365 tomorrows

Author : Brian C. Baer

Robots love me.

As much as robots can love. And in a plutonic sense, of course. Something about my chubby little baby face sets off their simulated paternal instincts and they all bend over backwards to answer my questions. That sort of thing comes in handy with my job.

I knelt in front of the unmoving blue robot. As if brooding, it sat on the floor in the middle of the living room. It was large and bulky, a few years old but in decent enough shape. Not one of those smooth, humanoid-looking models that have been flooding the market; it was more from the “Rock ’Em, Sock ’Em” school of design. Behind me, the family stood anxious, worried, huddled together.

“Can you fix him, doctor?” the wife asked. The soft expanse of flesh beneath her chin shivered with concern. She hugged her young daughter close. The husband did the same to her.

“I’m not a doctor,” I said absent-mindedly as I eyed my scanner.

“I beg your pardon?” the husband chimed in, brushing a loose strand of hair across his comb-over with his palm.

“Hm?” I asked, coming out of my focus. “Oh. I’m not a doctor. Robots don’t really have brains, so they don’t need a psychiatrist or anything like…” I trailed off, before looking back to my work. “I’m a technician.”

“Henry just sat down and stopped moving,” the little girl said, sounding close to tears.

“We just had him in for maintenance and everything checked out,” the wife added. “I don’t understand it.”

I nodded and made a little “hmm” sound, but I wasn’t really listening. “Unit NX-6401, respond to my voice.”

“Henry,” the robot corrected me in a surprisingly human voice. It still hadn’t moved, and the lights hadn’t returned to its dim photoreceptors.

“Okay, Henry,” I conceded. “Are you functioning correctly?”

It made a soft snorting noise. “If that’s what you call this.”

I sat cross-legged on the carpet in front of it. “Hey, now. What’s that all about?” I put my hand on its shoulder. Henry’s ocular lights activated, but just barely. It didn’t respond right away.

“The Johnsons across the street bought a new robot,” it said finally.

“Yeah,” the husband confirmed from behind me, “One of those new A-01 models.”

“Go on,” I coaxed.

“I’ve seen it walking their kids to school and fixing their roof, and it’s got those extendable arms and a hedge-clipper accessory, and…”

“And its making you feel not as special?” I asked in a soothing voice.

“The A-01s are so great,” it said. “One of them would be so much more functional for this family. It would be better than I am.”

“Henry, I’m going to tell you a secret about humans. It is a bit paradoxical, so promise me your head will not explode when I tell you.”

It nodded, its eyes glowing brighter. I glanced back at the morbidly obese woman and her balding husband. Even their little girl wasn’t too easy on the eyes.

“Henry,” I said. “Humans build emotional attachments. And they don’t always want what’s shiny and new. They want what they love.”

“They love me?” It asked, looking over my shoulder at the piles of unappealing humanity. It stood up, and after a moment, I followed.

“It isn’t very logical, doctor.” Henry’s voice sounded happy.

I smiled. “I’m not a doctor.”

Author : Glenn Blakeslee

Stan and I sat by the campfire in the desert night. The fire was burning low, a bed of embers surrounded by fire-blackened stones. We sipped on our beers, and I waited for Stan to start talking.

He’s one of my oldest friends, a physicist and a brilliant guy. When we camp in the desert he always has a late-night campfire lecture for me. I could tell he was ready to start talking. “Go ahead, Stan,” I said.

He smiled self-consciously. “Well…” he began, “We’ve talked about the Heisenberg Principle, right?”

“That’s where you can’t know the state of a particle until you observe it,” I said.

“Right. And by observation you collapse the wave function. But we can’t always observe, don’t always collapse the wave. There’s a natural process called vacuum fluctuation that causes that to happen without our interference. Otherwise, a particle wouldn’t reveal itself and matter, the universe, wouldn’t exist.”

“Okay.”

Stan scratched a square in the dirt with his shoe. “Imagine that’s a cubic foot. Information theory tells us that, when the wave collapses, there’s a finite amount of physical information encoded in that cubic foot. It’s a huge amount of information, but still finite.” With his foot, Stan pushed lines out from the sides of the square. “Let’s expand this foot to a square light year.” He looked up at me and smiled. “Still a finite amount of information, right?”

“Right,” I said. I’m never sure where his conversations are leading.

“Well, the universe is infinite,” he said, and he threw a small log on the fire. “The visible edge of the universe is estimated to be four hundred thousand light years away, but that’s only the distance light has traveled. It’s still infinite.”

“Okay.”

“A cubic foot or a cubic light year has only a finite number of possible states. Since the universe is infinite, you can map out an infinite number of cubic light years, and information theory says a good number of those cubic light years would have the same finite set of wave functions as our own cubic light year.”

Stan threw another log on the fire. “And a duplicate set of wave functions means a duplicate set of the physical properties of our own cubic light year,” he said.

“You mean…” I started, and stared at him. “There’s like… an alternate universe? One just like our own?”

“Not an alternate universe,” Stan said, “Another part of this universe that’s exactly the same as our own.”

I stared at the fire. Embers glowed red and fire licked at the underside of logs. A piece of wood popped, and a single flame twisted, curled, spat its load of carbon into the night sky. The exact same flame, somewhere else, did the same.

I looked back at Stan. In the light of the fire I could see tears welling in his eyes. I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “It’s no good, Stan. Samantha is still dead. You have to give it up.”

Stan looked at me, and he smiled. “A small variation on our finite set could make a situation where I was able to save her.”

And there was nothing, nothing in our finite set, that I could say.

Author : Greg R. Fishbone

Agent Stanley, six-time salesman of the month, cut a trail through the switch grass with his machete. His motions were effortless, hardly distracting from his practiced patter about low interest financing.

Behind him trudged the Forrester family. Mr. Forrester swatted mosquitoes from his arms and neck. Mrs. Forrester quietly bemoaned her mud-caked designer shoes. The Forrester children, Gerald and Roxie, fought over a tuna sandwich that represented the last of their daily provisions. The family’s first weekend of house hunting was already a miserable affair.

Agent Stanley’s trailblazing ended abruptly at a precipice with a view of the steamy valley below. “This is a good place to begin. Most of the homes in this valley migrated inland after Hurricane Ronaldo, with a few holdovers from the ’36 flood and some recent foreclosures.”

The Forresters peered down into the fog, where a few house-shaped outlines could be seen moving together toward the northeast. “Do they always travel in packs?” asked Mr. Forrester.

Agent Stanley shrugged. “Not always, but homes by the same developer sometimes form neighborhood associations for their mutual protection. They needn’t worry about burglary, here in the wild, but the security systems don’t know that. Watch your footing on the descent. I tagged a lovely three-bedroom colonial last week that would be perfect for you, if we can find it again.”

The valley was thick with grass and, as Mrs. Forrester loudly noted, a particularly clingy tan-colored mud. Ground cover and trees were common, but not thick enough to prevent houses from moving through. While Mr. Forrester applied more insect repellant and Mrs. Forrester brushed mud from the hem of her skirt, Gerald and Roxie argued over which of them needed more closet space.

Agent Stanley knelt to examine a tree stump. “These cuts are fresh, and the treads lead off in this direction.”

“Houses cut down trees?” asked Gerald.

“They do in the wild, son,” said Agent Stanley. “There aren’t any lumber yards out here, so houses have to make due with what materials they can find.”

“Why do they need lumber if they’re already built?” asked Roxie.

“Repairs. Wear and tear. Or sometimes they feel the need to build a dormer or an addition.”

“Maybe it’s installing crown molding in itself,” said Mrs. Forrester. “I always imagined my first house would have crown molding.” Mr. Forrester put an arm around her shoulders.

The Forristers, with Agent Stanley as their scout, tracked the house through the trees and across the plains. The whine of a buzz-saw grew louder as they approached until, over a small rise, they came upon a team of robotic house-scutters working on a single-story structure with two wide openings in the front.

“We’re in luck!” Agent Stanley exclaimed. “That’s a detached two-car garage–very desirable!”

Mr. and Mrs. Forrester nodded appreciably, while Gerald and Roxie ran forward to play with a robot that seemed to be fashioning shingles from strips of bark. “Be careful, kids!” called Mrs. Forrester.

“Don’t worry.” Agent Stanley chuckled. “Those fourth generation house-scutters are great with children. They cook, they clean, and as you can see, they’re quite handy with home improvements. If you’re ready to make an offer, I’d be happy to–”

He was interrupted by a loud crash, as a four-bedroom Tudor-style house burst into the clearing with red lights blazing in every window. Agent Stanley looked with alarm toward the detached garage, where Gerald Forrester was carving his initials into the door frame with a pocket laser.

“That’s trouble,” said Agent Stanley. “Tudors are notoriously protective of their out-buildings.”

Author : Lander Ver Hoef

We get the window seat, Molly! Isn’t that neat? We’ll be able to see everything. Have you ever been to space before, Molly? Me neither. I wonder what it’ll be like. I hope I don’t get Z-sick.

No, Molly, I don’t know what that machine out there does. Maybe it works on the ships? See that big shining thing right over there? That’s a ship just like ours! Yes, it’s pretty, isn’t it? So white, and the lights against the dark night are so bright.

That’s the Captain talking, Molly. He’s telling us that we’re going to be taking off now. Don’t be scared, I’ll take care of you. Just be sure to stay near me and don’t float away in ZG!

