland had up his butt towards Bingston only intensified in the weeks to come. But it reached a head one day, when Charles handed him a wrong piece of equipment.

“What’s wrong with you, Bingston? Were you born stupid, or did you attain it in slow degrees over time? Hell, I could hire a trained monkey to do what you do!”

And that did it. It was the final straw. He would bring this little Hitler down, end his reign of abuse toward him and others, and put an end to the heartless, if not blasphemous, experiment known as Project Tempus.

Ross McFarland may have been a senior scientist at D.A.R.P.A., but Charles Bingston was one of the top engineering technicians in the country. He knew the schematics of the revolutionary portable magnetic bottle, inside and out. And, given enough time, he could fabricate one himself. Which is just what he proceeded to do; bit by bit, component by component. It took him six months, but now he was ready for phase I of his grand plan to rid the world of the malignancy of Project Tempus. And its reprehensible architect.

He had come to the lab one night on graveyard shift, ostensibly to catch up on some unfinished work, before McFarland found out. But he had allies here – for McFarland was universally despised.

“Evening, Jim.”

“Evening, Mr. Bingston. Burning the midnight oil again?”

“It never ends, Jim. Some loose ends I’ve got to input – before Dr. McFarland finds out.”

The guard shuddered in mock disgust. “Oh, we sure wouldn’t want that, would we?”

Walking to the main clinic lab, the first thing he did, outside of the reach of the security cameras, was to initiate a continuous feedback loop. This way, any review of the past 24-hour shift would show no one in the clinic at this hour – which was as it should be.

He had devised a complex mathematical probability algorithm, which would predict, with 93.2% accuracy, which one of the 28 poor souls assembled here in their futuristic capsules, would expire first. His heart was pounding as the minutes ticked by. He prayed his equations were correct. He didn’t have long to wait.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he said quietly, stopping in front of one glass container. It held an elderly woman who looked to be in her 90’s. A red light was blinking atop the tube’s energy field apparatus, indicating she had just passed. Her Tempus Particle – her key to heaven – cruelly snatched from her soul and stored in a magnetic containment vessel. “I will find out who you were. You were not a number. You were a human being, with a family somewhere, hopes, and dreams. I swear, your sacrifice will guarantee this atrocity will end. I’ll find you all. I promise. Because I now know where he keeps your names. Like sick trophies. Again, forgive me, ma’am.” And he took out from his briefcase the magnetic bottle he had so carefully assembled over the past six months. He connected it to the containment field of subject # 523318, and with an eerie flash of light – stole a piece of God’s creation, as her Tempus Particle transferred into Charles’s bottle. At this point he suddenly became truly frightened for the first time – over the implications of what he had just done. Was he now no better than McFarland, he feared? But he shook the thought out of his head. There was work to be done. The particle glowed in the translucent bottle with a soft green eeriness. There were three sets of numbers on the bottle now. One showed the frequency of the 7th energy level – the Tempus Particle. The second was the frequency of the energy field in which we all live – Earth. And the third showed an energy frequency no human had ever seen, nor comprehended before – the frequency of the afterlife plane – heaven! Two were flashing wildly, trying to resonate with each other: the afterlife frequency and the old woman’s Tempus Particle frequency; her key to heaven. But for the first time in creation, they could not resonate, because the Tempus Particle was now trapped in our dimension. But slowly, inexorably, the numbers began to slow down, trying to match and resonate with Earth’s frequency. Within minutes, they did. The numbers for both the Earth plane and the Tempus Particle now matched! Heaven lost out this time. Could Charles Bingston use the power of the gods wisely? He was about to find out. His magnetic bottle was actually two magnetic fields in one container. The first field contained the Tempus Particle, and it was impenetrable. Nothing could escape it. The secondary field acted as a mirror, reflecting the particle’s energy into the world – but not the particle itself.

Now was the moment of truth. He depressed the secondary field emitter button. He began to feel dizzy for a few moments, then recovered. He prayed her particle was not sentient, as a white light began to permeate everything around him. He could not see, it was so bright. But soon the glow faded, and the world – stood still! Birds in mid-flight, airplanes, people, animals, everything froze in their places. And Charles walked out of the D.A.R.P.A. complex, passed frozen security guards, and graveyard shift employees. Once in his car, he pressed the primary field emitter button. And as the energy turned back on itself and retreated into the confines of the magnetic bottle – the world sprang back to life, none the worse for wear, and none the wiser.

