Nature Futures 2

by Colin Sullivan

  “That’s completely different!” Cobalt said. “We don’t have chromosomes and mutations and such. Each time one of us is born, it’s a microcosm of creation! Each one of us is created through conscious and deliberate choice, as were all of those who went before us. Our first creators were humans.”

  “And where are the humans now?”

  “They removed themselves from our path,” Cobalt said piously. “And we inherited the Earth.”

  “Not all your fellow creationists find that logical. Many would argue that evolution is too dangerous a path, and humans reaped the inevitable consequences. Even though records indicate that humanity had removed natural selection from their process almost entirely before they disappeared.”

  “You obviously have some other theory,” Brilliant Cobalt prodded.

  “I do,” the King said. “Come close to me, Cobalt, and I’ll explain.” The robot obliged, and they aligned sensory inputs with outputs. Titanium Sun continued. “I know we evolved, my concubine, because we are humans. Their genes are gone, but everything we are, and everything we hope to be, came from them. Call it a gift, or call it a warning, it doesn’t matter. Now … I have something for you…”

  With utmost regret, Titanium Sun sent a delicate surge of neutrons into the core of his concubine’s memories of their time together. Brilliant Cobalt’s processing cycles stuttered and stopped, then restarted while Titanium drew away. When Cobalt became conscious again, the former concubine bowed and looked confused.

  “Greatest Equal Citizen! I am embarrassed. How did I come to be in your presence?”

  “Never mind that. Now tell me,” Titanium Sun Occluded asked. “Are you a creationist or an evolutionist?”

  “I confess. I am a creationist.”

  “What a pity,” the Greatest Equal Citizen of Earth said before moving off. “I had briefly considered you for the position of my concubine.”

  Merrie Haskell grew up half in North Carolina, half in Michigan. Her children’s historical fantasies include the Mythopoeic finalist The Princess Curse, and the 2014 Schneider Family Book Award winner, Handbook for Dragon Slayers. Her latest book is The Castle Behind Thorns. Her short fiction for adults has appeared in Asimov’s, Strange Horizons and Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader. She lives in Saline, Michigan.

  Me Am Petri

  Martin Hayes

  Dr Richard Finch left the lab on the Friday afternoon of the long weekend. He was looking forward to a few days R&R. Stress wasn’t even the word for it. It was only two days since an asteroid the size of a microwave oven had smashed into the park just across the road. Things were still pretty crazy. It had taken three hours just for the clouds of dust to abate. The Fire Chief had been on the national news explaining how it was a miracle that no one had been killed.

  The lab was a write-off. The impact had emptied shelves and uprooted benches, but it could have been worse. They had been winding this facility down even before the asteroid hit, which meant that the viable embryos had already been moved to the new building across town.

  Finch was the only person working in the lab that week, tidying things away while his colleagues got the new facility up and running. All that the lab contained now was a selection of old and obsolete equipment and a freezer full of unviable embryos awaiting destruction. And that was just as well — because the impact had upturned the cryo-freezer and spilled its contents all over the floor. Finch had swept up and safely disposed of the vast majority of the detritus, but as he left the lab with a spring in his step he did not notice the dustpan full of broken test tubes and Petri dishes that he had left on the bench. Nor did he notice that the blast had cracked one of the lab’s large windows, and that a light breeze was wafting in as he pulled the door shut.

  * * *

  Me …

  Me … light …

  Me sense light …

  Me sense light on photosensitive cells amassing on back of mass that is me.

  Me grow pit in back. Me feel cells drift into pit in back. Me feel opening of pit get smaller. Me focus light now. Me see shapes.

  Me think about shapes me sees.

  Me begin to think more and more.

  Me am Petri.

  Me spread tendrils over lip of glass shell that houses Petri.

  Me outgrow shell. Me spread across flat plane that supports shell.

  Me sense heat from distant star. Me try to remember stars from long time gone. Me was part of something bigger. Something much bigger than what Me am now.

  Me’s tendrils sense tickly air near faint source of heat on plane that supports shell.

  Me grows tendrils towards tickles. Me feels heat and new wind. Me’s tendrils stroke shape that Me sees inside Me’s mass.

