Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
***MARCH 2022 SCIENCE FICTION MICROSTORY CONTEST (Stories Only)***
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Start Sequenceby Jeremy Lichtman
“This is not one of ours,” said the guild master. “It is clearly very intricate, but also strangely plain for a device that must have been fiendishly expensive to make. It has no jewels, no gold inlay. Also, I have no idea how it is supposed to work. This is not something we can repair.”
He stood in the central courtyard of the compound of the Guild of Automaton Makers. The yard was paved with intricately patterned ceramic tiles and surrounded by tall mud-brick walls, over which drifted the clamor of the nearby market. A cool breeze blew from the River Itil, moderating the savage summer heat of the great city of Sarai in the land of the Golden Horde.
The guild master addressed a trader, who cradled the bulk of a large doll-like artifact. “I had hoped you would know how to fix it,” said the trader. “When it works, it is supposed to have eyes that light up like gemstones, and to talk just like a person.”
“We can fashion a lion that produces a roaring sound with leather bellows, that shows its teeth and shakes its head,” said the guild master. He sounded dubious. “I have never heard of a master who could produce human speech. Perhaps in Byzantium, or among the ancients in Greece. I’ve never heard of such a device though.”
“I’ve heard that your khan loves novelties, that he pays silver coin for intricate or beautiful devices,” the trader said, with a frown. “I can’t sell this to him if it is broken though.”
“Perhaps you can return it to the one you purchased it from,” suggested the guild master.
“Alas,” said the trader. “I bought it from a man in a tavern in the town of Berestye, in the land of the White Rus. That was six months past, and more dusty leagues than I can count. I was foolish from drink. I didn’t ask him to demonstrate the device. It is my loss.”
“In that case, you received two headaches from a single visit to that tavern,” said the guild master. He did not sound sympathetic. “One the next day, and another one now.” He paused for a moment. “How did you say that it is supposed to work?”
“The man said you have to say magic words to work it,” said the trader. The guild master made a snorting sound with his nose, but the trader raised up his hand to forestall him. He tugged a scrap of dirty parchment from inside his robe. “It’s in a foreign language that I don’t recognize,” he said. “The man wrote it out in syllables though. I don’t know if I’m saying the words incorrectly, or if it is actually just broken.”
“Or never worked in the first place,” said the guild master. “What does the parchment say?”
“I’ll try again,” said the trader. He cleared his throat. “Ee nish ee ayte. Zstaat. Zee kvensss.”
The automaton did not converse like a person, nor did its eyes light up. The trader gently settled its bulk on the tiled floor, and returned the parchment to his robe. “It must be broken,” he said. “It is indeed my loss.”
###
LORDS OF TOMORROW1869 -
Simon Asherton had to repress a tear as his comrades raised their champagne flutes, a rousing cheer reverberating through the banquet hall.
“Hip, Hip Hurrah!!” His heart swelled with pride. The sparkle of the crystal and silverware seemed to shimmer off the fine gold-trimmed red dress uniforms and emblems of his regiment.
“Congratulations, old boy,” Nigel said with a broad smile, shaking his hand.
“Thank you, old chap,” Simon said, clinking glasses with him.
“Welcome to the Elite Officer Corps of the Seventh Royal Fusiliers,” Captain Dracard said, pinning the gold epaulets to Simon’s collar.
“I am honored, sir,” Simon said, returning his captain’s salute, almost too choked with emotion to speak. Simon’s entire life had been for this moment.
“And now…Lieutenant Asherton,” Captain Dracard said, drawing his saber. “It is time for the final stage of your initiation into this most secretive and prestigious unit of the finest regiment in the Empire.” He rested the blade across Simon’s shoulder, and flipped open what looked like a gold snuff box. “Proceed,” he said into the box.
Simon started, suddenly finding himself on a strange lift which seemed to be descending through eternity. Roaring, titanic saurian beasts crashed through prehistoric jungles, winged reptiles gliding across pale skies. Wooly mammoths trod majestically through arctic snow drifts. Medieval Crusaders in armor clashed with Saracen warriors in the holy land. Vikings shouted the name of their pagan god as they charged into battle. Roundheads and cavaliers risked shot and shell on the battlefield. All shifting in and out of reality as the lift moved from one era to the next.
“My word…” he whispered in shock. “Am I in Heaven or Hades?”