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He knew what he had to do. And he knew where he had to go.

He could feel the rage building up in him as he approached the house. Mansions, Olympic-sized swimming pools, and BMW’s & Mercedes were in abundance. Charles Bingston had no inherent animosity towards the wealthy. But with Ross McFarland he made an exception. As far as he was concerned McFarland gained his upper class style of living on the backs of good researchers – and the souls of unfortunate citizens. His lack of remorse was as profound as his penchant for personal gain.

And there it was. A three-story Tudor mansion, with expansive grounds, gardens, and a new Mercedes and Audi in the circular driveway.

“Time to end your reign of terror, McFarland.” He held up the bottle, and with a blinding flash the Earth again went silent. Walking inside the palatial residence, he went straight to the master bedroom. And there he laid, fast asleep, his wife next to him. “Ah yes. Miranda,” he said with disdain. “The warlock’s familiar, I presume?” His tablet lay on the roll top desk. Charles picked it up, scrolled through it and, as he suspected, soon found what he was looking for. “Faceless no more. Real people. Real lives.” Then he found her. “You’re not # 523318, are you? No, you’re Emily Barkan. I’ll never forget you.” He copied the names, and then left. And as he drove away, the world awakened once more.

Several weeks later he resigned his position at D.A.R.P.A. and Project Tempus. He could have told Ross McFarland precisely what he thought of him, but dared not let his hatred of the man arouse undue suspicions. For truly, Charles Bingston was not yet done with his former boss.

A month later, following his carefully thought out timing, he sent an untraceable communication to the head of the Department of Justice, complete with the names of all the poor souls McFarland’s group had kidnapped, and the macabre details behind Project Tempus. No doubt the good doctor would not see the light of day for quite some time.

McFarland never did solve the puzzle of how subject # 523318 could have expired, without the monitors catching it, or how her Tempus Particle was not automatically captured. Somehow it, and her, sailed off into the next plane of existence. Yes, that must have been it. It nearly drove him out of his mind, probably contributing to a raging ulcer. Charles figured it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Wait until the D.O.J. guys come knocking on his door! He giggled at the thought, wishing he could be a fly on the wall. ‘Remember Ross: don’t drop the soap at Leavenworth,’ he thought. And began laughing harder.

In time he reveled in his victory. He had single-handedly brought down a boss that made Leona Helmsley look like Mr. Rogers.

But perhaps the old adage is true: an idle mind may very well be the devil’s playground. No man is wise enough or good enough to be trusted with unlimited power. And that is what faced Charles Bingston one cold, crisp afternoon, as he began tweaking and editing his resume. And as he sat in front of his computer he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, two things: his bank statement on the desk – and his briefcase on the floor. The former was the problem – the latter contained the solution.

“Are you out of your mind?” he said to himself. “Didn’t I just use the Tempus Particle to take down a monster? Now you expect me to use it to feather my own nest? Disgusting!” But he looked down at his bank statement – quickly dwindling. And as he gazed out the window, wracking his brain for answers, he spotted something down the street that did indeed provide an answer. And he recoiled in horror at the implications. Yet the more he thought about it, the horror subsided, eventually replaced with a rhetorical ‘Why not?’ For what he saw – was a bank. ‘Absolutely nobody would be harmed,’ he justified to himself. ‘The F.D.I.C. insures the bank, and its depositors. Miss Emily Barkan, we may just have one more date together.’

Did Charles Bingston know the phrase, ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’? If he did he didn’t care right now. He had found a solution to one of his problems. And no one at all would be hurt. Where was the harm in that, he reasoned? His conscience was clear. Sadly, that might have been the most dangerous attribute of all.

By the time he had finished his spree, he had amassed a fortune. And to his word, not one soul was ever harmed. This emboldened him. And so began the gradual slide into hedonism. He fancied himself a god; a god who could stop time and walk the Earth a creator. No secrets could be kept from him; no guards could stop him. Indeed, he put his god-like power to good use, traveling the world, seeing the sights he once only dreamt of. And if he could steal governmental secrets from the intelligence services of various countries, and then anonymously blackmail them – all the better.

By now he’d outgrown the dingy home he had lived in for ten years. He bought himself a private island, and lived the life of a king. He had any woman he wanted – and he always wanted more; eventually growing tired of them in favor of some new plaything. He equated them with his vast wine cellar, filled with rare vintages; literally unobtainable. Except for him. His girls, like his wine, were his possessions. And true to his word, he walked the island a creator. “Here, I am God!” he boasted. And so he was.

