Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
Congrats to Greg Krumrey, J.F. Williams, and Justin Sewall, tied champions of the Science Fiction Microstory Contest
date
newest »
newest »
Mod
by J.F. Williams
Life is, after all, what we make of it, so the past four months, living here in Manny's Warehouse, with other "club members" and a few Manny's employees, we hobbled from a random group of strangers to a sort of family. But you keep secrets even from your family, which I did about the origins of super kudzu. As I watched Hector lower the great garage door on the thick tendrils that invaded the warehouse floor, while Mike and Kevin gleefully hatcheted the green stalks, gathered them, and squeezed them dry, filling buckets with the sweetest water, I could imagine how they might react to the truth.
"That's what they would do to us, if they found out," said Amit, grinning widely. He was sitting next to me on the bench, sipping his tea.
While the final edition of the Times reported at length about the origin theory of super kudzu, that something had been triggered in the kudzu epigenome by the effects of climate change, causing the vine to grow alarmingly and increase its CO2 intake, Amit and I knew the truth. Amit was even quoted in the article, supporting the Times' theory. But it was only partially true.
We had been botany techs at Wellborne College, only ten miles from here. After watching video of the flooding in New Hampshire on a tavern large-screen, we had made a drunken vow to cure climate change and use all the resources at hand to achieve that goal. We got to work the next Monday, using the college's AI systems and the biology lab's gene sequencer to embed genetic material from the bamboo plant into the kudzu genome. We kept the modified plant in a back lab mostly used to store replacement parts and unused equipment. It took weeks to produce a seed, but it made up for lost time, its seed sack literally bursting with thousands of them. Many fell to the floor and must have been sucked up by the cleaning crew and shipped off to the landfill twenty miles away. We had not completed our germination planning when the first reports came a week later that kudzu vines had overtaken the landfill, several nearby buildings and an entire block of homes with swimming pools.
Kudzu spread so quickly there was not enough time or herbicide to keep it down. Fire didn't work against the waterlogged plants due to a trick we queried the AI to achieve. While super-K sucked CO2 from the air, it was also thirsty, cleaning even the foulest H2O. We were proud of that and it served us well when the water system failed, after the communication breakdown. Sadly, super-K's real legacy was death, trapping people and animals in the vines till they suffocated. The last time we made it to the roof, Amit and I looked out on a vast carpet of green surrounding the store and spreading as far as we could see, a strange topiary in the shapes of people and cars, buildings and trees. Birds in the sky were the only other living things we saw.
"Have you thought any more about escape," said Amit, giving me a worried look. "It's great we have the water and all the food here, but that's gonna run out. The generator will go first." Connecting the gas tanks to the remote-controlled generator was quite a feat but it was covered in vines, which would clog the exhaust eventually.
"If we just had some way to traverse the vines," I said. We had machetes but the kudzu was too aggressive, and we couldn't hack it fast enough to prevent entanglement. A few of us had tried and we still mourn them.
Jesus, a Manny’s employee, came into the section and approached us, excited. He had been digging into the seasonal stock, kept in a section beyond the sales floor. "Found the Christmas stuff," he said, motioning us to follow. "It's almost December. Christmas!" His exuberance saddened me. Would our group even last that long? If we did, maybe we all could use the festiveness, so we humored him.
He led us to an area with rows of steel shelves piled deep with boxes. Near the center, he had scattered opened boxes on the floor. There was tinsel, folded Christmas trees, colored lights. After so many dry winters, there were dusty, long-forgotten boxes, some containing skis, and several large ones containing snowshoes. At the sight of them, Amit and I looked at each other and smiled.
Mod
Justin Sewall
L’Mell leaned up against his peeling white fence and stared out at the dry furrows of his fields. They stretched to the horizon, which was the furthest boundary of his farm. Heat waves rippled up from the ground, distorting everything in the distance, but it did not matter. There was nothing to see for miles except dry dirt, a tired soil being steadily eroded by the merciless winds that threatened to permanently erase his family’s history of farming on these vast plains.
The problem, of course, was water – more specifically the lack of it – due to the changing weather patterns. At least, that was what the government man had told him down at the co-op. There was no rain to speak of and not even a hint of dew in the morning. Their well barely supplied the family’s own daily needs and the cistern from which L’Mell had drawn to flood his fields was now mostly cracked mud. Without a miraculous monsoon season, well, he could not bear to think of the consequences to him and his family.