“Neither, Asherton,” Dracard answered. “This is a prototype time travel conveyor. The Babel Corridor, as it has been christened. The future of the Empire!” Immense glass doors slid open as the lift stopped.
Simon and his mates stepped off into an immense subterranean cavern. “Now, where are we?” Simon asked. “Past, or future?”
“The present,” Dracard answered. “Southern Africa. The kafirs dug out this cave for one of our mining companies, and discovered a dimensional rift; a nexus of time."
Simon’s blood ran cold at the sight which next met his eyes. A wizened old black man lay chained on a kind of stone pedestal. The poor blighter’s head was half engulfed by some horrible parasite; a huge, multi-legged, pulsing organism the like of which he’d never seen. “Dear God,” he shouted as he lunged for the old man.
Nigel and another soldier restrained him. “Don’t interfere, Simon,” Nigel said.
“What is that ungodly thing?” Simon demanded.
“A creature of another reality,” Dracard said. “A quasi-sentient thing from another cosmic plane, it parasitically feeds on the human brain and in the process augments the cognitive ability of man. The origin of the oracles of ancient Greece, perhaps, or the legends of demonic possession. This is how we were able to invent the Babel Corridor, harnessing the power of the rift.”
“By enslaving the mind of that poor man?” Simon demanded.
“And, all his predecessors,” Dracard replied. “The parasite ages the host into premature death. Then, we provide another. And, another.”
“It’s monstrous!”
“Watch your tongue, Lt.!” Dracard shouted sternly. “We use only the inferior. And, it is necessary. Observe.” He picked up a strange silver rod and pointed it. Simon started as a lightning-like bolt of energy shattered a stone into dust. “A weapon pirated from the future. Think of the possibilities! We can alter the past to suit England’s interests. And, in so doing, master the future!” Dracard’s eyes burned with madness.
The cavern blazed with light. Simon looked up to see futuristic cities of glass and metal, flying carriages and bullet trains hurtling through gargantuan glass tubes. And, strangely garbed people armed with weapons similar to the one Dracard had displayed, charging into the cavern en masse. Men and women together in arms, as a regiment. And…they were dark-skinned. “Not so inferior after all,” Simon whispered in awe.
“To arms, lads!” Dracard shouted, aiming his futuristic weapon at the attackers. Acting on instinct, Simon struck Dracard down, seizing his weapon.
“Traitor!” Nigel shouted, pointing his own ray weapon at Simon. Nigel was struck down by a blast of energy.
Simon looked up into the lovely green eyes of the beautiful young black woman who’d saved him. The fire in those eyes… Simon joined her ranks without a moment’s hesitation. Now, he was home.
Mod
©2022 by Jot Russell
A dream forms from a place we know not. It is just there in whatever form it wants to be. And when does it start? It does not matter; just the lucidity of within is enough. Is it real, is it not? Somehow the question is lost within the maze of our mind until we are drawn from it into the light of day.
Ironic that the end of the physical has brought me, and those I have known, initially to the light of this white room. A room without walls, a ceiling or even a floor. Just white, until our brain is made to fill in the details. For me, it's not a static blue, green or red, but sudden black. The center of the void, until time begins, and all spectrum of light exudes out in poetic beauty. I speed the clock to watch hot matter cool, condense and consolidate. Swirls of color and motion until the first star ignites, then a trillion. The clock spins, stars explode, and the dust settles. The deep blue waters crash by the weight of their moon. Bonds of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen join into random patterns until enough marry into cells; small vacant worlds with a hollow core providing the structure to protect that which does not exist, not yet; not for some time; a mere spin of the clock, until the molecules form into chains, that find other chains, that find cell structures, that bind, split and grow...life. A prototype of all things of matter that matter. I spin the clock until those cells evolve, grow and form; a child brought into the world, the world I had once known, for the child is me. I relive creation, of life, of my life, as that is my initiation into the next. I come to the view of the old man on a bed and close my eyes...until the white room returns.
Their words are elegant, congratulatory, inspiring. Their words are theirs and they are now mine, somehow shared within this collective community that seeks the good, the productive, the future, the balance. We have lost all ambition of the physical, cause we are not. Us, the hundred million souls, that have been uploaded, if you will, to the virtual, to a world where anything is ours to do, see or even touch, if we can just imagine it. But I imagine for something greater for the world that my body has been left to. A world now of conflict, a world of greed, a world of hate...and love, for the good is there and I share it with the others that I now reside with. For me, the joy of this new world is lost to the pains of the other, and I pose the question, it grows, the method forms, and we decide.