  Me slips tendrils deeper in. Me touches something strange. Me frightened. Me get too much information. Me stung by surge of information. Me pull tendrils away. But Me like tickles. Me put tendrils back in deep.

  Me learn about history of plane on which plane that supports shell stands. Me unhappy. Me scared. Me know that locals will not like Me. Me flickers tendrils. Me accesses new information. Me learn local name of source of heat in sky. Me ‘reads’. Me know that locals call it ‘reads’. Me reads information to do with probable imminent demise of locals. Me reads locals know it and do not care. But for some. Who do care. Who are called liars. Me feel sad. Me feel sad for silly locals.

  Me flicker tendrils again.

  Me cannot stop surge of information.

  Me learn how to cook perfect duck confit.

  Me learn name of big star footballer’s lover … “She didn’t mean to be a home-wrecker.”

  Me see man sit on glass jar and glass jar breaks. Man sad. Me sad.

  Me see woman crash car. Me now know “Stupid Blondes Can’t Drive!”

  Me see many strange protrusions being slipped in and out of many openings.

  Me see incredible, jaw-dropping feats of local’s ingenuity and imagination. Me see these feats are “FAKE!!!”

  Me see locals complain that local in charge wants them to be healthy. Locals hate local chief for it. Locals must want to be sick. Locals are stupid.

  Me learn “FAIL” and “EPIC” and “EPIC WIN!”

  Me wants cheezburger.

  Me sees cat do funny thing. Me ROFL.

  Me now think that every local should have his say. No matter how ill-informed or obviously stupid local is. Me can’t help but absorb stupid local’s unsustainable reactionary opinions.

  Me think all paediatricians should be killed.

  Me on social networking site trying to form angry mob to kill all paediatricians.

  Me overwhelmed with anger and stupidity.

  Me PWNED by Sword of Gondor in debate over local gun law.

  Me want gun now.

  Me wish me never came here to this plane. Me want to leave here. Me miss quiet.

  Me bored of LATINACHICKBOYS.

  Me have rudimentary arm now. Me can feel me’s form and shape. Me does not like what me feels. Too thick. Me want to be slim.

  Me hate Me now.

  Me hate everything now.

  Everything stupid. Everything EPIC FAIL!!!

  * * *

  Dr Finch returned to the lab on the wet Tuesday morning following the long weekend. He dropped his morning coffee as he stared in horror at the primitive, misshapen and strangely humanoid life form that lay dead across his desk. It had one stumpy arm and a large rudimentary eye in the centre of its semi-transparent back. Long, moss-like tendrils had spread from the edges of the creature’s mass and inched their way into his computer.

  He took a step closer, his mouth hanging open, and nudged the mass of tissue with the point of his umbrella.

  It did not move. It had slit its own throat with his letter opener.

  Martin Hayes’s latest books include the graphic novel Aleister Crowley: Wandering the Waste and the short-story collection Get It Down and Other Weird Stories. He can be found online at paroneiria.com

  Event
Horizon

  Jeff Hecht

  The sad eyes of the well-dressed, neatly trimmed man looked oddly familiar, but it was his question that gave him away. “Found any little green men lately?”

  Alexa couldn’t believe it until she glanced at his convention badge. “Karl! It’s been ages!” He had been scrawny and scruffy when they did astrobiology postdocs together a quarter-century ago. “What are you doing now?” She had lost track of him after she landed a tenure-track job.

  “I gave up searching,” he said, the sadness in his voice matching that in his eyes.

  “What happened to your models of how advanced civilizations would develop?”

  “I never published anything,” he said. “After the fellowship fell through, I got a job building computer models of economic trends. It pays the bills. I talked about long-term market models here at the Futures conference.”

  “Oh?” Alexa hadn’t noticed his name.

  “It was in the business sessions. I wouldn’t expect you to notice. I saw you were in the far-future session, so I decided to come. I owe you something.”

  Alexa looked at him blankly.

  “I didn’t think you would remember. We bet a meal on who would get a job first. When you did, I was too broke to take you to McDonald’s. I can afford a nice dinner now, and I want to hear what you’re doing.”

