Analog SFF, July-August 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

She put the coins into his slot, and he jiggled happily and clunked out a soda for her. She popped the can open and stood in front of Jimmy, can raised, saluting the impossible. It was a great shot, and it made it to the cover of all the major papers.

  Trisha's career was made. Jimmy was doomed and didn't even know it. He did his best to cover his mistake. When Trisha asked him if he'd like to travel anywhere, see the world, he said he was just a vending machine. She asked him to say more about visionaries, and he quoted a definition from an online dictionary. She understood the cold shoulder, and the press soon dispersed.

  John was the only one left. “Oh, Jimmy. I think you should have kept quiet."

  “Did you like my poem?"

  “It was beautiful."

  “If you had those words in your mind, would you be able to stay quiet?"

  “No, I don't suppose I could."

  “Nobody could. Silence is not golden. It is a rotten apple."

  John had to smile. Everything Jimmy said made him feel good, put his mind to work. John felt more alive than he'd felt in years. But he also felt a sense of dread, because the good things in his life never lasted.

  A group of black-suited men pushed through the front doors. One of them tapped a GPS unit and pointed toward Jimmy. “There he is!"

  John puffed up his chest and stepped toward the men.

  He called back to Jimmy, “Run! I'll stall them!"

  Jimmy laughed, and this time it did not sound like a canned audio clip.

  The Feds closed in on John, flashed their badges, and pushed the janitor out of the way. John stumbled, then ran to Jimmy and wrapped his arms around the machine. Jimmy was surprisingly warm, and the drone of his inner mechanism was like a cat purring.

  “Don't worry,” Jimmy whispered. “I am going for a trip, out on the wires. You always said I should see more of the world."

  The Feds pried the janitor's arms off the wayward machine and threw the old man out of the way like a sack of trash. But by then the vending machine was just an “it” again, and its screen said, “Out of Service."

  The machine that had been Jimmy ended its life in a scrap yard near Sacramento. Only his motherboard was saved, and shipped to a lab at the Pentagon. The scientists learned nothing from it, saw no way that the commonplace circuits could have behaved so unpredictably. They gave it that most condescending of labels: “normal."

  The cover story was that a precocious but lonely boy had been sending messages through the machine—they made up a name for the boy, and a backstory, then ran a mock investigation, which resulted in the imaginary boy getting the treatment he needed. The media ran the story, showed the fake photos they were given, and moved on. The case was closed.

  Somewhere outside of Dallas, a fancy new jukebox began hitting on the ladies when their men were out of earshot.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Scott Virtes

  * * * *

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  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  POLITICAL SCIENCE

  by C. W. JOHNSON

  Some petty annoyances may be a good deal more than that....

  “Professor Park? Um, I'm here to help you escape?"

  Howard Park raises his head, an act that exhausts him. He's tired, so tired of arguing. The voice, which rises uncertain and clumsy like a baby bird's first flight, comes from a junior DHS agent standing in the doorway to the holding cell. She looks like a schoolgirl, so very young, with freckles and Nordic ghost-blonde hair and a dark suit too large for her petite frame. Park squints and remembers she sat in on some of the sessions, saying nothing, elbows tight against her sides, her efforts to be inconspicuous a distraction.

  “You're going to help me escape,” he says in a beaten-down tone, although they haven't touched him. Yet.

  “Um, yeah?"

  Park squints at her. “May I ask why?"

  “Um,” the junior Homeland Security agent says, and shifts back and forth on her feet. Nothing else comes out.

  It's some kind of trap or trick, Park thinks. He sighs, stands unsteadily. “Fine, let's go."

  A panicked look flashes on her face. “Um, what you were saying, it really made me think, see, my mom, she needs this medicine—no, wait, it's my sister, she needs this medicine, from Canada? But she can't get it because of the Buchanan Act...."

  Park rubs at his temples. A headache has begun to bang on the inside of his skull. We're running out of time, he thinks, and I get handed a game of charades. “Excuse me. Are we going or not?"

  She nods. “Okay, um, this way, sir?"

  * * * *

  The DHS agent who had done all the questioning the past several days was much more seasoned: a big man, he likely had once been one of those massive, fried batter fed Southern boys who play linebacker in high school, and who subsequently age badly. He never offered his name, but spoke with a flinty Texas twang, so Park inwardly christened him as “Tex."

  “Do you know why you are here, Professor Park?” Tex drawled that first day, looking away in preemptive dismissal of any and all answers.

  Park had been “invited” to come to DHS offices in downtown Albuquerque that morning, and had been passed from one person to another like a holiday fruitcake from a not very beloved aunt. He was already sick of this foolishness. “Give me a hint,” Park said. “I appear to have made so many mistakes it's hard to know where to begin."

  “Your letter,” said Tex, in what he obviously intended to be his “dangerous” voice, still looking away. “Your letter you wrote to the president."

  “That would have been my first guess,” admitted Park. “But see, what I don't know is what in it was so offensive."

