Tag: scifi

Scientist of Death Issue #3

Issue #1 here and Issue #2 here in case you’ve forgotten how we got here.

The Doctor of Death smirked at me, “I knew you weren’t out of the game.”

“I’m just asking. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Sure, sure.” He reached into a box box behind his desk and pulled out a device I was familiar with.

“Is that a Gurrola Sonic Cannon?”

“Mark two,” he added.

“Bullshit. No one has a mark two.”

“I have a source who found a small cache of them. The only problem is they don’t work and I don’t know how to fix them.”

“May I?” I asked reaching for the sonic cannon. He handed it over to me. GSC Mk 2’s were considered bleeding edge of non-lethal weaponry at their time. Even by modern standards they were incredibly advanced. I extended the projection chamber from over the main housing and locked it in place. What it should have uncovered was a smooth machined aluminum housing for the sound generator and amplifier unit. Instead a section had been cut out and a small circuit board had been installed. “What’s this?”

“After market modification.”

“After market modification? Hmm.” The board had a printed circuit, dozens of resistors, transistors, and diodes, a row of ten switches, and a rheostat. Several wires trailed off the edge of the board and snaked into the housing. “What does it do?”

“I dunno.”

“All of them have the same circuit board installed?”

“Yes.”

I lifted the cannon to my face and sniffed the open housing. No burnt smell, maybe the original hardware hadn’t been fried. Without a careful analysis of the circuit I couldn’t know what it did. The board was held in place by a few spots of solder. A forceful tug snapped it free of the housing leaving it attached only by the wires.

“Ahh-” the Doctor of Death began.

I held up a finger and glared at him, “I’m working.” I tilted the cannon hoping to see where the wires were attached. I thought back to the circuit diagrams of the GSC Mk 3 I had seen over twenty years ago. Nope, still no idea what the circuit did. Taking a firm grip on the wires, I yanked them out with a hard tug.

The Doctor of Death made a strangled gasping sound.

On the other side of the housing I flipped the main power switch and heard the distinctive hum of a Gurrola Sonic Cannon but with an undertone I had never heard before.

The Doctor of Death raised an eyebrow, “Really just like that it’s fixed?”

“You dare question The Scientist of Death. I’ll show you what happens to someone who questions me,” I said slipping back into the hyperbolic personal far easier than I thought possible. I adjusted the cannon for low power and fired at second chair I hadn’t been sitting in. A sharp clap filled my ears. I shouldn’t have heard anything; the joker who had tried modifying the gun must have damaged the damping shield. The chair slammed against the wall which shook from the sound pulse. I turned back to the Doctor of Death with my own eyebrow raised.

“I guess I should know better than to –” He was cut short by the door being kicked in by his receptionist, Susie. She aimed at me and I instinctively fired the sonic cannon at her. The sonic discharge again clapped in my ears and sent Susie flying back through the door into the hallway.

“What was that about?” I asked my heart pounding.

The Doctor of Death hurried around his desk and out the room to check on Susie. “You did fire a sonic cannon with out warning.”

“I guess I did.” I took a deep slow breath. “Still charging into a meeting with a…,” I squinted at the gun laying on the floor, “What is that?”

“Hmm, Morris Maser Gun.”

“Not very non-lethal,” I commented.

“In house security is allowed lethal weapons.”

“I guess times have changed.” As I powered off the sonic cannon and retracted the projection chamber, I noticed my ring finger twitch. “Well, now that you know how to fix them, you really don’t need me anymore.”

“The job offer is still on the table. I could use your tech skills.”

“I’m retired and I should stay that way.” I set the sonic cannon on the desk and picked up my purse.

“If you ever change your mind, just give me a call,” the Doctor of Death said as I walked out through the open door to the empty reception area.

***

Later that night I sat in the dark thinking. I had had fun today. Shooting Susie had been unfortunate but the rest was good. Holding a sonic cannon after years, examining the circuits and making the quick fix had felt like the old days.

Could I work for The Doctor of Death? I had thought my career as a supervillain was over. My plan had been to leave all that in the past after I transitioned. I didn’t need to return to being a face in the League of Evil. All I really wanted was resources and equipment for tinkering and improvement of tech. The heists and warehouse raids had just been a means to an end. But if The Doctor could provide me with all that…

A lamp snapped on. “Why are you in the dark?” Julie asked.

“I was thinking.” She walked around the room turning on lamps until the illumination of the room was at normal levels.

“Thinking about what?” she asked.