**
And hundred years passed, and we are ten billion that reside over a world of equal numbers. Ten billion that live free and peaceful on the earth and out to the stars. Society without war, without police, without nations or even religion. We the virtual, are the law, the guide, the inspiration. Ask and we answer, seek and you will find. Do wrong, and it only places shame upon oneself, for we are the truth and that is all we provide, without interference, without sides, without partisanship.
Imagine!
RAIN DANCE It's raining. A primal rain, as if the heavens opened forth the sorrow of the world. I smile as they surround me in their dojo's expansive courtyard. They are wearing their house's finery. They were told to treat me with respect. To fight their hardest. To offer no quarter. They have never seen my style before. No one has. This is why they invited me to Foshan. To learn my secrets.
A collective shout as they take their stances splashing about in complete unison. They know each other. They overlap, woven together like fish scales, a subtle, perfect armor. I don't count them. There is no need. One or a hundred their skills are negligible. Only their weapons and numbers make them remotely interesting.
Before they rush, they want to see if they will be the first to strike a blow against me. They would do better to read the rain. I give them nothing but water. Formless, still. My wide brimmed hat catches the rain and it's flow becomes my rhythm. As they move, a frantic enthusiasm fills their bodies. They swarm, each attacking in passing, knowing their place.
I tease them. I don't defend. I sidestep. I pass, weaving between them, sensing their skill by how close they can get before being off balance. They are well trained. Their center is strong. Balanced. When unchallenged. I challenge them. Tentatively, to see if they become harder or softer. They are too eager. They get in each other's way.
A weak link. Only one. Only for a moment. Like a zipper, I move through them, folding one with a kick to the knee, while slapping two away in succession. I could main them. They are so focused on attack they are failing to provide adequate defense for themselves.
Their style, florid, expressive, beautiful. I fold an elbow. Nothing serious but the crack changes the tone of our dance. The hiss of knives slipping free. Chains rattle as new students melt from the darkness.
I am, for just a moment, forced to cede ground. I relieve a young man of his staff to make things more equal. Three movements later, the chains are neutralized and my opposition falls back, gathering their injured.
I hear a street gate close behind me. The weight of the water on my silk robes is noticeable now. My muscles ache with the gentle exertion. I feel him. The air is charged with malice as he breaks through the upper window and lands with cat-like grace in the puddles below.
He is low. His stance heavy, powerful. His golden bracers flicker in the lamplight. He is nothing like my warmup partners. His charge is fast and focused, his attacks are a series of actions, one, then another. He mixes short and long range attacks, forcing me to make an effort for the first time this evening.
I am forced to pay attention to this raging beast. We break apart when his tiger met my crane. He tries to pull away my secrets, more curious, he wants me to attack as if to glean some as yet unseen aspect of my technique. I oblige him.
It is the polite thing to do.
He is confident. He smiles as he believes he's taken my measure. Done testing, he pounces. Sweeping strikes, each fast and powerful; they'd be devastating if he hit me.
For every surge, I sting him. My hidden art, strikes a nerve cluster in his wrist, weakens his punch. A pair of strikes below his ribs, steals his breath. He loses his center. For a second. My kick to his diaphragm, stuns him, as he flies backwards, sliding down the slick paved courtyard.
He isn't done. He rises, growling like his style's namesake. His composure lost, he is now living rage, more powerful, but also more predictable. I tear him apart, a ghost flitting between his mighty claws. Our conversation all but ended in the light of his eventual defeat.
A flash of lightning fills the courtyard. When the rumble subsides and my night vision returns, it's just me and the rain, sheeting down behind me as I continue toward my lodging for the evening. I was promised a fine establishment and a meal. Admittedly, I was...entertained. My suitcase appears at the gate to the dojo, picked up from the train. Hoisting my luggage, I am drawn by the lights and the city's splendor above me.
Deemed worthy, the Masters of Foshan await. Dinner smells wonderful.
The Mirage“I’m a propulsion engineer, not an architect,” protested the man as he tweaked a warp coil.
“Now you’re an architect,” said the Special Agent in Charge.
“What’s with the funny hat?” said another, holding out the white headgear in question.
“Don’t worry, Chef, you’ll still replicate food, just like you do now. You’ll just have wear the outfit and look like you’re cooking.”