One bright and beautiful morning on Bingston Island, he was strolling the white sandy beach of his own private empire. And as he waded through the turquoise surf, the fur on the hem of his custom-made royal robe trailed behind him in the water. Today was a good day to do what he loved most – surveying all that he saw, knowing it was all his.

He stretched out on one of the many hammocks he had erected on his island, and dwelled on the pressing issues of the day – such as what should he have his chefs prepare for dinner, and which girls should he invite to the later soirée at the main estate. It was a good life. He put his drink down on a little table next to the hammock, and shut his eyes. The waves, the sea birds, the coconut palms, the girls – all his.

But within a minute he became annoyed. “What cloud dares block the sun on Bingston Island?” he said angrily. He opened his eyes, even as the wind began to pick up. And when he did, a feeling of incomprehensible horror washed over him, the likes of which neither he, nor any other human, had ever experienced before. For what he saw, still five miles in the sky, literally shredded his soul, as it blotted out the sun.

He jumped up, shrieking in abject terror. Could he make it back to the main house in time? He had to! He thought his heart would burst, his lungs would explode. He tripped and fell once on a rock, and shed his kingly robes in order to run faster. He was running in just his underwear now. Bloody and screaming, he made it to the house in record Olympic time. Tripping once more on the floor, he lunged for his briefcase. Barely stopping for a breath he thought he’d have a heart attack, as he exploded with it out of the house. Before he even got back to the beach he frantically took out the Tempus Particle magnetic bottle, pointed it at the sky – and pressed the button. The passage of time across the entire planet, as well as everything in its atmosphere – stopped dead. Including what was now 5000 feet overhead. The sky had turned blood red, the wind almost hurricane strength, and the ocean was threatening to destroy Bingston Island, should the passage of time resume. And what was causing this horror lay at the center of it all – now silent and malignant – and waiting. It was a meteor the size of Rhode Island! This would not just cause a titanic crater. This was a planet killer. The end of everything. The end of Earth. The end of Man.

Charles Bingston looked up at it, as it cast a blood red shadow across his face. He got down on his hands and knees and pounded his fists against the ground, tears streaming down his face. “No! No! No!” He shook his fist at Earth’s assassin. “This is my world! This is my island! But I’ve stopped you, you bastard from hell! Me! Charles Bingston! I am god here! I stopped you! You have no power over me! You have…” And he stopped in mid-sentence, and let out a shriek of terror that originated from the depths of his soul. He looked out at the ocean waves, now frozen, the birds stopped like air-borne statues, his staff and girlfriends fleeing in abject horror, eternally in the now. And not since God decided to destroy the world once, millennia ago, had any human faced the same horrific choice. Until now.

“I dared play God,” he whimpered. And this is His vengeance. I have my island and everything in it. All my people are here. And they’re mine – frozen for eternity! I am totally and completely alone!” He began to cry bitterly again. “No! No! I can’t die! Not like this! I can live on my island, the last man on Earth,” he lamented between tears. “Or push this little button on the magnetic bottle, and be vaporized along with the rest of humanity! Oh dear God, forgive my arrogance! What do I do? What do I do! Have mercy!”

And through his tears he noticed something, and wondered why he had never seen it before. It was a very large boulder on the edge of the beach. And somehow, someone had prophetically painted two words on it. And when Charles Bingston read them, he promptly went mad. The two words were – DECISIONS, DECISIONS.

Food for Thought

It is said power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And those that attempt to wear the mantle of God commit the ultimate in hubris. Do we have the right? No matter what the motives, nor how pure of heart we may be in wielding the power of the gods, it must always end in unmitigated horror. Mankind is not smart enough, nor wise enough, to play God. Will science eventually, in the decades to come, advance to levels so fearful, that the exercise of such technological power will be like forbidden fruit to all but the most pious? In W.W.I, we thought the invention of poison gas, the airplane, and tanks, would make war so horrible as to be impossible. And yet, it was tantalizing fruit for evil men. How will that question be put forth in the 22nd century and beyond? These are murky waters even I fear to tread, and will quietly slip away.