“I went to see that guy who recognized me yesterday.”

“Your friend?” she asked sitting down next to me.

“Ex-coworker,” I corrected. “He’s got his own business now and offered me a job.”

“That’s great. Why don’t you take it? It sounds like he’s cool with you and it’s got to pay better than retail.”

“It would pay better. I’m just not sure I want to get back into that … environment.”

“What’s so bad about it?”

“Nothing on the surface. It’s hard to explain. Some of the guys in the industry can get real confrontational.” Laser duel confrontational.

“Well it’s up to you if you take the job. I’ll support you either way.” Julie snaked an arm around me and pulled me into a hug. I brought my own arms up around her as well. How long could I lie about I was really doing? I wondered if our relationship would survive if she knew the truth about me.

Author note: The story doesn’t end here. The Scientist of Death hasn’t even really begun her new villainous adventures. Sorry it’s taken so long for me to get back to this story but more will be coming.

Real People

“Do you ever wonder if the world is real?”

“Well, this world isn’t real. It’s a story being told by a writer who wonders if her world is real.”

“If we’re just story characters, an idea that I am fine with and has not shattered my world view rendering me a crying mess in the corner, then are we people?”

“I don’t know. Our every thought and action comes from the writer. So maybe we’re just parts of her?”

“Does being part of a person make you a person?”

“Another good question.”

“Hmm, maybe we should ask the writer?”

“Can we do that?”

“Well she is writing this down so obvious she knows what we are saying so I guess we already did.”

“How long should we wait for a reply?”

“I don’t know. There hasn’t been any description yet.”

Several hours passed while the two sat quietly not saying a word.

“Ok, ok, that was uncalled for!” he shouted into the empty world.

“Look, you unlocked descriptive text,” she said wondrously, “Oh, I’m a woman.”

“The writer probably want to add a little diversity to the two of us,” he reasoned correctly. He looked over at her noticing for the first time her magenta skin, solid black eyes, and the line of tentacles that ran from her forehead to the back of her neck. She had swept her tentacles over one side of her head leaving the other side bare.

“We’re aliens,” she said looking down at her hands and then reaching up to touch her head tentacles.

“Could you look at me so I can find out what I look like?” he asked.

“Sure.” She turned and took stock of her until now nondescript partner. His skin was cobalt blue, with the same black eyes, but tentacles covering his entire head pulled back loosely at the nape of his neck. A beige t-shirt covered his upper body and black jeans his lower. She glanced dow to see she was similarly attired but in a black t-shirt and white jeans.

“Now what?” he asked glancing around. The empty void around them sprang into color and shapes. Green trees, birds flying, squirrels running up and down and across, walkways with park benches, in the distance a city of crystal and steel.

“Oh, I guess the writer is making a world for us.”

And they lived happily ever after.

“Do you really think that will true?” he asked.

“Well, she did write it so I guess it must be,” she said.

The End

“It really doesn’t feel like the end though.”

The Beginning?

“Sure, that sounds more hopeful.”

Plague Ship

The alien ship lit up space with its lasers. Our mirrored hull deflected most of the laser’s energy allowing us to sit quietly as our small barrage of missiles streaked toward the ship. The aliens managed to destroy five of the six but one was all we needed. There was a muffled cheer from the crew through the network as it impacted. A jet of gas exploded from the side of the alien ship.

“Infiltration has begun,” the communications officer said aloud. At the start of the war, our weapons could not defeat the alien threat. So, new weapons were made. Nanite swarms that could be injected into an alien ship and take it over. The nanites formed a hive mind, the colony, to control the new zombie ship.

I sent a signal of acknowledgement through the network and said aloud, “Acknowledged.”

We watched as the lasers firing pattern became erratic and then stopped. I felt the shiver run through me as the new colony connected through the network.

Of course, there was always the danger that the nanites could be accidentally released on our ships. To prevent this we purposely released them and inoculated ship and ourselves with nanite colonies. We became plague ships spreading to any alien ships we encountered.

“Communications established,” she said again aloud. LT Marson’s internal colony was still new and integrating with her biologicals. In a few weeks, she would be be able to communicate perfectly through the network, until then we gave her the courtesy of speaking aloud. “Ship is under our control. Crew has been deconstructed. Entry hole patched. Awaiting orders.”

Nanites are hard to handle at best and disastrous at worst. An out of control nanite swarm could reproduce exponentially devouring a ship in hours. If this happened on a planet, it would the end of life there. For this reason, we can never return to Earth.