The captain knew better than to protest. He looked at new uniform and sighed, “Hotel manager it is.”
“Here’s your back stories,” the S.A.C. said as he handed out pads. “Memorize them, live them. We head to Paradox Lost in three days.”
Three days. Barely enough time to give the freighter and its prototype stasis field one last check.
--
On the outskirts of town, in the middle of the old warehouse district, a new hotel appeared seemingly overnight. Mere hours after sunrise, the Mirage was inundated with inspectors and union officials demanding bribes. 40,000 Zulax later they left. The next week, Carpenters Union 28 began finishing the exterior of the building.
While the exterior had a touch of class, the interior was the big draw. Rather than the boxy interior common to other hotels, this one had curved walls and a high domed ceiling. The lack of visual cues was quite disorienting at first but was quickly corrected by sconces and other architectural details. When the elliptical theme was extended to the furniture in the room, the effect was quite elegant.
“If we build it, they will come” turned out to be accurate assessment. Within days, they had bookings out a year. Within a week, they were sold out for the year. Weddings, epic birthday events, celebrations of every type filled the space, as long as the client had enough money.
And money they had. The project hadn’t intended to make money, but they had to raise prices to throttle demand and, even with the obscene amounts of bribes and “protection” money, they were turning a healthy profit.
--
The first few invitations went out. Just a few, strategically sent, got things going.
“Why wasn’t I invited?” asked a man known only as “Kingpin.”
“If that weasel got an invite, why am I not on the list?” said the boss of the northern territory.
Kleptocrats, Mob Bosses and a whole collection of unsavory characters clamored for their own invitations.
It didn’t matter it was billed as law-enforcement fundraiser. The planet had no extradition treaties and, within its atmosphere, the laws applied only to the little guy. By the time the guest list for the policeman’s ball was finalized, it looked like a who’s who of intergalactic criminals.
Seating become a challenge. A giant spider map took shape and an optimization algorithm determined best table assignments to minimize conflict. Then there was the dietary requirement of a dozen races. The lightly-drugged wine would serve as graphite rods to prevent a nuclear meltdown among the various power brokers.
--
The burlesque dancers were down to almost nothing when the hotel manager whispered into his wrist, “Go.” The head chef echoed with his own “Go.” A few seconds later, another “Go” came through the earbuds. A bellman in a service hallway opened a fire alarm panel, grabbed a handle behind it and pulled. An eerie silence settled over the ballroom. A sea of statues posed mid-gesture in the dim light. The lighting hadn’t changed, it was that light itself that could barely escape the stasis field.
“Reactor at 80%, 90%, 95%. Repulsors on. Antigravity enabled. “You might want to grab onto something,” said the helmsman.
In the ballroom, everything remained frozen. An arc of wine, flowing from bottle to glass, was unaffected as 2 then 3 Gees of acceleration took hold.
The two bodyguards who wandered outside for a smoke heard a low rumble coming from under the hotel. One raised a communication device to his ear just as the outer walls fell away. He stared up from the rubble as a giant silver egg rose out of the hotel’s remains and climbed into the sky.
--
Hundreds of agents of various races crowded the terminal as the freighter docked at the star base. As the various warrants were presented, a group would board the ship, a segment of the statis field would be nullified and the officers would put the Habeas Grabus on their charges.
“You can’t arrest me. I’m the Governor of Paradox Lost.” The agent pointed to a portal. “We’re not on Paradox Lost.”
SeamstressElissa missed the charging clamps and her hoverbike toppled over sideways. “Shoot!” She was late, and sprinted for her room. Nora, the Regal Seamstress, was already there when she arrived. “Sorry,” Elissa moaned, hurrying to remove her outer garments, dropping them to the floor. “Lost track of time.”
“Pish-posh,” the old woman smiled. “Here you are.” Surrounded by antique trunks, she untied a wrapped bundle, rolling it out to reveal her tools. “I should say, however, you’re taking this ceremony very lightly. Here, hold this.” She produced a small device attached to an elastic strap.
“What is it,” Elissa asked.
“A garment field,” she said. “My own invention.”
“What do I do with it?”
“Put it on your wrist,” she explained, and Elissa did so. Next, the woman pulled out her best silks and finest ribbons, laying them out. She then opened the tall trunk behind her, revealing a simple, yet elegant, white gown, bare at the shoulders and just about Elissa’s size. “Now, turn the dial to the first setting.”