About the Author

Born in New York City,

Jeffrey G. Roberts has written numerous short stories, and has 2 novels available on Amazon – THE HEALER and CHERRIES IN WINTER. He writes in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and fantasy/comedy. He has a life-long interest in Mars, the truth about UFO’s, the paranormal, and aerospace. He is a graduate of Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, Arizona, and now resides in Tucson, Arizona. He blogs at atalespinner.weebly.com

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THE HEMINGWAY HUNTER

E.J. Shumak

If someone is lucky enough to leave behind quotes when they exit this physical plane, they are often unlucky enough to be judged and remembered by them.

“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.”

Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms All italicized quotes credit Hemingway

After travelling more than six hundred miles, Jim Ritchie is road-weary and Mopar seat-sore. He knows what to expect, this is his eighth time. Seven Hemingways cleanly killed.

“What can we do for you today sir?” asks the ginger kid behind the counter.

“I need a six-hour Hemingway.”

“Six-hour, are you sure?”

“Unless you discount me further for less time.”

“Sorry sir, I can’t do that, but perhaps a discount on a different target, perhaps a J.D. Salinger, or even a Jack London, they seem challenging? You have bested several Hemingways. Perhaps a different encounter could increase your level of satisfaction?”

“Look, are you here to argue with me?

“No, sir, my apologies. However, several million people worship him.”

“Several million are wrong – should I go elsewhere?”

“So sorry, no—no; what weaponry?”

“A pre-64 Winchester model 70 in 25-06 Remington with a Leopold 2 to 7. Don’t tell me you don’t have it, I know better. At these prices I should have Zeus’ own lightningbolt.”

Smiling, Ginger Kid says, “We can do that too, if you’d like. May I have your left wrist for payment?” The hunter extended his left arm, palm up, exposing the location of the embedded EEPROM chip. “Oh, AMEX platinum. You are entitled to a cabin upgrade.”

“Wonderful. As you mentioned I won’t be spending any time in my cabin. I only have the six hours to dispatch him.”

“Your equipment and supplies are being delivered now and will arrive before you. Your pass code is on your chip and you are in cabin 27. Have a great hunt.”

“Not fruitful?”

“Not all great hunts need be fruitful, sir. We only desire your satisfaction.”

“Right.”

Less than forty-five minutes later Ritchie is walking out of his cabin, heading to sector 37-b where his Hemingway is supposed to be; the Hemingway supposedly armed with a custom Springfield 35 Whelen from Griffin & Howe. “Well, up and down from the original 30-06.” He opens up the eight foot cube of a blind and sits down to wait. Experience tells him the Hemingways never just sit still.

I rub the back of my neck, irritating the crèche plug.

“That’s where we pump in the Hemingway — along with your growth nourishment.” So I was told in the crèche. I remember the words and the lilted tone, but not how I heard them. I can smell the here and now, but I cannot remember the smells of the crèche. The grass and wildflowers beneath my feet are sweet and mild, while the G96 treatment on the rifle coupled with the wooden stock’s linseed oil finish compete with nature for my olfactory attention. Nature wins, but just barely.

They told me my DNA-sake’s wit, wisdom and weapon craft came to me the same way as my physical nourishment. But why don’t I remember any smells. Well, I do remember weapon craft and the smells associated with that. I retain the tactile erudition of firearm care and usage. Or is it memory? Hell, why do I torture myself this way? I will never truthfully discern the difference.

I just cannot think of myself as Ernest or even Hemingway. I know I am Hemingway MKVII–42, or 42 as my crèche mates called me. The only time I was happy, with my mates; “crèche mates” like litter mates – I’m really just a kitten, not a Hemingway after all.

I reach into my pocket and pull out four cartridges, real ones. The headstamp reads LC—62. After all these years there still remains a “cordite” smell emanating from them. I know it is not truly cordite, but it is the only way I have learned to describe the combination of nitro-cellulose and nitro-glycerin coupled with metal seeping from unknowable microscopic or atomic gaps in the cartridge structure. I only know what a rifle cartridge smells like and I suspect they have smelled that way since 1846. Why in hell do I know that year?

I found the cartridges secreted in my storage tube, the tiny ex-hotel “capsules” they salvaged from Tokyo hotels – home sweet home. The cartridges are apparently a gift from a previous MKVII. I’ll remember him – me – somehow. I gently cradle the rifle (another crèche memory or memory reference? – I never really know). I open the bolt and load the four precious cartridges in through the top.

The saw I found myself, while I walked the woods. I’m still amazed they let us do that between hunts. Perhaps they think it will make us believe we have a real life. Not a metal saw, but it was rated all purpose, or so it was emblazoned on the shank. Naval jelly had once, probably many many years ago, been used to clean it and the strong acidic (phosphoric acid) smell remained along with apparently significant rust protection.