He heard the crunching of dirt behind him and based on that sound alone he surmised it was his youngest boy, L’Mell-Est. Est clambered up onto the fence and stared out to the horizon with this father.
“You going to the co-op for the meetin’ tonight Daddy?” the boy asked his father. “The whole town’s in a near ruckshun about the big announcement!”
L’Mell laughed and tussled Est’s unruly hair.
“What do you know about the big announcement Est? What’re people sayin’?”
“They say it’s about water Daddy, and some new way to get water from up north.”
“From up north?” L’Mell replied incredulously.
“How the heck are they gonna get water from up there all the way down here near the equator? Don’t make no sense but I reckon’ the government man will speak his peace and keep the ruckshun going.”
Est rocked back and forth on the top rung of the fence and let his Dad continue his well-worn monologue about the worthlessness of government men and their busy-body projects. When his father finally took a breath he quickly interjected.
“Can I go with you tonight Daddy? To the co-op? I ain’t been in a while and it’d be fun to see my friends. Maybe even get a sarsaparilla.”
“A sarsaparilla huh?” smiled L’Mell knowingly. “Well let’s see what your mother says and if she’s amenable then you can get the wagon ready. Okay?”
“Thanks Daddy!” said Est while hopping down from the fence. “I’ll go ask her!”
The boy took off towards the house, leaving a trail of dust in his wake until he was completely obscured by it.
It was dark by the time L’Mell and Est pulled into town, but the streetlights were lit and light poured from the windows and open doors of the co-op meeting hall. All the farmers from the surrounding district had been invited and based on the number of parked wagons and crowded hitching posts, it seemed that most of them had decided to attend. The father and son made their way into the hall, greeting neighbors on the way in and exchanging such news as there was to be had before finding some seats near the back.
Finally the head of the co-op banged a gavel on the table before him and surrendered the floor to the government man, who stood up, surrounded by an unmistakable aura of self-importance. He strode around the stage, hands holding the lapels of his suit, until the noise in the hall died away.
“Good evening gentlemen, thank you all for coming. Tonight, I’m going to address an issue that is concerning to us all: water. You can’t grow your crops and our towns can’t survive without it.” He strode over to an easel that was draped in cloth and with one adroit tug, revealed a large diagram beneath it. Murmurs rippled throughout the hall.
“Since the rains have failed us and the groundwater levels here are dropping far beyond our ability to drill, we need another way to get water to our equatorial farms. So what we are proposing – and begun I might add, is to dig giant canals to bring water from the polar regions to the equatorial plains. As the ice melts, it will send billions of deciliters through these canals and out to each of your farms…”
On Earth, Giovanni Schiaparelli focused his telescope on Mars and gasped at what he saw.
(750 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2024
Reviews/critiques welcome
I'm honored to be in such company! I was just "theme master", so one of you guys take the helm for January. Great stories, Greg and Justin!
Both great concept stories, J.F. and Justin! I also feel I'm in good company.
How about a theme of how aliens perceive our government systems:Does a dictatorship make more sense? What would they think of governments that call themselves communist but are anything but? Would democracy seem like a good thing our bad thing?
Mod
I don't mind a political theme as long as it doesn't impose a position.
Yes! If the theme is iffy, I'd want a consensus (or a better theme). My intent is to think about what systems would aliens use and would they: impose them on humanity? modify our systems to be more acceptable? Disqualify us from the galactic alliance until we get our shit together?My suggestion was aimed at a (potential) power vacuum. If either of my fellow winner has something more interesting or challenging, let's do that.
I think aliens and political systems is a little involved for a 750-word limit. Why not just "politics" for a theme? That way the focus can be as narrow or as wide as one likes.
I'm okay with anything Greg and Justin decide.
Politics would work and would allow enough latitude to have some fun. Any suggestions for elements JF and Justin?
Mod
Happy New Year...
I was hoping Greg would. I think he has all he needs. We are experiencing a "three-body problem" as communication here is hit-and-miss. If we don't hear from Greg or Justin by tomorrow, I'll post. The rules say the it has to be done by the third day of the month.
