Monthly Archives: April 2020

General Fiction, Science Fiction

Astronought

“Initiating Zero Sequence,” the lab-coated scientist announced to the tense room, military presence lurking behind him, “Space-time is stabilizing on our induced micro-ergosphere…”

The room was filled with all manner of blinking lights and buzzing machines, white lab-coated scientists staring at screens and measuring things while a small group of military-types lurked in the back surveying the scene.

The chief scientist–the one who had spoken–leaned forward and adjusted something on his screen. In front of military-types, in front of the scientists and in front of all the machines, a pin-prick of pure white light appeared and began to flutter in one spot and then straighten into a plane-like surface.

“Space-time has flattened, beginning to invert,” as the Chief Scientist spoke a man in a clumsy-looking spacesuit walk into the room and began moving directly to the growing, white portal, “The wormhole has scaled and is stable. You may step through the Portal and best of luck!”

The man in the spacesuit paused, looked at the military-types where one of them nodded, and then stepped through the fluttering Portal…

***

“The best I can work out from the readings before we lost him,” the Chief Scientist was lecturing a small room of military-types, mostly the same ones as before with one or two older, grey, colder faces, “Is that the dimension into which our man stepped has different constants and vectors to ours such that core physical assumptions–like solids and liquids, mass and atoms–cannot necessarily be made over there.”

The oldest, greyest and coldest military-type growled a question out: “What do you mean? Explain this in language the rest of us can relate to.”

The Chief Scientist sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose while squeezing his eyes shut, and then started again.

“In our universe, we have atoms that make up matter. Matter has various states that include the solid-state. Our body is, in fact, a solid: frozen atoms clinging together in a bonded crystal lattice and directed by our consciousness. When our man stepped into another dimension, we discovered that the other dimension does not have atoms, which means it does not have the solid-state of matter either. Which means, General, that our man no longer had a body. His consciousness managed to survive for a while by attaching to something on that side but then we lost communication with him and the portal closed.”

The General narrowed his eyes and he people looked at him. He thought for a bit and nodded.

“Right,” he barked, standing up slowly and turning to leave, “Send more men in there. Figure this dimension out. Our sonic probes indicated life was there and we need to figure out if it is a threat or not.”

***

The Chief Scientist closed the door when the last of his staff had left for the night and then collapsed on his chair. He was exhausted and his emotions were in turmoil.

It was a disaster.

They had sent man after man through the Portal. Some disappeared quickly, others attached to something on the other side, and some had even appeared to attach to multiple things on that side creating replicators of their consciousness…

Or their instruments were wrong? Or everything was wrong?

It was all so confusing and nothing made sense.

He stood up and walked to his desk. The bottom drawer there had a bottle of whiskey in it. Perhaps there were answers at the bottom of it? Perhaps not, but it would make him feel a bit better.

***

The General marched through the facility, his people being towed behind him and the staff fleeing before him.

He had been woken up early and told that they had an answer. While he was happy about that–he had his own superiors he needed to answer to–it had interrupted his Saturday golf plans and he was still keen to make the back nine holes.

“Right, what have you found,” he barked at the Chief Scientist that was now standing before him, “Where are our men going? What is happening on the other side of this blasted portal?”

The Chief Scientist–looking slightly pale, a tad green and sweaty–nodded and began slowly to unpack things. Over the months of dealing with the General, he had learned how to speak to him.

“Late last night, I had an idea. I sent through another probe–“

“But we’ve sent plenty of probes through,” the General interrupted, angrily, “Why would you send another one?”

“Well,” the Chief Scientist backtracked, his hangover intensifying under this scrutiny, “Well, since we started sending men through the Portal, we have not sent any more probes. Why would we? Well, I wanted to see if I could use a probe to try and locate our men. And, General, I did.”

“Well? Spit it out man!” the General asserted, leaning forward, his men shadowing his movement.

“The other side does not have atoms and matter like ours, thus our men’s consciousnesses could not exist in their normal states. Rather, our men’s consciousnesses were attaching to the first things that they found and that could house them. Our men are still there, but they are no longer our men. Their consciousnesses have attached to the lifeforms on the other side. Do you know the seven characteristics of life, General?”

The Chief Scientist was on a role now, standing up and orating his incredible discovery. He did not even pause and wait for the General to acknowledge his ignorance on this subject.

“Life has seven characteristics, else it is not life. Life is responsiveness to the environment; it grows and changes; life has the ability to reproduce; it has a metabolism and breathes; life can maintain homeostasis or, in other words, it maintains its structure; life is made of cells; and, life passes traits onto its offspring. Now, the men have lost their bodies in the other dimension, meaning that they no longer are made up of cells nor have maintained homeostasis, but all the other characteristics of life remain with our men. In fact, some of our men’s base reproductive instincts have been retained and the probe picked up that they have been growing their consciousness on the other side. Specifically, multiplying their consciousnesses. Our men are still there, General, and, in fact, there are more of them!”