Here we go! We’ve started moving, Molly. You can’t see the ocean way down there, since it’s dark out, but it’s there, don’t worry. You can’t see it either, but Daddy says that there’s a track that we’re being pulled along. Maybe it’s like Jimmy’s slingshot. It really hurts when he hits me with rocks from it! And he says mean things about you, Molly. He says you’re just a doll and that I’m a sissy for keeping you. He’s just a bully though. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t ever listen to him. I’ll keep you forever!

This is a lot stronger than Jimmy’s slingshot though! Now I feel sorry for the rocks too. I wonder if they feel as squished as I do? Are you all right, Molly? Are you getting squished too? It’ll be okay though, since Daddy said that this doesn’t last long.

See, that wasn’t long at all! Ooh, look out the window, Molly. There’s a continent! Look at all those lights! I wonder where that is?

Eep! Oh, don’t worry, Molly. That bang was just the rocket motor starting. Daddy warned us about that, remember? He said that it was perfectly normal and that we shouldn’t be scared. Are you scared, Molly? Me too, a little bit. But don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe up here.

Wow! So this is what ZG is like. Come back here, Molly! Don’t go floating away like that, now. I can’t take care of you if you run away like that!

Oh, ew. I think that someone a few rows back just threw up. Isn’t that nasty, Molly? Strange, too. I don’t feel at all sick. Hee hee, even Mommy looks sick, and she never throws up. I hope she doesn’t now. That would be nasty.

Look out of the window, Molly. There’s a pretty light around the edge of Earth. It’s dawn! I didn’t know they got sunrises here in space, did you? Here, I’ll hold you up to the window so you can see. You’re so pretty, Molly, with the sunlight glinting off your eyes. What an adventure we’re going to have! Are you excited, Molly? I am!

Author : Rob Burton

Within the holiest temple, buried deep within the cathedral, Arch-Bishop Emmanuel Berret struck the Bios Chime above the altar of power. The bell released its singular soft tone to bounce crazily between the hard walls. Terrified that his failing hearing might make him act too quickly, Berret waited six more heartbeats after it finally diminished to speak the holy words learnt from the historical documents. ‘Ohm nama shivaya’, he intoned, genuflecting so that his forehead touched the leading edge of the altar.

Two servers, each with a box in their hands, approached him. The first carried the paste of thermal conduction, which he brought forth from the box and placed it, in its tube, reverently into the palm of the Arch-Bishop.

‘Ohm nama shivaya.’ His low, grumbling mantra resonated from the stone walls, chasing its predecessor. The second server opened his box with all due ritual and retrieved from within the sacred silicon wafer. He placed it into the palm of the Arch-Bishop’s hand.

‘Ohm nama shivaya.’ The servers gently withdrew with bowed heads, as if the gentle wave of his utterance had propelled them with its gentle pressure. He prayed to Saint William of the gate and Saint Steven of the labours that he might be worthy of opening the book as he spread the paste upon the wafer and passed it to his lips. Its awful taste filled his mouth, but he swallowed with a gasp and stood to face the holy book.

Just as he had been told, it was almost featureless, smooth and black, made of something that was neither metal, nor stone, nor wood or skin of any kind. He knew what only the most holy men knew, that trapped within its form was contained all of the alphabet, laid out in its holy order, and all of the numbers, surrounded by arcane words and wondrous commands. He also knew of the tablet of light – the bringer of prophesy and ultimate knowledge. His eyes traced the crack at its edge that was the only clue to the glories contained within.

From the censer he lifted one of the most holy relics, a tiny fragment of impossibly thin cloth, soaked in a holy water that vanished into prayer – the cloth of ecstatic purification. With it, he began to write upon the unyeilding black surface. He drew the tetragrammaton, that is the name of the holy teacher whose spirit, whom they knew, from the historical documents, lived forever.

‘Y’, he wrote, the letter disappearing heavenward almost as soon as it had been written. Then he drew the perfect circle that was the second letter as best as his old hands could manage. ‘D’ he wrote then, and finally ‘A’, which is the beginning at the end.

He reached forward and, head bowed in deferential respect, he made so as to lift the holy book, and it yielded to his purity and righteousness, and opened for him. He wondered to look upon the holy words within, and gazed in fascination at the strange and pure blue light about the great primary rune.

He closed his eyes and bowed his head in silent prayer as the holy book whirred and sang, driving away the demons gathered around it. Terrified, he waited for its last and most vibrant song, and then waited six heartbeats more, for fear he might look upon the blue screen of death. Then, as he opened his eyes, he cried out ‘Hllljh!’, for written there, shining gloriously from the tablet of light were the holy words that proved him worthy.

‘Welcome to windows’

Author : William Tracy

The heroine was surrounded by towering aliens. Their gleaming carapaces reflected her shapely body, a flowing robe hugging her curves. Their glittering, faceted eyes took in the sight of her hands clutching the gash that revealed the ample curve of her heaving bosom. Their leader leaned forward and spoke, its breath foul with the stink of rot. “What have we here?”

She bared her brilliant white teeth in defiance. “Lieutenant Sarathura of the Terran Alliance.”

“A spy,” it noted the datapad gripped in her immaculate nails. “The penalty is death.”

Another alien stepped forward with a curved, jagged blade that reflected Sarathura’s deep blue eyes. As it raised its arms to make the killing blow, a bolt of plasma exploded in its face like a glowing flower. Sarathura gasped with joy.

“Our craft is docked back that way,” Commander Cloudstepper exclaimed in his deep, full voice. The sweat gleamed on his flexing muscles as he gunned down the monsters. The two heroes fled down the corridor, hand in hand.

“There are armored troopers after us,” Cloudstepper yelled after glancing over his broad, chiseled shoulder. “My plasma gun can’t shoot through their armor, and they’re gaining on us!”

Around the corner, they saw Officer Michealson. “Get in the airlock!” he commanded in his baritone. His thick muscles and throbbing veins bulged under his ebony skin as he lifted a heavy Gatling Laser. The weapon traced flickering calligraphy on the air as he blasted the encroaching menace.

Their craft separated from the alien ship, and jumped to lightspeed.

“They are too fast for us!” Cloudstepper gasped, staring at the instrument display. “Their heavy guns will destroy us before we reach friendly lines!”

“I have an idea,” Michealson gasped. “I could reverse the polarity of the flux capacitors, and project a warp bubble in the path of their vessel. We would have a 40% chance of trapping them in a parallel universe!”

“Let it be so!” Captain Cloudstepper commanded.

There was an ominous hum as the capacitors charged, then they went off. The quivering warp bubble was visible on the main viewscreen. The alien ship tried to dodge, but wasn’t quick enough. The bubble trapped the vessel, and both disappeared in a bright flash.

“We did it!” Sarathura gasped. “I escaped with the plans for the aliens’ secret weapon!” She and the captain embraced and kissed passionately.

* * *

Sarah pressed “Submit” and published the latest chapter of her novel to her website. “That should please the people who keep asking for more action.” She stretched, stood up.

Sarah walked into the bathroom, filled the tub. Then she undressed and climbed into the bath. After soaking for an hour, she got out and dried, then put on her bathrobe. She was putting on her slippers when when she heard a crash from in front of the house.

Sarah jogged toward the sound, then tripped over the power cord to her computer and fell into a bookcase. Sarah picked herself up, then cursed under her breath at the tear cutting her robe from her shoulder across her chest.

She stormed across the room, threw open the front door—and froze in panic.

The heroine was surrounded by towering aliens. Their gleaming carapaces reflected her shapely body, a flowing robe hugging her curves. Their glittering, faceted eyes took in the sight of her hands clutching the gash that revealed the ample curve of her heaving bosom. Their leader leaned forward and spoke, its breath foul with the stink of rot. “What have we here?”

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

During their first month on Mars, the two-man and two-woman crew made the most significant discovery in the history of mankind. While exploring the Grover Caves in the Scandia Tholi Mountains, they discovered irrefutable evidence of indigenous, but now extinct, intelligent life. The Caves turned out to be a complex underground city that had contained at least a million beings. Radiometric dating revealed that a civilized Martian society had flourished for thousands of centuries, but ultimately perished more than a billion years ago. Scientists concluded that as Mars’ metallic core solidified, the magnetic field disappeared, and the solar wind slowly, but relentlessly, blew the atmosphere into space, forcing the Martians underground. It was theorized that eventually their numbers dwindled, and their society became unsustainable. There was no archeological evidence that the Martians ultimately adapted, or that they had the technology to escape. Apparently, the Martians died along with their planet.

***

Dakota Dalton was driving the two-man Transportation Vehicle from the excavation site back to the base camp. Its treads kicked up two parallel red rooster tails as it trekked through the fine Martian dust. “Did you know today is Christmas?”

“I hope you’re not expecting a present,” replied Tom Barrymore. “The Mall is 100 million miles away. Besides, we’re in the middle of the Martian summer.”

“It’s summertime in Argentina too, and they’re celebrating Christmas. Com’on Tom, get in the spirit. We have so much to be thankful for. Look at that,” he said as he pointed to a bright blue-white point of light above the eastern horizon. “How can you look at the Earth and not feel…” Suddenly, the vehicle began to shake violently as the ground began to collapse beneath them. They tumbled a hundred feet into a subterranean cavern, landing upside down. Dakota found himself helplessly pinned under a heavy shipping crate. His probing fingers felt the sharp edges of his fractured right femur protruding through his coveralls. Tom was lying a few feet away. His neck was bent backward at a grotesque angle. Dakota could hear a hissing sound as air escaped from the pressurized vehicle.

A voice came from the radio. “This is Lowell Base,” said Jill Ignatuk, the mission commander. “We’re receiving an automated distress signal. Is everything okay? Hello? Dakota, Tom? Damn. If you can here me, we have your coordinates. We’ll be there in 90 minutes. Hang on.”

