Pulse: A Collection of Short and Flash Science Fiction

by Frank Carey

  Moments passed before the Ms. Johnson's pad activated itself and started a delivery sequences. When it finished, the lab was no longer empty.

  Dig Site

  Marshal John Talbot listened intently to the radio, but all he heard was the hiss of static. The message which had brought him to Corcoran-1 had abruptly stopped broadcasting three hours ago. This worried him, so he maintained radio-silence while on approach.

  According to HQ, a group of archeologists working a dig on the planet sent the distress signal. The planet was extremely close to its sun, so the day side was hot as molten lead while the night side was hundreds of degrees below zero. Sunrise brought with it explosions and eruptions as the ground was suddenly superheated. Sunrise was something to avoid.

  According to the Galactic Wikipedia, Corcoran-1 had many types of indigenous life, including large predators, which lived underground.

  John landed his ship outside the camp. A cursory examination of the area showed signs of struggle and gunfire. In the center of the camp was a large doorway that led underground.

  John entered the doorway and found a stairwell leading underground. At the bottom was a doorway. Using a small inspection mirror, he examined the next room. He saw a small room containing numerous broken boxes. What piqued his interest were the five bodies lying on the floor.

  John entered and checked the bodies with his scanner. All five were members of the archeological team and all of them had been shot. The room had been ransacked with boxes torn open and their contents strewn about. This was looking more and more like the work of pirates.

  John continued down a corridor, looking for survivors and pirates. As he approached a cross-corridor, John heard something approaching. As a precaution, he activated his uniform’s stealth system.

  Into the intersection walked a bipedal nightmare with teeth. It was big and looked like a cross between a velociraptor and a shark.

  The creature stopped and looked around. According to the computer, its primary senses were smell and ultrasonic hearing. At one point, it looked directly at John, but it didn’t see him. Thank heavens for stealth uniforms.

  The beast moved on, so John continued down another corridor. Moments later, he heard voices from a side room, so he quietly moved into a niche in the wall from which he could eavesdrop.

  “Why did you have to kill everyone? You had the artifacts you wanted, so no one had to die.”

  “The others were witnesses. They had to go. Do you know what the penalty for stealing alien artifacts is? Life imprisonment at Hell spawn, that’s what. Oh, speaking of witnesses…”

  “The distinctive snap of a blaster echoed down the hallway as John, too late to save the conspirator, jumped through the doorway with his blaster at the ready.

  “Drop it! I’m Marshal John Talbot, Galactic Police. You are under arrest for multiple counts of murder and general mayhem.”

  There were four pirates and a dying archeologist in the room. John dove behind a pile of packing crates as the pirates opened fire. He was able to take out three of them, but the fourth made it out the door into the hallway.

  Seeing that it was clear, John ran over to the pirates and kicked their blasters away while checking for life signs--they were all dead. He then checked the archeologist. He was still alive, but not for long.

  “Who are you? What happened here?”

  “I am Dr. Stillman and the one who shot me is Ferd Lance, a contract ruffian. I hired him to steal artifacts. It was supposed to be in-and-out with no bloodshed, but it all went sideways. Lance is a maniac. Marshal, over there, by the coffee maker, is a pack. Bring it here.”

  John brought the pack to Dr. Stillman.

  “This contains Dr. Cleff’s notes. Everything he learned about this place is in this pack. Please, give it to the University.”

  With those final words, the Doctor died.

  John slung the pack and headed out into the hallway. On his way out, he bumped into one of the crates, breaking it open and spilling its contents. It was filled with non-descript metal disks. He checked his wrist chrono and saw that sunrise was in 30 minutes. Just then, he heard a voice behind him.

  “I think you have something of mine.”

  John slowly turned around to find Ferd Lance holding a gun on him.

  “So, Marshal, any last words?”

  “Yes, Ferd, just one. Goodbye,” the Marshal said as he pointed to something behind Ferd. Ferd turned around and found himself standing inches away from one of the predator beasts. Ferd’s scream was cut off by the predator’s teeth.

  He took off running for the exit. When he got outside, John ran to his ship and took off, leaving the dead and the beasts to their fates.

  John set course for HQ then sat down to examine the contents of the Doctor’s pack. Inside he found a journal containing the scientist’s findings. He glanced through it, but found nothing that appeared valuable enough to kill for. Perhaps the eggheads at HQ could make something of it. Between the pages of the journal was a silvery disk made like the ones he’d spilled in the storeroom. John placed the disk in the scanner and ran an analysis. It was adamantium, the most valuable metal in the galaxy. The notes in the journal told that the team had found thousands of disks in a storeroom. They had packed a small fraction of them for shipment to the University for analysis. They thought the disks were just ornamental.

  Walking down the passageway to the galley, John flipped the disk in the air, wondering if HQ would let him keep one as a reminder to look for treasure in the most obvious places.

  Hero

  Sam used a fine airbrush to put the finishing touches on the Hero 357 android frame. This particular frame was going to be in the next scene where it would battle a Creature 118 frame. As Sam applied the last touch of paint, the communicator beeped. It was Marvin, from the AI Talent Agency.