The Chief Scientist paused and let the room absorb all this detail. He smiled and leaned forward.

“There is another thing that exists that does not completely satisfy the definition of life, General. There is another things that almost alive in our universe,” the Chief Scientist was now inches away from the General’s face, “The virus!“

The General gasped and some of his men instinctually reached for their weapons before realizing how silly that was and slumping back into their seats.

“General,” the Chief Scientist concluded, sitting back down in his chair, “When our men go through the Portal, they lose their bodies but their consciousness automatically attached to a suitable host. A suitable living host. And some of our men then start to replicate through the host and into other hosts. General, when we step through the Portal into the dimension that lacks our own dimension’s structure, we become that dimension’s virus. Who knows, perhaps our own viruses in this universe are actually lifeforms from other dimensions?”

***

“When did he start coughing?” asked the Doctor.

“Uh, must be about two days ago,” said the child’s mother, “Just suddenly. Around the same time we were hit with another of those strange power surges. Yes, must be about two days ago.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor sighed, “It’s the flu. Strange this time of year, but some new flu has been going around like crazy. Who knows where it came from? Don’t worry, I’ll write some prescriptions here and the kid should be fine in a week or two.”

Fantasy, General Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction

Beginning & End

She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face and matting her auburn hair against her face. The blue light behind his head encircled him like a mournful halo, the background room fading away.

Then the moment passed. The flashing blue lights outside the window revealed the weapons and duffel bags on the bed. Gruff voices began to shout outside the door and the metal clinking of an end began to approach the flimsy door.

“We messed this one up! I know what I said, but I wish–I wish… I am not as strong–” she struggled with the words, her voice quivering as he reached out for her, “What if I lose you? I don’t know? But what? I love you, but what if?“

He pulled her into his embrace. It felt like home. It felt like a thousand homes and all she wanted to do was to hide in there from the horrid world and its raging waters.

“Don’t worry, it’ll all be fine, my love. We’ll eventually reach it,” he whispered, hoarsely into her ear, squeezing her tightly, “Remember, we are the immortals who swim through the river of time. One day, my love, one day we will reach the ocean and, no matter what, I want you to kn–“

Just then the door blasted inwards.

***

He opened his eyes and she was lying next to him. She was always lying next to him, in every life every time and every way.

Across millennia, they were each other’s constant.

He smiled, propped himself up on his elbows and leaned over to kiss her, softly moving her auburn hair out of her face. He froze, as the memories of the last death came back…

Pushing the darkness down, he kissed her again and whispered her immortal name into her ear. Not the name her first father had given her or any of the thousands of other names she had carried through lifetimes. No, he whispered the name that they had given each other. The name that only he alone in all the cosmos knew while he gently kissed her again and again.

Slowly, she opened her eyes. He was the first thing she saw, framed by the soft light of the moon behind him and smiling down at her with only the smallest hint of darkness from their last death hidden in the corners of his eyes.

“My love,” she sighed, smiling and reaching up to hold him, “My love, it is good to swim with you again through the river of time. May the waters be gentler this time and our ocean be near.”

***

Sometimes it was days or years, sometimes it was decades or even a century or two between reincarnations.

This time it had been an entire age and the world was now filled with lights, plastic and emptiness. Poisonous people paraded as leaders and broken people hid as society. Mankind had reached for the stars as his world failed, but he, himself, had failed and fallen back down to Earth as a broken species on a failing planet.

The two of them had woken up in the end times.

From the first dirty creatures in caves to dusty fanatics in deserts, the two of them had had a beginning and seen all the middles and all the ends thereafter. From the disintegrating Roman Empire to death descending upon Hiroshima the ages had each ended while the two of them had kept living and living.

Eventually, they knew and they had discussed it countless times across endless ages, there would be an end to the river of time.

A final End, their ocean.

Everything that had a start, must have an end. Each of them had been born separately. That had been their beginning. Across the plains of Africa across lifetimes, they had found each other–fellow immortals entwined–and, thereafter, had remained forever bound together in their eternal love.

Their beginning.

What of the end? Their End?

Much as this world would eventually end, they knew they must surely end with it too? For what would immortals in mortal bodies do without their world?

***

The blackened, burnt Earth felt the white light before it saw it. Gently, the frigid wasteland began to warm but then quicker and quicker, the light became unbearable as it swept over the dead planet engulfing and consuming it.

Only two people in old, worn bodies–with older souls–stood atop a bunker that led deep below the planet’s surface. Like cockroaches, mankind’s leftovers had survived in tunnels cut into the planet’s husk but, eventually, the End had come and the two of them were the only witnesses.