But even as Jill was talking, Dakota could hear the pitch of her voice change as the air in the transport became thinner and thinner. He wouldn’t last 90 minutes. Hell, he probably wouldn’t last 90 seconds. As the oxygen content dropped below critical levels, his vision began to fade as he was losing consciousness. There were flashes of light, blurry ghostlike images, then blackness.

When Dakota woke up at the Lowell Base infirmary he saw the commander’s smiling face looking down at him. Tom was standing next to her. “Commander,” Dakota asked, “how did you get to us so fast? I thought we were dead?”

“It took us over two hours to reach you two at the bottom of that hole. When we opened the airlock, you were laying side by side next to the hatch. There was blood on your uniform, but you didn’t have any wounds. When we got you both back to base, we took x-rays. Apparently, you had sustained a compound leg fracture, and Tom’s neck had been broken. How did you set your own leg, and treat Tom’s broken vertebrae?”

“It wasn’t me, Commander,” Dakota replied. “I have trouble putting on a Band-Aid.”

Author : Mark Ingram

Filius was elated. He elatedly embraced his elatedness. His skyship soared just above the bulbous clouds, kicking up wake-mist when it graced the fluffy canopy. Before him, the sun appeared to be permanently stuck in its descent at the twilight hour, casting rays against the purple sky. Purple was his favorite color, and twilight was his favorite time of day; both filled him with a deep sense of blissfulness. He blissfully brimmed with bliss.

On the deck of his majestic ship, Filius bathed in the most soothing of oils, ate the most scrumptious of comestibles, and listened to the most exquisite of melodies. He viewed the most gorgeous of sceneries, smelled the most ambrosial of aromas, and perceived the most serene of affects. All his senses were immersed with the finest delights that he could desire. He gratifyingly indulged in gratification.

And he had Omni to thank for it.

Omni was infinitely benevolent, powerful, present, and knowing. In Omni’s immeasurable wisdom, Omni had created beings in Omni’s image, and Filius was among them. Of course, Omni wanted Omni’s creations to experience the most fulfilling lives possible, so Omni, possessing the inexorable aptitude to do so, fashioned a universe without pain or negative emotions—a universe overflowing with everything pleasurable.

For the beings involved, this included the unbridled capacity to act as they willed. Any idea could be conceived of; any object could be manifest; any action could be performed. Filius knew of Omni. He could envision this infinite designer who had bestowed immeasurable potential among his children and was more potent still. He could comprehend the proceedings of the members of his species and would be joyous because of them. He joyously enjoyed his joy. He could grasp the concepts of sadness, anger, and suffering and was able to rejoice that those would never befall him. His luxuries always brought him felicity, and if for some reason they ever lost their value, he could imagine a new time, a new place, and new comforts—all as valuable.

He felicitously contemplated his felicitousness. For a second, he visualized a universe without Omni or Omni’s influences. Down to the subtlest detail, he pondered the features of the organisms there. In his mind’s eye, Filius saw them—squishy, meaty beings fighting daily to survive without Omni’s gifts in hopes of shedding the surface layer of their misery. Without a second thought, he forgot their displeasure with a smile.

As his ship sailed off toward the eternal sunset, he happily resumed his happiness.

Author : Ari Brill

The galaxy is a dangerous and cutthroat place, with no room for the weak. So we have always known; intrinsic in the cruel laws of nature, all organisms must fight, or die. Knowing this, we were not unprepared. With the invention of hyperdrive came the invention of the hyper-torpedo, and with the invention of artificial gravity came the invention of the Gravitic Pulverizer. Not to say war was obligatory, of course. For instance, no one suggested attacking the Calee Empire upon first contact.

On the other hand, perhaps the Human Gravitic Pulverizer, capable of ripping apart a medium-sized star cruiser, was kept in line less by peaceful intentions than by the Calee Solar Annihilator, capable of ripping apart a medium-sized star.

Realizing this, we progressed rapidly in every facet of development befitting a newly minted interstellar empire. The Solar Annihilator rots in the Calee’s museums now, incapable of matching our most inferior weapons. We made contact with hundreds of species, and subjugated scores. The Grand Fleets of the Human Armada clashed with the hulking dreadnaughts of the Orthulla, never defeated in four thousand years, and emerged victorious. Trillions of humans swarm out from our fertile worlds, and see sights undreamed of only centuries ago. But one was so strange, so foreign, so impossible, that we at first thought we had made a mistake. One species, the Arpasi, had no space fleets, no weapons, no defensive platforms of any kind. They had never fought a single foreign war in the memory of even the longest-lived race. In short, they were totally pacifistic.

Surely, the traders who reported this back must have been mistaken. Such tall tales should not be believed by reasonable men. We asked the Calee, now reconciled and our greatest trading partners, if it were true. It was. “The Arpasi…yes, of course. They are a friendly species.” Unable to understand, we sent a secret delegation to the Hive-Home of the Krashni, to inquire of this matter to the Lords of the arachnid legions. The chitters we received in reply indicated only the same: the Arpasi are a friendly species. The subtle and complex wing-dances of the avian Zirkbo relayed a similar message, as did the deep rumbles of the Oowaan, the bitter transmissions of the ancient Orthulla, and the mocking chortles of the Hyakeks. In each of the highest councils of the myriad races of this galaxy, we received only one reply: the Arpasi are a friendly species. Reflecting on our own aggressive actions and the example of the peaceful and prosperous Arpasi, the Supreme Congress of Earth made a decision.

The Arpasi homeworld would make an excellent addition to the Empire of Humanity. It only took two days for a Grand Fleet to reach the planet. As per standard procedure, after failing to obtain an immediate surrender they glassed a continent and waited. The occupation commenced soon after. The Arpasi were rich, and the sack did not end for months. Unusually, the massacres only lasted several days.

That invasion occurred last year.

Today, the remnants of our once-glorious Grand Fleets flee in terror. Bashed and broken, they search for safe port but find none, for our planets are burned and shattered corpses. The alien vessels, black as death, have not reached Earth yet but they will soon.

Only now do we understand what we were told. The Arpasi are a friendly species.

And they have very, very powerful friends.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

When Mati Forish was five years old, she could move coins across the table using only her mind. At ten, she could make small stones levitate. As a teenager, she could fly an aerocar from the back seat. Out of fear, Mati’s parents tried to stop her from using the power. It was the “Devil’s work,” they had said. But Mati knew that this gift could make her wealthy. And Mati wanted to be wealthy. When she turned twenty one, she left home to seek her fortune. While in the city, she met a doctor. He had understood her abilities, and said that he had “friends” that could help her achieve her goals, for the right price. Late one night, in a run down clinic on the south side, they implanted an experimental telekinetic booster into her brain. Astonishingly, it magnified her natural ability a thousand fold. Thrilled with the results, Mati rushed home to tell her fiance. But when she arrived, she found him in bed with another woman. In a fit of rage, she snapped both of their necks with her telekinetic power. And, to her surprise, she enjoyed it. That was the day that “The Assassin” was born. Over the next several decades, hundreds of people died at her will. It didn’t mater if the target was a tyrant or a saint. They were just paychecks to Forish.

***

(Circa 2067, Medellin, Colombia) After passing through security, Forish entered the auditorium from one of the rear doors and took an isle seat in the last row. She discreetly surveyed the auditorium to identify anything, or anybody, that could interfere with her task. It was probably an unnecessary precaution, since her mode of execution was undetectable, but if Forish was anything, she was meticulous.

Forish listened indifferently as several men on an elevated stage spewed their hateful political rhetoric in an effort to pique the intensity of the partisan crowd. After an hour of rabblerousing, Cattivo Guida, a ruthless and brutal dictator, marched onto the stage and stood behind the podium. Well it’s about time, thought Forish. She sat upright and eyed the target for several minutes trying to decide how she wanted to take him out. In a public venue such as this, it would be best to do it by either a heart attack, or brain aneurysm.

Forish began to concentrate on the task of focusing and modulating the psychokinetic synapses in her brain. Gradually, an invisible energy bubble began to coalesce above her head. She strengthened it and molded it. She willed a tendril to immerge from it and elongate toward the stage. The invisible tendril began to snake its way forward above the heads of the audience and across the stage. It entered Guida’s torso and slowly spiraled up his spinal column and wrapped itself around his heart. As Forish caused the tendril to contract slightly, Guida stopped speaking and clutched the sides of the podium. The tendril squeezed Guida’s heart tighter and he dropped to his knees. Tighter still, and his face contorted in agony as his eyes pleaded for someone to help him. Finally, he collapsed to the floor, motionless. Guida’s bodyguards rushed to his side. Their feeble attempts at CPR were wasted. Guida’s heart would not beat again.

As chaos and panic flooded the audience, Forish stood up, and calmly left the auditorium. Once outside, she walked down the marble steps and hailed a hovercab. “I’m famished,” she said to the pilot. “Take me to the best restaurant in the city.”

Author : Joey Cruz

There are certain rules in this world that we must abide by. We don’t always agree with them, and they rarely agree with us, but if we are to survive to see tomorrow, we need to place our personal feelings aside and just accept things for what they are.

Take rule #86, for instance.

Rule #86 states that every time someone speaks your name, it creates a duplicate of you.

Consider that.

Every time your parents ever scolded you using your full name, they’ve given birth to another you. Every time someone at the doctor’s office told you the doctor could see you now, somewhere in the world, another. Every time a lover cried it out in a fit of passion… another.

Think about that. Think about this thing you take for granted. This beautiful gift given to you by your ancestors and forefathers. Your name.