Hi guys! So sorry to not be tied in. It's that "time between Christmas and New Years" twilight zone for me, where I'm still on vacation, but feel bad for being non-productive. I can't even get in my sound booth because I've got a hole in my garage building roof and I'm waiting for the roofers to show up and repair it. So I've got stuff piled in front of my booth. Very frustrating!I'm fine with Greg's politics theme along the lines he noted: what systems would aliens use and would they: impose them on humanity? modify our systems to be more acceptable? Disqualify us from the galactic alliance until we get our shit together?
Justin, I think we sort of settled on just "politics" for a theme. If I end up posting tomorrow, I'll do that. If Greg chimes in beforehand, I'll go with whatever he wants. Just trying to nail this down as I expect others are waiting with quills in hand.
I just posted all three topics (Stories, Comments, Critiques)Jot: Please move them to the top (or whatever you do)
Thanks,
Greg
Links:Critiques:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Comments:-
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Stories:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Mod
Did anyone notice the double entendre in the beginning of my story: "Life is, after all, what we make of it", ie. genetic engineering. Just curious.
Greg Krumrey
“Here. Put these on.” The old man handed his granddaughter a pair of glasses as he donned his own. Ghostly rings encircled each car and racing statistics floated above them. A blue and yellow car approached the hairpin curve and the tires shifted red when the driver braked into the turn. The back tires broke traction, flashing orange for an instant. The driver tilted the back spoiler upward. A blue downward arrow and the tires shift from orange to green choregraphed the spoiler’s impact and the resulting reestablishment of traction.
“Notice how that spoiler worked just now? That driver is the team’s programmer. She changed the car’s control systems so she can adjust the aerodynamics as she drives. That little change could get her five seconds closer to the finish line by the end of the race. Next year everyone will be doing it, but she’ll still be the first.”
Several laps later, a car pulled in for a pit stop, stopping just behind a chassis. Grandpa perked up. “Now you get to see the Theseus Rule in action!”
The pit crew lifted the body of the car and set it in front of the chassis. Next, they lifted the driver’s compartment with the driver still inside, carried it to the new chassis and lowered it in place. About a dozen cables came alive and snaked their way into the chassis. They then dropped the body in place and flipped four toggles to lock it down. Seven seconds from start to finish before the driver took off. The original chassis was pushed into a bay where they swapped tires and batteries and waited for the next pit stop.
“So, before electric racing, they would change the tires and fuel the car, so this is just the same thing without having to move 500 kilos of batteries in the middle of a race.”
“Who was Theseus? Was he a driver?” the young girl asked.
“No. He was a Greek dude that owned a boat about 2000 years ago, but it’s not really about his boat.”
He though about it a minute. “Let’s talk about your motorcycle. If you changed out the battery pack, would it still be your motorcycle?”
“Yes. I do that all the time. Last upgrade got me six more miles per hour at the track.”
“What if you replaced the drive motors and wheels?”
“Did that, too.”
“What if it was the computer and traction control?”
“Whoa. The computer is the brains of the system. It wouldn’t have the same personality. It might look the same, but I’m not sure it’d know me.”
“Yes. That the point. When does a thing stop being THE thing. The race cars are modular by design – almost everything can be replaced in seconds. But they are supposed drive the “same” car throughout the race. So, they keep the body so it still looks the same and they keep the cockpit and computer so it still drives the same.”
--
Two hours later, the checkered flag was waved and the race was over. As a special treat, they made their way to the finish line just in time to see the winning driver remove her helmet and flash her blond hair to the crowd.
--
They pulled into an old gas station. The pumps were long gone and the buildings now held a farmer’s market. His car connected to the farmer’s mini grid. By the time they made their selections and returned to the car, it had charged and backed into another spot to make room for a newcomer.
Grandpa laughed. “I never get used to self-driving cars, especially when you go looking for them where you parked them last and they’ve moved.”
--
They rode down the interstate, heading home. The farms on both sides of the road glinted with solar panels as far as the eye could see. Some farmers used them to provide shade for the few remaining cattle, others grew agrivoltaics - planting crops under panels, a few harvested only sunlight on their land. In the distance, they could see rows of wind turbines, marking their exit off the highway.
He laughed for a moment. She asked what he was laughing it.
“They said this wouldn’t work. They kept coming up with reasons why it couldn’t work. They even tried to stop it from working. Tariffs and bans, laws and lawsuits. But Engineers like a challenge and they delivered anyway.”