It took me forty-two hours to cut off the end of the hardened 4140 carbon steel barrel using that rusty, smelly, old saw, but I finally cleared off the welded portion of the rifle. The saw was probably over fifty years old – the rifle hadn’t been manufactured in more than one hundred – a fair match I suppose.

The saw and I converted the weapon back to functionality, allowing the rifle to resume its lethal purpose, permitting it to actually fire a round. The welded and plugged end of the barrel and the electronic tracking crap was now gone; the rifle once again a “real” 35 Whelan G&H. I suspect the “real” Hemingway would have been pleased.

It is easy to see the blind: but not the obverse for my adversary. Even if the hunter is looking through the port cut into the timbers, it is physically impossible for him (Why him? – well it usually wasn’t a woman) to see me. The angles are for the hunter’s safety, not for field of view. The 35 Whelan would cut right through the timbers. I “remember,” is that what this is? — the cartridge was a ‘brush buster’. I hold left and low from the upper blind port. I must not damage the guy’s chip and I really don’t particularly care to kill him either. I don’t understand why or how, but it just didn’t feel right to take this life unnecessarily. But it does feel right to shoot this man and claim freedom – even for a short time. Looking through the peep sight, I squeeze the trigger on the Griffin & Howe. Nothing. Great – hang fire or dead primer.

I wait patiently. Hell, the ammo is well over a hundred years old. It could be a dead or oil corrupted primer, moisture soaked powder or primer, or anything in-between. A hang fire would simply be a late ignition. If I open the bolt too soon I could lose a hand, or even my face. Ten nano-centuries pass (or ten pi seconds) then twenty – I hold on target. Lowering the rifle and working the bolt, I catch the cartridge as the claw extractor in the bolt’s full cartridge head support, pulls it from the chamber and the rectangular ejector pops back, sending the cartridge slapping into my upside down palm, my fingers closing tightly around it.

Solid primer hit, at least the gun seems to be functioning. I put it in my pocket, that may be unwise, but I can’t bring myself to discard something that has been so hard to acquire. Working a fresh round into the chamber with the bolt handle, the extractor now grabbing the cartridge head solidly and guiding it into the chamber, I once again gaze through the Parker Hale PH5a aperture sight.

This time when I squeeze the trigger, the Griffin & Howe barks, bucking back into my shoulder with a satisfying snap. I smell the satisfying odor of burnt gunpowder and primer residue. My ears ring so loudly I am effectively deaf. Why didn’t I remember that little tidbit of weapon craft?

This time it worked. The 220 grain slug blasts through the lower edge of the upper port in the blind. I imagine hearing the gratifying thump as the hunter’s body folds up. I wait. It seems the woods grow silent. I see no movement anywhere and can only hear the ringing in my ears, the left much worse than the right. The nitro-cellulose still hangs heavy in the air, blocking any sense of smell.

I quickly rack the bolt, reloading the 35 Whelan and slicing a thin piece of my left thumb in the process, the extractor and bolt head closing on and pinching my skin. Apparently my weapon craft is less than perfect. As I fully stand, the firearm discharge smells dissipate: I can now again smell the oil on the Griffin & Howe coupled with a metallic blood scent from my thumb and the surrounding wild grasses and flora..

I hike the one hundred fifty yards to the blind. Kicking in the door, I level the Griffin & Howe at the hunter. No movement. Leaning down, I immediately notice a steady and solid breathing pattern – and a lot of blood – the copper metallic odor filling the small blind. The copper jacketed slug held together and expanded only slightly on exit through the blind wall. Once through the wall and into the hunter, entry is just above the right lung and bodily exit through the lower scapula.

I pull out the misfired 35 Whelan cartridge, using it to plug the entry wound. It seems to squeeze in nicely and appears to be holding. I manage to insert it far enough for the 17 degree shoulder angle to catch on something internal to this guy’s wound. It can’t be inserted further without extreme pressure. It does seem unlikely to dislodge on its own. Well, half done. The exit wound will be a bit more difficult. I just hope the hunter remains unconscious, at least for a bit longer.