Immediately, the gown drifted weightlessly away, rising over Elissa’s shoulders and lowering itself down over her. The material shimmered in the warm light and was soft as a feather. Elissa turned circles in the mirror, smoothing the dress down admiringly. “It’s beautiful.”
“The finest Cortusian silk,” Nora agreed and went to work tightening the seams. “Your parents spared no expense.”
“My parents,” she sighed, her mood suddenly changing. “Is all this really necessary?”
“You’re coming of age, my dear. The presentation ceremony is a critical moment for you.” She winked, “Hopefully, you’ll fetch a wealthy husband, maybe even a royal. Now stand still.” Nora turned Elissa’s device to the second position, then began placing long trains of fabric at specific points in midair around her, the field anchoring them in place.
“But what if I don’t want this?”
“It’s your birthright. And I’m doing this fitting just as I did for your mother.” The last piece in place and Nora turned the girl fully toward the mirror. Elissa stood adorned in glistening silks floating over open shoulders, wraps and laces drifting on an imperceptible wind, all accented by fiery virtual wings upon her back. “Well?”
“It’s…beautiful.”
Nora sensed disappointment. “Yes, too much around the shoulders, I think,” and she turned back the dial. Immediately, all the fabric dropped away.
“It’s not that,” Elissa sighed. “I just want more than a privileged life. I want to really live!”
“The decision is ultimately yours,” she said, pins between her teeth and layering a bit around Elissa’s shoulders, even more behind the hips. “Of course, if you decline the ceremony, you’ll never ascend.”
“But I don’t want to move up the elitist ranks,” she sulked. “I want to know what it is to work, to prepare my own food, clean my own room, and go wherever I want. I want to fall in love and have children that aren’t genetically engineered.”
“Let me tell you the story of a girl who wanted the same. She was young and beautiful, impulsive, though bright, even heiress to a Grand Duke. She, too, longed for a great adventure.”
“What happened?”
“She found it, I suppose, travelling to the farthest reaches of the Verellian Abyss, even surfing the cometary jetties of Relusia. She met a man, who broke her heart, found another and had children. One of them died. Eventually, she even regained the trust of the Great Houses in the simplest of jobs – Regal Seamstress. A good life.” Nora turned Elissa back to the mirror. “Done!”
Tight at the waist, long trains of silk and satin flowed weightlessly behind her, whilst elegant ribbons wound through her hair. She sparkled, and Elissa could hardly believe she was the girl in the mirror.
“Well?”
“Stunning.” She ran her fingers along the layers of ribbon, then sighed, “But it’s not me.” Elissa turned the dial back to zero and the fabric dropped immediately away. Her dress lifted overhead and returned to its trunk. “I’m sorry,” she said and gathered her clothes. “You’ll tell my parents?”
Nora nodded.
“Will it cause you trouble?”
“Heavens no,” she chuckled. “I’ve listened and retold the same story to countless daughters, even your mother.”
“Give them my love.” Elissa embraced her warmly before bolting away.
“Was that the outcome you expected?” the seamstress asked.
“It was the one I’d hoped for,” Elissa’s mother stepped from the shadows of the next room. “A mistake I made that, thankfully, she was strong enough to avoid.”
Wunderwaffe“So, you think Yuri Gagarin was the first man into space eh?”
The old man coughed into a yellowing handkerchief. His wheelchair wobbled slightly.
“Well, it is a fact,” I said nonchalantly.
“How little you truly know. So trusting of facts and figures, the official stories – bah!”
It was always the same with these old Nazi types, still reliving the glories of The Third Reich, denying the Holocaust, or claiming to have just been following orders. Some went to their deaths angry, others crying for the mercy they denied so many during the war, a few silent and emotionless.
But this old prick had the stones to sit there and tell me how history had really unfolded.
“I’ve seen the old newsreels. Gagarin beat the Americans into space. A double humiliation too after Sputnik.”
“Ah, Sputnik. Child’s play compared to what we accomplished.”
I turned off the tape recorder since engaging prisoners in topics beyond the standard questionnaire was forbidden.
“Who do you say was the first man in space?”
The old man let the question hang, like a rocket right at liftoff, fighting gravity to hover just above the surface of the Earth.
I moved to restart the tape recorder, but he motioned for me to stop.
“It was me,” he said quietly.
“You?!”