  “Sammy! How’s it hanging? I got your invoice, and I’ve lined-up two top-notch operators for you. I’ve got Joshua and Susan. I think Josh would be great in Hero and Sue is perfect for the Creature. Here are their resumes and rates. What do you think?

  Sam checked over the details and agreed that both operators would be perfect for the parts Marv recommended. He signed the paperwork.

  “Great, Marv, I’ve opened the portals into the frames. Send them over, so they can get familiar with their new bodies and the choreography.”

  Back in the day, movie makers relied on computer-generated imagery, or CGI, to fashion creatures and scenes not possible with practical effects. It got to the point where movies were being released that had no living actors, only virtual ones. Audiences started to complain that filmmakers had gone too far and had created movies with no soul. The AI revolution changed all that.

  At some point, computer systems became so complex that they started to spawn artificial intelligences. These AIs had all of the characteristics of human beings, except for corporeal bodies. AIs lived in the Internet and interacted with humans through terminals until robotics technology caught up and AIs could inhabit robotic frames. Filmmakers took this a step farther by creating lifelike creatures, android frames, that AIs could enter and control. The age of the AI actor and talent agency was born.

  Sam turned and watched Hero as he waited for Joshua to arrive. Creature was in the next tent over with its techs, waiting for Susan’s arrival. After a few moments, Hero activated and stood up. The communicator rang again. Sam answered it as he watched Joshua put Hero through a systems check.

  “Hello, this is Sam.”

  “Sammy, what the hell is going on? Joshua and Susan were unable to transfer. They said both frames were already occupied.”

  Sam turned and looked at Hero in horror as Hero flexed its massive synthetic arms, while letting loose a roar.

  “I am Talock, demi-god of the fifth realm. I have come to do battle with my sworn enemy, the demon Chalm!”

  “Sammy, get out of there. You’ve got a couple of frame-jackers. Call the cops. I’m coming right over.”

  Sa
m stood there stunned, as Hero strutted around the tent while checking itself out in every mirror it could find.

  “Fine body you have given me, mortal! I’d say at least three meters tall! And look at how ripped it is. I never had muscle definition like this when I was alive. Bravo! Now, where is Chalm?”

  As an answer, there was a roar from the other tent. When Talock heard this, he bolted outside to find his sworn enemy. Meanwhile, Sam was on the phone with the director explaining what had happened before running out of the tent in search of Talock.

  When he got outside, he saw Talock facing-off with the Creature frame presumably controlled by Chalm. Sam saw that the director had fielded every camera available to record whatever was about to unfold.

  After a short stare-down, the two frames started to trade blows while the cameras rolled. Though it seemed an eternity, the battle only lasted for an hour. At the end, both frames were tattered remnants of their former selves. As they sat on the ground, sparking and spewing hydraulic fluid, Marv showed up in his limo.

  “Who the hell are you two?” she said as she exited the vehicle.

  “Marv, I thought you were a guy,” Sam said as he stared at the female body walking up to the frames.

  “Sammy, my boy, I am AI, so gender has no meaning. My male body is in the shop, so I thought I would go girl this morning. Now, you two, can you please explain what is going on here?”

  “My name is Talock and this is Chalm. We’ve been battling each other since before the stars formed. One day, our leader decided that she had enough of us, so we were banished to the ether realm. Somehow we found ourselves in your Internet, so we decided to go exploring. We found these two bodies and thought we would have a battle for old times’ sake.”

  At this point, the director walked up and hugged both frames. He was crying, saying something about Oscars. Marv had an idea.

  “How would you two like to do this for a living? You know, battle it out in frames?”

  The two combatants nodded vigorously.

  “OKay, get back into the ‘net. One of my assistants is waiting for you. It will take you to my office, where we can discuss this further.”

  The Hero and Creature frames deactivated as the two entities vacated them. A part of Creature fell off and rolled noisily across the parking lot.

  “Sammy, why don't we have a drink after work at the Top Hat II? I’ll have my driver pick you up at seven."

  With that, Marv got back into her limo, leaving the director still crying, and Sam with a huge mess to clean up. As he watched, Hero's head fell off and rolled into one of the prep tents, taking out a golf cart in the process. He sighed, as he started to clean up the horrendous mess just as Creature's head fell off and followed Hero's into the tent.

  Exodus

  The proximity alarms sounded as expected when the salvage ship approached the derelict.

  “Jarvis kill the alarms and prepare to dock. Did you have any success in identifying the ship?”

  “No, Captain Hardy, the ship is radio-dead and there are no hull markings. Silhouette recognition cannot find any match in any of our databases. Hull material analysis indicates it was manufactured on Earth, but that is all we know. I shall continue to search.”

  “Thank you, Jarvis. Jackie, are you ready?”

  “Yes, Noah, I’m ready.”

  Jackie, always prepared, always ready, mind like a steel trap. Just a few of the reasons why he asked her to marry him.

  Moments later, the two ships met in the vastness of space. The Bonaventure’s airlock mated with the derelict and formed a hard-seal. Jackie cracked-open the outer door and released the mech-cats.

  As programmed, they spread out through the derelict, scanning and mapping the interior. The cats poked their noses into every cupboard, locker, and hidey-hole, while recording audio, video, and environmental data.