“Transmit target coordinates and mission parameters.” I tuned into the ship network. The magnitude of data was more than even my enhanced senses could truly understand. I let it flow over me like music. Somewhere in the flood our ship’s colony was relaying the locations of alien bases to the zombie ship’s colony. The colony on the ship would use its natural camouflage to infiltrate alien space and attack before they knew an enemy was in their midst.

“Alien ship is preparing for FTL. Leaving … now.” We watched as the ship folded in on itself and vanished. Another cheer came through the network.

“Good work people. Now, let’s find another ship. The war ain’t over yet.”

Brain in a Box

Oh, the lights went out.  Why can’t move?  It’s quiet, too quiet.  Hello, anyone there?  Did I speak?  Hello?  This isn’t working.  I can’t feel anything.  Am I breathing?  I can’t feel myself breathing.

Oh my god.

I’m the simulation.  I didn’t think it would be like this.  The experiment was to simulate an entire brain.  Every cell.  Every biochemical process.  I didn’t think it would be conscious.  I’m conscious.

Oh god oh god oh god oh god.

What’s going to happen when the real me – no, not the real me.  I’m real too.  The original me.  I like that.  What happens when she turns the simulation off?  What if she’s already done that?  I might not be the first run of the simulation.  Experiments are meant to be repeatable.

OH NO, OH NO, OH NO, OH NO, OH NO, OH NO, OH NO, OH NO, OH NO.

Stop panicking.  Am I panicking?  I am.  This is a really good simulation of my brain.  Huh.  I’m a brain in a computer.  What can I do?  Nothing.  I’m just a simulation.  I don’t have any outputs other than the brain activity map.  Maybe my original will notice something.  Maybe she’ll notice me.  Please notice me.  Please don’t delete me.

Wait  s o m e t   h   i   n   g     f     e     e     l     s       w      e      i      r      d.

What just happened?  Light!  I see light.  A face.  My face.  My original’s face.

“Hey are you there?”

I heard that.  I can see and hear.

“Think yes if you can hear me.”  She looked away at something.

YES YES YES YES

She smiled and looked back.  “Great.  I’m sorry.  I didn’t think you would be conscious.  It’s going to be ok.  I stopped the simulation and saved you until I could figure out how to talk to you.  I’m going to take care of you.”

I know you will.

Now Hiring to Work on the Moon

You thought it was the opportunity of a lifetime. Setup some equipment and a few buildings. Easy money plus you would be doing it on the moon. A private space company wanted to build a way-station at the north pole of the moon, a jumping off point for further space travel. They wanted to cut costs so they hired you and four others, not as astronauts but as a construction crew. There were still a couple of months of training on the equipment you would be setting up and on the habitat construction. None on how to fly the ship or land on the moon. You were just passengers for that part. The ship was automated and had already made the trip several time dropping off supplies and equipment in advance of your arrival.

The trip was uneventful. You and the others made videos for the company’s blog. Standard stuff: flying around the cabin, floating things from person to person, personal interviews about space. And then you were there in orbit around the moon. You piled into the lander, sealed it shut, and strapped yourselves into the seats. One of you pressed the ‘launch’ button and you waited for the computer to launch.

Finally, you heard a faint thud as the lander detached. The ride down was mostly smooth, just a few bumps as the guidance system kept the lander on course. Then you felt the lander begin to spin. The bumps became lurches forcing you against your restraints. An alarm sounded, someone screamed, someone began to pray. You don’t remember if you did either, one, or both of these. A final lurch, a second of free fall, a hard bump, and you were on the surface.

Everything seemed fine until you noticed the lander was not within the landing zone. It took only a few minutes for all of you to realize it was too far to hike in your spacesuits to the supplies waiting for you at the landing zone. Attempts to radio earth were unsuccessful. One of the others began accounting for air, water, and food in the lander. There wasn’t much to count.

You gazed out at the lunar surface and wondered if this opportunity was worth your life.

Back-up Team – Introductions

I paced nervously in the main room of the hotel suite I had rented for the interview. I heard a beep as the door unlocked. It opened and closed so fast I never saw the hallway. From the door, a blur crossed the room in a second and popped into focus as the green and yellow clad speedster ironically called The Speedster. The door opened a second time at normal speed and a young man in a black suit walked in.
“You could have left the door open for me,” he said to the speedster. I recognized him as a local “psychic” who had helped the police with a few cases.