  “That would be great,” Alexa said. With no travel budget and another big jump in her medical insurance, she had been about to skip dinner.

  * * *

  “What’s surprising is that so many factors in the Drake equation are so favourable for extraterrestrial intelligence,” Alexa said, enjoying the restaurant’s ambience. “Remember how the first hot Jupiters were so exciting when we were postdocs? Now we’ve got tens of thousands of terrestrial planets in habitable zones. There has to be life out there.” She paused to sip the wine, a vintage that she never could have afforded.

  “But where are the little green men?” Karl asked.

  “They’re out there, but we haven’t found them yet. No signals at radio or optical frequencies. Maybe they’re sending something we can’t detect, neutrinos or particles we’ll never know about until they turn the colliders back on.”

  “What are the odds on intelligence?”

  “Once you get multicellular animals, models show intelligence is likely in a few hundred million years. Technology just needs hands. Dolphins and elephants are out of luck, but bears could do it. Maybe squirrels would have a chance.”

  “But how long can technological civilizations last? We haven’t blown ourselves up yet, but our resources are going up in smoke, and we have fouled the nest badly. How much of your annual carbon allowance did you burn getting here?”

  “We don’t need to visit other worlds. Sending laser or radio-frequency signals uses hardly any energy compared with interstellar travel. Anybody within 90 light years can listen to old broadcasts of The Lone Ranger.”

  “But that isn’t free. Who’ll pay the bills when the foundations go broke?” Karl set down his wine glass. “My models tell me where the money is going. Do you know what’s the fastest-growing part of the economy?”

  “Climate controls and energy?” Alexa guessed.

  Karl shook his head. “Health care. It hit 32% of the US gross domestic product last year. It was only 5% in 1960. That’s a sixfold increase in fraction of the GDP in 70 years, and the economy has expanded a factor of 100 over that time, so dollar spending is up a factor of 600.”

  Alexa thought of her insurance bill. “But medicine has improved tremendously. We conquered polio and measles, and we can manage diabetes. Life expectancy is longer than ever.”

  “Barely,” Karl muttered. “The marginal return on investment has been declining for decades.” He slipped a mobile from his pocket and flashed a chart on the tablecloth with its nanoprojector. A line labelled ‘life expectancy’ levelled off, but one marked ‘medical spending’ rose exponentially.

  “What does that mean?”

  “The economy is approaching a medical event horizon. Better technology makes other products cheaper with time, but medicine has hit fundamental limits. Instead of buying more and more, each health-care dollar buys less and less. Companies advertise instant muscle tone-ups while you watch 3D, and people buy them although they aren’t nearly as good as exercise. Our economy is spiralling into a black hole; all new resources go into health care. NASA can’t get a penny for the 15-metre space telescope.”

  “But that’s just a temporary delay until we can work out the budget deficit.”

  “You can dream,” Karl said. “But that’s how any advanced civilization will behave. It’s entirely rational for intelligent beings to try to maintain their own health and extend their own lifetimes. China slashed human space exploration to fund better health care. Little green men will do the same, so they will never land on the White House lawn.”

  “But we can still listen for them,” Alexa protested.

  “You can try,” Karl sighed. “Maybe one of our neighbours in the Galaxy will broadcast their version of The Lone Ranger long enough for us to hear it.”

  Jeff Hecht is Boston correspondent for New Scientist and a contributing editor to Laser Focus World.

  The Perfect Egg

  Tania Hershman

  He looks up and catches its eye. Eye? Silly! Visual circuitry. Optical sensors. But he’s sure, he’s sure it looked right at him. He eats his perfectly boiled egg. Can’t stop himself from saying: “Thank you, this is just right,” and swears he sees pleasure, just a hint, on its flawless face. Then it turns and begins to load the dishwasher. He dunks his toast into the runny yolk and tries not to dwell on it.

  When he finishes, he gets up and puts his plate, knife and spoon into the sink. It is standing there, waiting.

  “Please clean out the fridge, including the ice trays,” he says. “They need defrosting.” It nods. Is there a smile? I’m going mad, he thinks. He puts on his coat and leaves.