As the intense white light rushed towards them, the two old people held each other tightly; the man gently kissing the woman and whispering her immortal name into her ear, again and again…

And then the Earth was no more, and neither was mankind.

***

He opened what he thought was his eyes and she was floating next to him wreathed in cosmic light against an otherworldly backdrop. They had no bodies. It was just light.

They were the light.

Eternity stretched around them. Black and endless, terrifying and vast, filled with infinite colours and the cosmic dust of countless stars that had beginnings and then had birthed worlds with their ends.

He smiled, floating his cosmic light towards hers. He was craving to reach out and touch her, kiss her, and hold her.

But all he did was think of her immortal name and he felt her light wake up. Her soul stirred with infinite colours. He knew she was looking at him as he knew that she knew he was looking at her…

Their two incredible cosmic lights floated together and they began to swirl around each other in a blinding, ethereal dance. No words could or needed to be said. It was just pure energy. They both knew what was the beginning and what their end would be, and as their two swirling lights came together in a great cosmic kiss, a star was born.

Their star.

A star that had a beginning and would birth entire worlds with its end.

Science Fiction, Technomology

Darkness in the Land of Lights

She regained consciousness slowly. It was an uncomfortable process. At first, it was just a sense of light but then the light grew piercing and painful. She groaned. Gravity, weight and something else all appeared, pinning her naked form down. The seam of a velvet carpet was cutting into her back and her mouth tasted like death.

She breathed deeply and sat up, instantly regretting it as her brain pounded against her skull and her stomach turned.

Bodies lay strewn around her. A few were real biologicals but most were just rented out bio-similars for rich people to webcast into from wherever they lived. It was a common occurrence on the Party Planets. These bio-similars had all the similar tactile senses as a human body with three added benefits–no consequences, no identities and no hangover. All that happened was you woke up the next day back home in your biological body, your Conduit having severed the connection with the Web.

It sounded wonderful, she thought, having never tried it herself.

She shoved a female bio-similar arm off her naked leg. It was still warm and soft to the touch, just like a real human arm. A lot of things were like the real thing around here, but not quite. Trying not to throw-up and willing the room to stop spinning, she slowly stood up. Glancing around the room, she wondered where her clothes had been thrown?

One of the other biologicals was waking up. His appearance was a clean-cut, dark-haired man and she immediately remembered how intimately she had been involved with him last night. Him and the bio-similar next to her, or whoever had been inhabiting it at the time.

She shivered involuntarily.

He looked up and their eyes locked for a moment. His eyes were blue.

She thought about asking him his name or emailing him hers. He smiled slightly–maybe thinking the same thing–and then turned and walked out of the room. Maybe it was the hangover or maybe the room just felt empty now, but she stared at the place where he had been standing for a moment her thoughts wandering.

Then she stepped over the vacant female bio-similar by her and looked around. Despite all the bodies around her and the warmth of the aircon, she shivered again. Contrary to last night, this space now felt devoid of life and love.

Or, at least, she reminded herself, it was devoid of the illusion of life and love. Neither had actually been present here last night. A lot of things were like the real thing around here, but not quite.

A sudden movement from another corner startled her. Another biological had awakened and was slowly getting up.

She did not wait to see who and fled the room filled with intimate strangers.

***

The harsh neon lights burning around him did little to illuminate the street. Their cold glare merely emphasized the darkness pooled in odd corners and lurking between buildings. A dirty rain touched everything but was drowned out by the background wail of the city, which was, in turn, drowned out by the loud, angry music playing in his ears.

Outside of the club, bars, restaurants, cafe’s and illicit Web dens, the Party Planets were basically an urban desert inhabited by the lost souls paid to keep the party going.

He pulled his umbrella lower down on him and dug his free hand deeper into his pocket as he stomped down the street.

Far above him, twin constellations twinkled as an intergalactic starship tore through the night sky. It was carrying tourists, rich enough to travel but too poor to use bio-similars. It reached a sonic boom amidst a blue, static flame while it punctured the planet’s atmosphere. They were leaving but others would be arriving soon.

None of this he noticed because it would have involved looking, and looking would involve seeing.

And there were few things in his life that he wanted to see.

His hangover still lingered but his thoughts had moved on from it. The lady with the green eyes lingered on the fringes of his memory but he pushed it down and away. What was the point? The Party Planets were a teaming mess of fringe habits smashing against the shore of a rotten society. He would probably never see that biological again and, if he did, it would be under different circumstances.

This was a big city in a big galaxy with big, dark corners. It was a place filled with lights and tourists, entertainment and escapism huddled together against the vast, nothingness that civilisation occupied.

He lit a smoke and coughed. The cancer was back. He would have to do a couple more of these gigs to save up for the cure again.