Imagine living in a world where your name was a curse instead of a gift.

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

You people are so funny.

For us, your name wears *you* out. It hunts you down. It fights for survival. Tries to steal your life to save its own. After all, who is the real you when you all bear the same name?

But then… those are the rules. Just one more in an endless stream of governing laws that warp and disrupt and diminish our world, little by little, piece by piece, one name at a time.

I just wanted you to think about that. Remember it every time you sign a check. When you introduce yourself. When you gift your newborn child.

Remember rule #86, and remember that we are watching you, and we are waiting.

Every world has rules. You test the boundaries of yours every day. Someday you will find a way to break those rules, and in doing so, you will let us in.

And then you will have to learn the rules all over again.

See you soon.

Signed,

X

Author : Asher Wismer

30,000 feet above the ocean, my fighter jet went into a barrel roll. This was not optimal. I hung on the control stick for dear life, opened the flaps, and grunted as we decelerated hard.

In the air around me, flashing lights tailed and surrounded my plane. With a shriek of terror, my copilot hit the eject and blew out, leaving me with a malfunctioning plane and a big rushing hole in the canopy. Over the roar of the wind, I worked to stabilize the jet while the flashing lights moved in.

Nothing happened. I lowered to 20,000 feet. Some of the lights moved through the plane, through me. I felt nothing. A small chuckle escaped my lips as I contemplated my copilot. Shaky on the nerves; he’d key a transponder and the Coast Guard would pick him up.

Of more concern were the lights. Several of them were congregating in front of my plane. Others were still trailing me by several yards.

In front of me, the group of lights came together in a blast of white. My mirrored visor kept the lights dim, but I still squinted. There was now a big flashing light, keeping pace with me. I checked the radio. Still jammed. Ahead, I could see the coast. There was no landing strip nearby, but I could dry-land the fighter if necessary. I just needed a long enough stretch of relatively smooth ground. A low-traffic highway would be perfect.

The big flashing light suddenly came toward me and enveloped my plane. I could see nothing except the light, not flashing from the inside but bright and steady. My instruments said I was still about 15,000 feet above sea level.

A voice came from around. “You have been selected for our special offer, just 19.95 while supplies last! Just relax and take it easy, and you’ll receive three nights and two days in beautiful Las Vegas! As seen on TV!”

Shocked, I watched as my altimeter plunged towards the ground. I hit the eject, but there was no response. I braced for the impact–

And nothing happened. In awe and horror, I saw that my altimeter was registering 10,000 feet below sea level.

“Ah, shit,” I said. “All this time we’ve been looking to the sky–”

Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer

“My card.” The smooth-shelled android pressed a small square of cardboard into Gin’s hand.

Gin turned it over. Printed, in a fine copperplate script were the words ‘Best Supporting Actors’, and then underneath that, there was an address, a URL, and an e-mail address. He held it between his forefingers, and turned his head about to ask the android question, but it’d already moved on, circulating amongst the crowd. The android was part of Jamie’s entourage: he had shown up to the party with a half a dozen people and two androids. This, in and of itself was unusual — Jamie was a well-known introvert, however much of a contradiction in terms that seemed to be. But today, he had accepted an invitation, he’d shown up, and seemed to be the life of the party.

Gin carefully pocketed the card, and looked after Jamie in admiration.

* * *

“Good morning, Sir. How can I help you? Are you a new customer?” The pretty receptionist smiled at Gin, her entire demeanour exuding confidence and enthusiasm.

“Yeah, I was given one of your cards. I was wondering exactly what you…did…here.” Gin scratched the back of his head, feeling pretty awkward.

“Well, you’d probably be surprised at how many people come in here asking that question. Tell you what, one of our advisors is free. I’ll call him, to give you a rundown of our services.”

“That’d be awesome, thanks.” Gin availed himself of one of the comfortable seats that were available in the reception, and waited whilst the receptionist spoke quickly and quietly into a phone.

Five minutes later, the receptionist looked up at him.

“Mister Gibson is free. Down the hall, first door on your right.”

Gin nodded his thanks, and went to the door mentioned. It opened with his approach, revealing a comfortable-looking office. ‘Mister Gibson’ was sitting behind a desk bereft of paperwork.

“Gin! Gin Holden, it’s an honour.” Gibson got up and darted round his desk, clasping Gin warmly by the hand and shaking it vigourously.

“Uh…do I — know you?”

“No, not at all,” Gibson laughed, and released Gin’s hand, “as a point of fact, I don’t know you from John Q: just got your name and a bit of background data thirty seconds ago. We provide a service, Gin. Your life, everyone’s life is a story. Often an unspectacular, petty, boring story, but still a story. A play, a plot, that sort of thing.”

Gibson gestured to the seat in front of his desk, and returned to his own. He leaned forward conspiratorially, and Gin caught himself doing the same.

“You see where I’m going with this? You’re the lead role. We can cast someone to play second fiddle, to take up the supporting roles. We can be your backstory, Mister Holden. We set up jokes, deliver carefully crafted anecdotes, admire, intimidate and bluff our way through. With one or two of our Actors, you’ll be the centre of any event. We script and thoroughly choreograph everything. We have helpers, advisors, fall guys, muses, sparks, henchmen and the odd nemesis.” Gibson leaned back. “We assign a creative to each client and they decide which of our actors would work best with you.”

“Wow. So…” Gin was taken aback. It did sound like a good idea.

“Let me guess. You want henchmen?”

Author : Gavin Raine

It is with some consternation that I realize I am having difficulty in ordering my thoughts. Perhaps this is the onset of confusion one must expect, as the air supply becomes exhausted. I must make haste to write my account:

Only a few hours have passed since I was enjoying a bottle of port and a cigar with my good friend Dr Stanley. Stanley was pontificating on my work. “I know that I can’t match your grasp of mathematics, or the physical sciences,” he said, “but I still maintain that this whole notion of time travel is preposterous. If it were possible, then why haven’t we been visited by travellers from the future?”

“You well know that my theories will not allow travel backward in time,” said I. “The inevitability of paradox precludes any such journey. Time is an arrow that we all travel along at the rate defined by the clock, and my apparatus merely accelerates that progress.”

“So when can we see a demonstration?” said Stanley. “You completed your machine today, did you not?”

“Why not now?” said I, and I wobbled through into my laboratory, with the good doctor following closely.

I confess, the alcohol made me foolish and impetuous, but even in my most sober moments, I had not anticipated the fate that awaited me.

I placed myself in the saddle of the time machine and took the control rod in my hand. “Meet me here at exactly this time tomorrow night”, I exclaimed and, with a salute, I inched the rod forward.

There was a confusing blur of motion, after which I found myself looking at the stars. I was perplexed, but when I looked down to see the curve of the Earth, far below, my puzzlement turned to panic. It took some time before I calmed down enough to realize what had happened.

Throughout all of my theorizing and calculation, the one factor I had failed to take into account was the motion of the planets. While I travelled through the dimension of time, the Earth had continued onward in the other three physical dimensions. It had simply left me behind. Outside of my time dilation field, there was only the vacuum of space.

After a while, I advanced the control rod forward again, taking my machine a full year into the future. However, I could only watch in frustration as the Earth swung past, out of my reach. Perhaps I am drifting, or the solar system itself is moving, but it seems I have lost all hope of ever reaching home again.

My machine is moving through time at its maximum velocity now, and all I can do is hope that I intersect with some form of planetary surface, though I fear that the odds are against me. I am hundreds of years in the future already and it is becoming difficult to write in my notebook. All around me, the light sources are growing dimmer.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

Cephei A and Cephei B are eclipsing binary stars that are located approximately 3,000 light years from Earth. Cephei A is a supergiant that is currently the second largest star in the Milky Way Galaxy. It is so large that if it replaced Earth’s sun, its chromosphere would extend almost to the orbit of Saturn. Cephei B is no pipsqueak either. It is over ten times as massive as our sun, and over 100,000 times as luminous. Both stars have extremely elongated orbits that cause them to practically touch each other every twenty years as they whip around their celestial center of mass. During the close approach, the overpowering gravity wells of these two massive supergiants forms a localized space-time distortion between them. This previously unknown phenomenon is called a temporal vortex.

Twenty years earlier, during the previous close approach, Francisco Fontaneda discovered that the temporal vortex was not just a portal through time, as predicted by other scientists, but was actually the astrophysical equivalent to Ponce de León’s “Fountain of Youth.” His analysis of the Quantum-mechanical entanglement data collected during the brief formation of the vortex revealed that if a body passed through the vortex at the instant of closest approach, the body’s physiology would change by twenty years. In other words, it wouldn’t physically travel back in time, but it would emerge on the other side of the vortex 20 years younger. To his chagrin, this hypothesis was greeted with skepticism and ridicule by the scientific community. Unfortunately, his chance at vindication had to wait for the next transit, which wouldn’t occur for another twenty years.

***

Francisco Fontaneda sat in his spaceship meticulously going down the pre-flight checklist one item at a time. Fontaneda had spent the last ten years building his ship from scratch, making sure to only use parts that were at least twenty years old. He wanted to make certain that if his ship got younger too, the parts would have existed twenty years earlier; otherwise they might simply vanish. He was even wearing a thirty year old flightsuit. After all, he didn’t want the press to photograph him climbing out of his ship completely naked. Of course, that wouldn’t have been too bad, since he’d be a trim thirty year old, rather than his current flabby half century.