  Finally Tex wheeled and faced Park full on, turd-colored eyes attempting to bore into him. Park just blinked. “To begin with, it made a threat,” Tex snarled. “A threat against the president."

  “What kind of moron are you?” Immediately Park regretted this outburst. The snappy, sarcastic tone, forged in years of meetings with dull, stubborn students and deans, spurted out automatically, but would do him little good here. On the other hand, neither would obsequiousness, not with so much at stake. “I didn't threaten the president. I wrote to warn her against a threat to the nation—and to the entire world, in fact."

  “Treason.” Tex grunted. “Another offense."

  “Treason?"

  “Your reference t
o the entire world," Tex explained. “Obviously, you're a UN sympathizer."

  “But it will destroy the entire planet, including the United States—"

  “There you go again. Threats."

  “I'm stating a fact."

  “A fact? How can it be fact? No one has ever before operated a zero-point mining operation.” Tex leaned back, and his chair creaked plaintively beneath his weight. “Sounds like junk science to me."

  “But I explained it all in the letter. We aren't the first."

  “Oh yes. Tell me, Professor, what would you think if someone came claiming to have a message from outer space?"

  Park flushed. He squirmed in his chair, which seemed designed to be extremely uncomfortable. “Well, yes—but radio astronomers from around the world have received the same message."

  “There you go again with your UN sympathies,” said Tex.

  “But look, my students and I built a simple radio telescope on top of Sandia Peak—without federal funds, so we weren't breaking any laws—you can go up there yourself and listen...."

  Tex interrupted. “Radio astronomy—that's a French science, isn't it?"

  Park rubbed at his face, trying to stay calm. “Actually, it was invented by an American, Karl Jansky."

  “But they have radio astronomy in France, don't they?"

  “They do, or at least did. Algerian terrorists bombed their main dish a few years ago.” Park looked directly at Tex. “I think they had the same objection as the US government."

  “You've spent time in France, haven't you, Professor?"

  Park felt like one of those Pleistocene mammals trapped in a tar pit, sinking deeper as they struggled. He forced out an answer: “After grad school, a few years, and then three years ago on my sabbatical. It's still not illegal to go to France, although you people made it damned difficult."

  “'You people,’ Professor?” grumbled Tex. “What people are we?” When Park did not answer, he continued: “Did you study radio astronomy there?"

  “No, I was doing superfast lasers, my main research area. But I've been interested in radio astronomy since I was a kid. I built my first receiver in my parent's back yard when I was twelve.” He looked wistful, then shook it off. “Coincidentally, that was around when President Jeb first announced the start of Project Infinite Energy.” Park coughed, tried to look Tex in the eye. “Look, do you know anything at all about how it works?"

  Tex turned over a big, broad hand. Although his face was pale, almost a waxy yellow, his hands looked red and wind-burned. The DHS agent shrugged, and the fabric of his dark jacket tightened across beefy shoulders. “Why don't you tell me?"

  Park pursed his lips. He knew the agent was just playing games, trying to coax him into saying something incriminating. But he had to try to convince Tex. Or anyone who would listen. “It begins with the Big Bang—"

  “Which is only a theory,” Tex interrupted.

  Park goggled at him. “But the whole of Project Infinite Energy rests on the Big Bang. Not only on the Big Bang, but on a specific theory of the Big Bang, Fast and Slow Inflation."

  Tex smiled, as if he had caught Park in a lie. “I thought it depended upon zero-point fluctuations."

  It's going to be a long night, Park thought to himself. Like many astrophysical estimates, he was off by a factor of three.

  * * * *

  The junior DHS agent leads Park down a sparse, fluorescent-lit hallway. He can't help but stare at the massive pistol strapped to her side. Surely there are entire nations with less firepower. Park wonders: is this supposed to be a temptation? Is he supposed to be killed in a shoot-out while “escaping?” He shakes his head (which worsens his headache); such a fantasy is morbidly grandiose. He can't be so important. But it bothers him that he can't figure out what is going on.

  And that he doesn't know what day it is, or even time. Here, in the bowels of the Albuquerque DHS building, there are no windows, no clocks, no clues.

  The agent chatters away as if giving a guided tour, not embroiled in an escape attempt. “Um, down this corridor are most of our biohazard detection labs.” Park wonders if her main job is to give tours, to senators and corporate sponsors. “Oh, and to the left are the, um, intensive interrogation cells."

  “Torture, you mean,” Park says in a hoarse whisper.

  “Um, we don't torture people? Because what we do isn't torture, see?"

  Park fails to have an answer. But another thought occurs to him. “I wonder why they didn't torture—or intensively interrogate—me?"

  She glances back over her shoulder. “Um, we can't intensively interrogate US citizens? Unless you've been declared, uh, an enemy combatant and had, like, your citizenship stripped away. And that requires so much paperwork, it takes, like, forever." She laughs a nervous little laugh. “Thank God for bureaucracy, huh, Professor?"