“Yes me, Adolf Klaus. First astronaut of The Third Reich and the world! First in an elite fellowship of those who’ve slipped the surly bonds of Mother Earth to touch the face of God!”
He wiped a bit of spittle from his lips with the back of his withered hand.
“What proof do you have?”
Digging into his coat pocket, he tossed a small pin onto the table. Security was clearly not doing its job.
I picked it up. Any colors were long gone, but it was clearly a globe. Inside the globe’s perimeter were the bent arms of a swastika, and in the center, dividing the globe into two hemispheres and intersecting the swastika at its mid-point, was a giant rocket.
“Now I know you’re lying,” I said triumphantly. “There is no way you squeezed into a V-2 rocket and went into space.”
“Who said anything about a V-2?”
“That was the only ballistic rocket Germany had during the war.”
“That you know of,” Klaus interrupted.
“There was one prototype,” he continued, his rheumy eyes seeming to regain some of their past luster.
“It was the V-3 Amerika Rocket. We only had enough resources to build one. Hitler forbade any beyond that, demanding more V-2’s to fling at England – but it was beautiful. Its polished chrome was so blinding we had to drape it in camouflage netting just to work around it.”
“One faded little pin doesn’t prove anything.”
“Oh but it does,” Klaus countered.
“The Fuhrer himself awarded it to me just before liftoff.”
“Are there any photos? Any grainy, black and white silent film footage?”
Klaus dug his hand into his other pocket, then placed a small spool of film between us.
“It’s all there.”
I let the film sit, daring me to see a history I would rather deny than accept.
“What was your mission?”
Klaus looked around, as if trying to pull the memories from thin air.
“There was enough payload capacity for a pilot and one atomic weapon. The rocket had a small capsule at the tip, heavily shielded. I launched from a site close to Peenemunde, my target was New York City.”
My hands clenched under the table as Klaus continued. The thought of Nazis defiling outer space turned my stomach.
“We would have found the launch site after the war.”
“It was destroyed by American bombers shortly after liftoff. But they were too late…too late to stop me.”
“You still lie. Here we sit and New York still stands.”
“I was over the target, ready to drop the world’s first atomic weapon. It would have been a second Pearl Harbor, changed the course of the war...but, I couldn’t do it. As I looked out the small capsule window, I saw but through a mirror darkly the beauty of our Earth.”
Klaus looked at me with tearful eyes. I palmed the film spool and pressed a small button on the table. Two guards came in and wheeled him away. I pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and blew out a plume of smoke.
Just like a rocket, I thought.
I held the film over my lighter and watched it melt, erasing a history that should never have been.
(750 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2022
Reviews/critiques welcome
"The Seven Brothers"by J.F. Williams
I had already established the protocol, theoretically, five years before, so as a practical matter, I should never try back-timing further. That sunny morning in the garage, I was not nearly so ambitious. To finish calibrating the magnetic force necessary, I set the resource governor at minus two hours, which would send me a few hours back or more. Once I emerged from the "stone coffin", I simply waved my earlier self to take my place. He obliged with a knowing smile, then paused with a fleeting look of horror, took a deep breath, and lay down in the coffin. I closed the cover and pulled the iron key. Setting the governor at twenty, without the key engaged, would send him literally nowhere, preventing the violation of the "conservation of mass" that would have pressured existence increasingly afterwards. But first I had noted on the analog clock in the garage I had gone back exactly ninety-three minutes so I edited the markings on the governor accordingly. A few hours later, someone rang my doorbell.
A smiling man appeared on my porch and though I looked around behind him, I saw no strange vehicle parked in the vicinity.
"Braineswell's the name," he said, handing me a thick, cream-colored business card. "May we have a chat?" The card bore his name, in black script, below it, "Coördinator," a phone number, and in thicker typeface, "Seven Brothers."
"Sure. Seven Brothers. Is that a burger chain?"
"Fortunately not," he said with a guffaw. "That is funny, though. No, my firm is of a unique type."
Holding it between finger and thumb, the card felt of grease. I grew dizzy as the room around me swelled and contracted. But Braineswell's voice remained clear, resonating.
"I apologize for the card trick. It's a psychotropic, clearing your mind of encumbrances that would cause disbelief in what I am about to tell you. The effects will disappear in exactly twenty minutes, so listen closely."