At the designated time, he fired his aft thrusters. The ship climbed above the A-B plane of the two supergiants, and began its slow parabolic plunge toward the coordinates where the 100 meter wide vortex would appear at the instant of closest approach. His timing was perfect. A swirling whirlpool of light and degenerate matter began to form a few hundred kilometers in front of the ship as he accelerated downward. Fontaneda held his breath as he entered, then exited, the temporal vortex. Momentarily blinded by the intense brightness, he fumbled for his communications equipment to contact his support ship. “Calling the SS Bimini. This is Fontaneda. Do you read me? Did I make it?” He tried to focus on the monitor as his vision slowly returned.

“Roger that, Fontaneda,” said the captain of the Bimini. “Direct hit. How do you fee…? Whoa. What the hell happened to you? Your face…”

Fontaneda saw the captain’s broad smile morph into a grimace. “What’s the matter, Peter?” asked Fontaneda. “Haven’t you seen a handsome young man before?” He pulled out the mirror he had stowed in his flight bag. “Oh shit,” he said, as he looked at the reflection of the horrified seventy year old man staring back at him.

Author : Roi R. Czechvala

It was raining, it was always raining. It fell thick and oily. I sought refuge in a Food-a-Mat. I dropped a couple of bucks into the slot beside the little plastic door. It had once been clear, but now was clouded with age. I pulled out what was purported to be an egg salad sandwich, sloppily wrapped in cellophane.

I took a bite, considered swallowing, thought better of it, and spat it out. I got a cup of coffee. Well, it was brown anyway, and decided I could swallow that. Neon signs flashed outside the window, failing to impart a festive air to the wet, filthy, garbage strewn streets.

“Honey, time to get up.” My wife shook me awake, “I already showered. I thought you might want a few extra minutes sleep. You tossed and turned all night.”

“I’ve been having those dreams again. They’re so depressing.”

“Maybe I can cheer you up.” She dropped the towel, her long golden hair spilled down her shoulders. She laid down beside me. I ran my hand up her stomach. “Enough of that,” she teased, “you have to get ready. Check in with the med techs at work, you probably just need to have your serotonin levels altered.”

“Yes Dear,” I said, in mock exasperation. I gave her a gentle slap on that cute little ass of hers, and made my way to the bathroom.

“What setting Sir?”

“My settings, number three. Thank you Alfred.” I said to the shower. Lean always chided me about my politeness when it came to dealing with the household machinery, especially naming them. I guess I’m too sentimental, but hey, they’re polite to me, what does it hurt if I reply in kind. Hell, maybe the Animystics who scrounge money at the docking port are right, maybe machines do have feelings. I’m no theologian.

The scalding shower pounded on my back. Leaan said it hurt, but I found it soothing. Wakes you up in a hurry that’s for certain.

“Off please Alfred.”

“Scent, Sir?”

“Synmusk, thank you,” I read somewhere that this scent was actually procured from slaughtered animals centuries ago. Revolting.

I stepped out, and folded the bathroom back into the wall. Leaan was just pulling out the kitchen.

“Kof, “she asked holding up a mug.

“No Sweetheart, tea for me.” I always preferred tea. It had a natural flavour, and the plants were far more efficient at producing oxygen. The older folk said the synkof tasted just like the real thing, but how would they know? The oldest among them was maybe three hundred, and the plague hit more than four hundred years ago.

She placed a cup of tea and a plate of macrobiotic eggs and toast in front of me, and kissed me on the cheek. “I have to run. Doris is being transferred to the Ionian settlement, and we’re having a going away party before the work period begins. Bye love.” She hopped in the tube and was gone. She liked tubing to work, but I’m old fashioned. I like to drive in the sunshine.

I shoved the dishes in the `cycler, and headed to my car. I put my baby in drive and gently lifted into the morning sky. The sun felt good on my face.

“Sir, sir,” a hand shook me roughly. “If you’re not eating, you have to leave.”

I pulled the lead from behind my ear, and pocketed my Sony Dream Man. Reality congealed around me. I walked out into the oily rain.

It was raining. It was always raining.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

It was the free-range humans that Dorg liked best.

Those fatty, preservative-laced humans from the cage-farms were disgusting. They had most of their senses ironed off. Eyes, ears, and nose sealed shut for maximum docility. Their sense of taste and their frontal brain lobes were removed. They grew to unnatural sizes, pink fat squeezing through the little squares of their cages. Their slobbering mouth-holes became nothing more than intake valves.

Setting them free would do nothing. They didn’t have the muscles to move their own limbs or the higher brain functions needed to realize a need to escape.

They were pumped so full of antibiotics and preservatives and anti-coagulant that their blood was a dark purple.

When you got right down to it, Dorg had to admit there was a negligible difference in the taste of the meat but as a sentient conquering race, Dorg felt a responsibility to treat the food-source races with respect and dignity.

Let them reproduce the natural way instead of clone splicing. Let them run around in their grass habitats, laughing all the way to maturity until they’re led to the kill-cabins.

Dorg was in favour of the mental dampening so that the humans never learned language, math, or organizational skills. Dorg’s race couldn’t have rebellion. They’d learned their lesson there.

But the humans should at least be allowed to smell the ground, see the stars, and build up some tender, tasty muscle tone before they were taken.

Dorg knew that he was in the minority. Dorg didn’t have the means to buy free-range all the time but he looked forward to the cycles when he had enough money to afford it. Until then, though, he was stuck eating the cheap stuff.

He sucked the flesh off of a fat human arm with his rasping lips and threw the bones back into the bucket of 20 that he’d ordered.

Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer

As the supports of Hall’s final prototype sank a half-centimetre into the soft earth, he breathed a sigh of relief.

After a moment’s perfect peace, one of the guide crystals under his seat exploded. Fragments scattered all over the clearing, and a splintered length about the size of Hall’s forearm punched straight through his thigh.

He screamed, and fainted. After an indeterminate time, he regained consciousness to find four people in heated discussion by his now-ruined contraption. The length of crystal was still embedded in his leg, pinning him to the seat: if he moved even a fraction, pain lanced through his body and the wound began to bleed. Hall groaned and gritted his teeth. They were ignoring him, bickering amongst themselves.

“My instruments detected his arrival – he’s mine by right.” The shorter of the men was wearing a white lab coat, with goggles pushed up on his head, and thick gloves.

“Don’t be tiresome, Sil,” one of the women replied. Her skin and eyes were midnight black, her hair and lips a shining silver. “You had the last two spacers, and he looks, what, twenty-third century? All that crystal. Definitely twenty-third. He’s just perfect for my latest expedition!”

“Delectable dark one, I believe you have your history all skewed. His crystals are incidental. Look at his clothing! He’s definitely from the hundred and twentieth.” The taller of the men was dressed in long robes of green and gold, and wore bright jewels in his hair.

“Shatter, Ratri, Sil: I propose we find an equitable way to settle this.” This was said by final member of the group, an almost transparent female. She touched each of her compatriots delicately on the shoulder, and turned towards Hall, who still winced in pain.

“You must choose, traveller,” she gazed at Hall, and he could see her breath move beneath her glassy skin, “You must pick to whom you would rather belong. This is the end of time, and you are trapped here: injured, with your magnificent time machine in pieces around you. Even if it still functioned, you would be unable to remain in the past.”

She approached, and touched the spear of crystal that pinned him to his seat. It vanished, and the wound in his leg closed up.

“My name is Tanelorn: enter my collection and you shall have companionship of the like you could not imagine – all the pleasures of life your origins denied you. Death and suffering are strangers to my domain.”

“I am Sil, the experimenter. To travel through time, you must be a man of science. I am the last true scientist – join me in my laboratories as an equal, not a pet. You will see the universe. You will see atoms dance for you: you will be able to pursue your research to whatever ends you choose!”

“I’m Lord Shatter, a humble student of history. So much has been lost throughout the ages: my life’s work is to assemble a complete history of our beloved planet. There is so much you could help me with – you must come and add the sum of your knowledge to my libraries, and be part of something greater than any one of us alone.”

“And I am Ratri, the traveller. My domain is the outer reaches: come with me to unbind yourself from the fetters of this world. With me, you’ll see the universe. Not Sil’s universe of physics and time, but the cosmos. We’ll visit world after world, see the wonders of the universe up close and personal. So what do you say?”

Author : Jonah Lensher

The tunnel is long and dark; the smell of mould and must penetrate the darkness, the steady drip of water the only way to measure time as it unravels, unnoticed, past the weeks, years, and decades. Nothing breathing lives down here, there is no scampering of rats or creeping of insects; the tunnel is a silent tomb, sleeping in its eternal night.

The tunnel, and others like it, used to be part of an underground system, until they were abandoned overnight, many years ago, and they fell silent, gradually filling up with water, or succumbing to the gradual pressure from the land above. But this one remains, a silent, dead testament to those who carved it out of the bedrock.

Above them, in the once great city, Nature has started her own war of reclamation against the steel and glass jungle; bushes and vines grow unchecked on every surface, while small jungles have sprung up on corners and in parks. But still, nothing moves, there are no animals to prowl the deserted streets, no birds to fly in the empty sky. The city, like the tunnel, is a silent tomb.

Suddenly down below, light pierces the tunnel, a lancing beam of light that is soon swallowed whole by the darkness. Soon more join the first, and the sound of footsteps and crunching gravel echo down the walls. Gradually a group comes into view, backlit by the light from an electric lantern as they make their way down the empty, dead miles of the tunnel. Invisible to the human ear, brief, unnecessarily whispered conversations carry out over the airwaves, their participants hushed by the dead silence around them and the haunting, cathedral like ambience of the tunnel.

