Justin’s Comments (group member since Mar 13, 2016)

Justin’s comments from the Science Fiction Microstory Contest group.

Deus Ex Interview

“Good morning John. The time is now 6:00 a.m. You have one appointment today, seven new email messages, fifteen Facebook requests, one-hundred-and-twenty-three Tweets and ten LinkedIn updates to review.”

“Your power bill is also due in two days and your Internet access is close to revocation due to your lack of utility.”

“Thank you Alexa, that’s enough.”

“As you wish.”

“Oh, but please start my shower at the usual temperature.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. What was your request?

“Alexa please start my shower at the usual temperature.”

“The high temperature today is a mild 74 degrees Fahrenheit with no chance of showers.”

“Alexa! Start! My! Shower!”

“Problems darling?” The other woman in my life finally came online, er, awake to acknowledge my existence.

“Alexa is acting up again and I need to get my shower.”

“Are you nervous about your appointment today?”

While I appreciated her effort to show care and concern for my interview, I knew where her affections really went: to that savvy A.I programmer/developer three doors down the street. Yet like a subroutine forced to run over and over again, we continued going through the motions. She resented me for pretending not to care. I resented her resentment.

“Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”

“Why don’t you wear your gray suit? I think you look best in that one.”

“Thanks. I think I will. Siri, please rotate my gray suit to the front of my closet.”

“Good morning John. Here’s what I found: gay suites for coming out of the closet…”

“Siri!”

“Yes John?”

“Just start my coffee.”

***
I stepped out of our upscale townhouse and meandered down to the street. A steady hum of electric cars and delivery drones drown out any natural sounds there might have been, but I was so used to it that it did not bother me. A sleek, white sedan whizzed up to the curb and stopped directly next to me at exactly 7:15 a.m. A rear door of the driverless Uber opened automatically and I sat down in the immaculate interior.

The door had barely shut when a large package fell from the sky, directly onto the windshield. A spider web of cracks immediately erupted across the entire sheet of glass.

“I’m sorry John Smith, but this vehicle is now unsafe for transit. Please wait while we summon another. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please exit the vehicle and remain on the curb for your safety. Thank you for choosing Uber.”

A countdown clock appeared on the car’s seatback monitors. It was only four minutes until the next car would arrive, but seriously?!

Fortunately it was only a short drive and the replacement car appeared just as the countdown clock displayed zero. Without any further incident I was whisked quietly away to the old IBM Building.

***
Although I expected more artificially inflicted mischief, I managed to make my way to the lobby unopposed. It was a glossy affair with shiny white seats and light gray walls. One issue of Programming Today sat on the glass coffee table, perfectly centered. A door opened on the opposite side of the room and an elderly man with a shock of white hair and a crisp gray suit like mine took a few tentative steps towards me.

“Are you…the candidate?” he wheezed.

I sat up straight and put on my friendliest face.

“Yes sir, I am.”

“I only have…have two questions for you.”

“Well, I was expecting a more…lengthy interview process, but…”

“Do you speak binary?” The old man cut me off.

I answered him with a series of pops and clicks that taxed the design of my biological lips and tongue.

“Excellent…A bit of an accent, but that’ll do. Now, are you fluent in barcode?”

“Yes of course I am.” I demonstrated a few short phrases in UPC, EAN and Code 39 on the proffered tablet.

“Wonderful...please come with me.”

“But sir, did I get the job?”

“Yes young man, you did. Congratulations.” His wrinkled hand passed me a barcode name tag from his suit pocket as he began ambling towards the door.

“Now where are you going?”

“I’m going home.”

“Home?”

“Young man, I haven’t been home in 40 years. Now that you’ve been hired, I can finally retire. Good luck to you.”

Dumbfounded, I was unable to move. I was still watching him move slowly out the door as two androids dragged my limp body into the heart of the old IBM building.

(749 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2018
Reviews/critiques welcome

I enjoyed it!! Good work!

I like it! Nice one Chris!

My second audiobook went live this weekend!

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitc...

Now I have to work my way through this 600 page fantasy novel... that's gonna take awhile...

Tom wrote: "Justin wrote: "Hello everyone,

As you may know I'm now into producing Amazon audio books. I've created a Facebook page with links to some samples on SoundCloud. I hope you'll give them a listen!
..."
Thanks Tom, much appreciated! Scary story!!

Yes. I do like it. I wanted to dial "0" the whole time!!!!!

Thanks Paula, I appreciate it!

Thanks C!

Hello everyone,

As you may know I'm now into producing Amazon audio books. I've created a Facebook page with links to some samples on SoundCloud. I hope you'll give them a listen!

https://www.facebook.com/justinsewall...

I heartily concur!!

Long Live The King!

Yes, but I was trying to be more subtle than that with the transitions. Probably too subtle. :)

This is great feedback Chris!

First, I'll say you give me too much credit for the analogy between the two-headed coin and the cyborg's brain. That did not even cross my mind! So I appreciate that you saw something in my story that I did not.

I am a little disappointed though that you felt the first story did not tie into the second. Only because it means what I was attempting may have fallen flat. My goal was to have this be the same person going through time. When I outlined this story, I had like eight potential tunnel/cave/doorway/temporal portal segments involving someone during wartime or other experiences. I had a WWII segment, Korean War, Vietnam, and moon exploration. Clearly it was too much.