Braineswell told me about the Seven Brothers that decide everything on the planet: wars, disasters, the migration of peoples, elections. "They may not always be seven, are not necessarily brothers, or even men. I don't know." The way he said it, "men" was more a stand-in for "human," as if there existed elves or aliens. "Each of them invented something, some device so powerful it bought them a share in secretly controlling humanity, as they have for many years now. You, sir, have been chosen to join them."
I accepted these words as if it were a discussion of the weather or stock prices. Whatever drug infused the card had numbed me to Braineswell's odd story. "This is because of my time-travel coffin, correct?"
"Yes. That is a very powerful invention, sir. I can tell you some of the others, but I don't know them all: an earthquake machine, a means of controlling storms, the drug that has blunted your skepticism, untraceable poisons; teleportation is one of our powers as well and has brought me here today."
"I have many questions," I said serenely.
"All will be answered as soon as you are inducted." He bent closer to me. "But first, your initiation into the Seven depends on the completion of a task."
#
My calibration of the governor allowed a year's journey to the day precisely, a date I was sure to be home. My earlier self had been working on the prototype when it opened to his surprise. A long discussion followed, and he agreed to the protocol but had first wished to hear more about the Seven.
"I only know what I said, that they are very influential in world affairs, but secretive. I had never heard of them before Braineswell appeared. As I described, their inventions are formidable, and the give-and-take of their powers keeps the cabal stable and ensures that their influence is beneficent."
"And so your task," he said. "To deliver a letter, to a Marge Konigsberg. Just that?"
"Yes," I replied. "Now please enter the coffin."
"May I see the letter?" He said firmly. "What harm could there be, after all?" I wish I had brought that business card, as he had grown obstreperous. I could tell the cogs were turning. I removed it from my pocket, and showed him. He took it, sniffed it, and looked askance. "Is Ms. Konigsberg one of them?"
I had not thought of that. "Possibly?"
He pushed me into the coffin and closed the lid. I heard the iron key disengage.
(749 words)
Transition © 2022 Kalifer DeilTom Zimmermann, a guy I knew from the Air Force in the eighties knocked on my door. I didn't recognize him until he introduced himself. I responded, “You don't look a day older! Where have you been and what brings you to Sacramento?”
“I've been in Cryogenic storage, by accident, for 80 years!”
That certainly piqued my curiosity. “How did that happen? They didn't have cryopreservation at that time.”
“I was cleaning the Helium storage tank. They didn't bother to look into the tank when they pulled the ladder out. I had passed out from my own carbon dioxide exhalations. They screwed on the top and loaded the tank with liquid helium. They did note that the tank filled faster than expected and that I was missing. In their wisdom, or ignorance, or perhaps to cover up, they decided to leave me in there and made a note to leave the tank half full until such time that I could be safely extracted and perhaps revived. Well, they did and here I am. Everyone I knew is dead, except you!”
“Did you get compensated for your time in Helium stir?”
“Actually yes, eight hundred thousand and the revival and therapy costs. I was able to lead a normal life in seventeen months after every injection, psych test, body scan, and therapy session they could think of.”
“That would make you about a hundred and two. I'm a hundred and one.”
“On the nose!”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Not going to do, I'm doing it! Due to my experience and the resulting research, they are making cryogenic time machines for trips into the future. One way though. I'm Cryotime's ambassador and sales manager. Like my suit and tie? Beautiful material huh?! Made out of Hemp! Illegal in my day.”
“How do you like the future?
“You mean this future, for me? Well, I'm not sure, I expected flying cars, not cars that go fast through tunnels. Tesla satellite phones are pretty impressive. Seems you can get and do anything with them. They're smarter than most people.”
“How much is it going to cost?
“They're working on that. Hard to predict inflation you know.”
“Well, let's touch phones and keep in contact!”
“Touch phones?”
“Yes, doing that will put me in your address book and you in mine.”
“Neat! Really neat! Wow!”
“Let me know when you have a price. I'm interested in what you're doing.”
“Okay, thanks! Wow! A first sale almost.”
“Might is the operative word here. My money may be worthless in twenty years; there could be a nuclear war; I may not make it through the process; Cryotime may not exist then; I may defrost due to a power failure, … well, the list is long. You get the idea.”
“I'll ask my phone?”
I smiled back knowing what the phone would say.
“Insufficient data!”