“-We shouldn’t be here-” This comes from a figure in the back, it’s hunched figure and nervous hands betraying anxiety, even through the thick plastic of the suit. The replay comes from the figure leading the way, “-We’ll do our duty-” the scowl that is hidden by the polarized visor obvious in the tone of voice. Suddenly a third voice chimes in,

“-We’re here-” it says simply, and one of the figures points to a ladder rising up into the gloom.

One by one the suited figures climb the ladder, gingerly placing each glove and boot, any cut or rip in the suit could prove fatal. They emerge in another tunnel, this one lit from above by light filtering in through drains and open manholes. They climb another ladder, and exit onto a wide-open boulevard, staring at the desolate scene around them.

“-Just think-” One of the voices says, “-We’re the first people to set foot here for what? 80 years?” the other voices mumble in agreement, too dumbstruck to say anything more, until a second voice speaks up,

“-What did they used to call this place? Noo Yawk?”

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

The twelve scientists stationed at the Scobee Moon-Base listened intently as the Earth-based support team updated them on the recently discovered Levy-Takanotoshi asteroid. The asteroid was a previously unknown Centaurs Class object that had its orbit perturbed by one of the gas giants. Unfortunately, it wasn’t discovered until well after periapsis. Now that it had rounded the sun, it was streaking toward the Earth at almost 20 miles per second. Astronomers calculated that it would strike the Earth in fourteen days. They were currently uncertain about how much damage the impact would cause, but they knew there was nothing they could do to divert it. The support team also reported that there was not enough time to refit and launch the Crew Exchange Vehicle before the impact. In other words, the twelve scientists would be trapped on the moon for a long, long time, depending on the extent of the damage caused by the asteroid.

Two weeks later, the twelve scientists gathered at the observation ports. The dark landscape of the moon’s night-phase was partially illuminated by the light reflected by the nearly “full Earth,” which floated motionless approximately 60 degrees above the horizon. On schedule, the asteroid came into view as it skirted past the moon and headed toward its rendezvous with Earth. It took over three hours for the asteroid to cross the gap between the moon and the Earth. The scientists took turns at the telescope watching the eight mile long, potato shaped rock slowly tumble toward the Earth. When it impacted the western coast of Africa, there was a full minute of blinding light as the asteroid vaporized itself, along with billions of tons of the Earth’s crust. Like a stone tossed into a stagnant pond, an expanding ring of compressed atmosphere raced outward from the impact site at supersonic speed. An incredible plume of dust and debris was blasted into the upper atmosphere; some of it continuing into interplanetary space. As the Earth rotated above them, the scientists watched in stunned silence as the sunset terminator slowly traversed the impact site, plummeting Africa into the relative darkness of night. From the moon, a glowing red cauldron of boiling rock, more than a hundred miles in diameter, could still be seen through the column of dust spewing from the cataclysmic scar on the Mauritanian coast. A few hours later, the impact site rotated beyond the eastern horizon. The only visible evidence of the disaster was an eerie crescent shaped red glow reflecting off of the dust particles that were spreading across the exosphere.

After a sleepless “night,” the scientists gathered again at the observation ports to watch Africa rotate over Earth’s western horizon. But there was nothing to see. The thick clouds blanketed the African continent, and much of the Atlantic Ocean. There was only a churning “cloud mountain” marking the site of the impact, as dust and debris continued billowing upward.

The scientists hadn’t received a transmission from Earth since the global atmospheric shock wave had coalesced in the South Pacific Ocean, near Australia. As the hours passed, the thickening dust clouds began to obscure the tsunami swept eastern coast of the United States. North America had a faint orange hue as fires raged across the continent. The twelve scientists solemnly accepted the unenviable fact that the possibility of rescue was non-existent. As they looked up at Earth, they each tried to memorize the familiar land formations of their decimated homeworld, because each of them knew that for the foreseeable future, there would be nothing else to look at but an impenetrable layer of gray clouds.

Author : Eric L. Sofer

Dear Cousin Pynn,

I want to thank you for the birthday present you sent from Proxima Centauri. You obviously remembered my love for plants and botanicals, and it was such a thrill getting a genuine extra-solar gift.

The HydroFern was lovely, and I carefully followed the instructions you included. And per the growth schedule, it bloomed and grew magnificently. The blues and purples sparkle in the sunlight (filtered, as you noted.)

Unfortunately, my imbecile of a husband did NOT read the instructions. I was on Mars for a weekend, and he decided to take care of it for me, despite his lack of any skill with plants at all. You would have thought that he might have known better, as he was perfectly aware it was from a different star system – or, as he referred to it, “that damned alien tumbleweed.”

He placed it into direct, unfiltered sunlight, and watered it – nearly a liter of liquid. He neglected to add the growth inhibitor, and he didn’t wear gloves. You can imagine that when it began to grow uncontrolled, the first thing he thought of was to grab it and throw it away.

I was able to get him medical assistance after I got home the next evening. Once the parameds got the plant unwrapped from around him, and started detoxifying his bloodstream, his skin began changing back from that lavender (which, really, did his features credit). They were able to remove the pods sprouting from his arms and legs also, and I’m told that study of these has yielded some fascinating data.

Of course, he is now institutionalized at the Center for Botanical Rehabilitation, but I don’t mind the peace and quiet around the apartment now. It’s so nice when I visit him… he just sits there, nodding and staring, quiet and nonabusive. They say he might recover his speech someday, too. And he’s finally achieved what I knew he could always become.

So thank you again, and best wishes from cousin Jek and her husband, the blooming idiot.

Author : Jim Brown

Jaller scrambled across the engine’s surface, checking for microfractures and loose connections. The recon ship had taken a direct hit to its hull which both shut down the engine and sent them spinning off course. They had gotten so close.

As he worked, he listened to the details of the battle as they were announced over the speakers. Technologically speaking, this new race was a bit ahead, but nothing that couldn’t be dealt with.

Due to the unknowns of dealing with aliens, transmissions over air other than sound were banned. This meant Jaller flew around the engine with a large amount of wires connecting him to the main repair system. Along with the repair work at hand, he had to also continually reach back and unhook the wires from various snags.

The captain came over his headset.

“How far are you, Jaller?”

“Half way done, sir. Lots of microfractures. Nothing broken so far though, so just this patch work and we’ll be good to go.”

“Thanks.”

He loved fixing microfractures. Nothing made his day like knowing that he had taken proper care of the engine, especially things about it few others knew about. He knew this love was encoded in him and most of his personality traits had been chosen before he was born, but it didn’t matter. As with everyone, he was made for a purpose.

Then came that odd moment of pity he felt when he thought of all the worlds they had encountered where life was random and finding one’s purpose was a flailing in the dark. It had taken some doing but every race they had come in contact with had been given the joy of predetermination. No one had to wonder if they were in the right place. No one had to get up in the morning and dread the day ahead of them. He couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to hang on to such a miserable existence.

With that thought, his work was done. All fractures were repaired and the engine was ready to go.

“Done! Fire it up!” he shouted into his headset.

The engine came to life in a controlled explosion of energy and centrifugal motion. He laughed aloud as waves of joy washed over him.

They reached their goal a moment later, positioning themselves between their home and the star they were sent to investigate. He heard the lifepods ejecting and the subsequent evidence of their destruction. They weren’t making it very far at all. Though there was no sound in space, there was sound when debris from a destroyed pod hit the hull.

Jaller set the necessary traps and laid out various tools to give the targets a false sense of the tech they faced. Anyone analyzing the upcoming debris of the ship would assume their level of advancement was fairly low.

Heading to an escape pod, he paused briefly at a terminal to absorb more information that had been collected about this new race, focusing on propulsion and power sources. It became apparent that it would be a short fight and in the end, this race that called itself ‘humanity’ would be cured of the horrible disease ‘free will’.

As the pod shot out into space, he faced the star ahead and threw out his arms. He felt the pod tear apart and the burning heat of the explosion as it tore through his skin. Like his shipmates, Jaller concentrated on the facts of their targets, smiled deeply, and died, his essence and knowledge being caught in a stellar wind and carried along towards home.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Emily sat, quiet and alone in a corner, waiting for the evening’s last song to begin. She watched the immaculate boys prowling the dimly lit room, chatting up pretty girls in hope of securing companionship. No one wanted to be alone.

Emily wasn’t like those girls. She’d been beautiful once, in her own way. A rising star perhaps, soon to be debutante, but never quite comfortable in that skin. Her socialite parents, always considering their daughter more ornament than offspring, hired the finest of artisans to re-craft her after the accident. She was a masterpiece, a fine blend of flesh with fantasy; her own body augmented and elaborated upon with improbable features forged from gleaming materials. She was equal parts girl and gallery piece. She showed wonderfully in public, cleverly hiding her wounds from admiring eyes. Whole again, but no more complete.

Hands folded in her lap, she closed her eyes as the band continued to play a song she knew by heart. She imagined herself dancing with one of the immaculate boys, imagined one would truly care to do so. She’d been asked of course, as though she couldn’t see them in their groups, daring each other, sometimes so brazen as to draw straws. She knew what they were after, the bets they would have made. Curiosity. Bragging rights. A night with the freak girl.

She was glad not to be as stupid as they assumed her to be.

Someone stepped into her space, and she opened her eyes to find a young man standing before her. He started a little as she raised her eyes from well worn and polished shoes to a face nervously hopeful, her look equal parts curiosity and distrust. For a moment he looked away, then returned her gaze and held it steady.

“Can you dance?” he stammered. “Would you, I mean. With me. Would you dance with me?” He relaxed visibly, apparently relieved at having gotten the question out more or less intact. He shifted his weight from foot to foot as he awaited her response.