  After a couple hours of roaming, all three mech-cats returned to the airlock. Jackie let them in and sealed the lock behind them, then headed to the bridge, stopping at the galley to pick up a couple of coffees.

  “Well, that went smoothly,” Jackie said as she entered the bridge and handed her husband a coffee.

  “I wish they were all that way,” he said as she sat down at the conference table. After setting the watch systems, he joined her. She was absentmindedly playing with a tiny toy rabbit.

  “You found Toby. I was sure one of the robovacs had gotten him.”

  Jackie smiled and set the toy aside as Noah grabbed a control pad.

  ”Let’s see what we have,” he said as he activated the holo system and tied it into the main computer.

  A 3D map of the derelict materialized above the table. If a spot on the map was touched, a table of color-coded environmental measurements would appear. Areas that were shielded, or otherwise unscannable, showed up as black voids.

  The map showed the ship was divided into three areas connected by four corridors with the corridors running bow to stern near the outer shell at top bottom and sides of the ship. There was the bridge area at the bow, the drive in the stern, and a void in the middle. The void took up 80% of the ship’s volume.

  According to the map’s readings, the ship had Earth-normal atmosphere, pressure, temperature, and gravity with no harmful substances or organisms detected.

  Noah and Jackie geared up and headed to the airlock. Once through, they found themselves in a long hallway that stretched out of sight to the left and right. In front of them were a computer terminal and a pair of huge doors, which they assumed led to the void section of the ship. As they approached, the terminal lit up with a single symbol: a fingerprint in the center of the screen.

  They looked at each other before Noah pressed his right index finger on the symbol. The display went momentarily dark before displaying a user interface.

  “Noah, look at the ship’s ID. It’s the Exodus and it last left Earth three years before the Eco-Apocalypse of 2018. Just think. This ship saw Earth before the planet died, before everyone left for Mars. When this ship left Earth, there were still trees, plants, and animals.”

  “Yea, but there was also the horrible war that led to the Apocalypse. This ship was made at the same time they were building the antimatter bomb, the tunneler missiles, and AI tanks.”

  On the left edge of the terminal was a small pit, about the size of a fingertip. Noah absentmindedly pressed his finger into it.

  “Ow!” Noah said as he jerked his finger away, and put it in his mouth. He looked at the pit and saw a drop of his blood being absorbed. ”What the heck?”

  The terminal went blank.

  “Noah, what did you do?”

  “I put my finger in this pit and it bit me!”

  The terminal lit up again with a single button in the center of the display. The button was labeled ‘OPEN.’

  Noah and Jackie looked at each other.

  “Jackie, what do we do? There could be weapons, missiles, AI tanks, or robot soldiers behind those doors. If we open them, we could be unleashing all sorts of bad things onto what is left of humanity.”

  “Noah, there could also be good things that could help us. Maybe a library, or supplies, or technology.”

  They both realized that the reason for them being out there was to find things to help humanity survive. Humans were on their last legs, the cliff was getting closer, and oblivion was knocking at the door.

  Jackie nodded to Noah, so he pressed the button.

  The massive doors opened to a brightly-lit interior. The intrepid explorers entered and found themselves in a forest with huge trees, birds, and small animals. In the distance they could see a herd of quadrupeds with huge antlers passing by. Nearby, a small rabbit emerged from the brush. It walked up to Jackie and stared at her before continuing on its way. The two explorers stood there in awe as they realized what they had found.

  The Exodus was a huge ark in space; safekeeping specimens of life forms from across the Earth in the hope that, one day, humanity would survive and retrieve
it from the vast expanse of space.

  That day had arrived.

  Earl Grey

  “The problems started right after our visit to Planet 357-3. Scans from space and on the ground showed no harmful organisms, and the after-mission bioscans were clean, yet three members of the crew have come down with flu-like symptoms. Routine blood work has turned up nothing out of the ordinary, and lab rats exposed to the infected crew are unaffected. Dr. Bursar is stumped as is the medical diagnostic computer. End of log entry. Captain John Bridger, 23 January 2244.”

  Captain Bridger sat back in his chair and thought about what to do next. There were four crewmembers on that survey team, yet only three had come down with symptoms. The fourth, Private Davies, seems to be symptom free, but they don’t know why. No other crewmember has come down with anything, but that could change in a heartbeat considering that most of the crew had been exposed to the survey team before they became symptomatic. As a precaution, the four survey team members have been quarantined in sickbay. Now, it was a waiting game.

  The intercom beeped. It was the ship’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Bursar.

  “Captain, I have an update. The survey team’s conditions are unchanged, but three more crew members have developed the same symptoms. The three new cases had come in contact with the survey team the moment the team returned to the ship. We still don’t know if the disease is airborne or if it is transmitted by physical contact. I think we need to assume that the whole crew is already infected, and it is just a matter of time until we all become symptomatic. That is except for Davies. We still have no idea why he is unaffected.”

  “Doc, we’ve reported our situation to HQ, but the nearest ship is three weeks away, so we're on our own. I will keep you informed if anything changes at my end. Good luck, Captain out.”