I excused myself, “I have an appointment with my wife.” A robotaxi pulled up and I waved goodbye. I couldn't tell him that I was part of a military project and that we already had time travel that goes both forward and backward in time. I first met my wife 23 years into the future. I went to the DARPA-Omega facility, dialed in the coordinates, and was at her front door. It's great to know that there is a future and participating in it is even better.
Mod
First round votes:
Jeremy Lichtman => **Chris
Tom Olbert => **Jeremy
Jot Russell => JF
Thaddeus Howze =>
Greg Krumrey => **Chris
Chris Nance => Jot, Thaddeus, Jeremy
Justin Sewall => **Greg, Chris, JF
J.F. Williams => **Jeremy, Justin, Kalifer, Chris, Tom
Kalifer Deil => **Greg, JF, Tom
First round finalists:
Start Sequence by Jeremy Lichtman
The Mirage by Greg Krumrey
Seamstress by Chris Nance
First round votes:
Jeremy Lichtman => **Chris
Tom Olbert => ****Jeremy
Jot Russell => JF; ****Jeremy
Thaddeus Howze =>
Greg Krumrey => **Chris
Chris Nance => Jot, Thaddeus, ****Jeremy
Justin Sewall => **Greg, Chris, JF
J.F. Williams => ****Jeremy, Justin, Kalifer, Chris, Tom
Kalifer Deil => **Greg, JF, Tom
Winner
Start Sequence by Jeremy Lichtman
Jot's rules are simple:
1) The story needs to be your own work and should be posted on the goodreads (GR) Discussion board, which is a public group. You maintain responsibility and ownership of your work to do with as you please. You may withdraw your story at any time.
2) The stories must be 750 words or less.
3) The stories have to be speculative fiction, follow a specific theme and potentially include reference to items as requested by the prior month's contest winner. (This change is mine, because I want to mix it up a little. Speculative fiction can be anything in the genre, from space ships to dragon riders.)
4) You have until midnight EST on the 22nd day of the month to post your story to the GR Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion. One story per author per month.
5) After, anyone from the LI Sci-Fi group or the GR Science Fiction Microstory Discussion group has until midnight EST of the 25th day of the month to send me a single private vote (via GR or to author.jotrussell@gmail.com) for a story other than their own. This vote will be made public once voting is closed. Voting, and reading each story before voting, is required. If you do not vote, your story will be disqualified from the contest. You don't need a qualifying story to cast a vote, but you must offer the reason for your vote if you don’t have an entry.
6) To win, a story needs at least half of the votes, or be the only one left after excluding those with the fewest votes. Runoffs will be run each day until a winner is declared. Stories with vote totals that add up to at least half, discarding those with the fewest votes, will be carried forward to the next runoff election. Prior votes will be carried forward to support runoff stories. If you voted for a story that did not make it into the runoff, you need to vote again before midnight EST of that day. Only people who voted in the initial round may vote in the runoffs.
7) Please have all posts abide by the rules of GR and the LI Sci-Fi group.
8) For each month, there will be three discussion threads:
a) Stories - For the stories and the contest results only.
b) Comments - For discussions about the stories and contest. Constructive criticism is okay, but please avoid any spoilers about the stories or degrading comments directed towards any individuals. If you want to suggest a change to the contest, feel free to start a discussion about the idea before making a formal motion. If another member seconds a motion, a vote can be held. I will abstain from voting, but will require a strong two-thirds majority to override my veto.
c) Critiques - Each member can provide at most one critique per story, with a single rebuttal by the author to thank the critic and/or comment to offer the readers the mind set of the story to account for issues raised by the critique. Critiques should be of a professional and constructive manner. Feel free to describe elements that you do and don't like, as these help us gain a better perspective of our potential readers. Remarks deemed inflammatory or derogatory will be flagged and/or removed by the moderator.
9) The winner has THREE days after the start of the new month to make a copy of these rules and post a new contest thread using the theme/items of their choosing. Otherwise, I will post the new contest threads.
Jot Russell
Contest Creator/Director
_________
MARCH'S THEME:
An initiation, it could be into a fraternity, an elven archery tournament, a school play, a bomber crew, a salaryman's wedding; you decide. It's a story of transition from one world to another.
REQUIRED ELEMENTS:
1) A prototype (it could be an idea, a machine, a spell or a process but whatever it is, it is one of a kind)
2) There must be an air of elegance demonstrated in the story.
Elegance: the quality of being graceful and stylish in appearance or manner; style.
Surprise us.