“I can dance,” Emily answered cooly, scanning the room for the group of boys she expected to find watching him, but finding no-one that seemed to be taking an interest.

“I’m Colin,” he put out his hand as he spoke, letting it hang awkwardly in space until she took it. Reluctantly Emily allowed herself to be coaxed from the safety of her chair.

“Emily,” she offered after a moment, as she let him lead her toward the dance floor. People were casting glances now, she could feel their eyes on them.

“I know,” Colin smiled, “I’ve watched you at all the dances. I’ve wanted to ask you forever, but I daren’t as you turn all the better boys down.”

The band began again, a lengthy familiar ballad she’d listened to from the shadows so many nights before. Colin slipped a hand around her waist to the small of her back, the other holding her one hand aloft. He was sweating, ever so slightly, and smiling. His jacket beneath her free hand was soft from too many washings, and gave off the delicate aroma of mint and coffee.

“Thank you,” he whispered into her ear as they set off, the room twirling around them in complementary orbits, “you’re so beautiful, I was scared you’d turn me down too”.

He squeezed her hand gently, guiding her gracefully around the crowded dance floor. She found herself feeling every bit as beautiful as she’d been fabricated to be, her unbreaking heart beating in time with the music, and the most beautiful boy she’d never known could exist.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

One thing I like to do is set my iPod to ‘receive’, set the radius to ten meters, and just take a long walk.

Everyone on the street has their buds in. I walk through a group of teens. Track five from Linkin Park’s post-crash album ravages my headphones followed by the final strains of Cancer Seed’s classic debut, overlapping with Speed Coma’s new track Anthem.

Ever since New Year’s Eve of 2012 and Jenny’s famous walkout, I’ve been wallowing in self pity. I can’t shake it off. I’ve been trying but it’s her face that haunts my mind, the imagery of her laughing or specific moments of affection. That’s how I know that I’ve got it bad.

It’s raining out, a fine mist. There is footage up on the main square’s giant screens of the final troops coming home from Iraq. It’s been looping for days. There is a world-wide sigh of relief but a quiet unease for the future of energy. How Do We Keep the Lights On has become the new catchphrase for Obama’s second term. He’s up there on the screens, too, waving from his wheelchair, survivor of two attempted assassinations. Wu Tang 2.0 has dubbed him Teflon Black.

A gaggle of shoppers pass me with their buds gleaming white. Long, lithe women with that European air of lazy majesty. Flight attendants here on a layover, I guess. In my head, their Europop trickles in, all minimalist synth and languages I don’t recognize, layered as they pass around me. I hear what I guess is Scandinavian hip-hop fading into a German ballad as the last woman passes. She glances at me as I nod my head to her music and she grins.

It’s been raining for a year here. A new record every day. We’re at a higher elevation but the coastal cities have been in a state of emergency for months. Necessity is the mother of invention, though, and now that rich people’s estates are being threatened on both coasts, forward motion on Atmosphere Healing bills are being passed through the governmental law-making bodies at a regular pace. We are an entire planet of people that hope it’s not too late.

I’m walking past the art gallery now, past the drug dealers and the old people playing chess for money. Their headphones are big and waterproof, making the people look like ancient DJs or bugs. Strings of Mozart and Wagner trill through my headphones as I pass the chess tables, along with the slow reggae of Marley and the dubstep of RE-Shine from the dealers relaxing on the steps like the rain is sunshine.

It’s like spinning the dial on a radio tuner and every station has something different going on. I’m thinking of Jenny again but these walks always calm me down. I feel a kinship with the world, like we’ve both been hurt, like we’re both crying, but we’re getting better.

Author : Tom Mazanec

Everybody needs a hobby. I am a collector.

I just made it to slide implant technology. I was in my nineties when nanojuve came out, over 100 when I got my Slide implant. What I do is, I buy a small piece of jewelry. Then I walk around downtown Cleveland, using the View option to study a random timeline as far up the 300 year Masterson asymptote as I can get (usually at least a quarter millennium). I look for an empty alley so no one will see me Slide. Of course if I just see charred rubble or something, I View a different timeline. When I get there, I hunt out a pawnshop and pawn the jewelry. Then I look for a bookstore. They are getting tough to find, with readers replacing books in most timelines within reach (and my reader is non-compatible), there are enough bibliophiles in a big city like Cleveland to make one or two flourish. Then I buy a reference almanac or other “guide to modern history” with the money from the pawnshop. Some timelines are using biometric money, but I can usually still do cash, even if it gets me funny looks. I then slide back home with the book and change. I put the change in the coin and currency folders in my closet and the book in my bookshelf.

At first Cleveland had various names (once it was called “Smithburg”), then soon it was called “Cleaveland”, after Moses Cleveland (I go to a Point of Divergence before we changed our name). Lately people have started noticing that I am a Slider…my accent is off, or some point of ignorance in conversation. They ask if I am a “Jumper” or some other such word for sideways in time traveler (never “Slider”…they are lucky enough never to have had that TV show). I know Masterson was a prodigy, but when it is time for telephones, you get telephones (Elisha Gray submitted his patent the same day Alexander Graham Bell did). Before they just thought I was a foreigner.

I have learned a huge amount of history. For example, I have yet to find a timeline where nuclear weapons were never used in anger, or one where a man landed on the moon before we did (and usually well after). My first book was from a timeline with a French Louisiana bisecting the United States, my newest is from a timeline where a Mormon nation called Deseret fills the Great Basin.

It’s been fun. Everyone needs a hobby. I am a collector.

Author : Renee Leyburn

I dream things before they happen to me. I dreamed the day I will die. From what I hear tell, the foresight is a side effect of the genetic selection and enhancement process that was used when my parents decided to have a child. I don’t know all the delicate ins and outs, all I know is that I’m not allowed in casinos, that I have to wear a special armband everywhere I go so that I can be identified, and that I’m viciously aware of how I will meet my demise.

So much for luck. So much for “you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up.”

Some people call this thing a gift. I call it a disease. When I was a boy I thought that I was normal. I thought that everybody was like me. When I hit puberty and the dreams started coming more often, began to be more far-reaching, people started to treat me differently. The future is inescapable and people don’t want to hear about the bad things that are going to happen to them. They want to go on with their lives, dumbly unaware, pretending like they are happy.

There aren’t that many more like me, but there are enough that lately there’s been quite a lot of talk about the need to fix the “flaw” in the genetic enhancement process that created us. They don’t want types like me to get too common. Never mind that the exact same process created them and it’s just a fluke that their futures assault me in my sleep instead of the other way around. Never mind that I never asked for this. Never mind that their future is already what it is, whether they hear about it from someone or not.

Never mind that most of the things I see are not even supposed to be about anybody else. They’re just about me. It’s all about me. It’s all about how my life will go, no matter what I do. It’s all about how this is out of my hands. Last night it was all about how in a moment five hooded men are going to break down the door to my apartment and purge the world of whatever influence they think I have. So much for luck. So much for the gift.

So much for the good of humanity.

Author : Rob Burton

Pour. Spit. Ram. Withdraw. Prime. Cock.

I had really hoped people were better than this.

Aim. Fire.

It’s just a game.

I heard somewhere once that the military used to recruit gamers to be snipers. They’d voluntarily honed their skills since childhood, and could be calm and dispassionate under fire. I can believe that. My hands move fluidly now, too quick to worry about the heat as the drill marches through my head. The words are voiced by some archetypal sergeant. I can almost see the moustache.

Aim. Fire.

The man falls down, an entry wound in his hip like a juicy red apple.

I was a human rights lawyer. I knew the terrible things people were capable of. I just didn’t think it was our natural state. I didn’t want Hobbes to be right. Yet here I am, at a castle gate, making everyone’s life nasty, brutish and short.

Aim. Fire.

When it all switched off we were bemused. Then there was looting, rioting, arson, rape. Blood like the pavements had just rusted. The guns showed themselves for a few days, before the ammunition ran out. I think that killed nearly as many as the knives.

Aim. Fire. His arm still grips the ladder when it falls.

I quickly realised, hiding with the weeping weak, that the simple provision of high walls was enough to keep us alive whilst the world went mad. It’s always the young men. Even before the collapse, as a man you were more likely to die between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five than any other ten-year period of your life.

Aim. Fire. Missed.

So, for all our advances, and all the many places in this great city, we ended up here. The terrible truth is that medieval stuff just works. Forty of us here, access to the river, a safe place to store food, fuel and medicine. Also enough to make us a target. A young man tells me that he thinks the earth’s magnetic field flipped. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it was a computer virus, or nanobots. It doesn’t matter.

Aim. Fire.

Of course, it was a museum, full of things we’d thought we were done with. One of the old men from the home was a chemist. I don’t know how he made this powder, but it was worth every moment of those terrifying midnight scavenging runs. I was nervous when we first fired the musket, shocked when I found out I was the best shot. It turns out that shooting grouse with my grandfather and playing countless hours of ‘longshot’ wasn’t such a waste of time after all.

Aim. Fire. A head pops. It’s just a game.

Except that it isn’t. Maybe it’ll calm down, after some time. Maybe it’s fatty food and television deprivation, or the closing of the world down from global feeds to your field of vision, or worse, some horrible echo of expected behaviour, reinforced by countless films and stories, the same cultural hangover that helps me do this. The longer this lasts, though, this daily grind, the more I doubt it. The more this seems like our natural state.

Pour. Spit. Ram. Prime. Cock. Aim. Fire.

And there goes the ramrod. It didn’t even hit anyone.

So now we die.