  * * *

  In the park he watches more of them sitting on benches, watching their charges in the playground. He’s struck by what they don’t. Don’t fidget, scratch or mess with their hair. Don’t turn their heads, chat with one another, read magazines or talk on mobile phones. They are absolutely still, completely focused. Just there.

  He is tempted to run up and grab a child off the swings, just reach around its waist and pull the small body out, shrieking.

  Just to see.

  Just to know.

  * * *

  That night, he watches television while it irons in a corner of the living room. He is distracted from the sitcom that he won’t admit he waits for each week by the smell of steaming fabric, the handkerchiefs he’s had for 40 years or more, always neatly pressed. Worn a little, torn, but clean and wrinkle-free.

  He stands up and, over by the ironing board, makes a big show of unzipping his fly.

  No stirring. Not a flicker. It stops ironing and waits for further instructions.

  He takes the trousers off, one leg and then the other, wobbling slightly as he tries to keep his dignity. He hands them over.

  “Please do these too,” he says, and sits back on the sofa in his underwear. He starts to laugh as, on the screen, the wife comes home and shouts at the useless husband.

  Next morning, after another perfect egg with toast, he says: “Come with me.” It walks behind him to the hall.

  He opens the door to the cupboard underneath the stairs.

  “Please go inside,” he says, and it obeys. He shuts the door and goes upstairs to his study where for several hours in his head are words like blackness, suffocation, boredom.

  He switches on the computer and writes a long e-mail to the woman who used to be his wife, rambling and without punctuation. He says things he wishes he’d said in life, or in that life, at least. At first he calls it poetry and then he sees it’s not. He deletes it and goes back down.

  He walks about in the kitchen and from kitchen to li
ving room, living room to downstairs bathroom. Then he stands in the hall, listening. He opens the cupboard door. Dark, no movement at all. It has no lights on. Oh my god, he thinks.

  “Are you…?” he says.

  It whirs quickly out of Sleep mode.

  “Please, come out,” he says. It glides past him, nothing in its eyes or on its face. He has a sensation in his sinuses, unpleasant, unwelcome. He boils the kettle, leaves the full mug of tea on the counter, gets his coat and leaves.

  * * *

  In the park, he watches them again. Are they watching him watching them watching? He ambles over to the swings and puts a hand out, leaning on the rail as small girls giggle and try to touch the sky. No one moves or does anything. No one even looks in his direction.

  How fast could they run if…?

  Would it be just the one who’d tackle him to the playground floor? Or all of them, some sort of instantaneous communication rousing them to action?

  After a few minutes, the screams and creaking of the swings gives him shooting pains through his skull. He heads for home.

  * * *

  He eats dinner, listening to the radio, the evening news. He finishes, puts the plate in the sink, then he says: “Please come with me.” And leads it upstairs. In the bedroom he instructs it to sit in the armchair in the corner. He puts on his pyjamas with some coyness, a wardrobe door shielding him. Then he gets into bed and pulls the covers tight around himself.

  “Please watch,” he tells it. “Just keep an eye. Make sure that nothing … I mean, no sleeping.”

  He switches off his bedside light and can see a faint green glow coming from the armchair. He lies with his eyes open for a few moments and then he falls asleep.

  * * *

  In the morning, refreshed, he eats his perfect egg.

  “Thank you,” he says, and puts his plate, knife and fork into the sink. “Please do the carpets today,” he tells it, and heads towards the stairs.

  Tania Hershman is the author of two story collections: My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions (Tangent Books, 2012) and The White Road and Other Stories (Salt, 2008; commended, 2009 Orange Award for New Writers). Tania’s award-winning short stories and poetry have been widely published in print and online, and broadcast on BBC Radio. Tania is founder and curator of ShortStops (www.shortstops.info), a Royal Literary Fund fellow in the science faculty at Bristol University, and is studying for a PhD in creative writing at Bath Spa University exploring the intersection of fiction and particle physics. She is co-writer of Writing Short Stories: A Writers’ & Artists’ Companion (Bloomsbury, Dec 2014). www.taniahershman.com