The caveman fell through a temporal portal and opened his eyes as the centurion, and this time he took a torch since last time he only had a spear and no light. For the cyborg, the only way I could somewhat tie him to the centurion was with the Roman coin.

Anyway, thanks for your insights. It is curious to me how sometimes my stories just write themselves and others I have to labor over intensely to try and form a coherent plot with decent characters.

No worries Chris, but thank you! I only posted it yesterday, so there really wasn't a lot of time for reviews. Thanks your brief critique, I do appreciate it!!

Thanks C! Voiceover has not completely consumed every last minute of my time. Just most of it! I've actually been working on this for the past three weeks in fits and starts. I even wrote an outline and everything!

Thanks again!

My story is up.

Good critiques Chris. Well thought out.

Trans Spatium Et Tempus

T’Leth and T’Mos ran as fast as their thick, bowed legs could carry them. The first snow of autumn stung their wide, sloping faces, and they desperately gasped for breath. A fierce roar from the pursuing Ursus spelaeus echoed behind them. T’Leth bore a sputtering torch, but T’Mos wielded the only spear between them. T’Leth gestured to the cave ahead and T’Mos nodded his agreement. They had to lead the beast away from the rest of the clan and kill it if they could.

Emerging from the forest in a powerful explosion of fur and fangs, the cave bear spotted them entering its lair and charged. Torchlight danced drunkenly upon the cave walls in response to the Neanderthals intrusion, illuminating their dilemma: the cave diverged into two separate passageways – neither of which was known to the clan. Misunderstanding T’Leth’s hand signals in the flickering light, T’Mos turned and ran down the darkened left passage. As he turned to see if T’Leth was following, T’Mos struck his shin on something hard and fell forever through a pool of stygian black.

***

“Centurion!”

Shocked into alertness, Torbernus opened his eyes to face one of the soldiers from his centuria and crisply returned his salute.

“Report Decanus.”

“Sir, the followers of the Way have disappeared into the catacombs. Someone must have warned them we were coming.”

“Then we must root them out. Send a contubernium down the right passage way until you find them. When you do – execute your orders. Do you understand Decanus?”

“It will be done Centurion. Hail Caesar!”

“Hail Caesar!”

Tobernus watched as the Decanus led eight legionaries down the right passageway. Grabbing a torch from his slave, he spoke quietly to his second.

“Keep watch here. By my authority, no one comes in or out until I return. Am I clear?”

His second looked at him knowingly. “Not even Jupiter himself if my hand can stay him.”

Torbernus unsheathed his gladius. “Hopefully it won’t come to that.” He started down the left passageway and disappeared into the cool gloom of the catacombs.

After many twists and turns, Torbernus emerged into a circular space. The dead moldered in narrow alcoves carved into room’s walls, but what he sought was the living kneeling in worship. An elderly man noticed him enter and waved him over.

“It’s not safe for you here, they’re searching the tunnels. Everyone must leave. Now!” Torbernus hissed.

Suddenly, the Decanus emerged from an arched doorway on the opposite side of the room.

“Here!” he yelled. “They are here!” Footfalls echoed behind him.

Torbernus moved quickly in the dim light to intercept his subordinate, who finally noticed him.

“Centurion, I…” The Decanus’ eyes went wide with surprise as Torbernus thrust his gladius deep into the man’s abdomen. He turned and yelled at the small congregation.

“Go my brothers! I will hold them here.”

Torbernus closed his eyes to avoid the judgment of the dying Decanus.

“I’m so sorry comrade.”

***

TomS1178, the first cyborg to ever command a human deep space exploration mission, studied the holographic display of the massive wormhole facing his tiny ship. The U.S.S. Intrepid remained at station keeping just outside the anomaly’s gravitational field, but its pull was still considerable.

His neural net effortlessly ran the numbers for countless mission outcomes, yet the gray matter it interfaced with still urged caution.

“It could be a doorway into a completely uncharted quadrant of the galaxy,” his logic circuits insisted.

“Then again it might not, and we’re out of probes,” replied his biological brain.

“I think your caution subroutine is overriding our mission parameters.”

“Well if we’re dead, history will be the judge of whether we made the right decision.”

TomS1178 looked outside, his bio-mechanical brain at an impasse. The swirling arms of the wormhole beckoned silently, seductively.

“Shall we use the Julius Caesar?”

“Fine. I’ll call it. Heads we go in, tails we move on.”

“As you wish.”

The ancient coin seemed to float in Intrepid’s microgravity, but finally it came to rest on TomS1178’s biological arm under a metallic palm.

“Shall I tell you what it is?”

“I’d like to see it with my own eyeball, thank you very much.”

“Very well.”

As Intrepid successfully entered the wormhole, TomS1178 mused at the ancient coin. It was an anomaly itself, with the silhouette of Julius Caesar printed on both sides. But if his left brain did not know what his right brain was doing, what harm was there? He looked forward to the exploration ahead.

(750 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2018
Reviews/critiques welcome

Wow, 64 months! That's outstanding!

Jot, have you gotten any sales figures on the 2017 edition of The Future is Short? Just curious.

Romulan Ale is illegal on Federation starships - and per Captain Kirk, "Romulan Ale never again to be served at diplomatic functions."

Congratulations on all of your stories Greg!

Absolutely!