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Let the Tempest Hold Me Down

Zena Shapter

When I glide into the yellows of our forest glen, I cannot hear the other steam spirits as I should. There are no deep fatherly voices calling to their sons, no wide-grown blades whipping the wind as fathers and sons fly together and chase microbes to eat. Blade axis rods should trill as they spin through the tubular bodies of old and young alike. Yet only the lighter flight and chatter of my cousins drift down from the thick steam above, and an unusual stink twists through the humid wisps around me – of hot blood and damp leaves. Why can I not hear any fathers? Did my cousins wait until I had to feed, then strike? I hesitate to look down, already sensing that a carpet of dead steam spirits lies beneath me among the tree roots. I shouldn’t have left. Why did I believe Fen when he said everything would be okay, that I should feed as normal beyond the stream?

I tense my distals from the fine wafting stream of feelers that hang beneath me into rigid sensors, then I glance down. Yes, they’re there – the cylindrical shells of an entire generation spread lifeless across the glen, my father’s included. In places, the weight of the massacre sinks as dents into the pale leaf litter. Hundreds of once solid grey bodies have already dulled to deathly ashen, thousands of torn distals and blades… The air reeks of betrayal and death and pain.

“What have you done?” I wail into the air above me.

No one answers.

So I twist my distals tight around each other, then release my axis rod and spin my blades upwards. Above the trees, where the vapour lightens, my cousins are gorging on microbes as if nothing has happened, as if they are no longer murderers.

“Your own fathers – my father!” I yell, slipping inside an airstream. Bark and branches blur as it whooshes me up. “Why?”

“Come join us, cousin.” Fen’s voice is faint through the whiteness. “This is how it has always been.”

“No!” I yell, as the airstream fades. “There was another way! Where are you, Fen?”

Someone claps their blades together and plunges through the vapour before I can twist up any further. A dark blur becomes Fen’s thick tubular body, his flat face creased with pity. “Tek,” he says, reopening his blades and gliding so close that I don’t see, only feel him rolling a distal around one of mine. From the tightness in his grip, he doesn’t mean to comfort, but to anchor. “They had to die so we could live. We did it to our fathers, just as they did it to theirs. You know there are only enough microbes here for one generation.”

“We could have left, found another way.”

“But as king,” he chuckles, “that was my decision to make. Tek, this is the way of things.”

“Then those things need changing.”

“You sound like a chiton. Go join them if you wish.”

“I would rather die like my father.”

“That can be arranged.” He releases both my distal and his axis rod, his body shell shuddering with power as the long thin blades above his head spin him back up to the others.

I hear them laughing.

But they don’t know the stories my father used to tell – about my grandfather and what he once saw.

I leave the yellows of our glen heated with determination. ‘Fury can fuel you more than microbes,’ my father used to say, and today I understand what he means. Sticky air heavy with moisture quickly dissipates into cooler currents, making my instincts scream for the hot steam I need to live. Yet the thought of what Fen and the others have done spurs me on.

After a while, though, my distals clump against the chill and it’s hard to twist anywhere. The wetness lubricating my conduit crystallises and my bony axis grates as it rotates through the centre of my body. I have never known cold like this.

So when I find a warm airstream swinging high up the dark mountainside overlooking our forest, I let it carry me into wispy lime cloud that smells of flower buds. Vapour angels are supposed to descend from such clouds to call us steam spirits to spawn. They live as nomads, floating all over Taeual, grouping only once a lifetime to descend and find us in the forest… but we’re their family too. Surely they can’t abide the sons of each steam spirit generation strangling the last?

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I search for them, though see no signs of life, and the height chills my breath, so I drop over the mountain onto an endless plain of boulders and rotting debris. There’s no forest anywhere, nothing yellow in sight. Clearly the chitons have been here with their gadgets again, taking trees for their silver ships that shoot into the stars and beyond. Our fathers once begged them to stop, for the trees are home to the microbes we eat, and we have few enough of those as it is. My own father believed the survival of each generation lay in replanting more forest, so we might grow strong again. But the chitons told his king they did not want us strong, for when we spawn with angels, we birth gales that storm their riverside homes to mush.

It is impossible of course, for creatures as small as us to do the damage they claim. Still, it will be the task of our generation’s king to negotiate with the chitons once more.

That Fen is incapable of such tasks is why I must now cross this wasteland.

There is another way…

“Your grandfather met his love,” my father once told me, “where the light glows purple.”

“How did he live,” I asked him, “when there is no food outside the forest?”

“Fury can fuel us more than microbes.”

“But he was gone for weeks.”

“Spawning can take time.”

“That long?”

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