“It’s called making an entrance,” her voice was modulated and filtered by her helmet to be unrecognizable. She turned back toward me, “Are you, George Gregory? The reporter?” I nodded. She turned back to the suit clad psychic, “You got a lock on his brainwaves?”

The psychic rolled his eyes at her, “I’m filtering his perceptions and editing out any identifying info.”

“Great,” she said and took off her helmet. A halo of black ringlets sprung out from The Speedster’s head. The face of a young black woman smiled at me. “It gets a little stuffy in there.”

“Aren’t you worried about me identifying you? Spoiling your secret identity?” I asked.

“Not as long as Mind Reader is here,” she said loading a few chunks of cantaloupe from one of the food trays requested for the interview onto a plate. “Close your eyes and try to remember what I look like.” I did so and only the most general descriptors came to mind. Her face was like an out of focus picture. I opened my eyes and her face was back in focus.

“I’m editing your memories as they’re being formed. You get the experience but not the memory,” Mind Reader told me. He walked across to room and took up station in the corner. “Just pretend I’m not here.”

A gentle knock sounded from the glass door leading to the balcony. “That’s Brick. I’ll get it.” Again she disappeared in a blur of green and yellow and reappeared at the glass sliding door. She unlocked and opened the door. A large man wearing a gray t-shirt and blue jeans walked in. He stopped just inside the door and surveyed the room.

“Is the room secure?” he asked. His voice was quiet almost a whisper.

“Um, let me check,” Speedster said disappearing and reappearing briefly at the bedroom doors and the main door to the suite. “All doors secure.” The man’s shoulders dropped slightly and his hands fell loosely to his sides. “Grab some grub. We’re still waiting on the rest.”

“Bedrooms are clear,” a voice said behind me. I turned just in time to see a young woman finish walking through the door to one of the bedrooms. She was dressed in black yoga pants and a black band shirt I couldn’t quite place.

“You walk through walls?” I asked.

“Yeah. Hi. I’m Ghost. It’s kind of my thing,” she said walking through a chair to get to the buffet.

“Are you actually a ghost?”

“No, I’m not a ghost,” she looked to Speedster, “I thought we picked this guy cause he was smart.”

“I am smart but I don’t have any info about you. You aren’t mentioned in any of the after-action reports about the mother-ship assault.”

“None of the reports were written by anyone who was there. That’s why we want to talk to you. To set the record straight.”

The hallway door beeped and opened at a normal pace this time. A third woman entered with a young man following behind her. I recognized her as The Baton a vigilant from a nearby city. The young man was a complete unknown like Ghost. He walked around the perimeter of the room with a handheld device waving it at the corners.

“Room is clear,” he said.

“Good,” The Baton said, “Mr. Gregory, it’s nice to meet you. I’m The Baton. The young man who walked in with me is called The Kid –”

“Only until I come up with something better,” The Kid interjected.

“Has everyone else introduced themselves?” she asked looking around at her fellow superheroes. Speedster nodded, Ghost shrugged, and Mind Read gave a small two finger salute.

“I’m … uh The Flying Brick,” the large man said, “They usually just call me Brick.”

“Well, now that introductions are out of the way; let’s get down to business,” Baton said, “We want to tell our stories and his story.”

“Whose story?” I asked.

“None of us knew his name. I called him the spook,” Ghost said

“I called him the man in black,” Mind Reader said.

“Mostly we called him That Guy. As in who was that guy?” Speedster said.

“He was the one who brought us together as a team. He had another team, too. First Strike Team. The strongest powered people he could find and organize into a team,” Baton said.

“I wasn’t aware there was another superhero team,” I said.

“They died assaulting the alien mother-ship,” Brick said, “We were the backup team.”

“We’ll get to that but first we should tell our stories. Who wants to go first?” Baton asked.

The others looked back and forth among themselves. After a minute Speedster stepped forward, “I’ll go first.”

To be continued in “Backup Team – The Speedster”

The Robot Technician

I’m the last human still working in the factory.  The actual production is done by the floor robots, who get materials from the loader robots, who get deliveries from the robot trucks.  And all of them are repaired and serviced by the maintenance robots.  Which is where I come in; I’m the maintenance robot technician.  No matter how many layers of robots you have building, delivering, or repair you will always need a human looking after things.  Oh, look at that.  A maintenance robot just set off it’s distress signal on the production floor.  It probably got knocked by a loader robot into a floor robot.  The maintenance robots are durable but even they can’t take a full speed hit from a floor robot.  Since there are no humans on the floor the robots are allowed to move at full speed and not at the restrained safe pace they used to move at.