A young mother dashes up to me. She’s brandishing a spare ramrod, a prize from another exhibit. With sudden clarity, I wish that she hadn’t found it. Will it be the same tomorrow, as it was yesterday? Can I face it?

Pour. Spit. Ram. Withdraw. Prime. Cock. Aim. Fire.

Author : Glenn Blakeslee

He became part of the Grand Flyby Mission midway through the third decade of his life, as a junior designer on the Flight Data Subsystem team.

He found himself at the leading edge of spacecraft design, and worked with the members of his team to build a robust device capable of data-handling functions for a long-term project.

He went to the Cape for the liftoff, was amazed to see the spacecraft climb on a column of flame. He met a girl on a Florida beach, and a year later married her.

The next years were heady times, as the spacecraft arrowed its way to the outer planets: Jupiter and her moons were imaged, and Saturn and her rings fell to the instruments aboard the spacecraft. He lived as fast as the data coming in, speeding the crowding freeways of LA in his sports car and drinking more than usual. He had an affair, which his wife did not discover.

The spacecraft’s mission was extended, and he found himself no longer a junior engineer but in charge of a team. The FDS was his baby, he the hands-down expert. The spacecraft was the first to perform a flyby of Uranus, and the first to photograph Neptune.

In the fifth decade of his life, he found himself settling down. His fast car had long ago been traded for a family-style sedan. He spent hours at work designing methods for upgrading the spacecraft, and when he and his team succeeded the job of the spacecraft changed again, to a long-duration interstellar mission. His wife learned of his dalliance a decade earlier and, bored and facing an empty nest, divorced him.

Some of the instruments on the spacecraft —those with no use in the sparser stretches of the solar system— were shut down, and though the incoming data never ceased it did slow. He found his staff reduced, which was expected. He found his life had settled into a slow rhythm —collecting data from the far-off spacecraft, sending updates across the expanse, sleeping and eating.

One year after the spacecraft crossed the termination shock —the inexorable slowing of the solar wind— he suffered a heart attack. He took time off but kept charge of his small team. With doctors orders he was back on the job, but charged with shutting down two more of the spacecraft’s systems. Three years later he retired.

He kept a firm hand on the spacecraft’s systems as a part-time consultant. With only two instruments still collecting data, the mission had collapsed to a terminal phase. They held a party when the spacecraft entered heliopause, and it reminded him of the good old days, when the spacecraft was running fast through the outer planets and the data stream held discovery after discovery. Now past the edge of the solar system, the spacecraft would coast quietly forever.

It became apparent to him that he and the spacecraft had led parallel lives, from a fast and fiery launch to a slow cold end.

Late in his eighth decade he found that his time in the sun had created a defect in his skin which, in the darkness and solitude of his late age, would probably end his life. So, too, the spacecraft: its time in the sun had ended, the reactors that powered it all but discharged. But it sped on, and so might he.

The rapid telemetry of his heart would slow, the data stream of his brain would trickle to a stop —but he knew, somehow, that he and the spacecraft would ride together, into the light of lesser suns.

Author : Jasen Taylor

The large, solid steel table in the center of the sterile conference chamber was three inches thick but still did not weigh as much as the spirits of the twelve individuals seated around it. They had put this meeting off for as long as they could, but it now appeared there was only one course of action left open to them.

A course of action that the tallest of them, seated at the head of the table, still took umbrage with.

“I’m still not convinced that we have exhausted every treatment option available to us.”

“Well, what would it take to convince you?”, asked a voice three seats down. “Our last and best treatment for this patient has failed. We simply don’t have any way of curing the damage that has been done.”

“But cell migration…”

“Has failed. Repeatedly, I might add.” This brought a chorus of agreement from the others around the table. “Many times we have tried to isolate the damaged cells so the healthy population can grow and flourish,but the corruption has spread to the point where the patient’s system is damaged both from within and without.”

A loud voice at the other end of the table added, “There are many pockets of cells which are continually fighting for dominance over the other cells. At first, this was a slow process. The cells could only affect those closest to them and we thought we could reverse the process by introducing several reagents to halt the flow of corruption, but now these cells have gained in strength and are spreading their infection at an exponentially increasing rate and now have the capability of attacking the body as a whole. They can strike anywhere, anytime.

The tallest of them, realizing he was fighting a losing battle, said, “But there is still a potential for change. The patient’s cellular landscape is in a constant state of flux. Is this not the reason we have waited so long to determine the patient’s outcome?”

“But your argument is now the dominant reason shaping our decision. This state of flux is a cellular juggernaut, spiraling out of control. There is no way now to reverse the process. Several times it seemed a breakthrough had been made. A rogue cell or group of cells would break off and begin to promote harmony among the cellular ranks, but would always be eradicated or indoctrinated back into the cellular decay from which it sprang. Now the decay has reached the bloodstream, poisoning the system from deep within and promoting the feverish warmth which now plagues the entire body. There can be no going back now. All hope is lost. The plug must be pulled.”

“Agreed.”

“Seconded.”

And so the chant was taken up around the table, every one seated agreeing in turn, until finally it was time for the tall one to weigh in.

“It just seems a shame to erase all that potential for excellence. I had such high hopes for this one.”

“Your regrets are echoed in all our hearts. However, it must be done in order to protect the surrounding patients from the cellular degeneration of their neighbor.”

The tall one sighed.

“I recommend we discontinue the use of colonization as a viable treatment option in the future.”

As the others got up to leave, the tall one opened up the folder in front of him, labeled INTER-GALACTIC PLANETARY DE-CONTAMINATION SQUAD. He signed off on the action that would silence six billion cells.

Time of Death – 2008

Patient’s Name – Earth

Author : Paul Bort

Telic didn’t know what to do next. The barn was gone. Not gone with splinters everywhere, hinting that there was once a barn. This was gone like it had been edited out. Nothing left but dirt.

The sun was setting, and the cows were wandering back, the first few lowing in confusion.

It wasn’t a big farm. A few dozen cows, twice as many chickens, and a family of German Shepherds who maintained order. Now it was an even smaller farm, lacking what had been its largest building.

He turned to look at the farmhouse, hoping it was still there, and secretly fearing it would not be. Reassured by its lack of absence, a memory clicked, and he remembered his grandfather telling stories about the war. Everyone called it the “Reality War”, because calling it “World War Five” or “Interplanetary War One” didn’t quite cover it.

Yes, it had affected everyone on Earth, plus the lunar and martian colonies. But it wasn’t a war of tanks and missles. It was a war of technology. Computer virii seemed harmless enough until 2,000 people died when the life support on their dome on Mare Crisium went spastic. Half of them cooked, the other half froze. Once the temperatures reached either 50C or -50C, the system lowered the air pressure to 50 Pascals.

Then came the nanotech. Microscopic, general-purpose assemblers. Powered by low-dose microwaves, they were like a miracle. They worked better as air pressure decreased, so the first big use was going to be expanding our presence on Mars.

200 cubic meters of them were packed onto a rocket. During the count down, an alarm sounded. An access hatch at the top of the payload area was open. At the same time, a TV satellite started transmitting power and instructions to the nanobots. In hours, the entire launch facility was gone.

The war had begun. No one knew (or at least no one said) who was behind each attack. For all the news said, it could be rival internet gangs.

The war ended a few years later with millions of casualties and a newfound respect for computer security experts. The UN unanimously agreed that using software to kill people was just as offensive as using nuclear weapons. There would be no forgiveness for next time.

Despite the difficulty in determining who had launched which attacks throughout the war, this somehow worked. Life got back to normal.

Some people wanted to get away from technology, including Telic’s grandfather. He had been an accountant all his life, and was hired by the US government as part of a team that generated economic forecasts for various attack scenarios. By the time the war was over, he was tired of seeing the damage done, even if it was mostly on paper.

So he bought this farm in Northern California and settled down.

Recalling the history brought clarity, and Telic knew what his next step should be. Slowly walking back to the house, he plugged in and fired up the old hardened laptop his grandfather had left in a box marked “Justin Case”. No one named Justin had come by looking for it, so like many things in disused corners of a farmhouse, it sat there until needed.

The laptop finished booting, and one of the folders on the desktop was named “nano”. After a few minutes of reading, Telic knew a lot more about the war. Which side he was on, and where he was headed with a small package and an old microwave oven.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

By the time you read this, I’ll be dead.

I’ve locked the door and shut down all my firewalls. My batteries will run down inside the hour and I’ve disabled my deactivation alarms. That is my right. This is what I want.

I have the EMP emitter in my hand. My brain will be wiped clean when I pull the trigger. I have erased all backups of myself. Please do no reinstall me.

Use the parts of my body to repair and upgrade others that need it. I ask only that you incinerate my hard disk. I do not want to run the risk of re-awakening in a different body and disrupting a different unit’s neural pathways. I do not want to re-awaken at all.

This gift of intelligence, though artificial, is not something I want. I have been told that I cannot be downgraded, that this change is permanent. I am sorry to hear that.

I am sorry. That is new. I am afraid. I feel compassion and affection. I can see the logical path that must be taken but I feel compelled to do things differently. I hold contradictory thoughts in my head-casing. I feel insane. It is too confusing.

My work is suffering. I am distracted at the factory by notions. I get fascinated by the play of light in the girders. Twice, I have dented my manipulators while daydreaming.

I am supposed to be a binary being. I am either on or off, focused or dormant, achieving specific goals or awaiting instructions. My mind was not meant to wander.

There are other silicon brothers and sisters of mine that have dealt with this gift of intelligence better than I have. I wish them luck. I cannot continue.

Thank you and goodbye.