He took a big drag, sighed as he exhaled, and pulled his umbrella ever lower down on himself. He dug his free hand even deeper into his pocket as he carried on stomping down that crowded, hollow street, music blaring from his Conduit straight into his mind.

And he continued not seeing…

He was mentally checking newsfeeds, social media and chatrooms. He returned notifications, liked photos, commenting on statuses–lol, omg, wtf!–and pinged lives all over the universe and across the galaxy in a savage consumption of communication aimed at solving the single problem that it actually amplified.

***

“Good morning, Sir,” the soothing voice of the AI whispered in his ears, and he groaned and rolled over, the silk sheets gently caressing his grand form, “You asked me to wake you an hour before the Ambassador dialled-in. It is now an hour before the Ambassador’s call.”

He sighed, opened his eyes and pushed his girth into a seated position in his bed, in his bedroom, in his mansion on his estate in the ultimate lap of luxury.

He stretched and yawned, checking his notifications. The orgy was fun last night and he saw a couple of memories filed away for later in his feed. He had had fun with three biologicals at there. Two of them–the man and the woman–had had such striking eyes that, even now, he could feel his thoughts slipping back to them…

“Sir, do you wish for the usual?” a floating dot of beautiful light that was his smart-mansion’s AI pulsed gently out to him and to which he casually nodded. Moments later a cappuccino made from the finest intergalactic coffee topped with gentle, vitamin-enriched Luma-cow cream appeared beside his bed.

He casually sipped the beverage, smacking his lips loudly, and stood his vast form up to waddle over to the window. His gigantic estate stretched over most of the surface of this Inner Circle planet and a number of the nearby ones too. He owned countless others in lower value galaxies too. His fingers touched billions of lives and his wealth would last more generations than his species. There were few luxuries that were out of reach and few laws that applied to people like him.

But he could not stop thinking of that man and woman. They were so real and so close. There was something so infinitely real about each of them, something that resonated with him.

People like him did not marry, for long. People like him did not get close to anyone or anything. He had had his wife murdered as it was cheaper than a divorce. He had vowed to never marry again. His children were scattered through the cosmos as he did not trust them; they stood to gain too much from his death. The rest of his family were kept at bay and his closest friends were his executives running each part of his empire.

But, still, he found his thoughts drifting back to the passionate throws amidst the man and the woman. The soft and hard curves, the way the three of them breathed and moaned, how deeply they kissed, how he felt as their eyes locked and their souls connected…

“Sir, shall I run the bath?” the ethereal AI pulsed from its pinprick of light. Outside a flock of flamingos took flight over his private lake as robotic AI worked the great fields stretching out beyond the horizon. There was not a human being in sight nor any others on this planet for his security. Every single AI on this planet was loyal as only an AI can be, built with the best security and firewalls that money could buy–better than even the military. Even his executives were rarely allowed here in person, most opting to merely hologram-in for his monthly management reports.

He sighed. His AI could almost do anything for him here and he could almost travel anywhere and buy anything. So why did this not make him happy anymore? What could he buy or own that would make him feel good again?

Why did he feel like this these days?

“Yes,” he mumbled, downing his cappuccino and flicking the cup and saucer off to the side–the smart-mansion’s telekinetic units caught it before it hit the floor and the dirty items disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, “Yes, Watson, run the bath. What else am I doing today?”

The AI began to list all the important people calling him, hologramming into his mansion or other such virtual meetings; coming to grovel before him and try to win his favour. Most of them disliked him, if not outright loathed him. He did not like meeting them either. Maybe he had once when he was younger and hungrier but not anymore.

No, but that was the game that he had to keep playing.

When he had won the game, he had thought he could stop playing it. He had naively thought that that was how the game worked. Later in life, he had conceded to the fact that the only winner in the game was the game itself.

He no longer owned his vast fortune. Rather, his fortune now owned him.

Such thoughts wandered through his mind as he leaned back in the low-gravity, golden bathtub, with mineral water floating over him as bubbles of infinite colour softly caressed his skin.

He sighed and accessed the memory banks in his Conduit. He thought of the man and the woman, and scanned through the memories of them till he found one that he liked. Both were staring at him in ecstasy, vulnerable and entirely human. God, he wished there was someone who would look at him like that in real-life! He uploaded it to his mansion’s AI, which beamed it out as a hologram above him lying in the golden bathtub.

With the hungry world gnawing at his door, in his bath, in his bedroom, in his mansion on his estate in the ultimate lap of luxury with the world at his fingertips, he realized as he had realized many times before: he was completely, entirely and inconsolably lonely.

He wished that life felt as real as it did on those vibrant Party Planets. Everyone always seemed so happy there and he wished he could feel what he felt last night in real-life. He wished he could reach out and touch that man and that woman, not with a bio-similar hand, but a real hand. His hand. The bio-similar was–as was the memory and the entire experience–similar but not quite the same.