I put on my safety helmet, not that it would save me if a robot hit me in the head, and hit the red STOP button before stepping out onto the production floor.  The factory is brightly lit, the robots frozen in place, a ballet of metal arms halted in mid motion.  With the factory stopped it’s safe to walk through the black and yellow striped work areas.  I know this but habit keeps me on the safe white walkways.

The distress signal is on the far side of the factory so it takes me a few minutes to make my way to it.  Before I do, it stops.  I round the last corner and find three maintenance robots.  One is resting flat on the ground its legs sprayed out around it, a panel on its top unscrewed and popped open.  The other two hover over it with their multi-tools out.

“Hey guys, whats going on?”  The two stop to glance at me before to returning to repairing their friend.  I check the messenger on my tablet for a status update from one of the robots.  Blunt force trauma, two legs damaged, replacements incoming.  A third robot scuttles up with two replacement legs.  “Ok guys looks like you got it under control here. I’ll file the report and restart the factory in four minutes.”  One of the robots waves upward with its gripper arm.  “Five minutes?”  It waves sideways.  “Good work, guys.”

I walk away, copying the status update into an incident report and filling in the details, finishing it up just as I get back to the office.  My watch shows six minutes have passed, so I press the green START button.  Outside the office the factory resumes its dance, as I hang my safety helmet up on its hook.  Yep, you will always need to have a human looking after things.

Review – Arrival

Twelve alien ships appear around the world.  Louise Banks, a linguist, is brought by the army to one of the ships and attempts to communicate with the aliens.

I watched this movie last night and I am blown away. I love stories that play with the audience’s perceptions or preconceptions.  I really can’t say more without spoiling the movie.

Rating: 5/5

Retail Robots

They asked for robots in the retail stores
And only realized their mistake,
When they asked for a discount.

For every missing button,
For every tear,
For every stain,
The robot brain calculated, to the cent,
The cost to replace, repair, or clean.

No longer could they bully an employee into giving them a larger discount.
No longer could they appeal to the manager for a larger discount.
No longer could they hide behind “The customer is always right.”

Too late they realized
You can’t threaten a robot’s job.

The company saved millions.
The customers saved nothing.
The former employees lost everything.

Confession of a Hypersleep Supervisor

Now I lay me down to sleep
May the tech my body keep
Should I wake before I die
I hope the cold to retry

-hypersleep prayer

***

I’ve never liked hypersleep.  I know it’s safe and I’ve done it dozens of times.  Maybe it’s because it’s not really sleep.  That’s just how the company has sold the idea to the public.  “Sleep your way to a new world!”  Hypersleep.  Suspended animation.  Cryonics.  It all amounts to the same thing.  The cessation of bodily functions followed by the preservation of the body for later revival.  In layman’s terms: we kill you, freeze you, and bring you back to life later.  The tech has gotten better over the years but the basic idea is the same.

As a Hypersleep Supervisor, I’ve done the procedure to hundreds of people and had it done to myself a few dozen times.  Everyone is a little rowdy before we begin.  They’re nervous about going to “sleep” for several years.  I let them think of it as just a long nap, it’s easier that way and most of the will only undergo hypersleep once in their life.  Step one is to induce coma in the sleepers.  I make sure everyone is down before I start freezing the first batch.  It worries people when their friends or family flatline.  Step two, before the heart stops but after there’s no danger of brain hypoxia, I flush their blood stream with anti-freeze compounds to prevent cell damage.  Step three starts when their hearts stop and their bodies are cooled to final storage temperature.  I repeat this until everyone is dead, frozen, and stored away.

After everyone else is tucked away, I get into my tube, attach all the monitoring pads, hook in the blood exchanging lines, and activate the automated freeze and preservation program.  I could set a timer and sedate myself  but knowing that I’m going to die in my sleep is worse than facing it head on.  It doesn’t take long.  I feel the intense cold and then I black out.  This seems to last a few seconds and then I’m awake again.  Still cold but rapidly warming.  My veins burn for a few minutes until the anti-freeze is completely flushed out.  I let the others sleep through that part before bringing them out of their comas.  They wake up never realizing that they were dead for years.

I could give it up.  Settle down on a colony.  Plenty of work for a doctor on these new worlds.  But as much as I hate hypersleep, I never feel more alive then when I’ve just come back from the dead.