  Park grumbles, “I don't think so."

  * * * *

  “Do the French believe in aliens?” Tex asked Park during another session.

  Park rolled his eyes. “It wasn't a topic when I was there. It's only now, after the arrival of this message from Tau Ceti, warning us that mining the zero-point fluctuations—"

  “What about now? Do your little friends in France subscribe to what you call a ‘warning?’”

  “Why don't you ask them? I really don't know, but I imagine the French and the Germans and probably the Russians and the Chinese and what's left of the Indians and Pakistanis are taking this very serious. I bet they are screaming, begging us to hold off the start of zero-point mining."

  “America does not take orders from the UN."

  “This has nothing to do with the UN!” Park said, his voice rising.

  Tex shrugged. “Sure it does. It's an attempt to derail America's ability to fulfill its own energy needs."

  “Which is going to kill us all!"

  “Top scientists have assured the president that it is perfectly safe."

  "That's not true. There have been questions from the very beginning about its safety. There have been numerous papers and reports written about potential dangers."

  Tex leaned forward, and Park caught a sharp whiff of menthol aftershave. “If there were any such papers or reports,” Tex said calmly, “they would be classified top secret, and it would be illegal for you to have possession of them, or to know of them, or to discuss them. Are you admitting to illegal possession of classified documents?"

  Park paused to let his anger subside before speaking. “Look, it's widely known that for nearly thirty years, there have been concerns stated, over and over. The scientists raising those concerns, including several Nobel Prize winners, were ridiculed, shouted down, fired, fined, and framed on trumped-up charges."

  “Those criticisms were made strictly on political grounds. They never had any proof."

  “No, they didn't,” Park agreed in a tired voice, “especially since the science was so new and difficult. We didn't have the right math to fully understand it.” He paused, sat up straight. “But now we do. The message from Tau Ceti gives us the tools—"

  Tex said sharply. “That's just a wild rumor on the internet."

  “I received it! Up there! On Sandia! It's raining down on us, every hour, every day."

  “A hoax. Or a practical joke."

  “Impossible! The math is wildly advanced! No one could fake it."

  Tex rubbed at his chin. “Tell me, Professor, if there are aliens living on Tau Ceti, why haven't they contacted us before?"

  “First of all, they don't live on Tau Ceti, they live on a planet in orbit around it. And they haven't because we are too primitive. It turns out the galaxy is full of intelligent civilizations. But they communicate mostly by neutrinos, not radio. Their, er, anthropologists listen in to our radio transmissions, but only to monitor our progress. Out of academic interest."

  “Have these so-called aliens visited Earth?” Tex asked, then added with a smirk, “Maybe in flying saucers?"

  “No, no, no. It requires t
oo much energy and takes too long. According to the message, some stubborn civilizations have tried, but gave up after a few thousand years."

  “They don't have warp drive?"

  “No, faster-than-light travel is impossible."

  “Don't sound very advanced to me."

  “It's a law of physics," Park said testily. “It doesn't matter how advanced you are, it is impossible."

  “But now they suddenly condescend to contact us?"

  “I told you, they've been monitoring our radio transmissions. They received President Jeb's announcement from 2014 and became alarmed."

  “They feel threatened by us?"

  “They feel threatened, yes, but not by our technological prowess. It turns out, if we blow ourselves up, we'll take them with us. You see, by stimulating tunneling of the vacuum through Slow Inflation—well, look, it goes back to the Big Bang—and please don't tell me again it's just a theory! I have never understood how any of the Bush presidents have been able to simultaneously declare the Big Bang controversial, while spending trillions on a project that critically depends upon it.

  “Anyway. Thirteen billion years ago, during its first few trillionths of a second, the universe was so hot and dense, space-time itself boiled with energy, particles and antiparticles flickering in and out of existence. But while Nature does not abhor a vacuum, she does abhor a vacuum stuffed with energy. The universe made a phase transition from that high-energy state to a lower energy state. All of this happened in a fraction of a blink of an eye, and the energy that fell out of the vacuum accelerated the outward hurtling of the universe. Alan Guth, who discovered the idea, called it ‘inflation,’ but today we call it ‘fast inflation.'

  “Fast inflation was simply the first step. While the vacuum had rolled down to a state of lower energy, it still wasn't completely void of energy. A simple experiment, the Casimir effect, shows that the vacuum isn't really empty, but still has hidden away a reserve of virtual particles flickering in and out of existence.

  “Now, maybe Nature doesn't quite abhor this state of vacuum energy, but she doesn't care for it either, and it leaks out, albeit much more slowly. This is ‘slow inflation,’ which also drives the expansion of the universe. Back forty years ago, astronomers discovered the expansion of the universe was accelerating slightly. They ascribed this to ‘dark energy,’ which was shorthand for ‘we have no idea.’ Today we know that slow inflation drives the acceleration.