Prologue: Sophia

dna

Image credit: National Institute of Standards and Technology

Synthecon Corporation Research Campus – Near Livingston, Scotland, UK – 2002

“Now do you believe it, Davy? Hmmm? Now do you believe it?” The two men were standing in a lab contained within an expansive research complex located near Livingston in what was called Silicon Glen and Dr. Daniel Hunt couldn’t have been happier.

After all of the failures, false starts, and millions upon millions of pounds wasted, not to mention having his professional rival and closest friend David Killgrave rubbing his nose in it at every opportunity, he finally produced the first generation of DNA based artificial intelligence.

“I must say it looks promising, Danny. Still, I’ll have to run some tests. I’m not convinced that, what did you call it, is capable of all you say, even in potential.”

“Sophia, her name is Sophia.”

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Where Death Has No Victory

submarine

Photo of the ARA San Juan – Photo Credit, Argentina Navy

Captain Garcia checked the air pressure gauge for the fifth time in five minutes. It didn’t change magically, it offered no hope, there would be no miracles, though he could hear a number of the crew in the control room muttering prayers to the Virgin.

It had been a week since the Argentinian Navy submarine had been caught in that vicious storm off the coast of Puerto Deseado and her electrical system shorted out resulting in a catastrophic power failure. Now the ARA San Juan was sitting at the bottom of the ocean with less than a day’s supply of air left to breathe.

At first, the crew was alive with activity. Garcia gave orders to send satellite messages to port requesting rescue. He told other men to work to restore the auxiliary electrical supply, at least enough to purge the ballast tanks and allow their boat to surface.

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One Last Escape From Hell

sunset

© Footy and Foodie

“I never thought sunsets were so precious, Trent. I used to be annoyed at how people would keep taking photos of them.”

“You never know the blessings you have until they’re gone, Esta.” They stood together at the edge of the shallow sea and watched the sun descend into night.

“You mean like Earth is gone, like how we destroyed the biosphere? But it’s not gone, Trent. It’s sitting out there pristine and pure. Can’t we go back to how it is now?

“That’s not how the tesseract works, Esta. We brought five hundred people and everything we’d need to build a human colony here. The gateway leads only from Earth’s present to Venus three billion years ago, our now. It’s a one-way trip. Earth’s out there, but we’ll never see it again except through a telescope.”

“Can we take better care of our life on Venus, Trent?”

“Yes, but it won’t last. In about a billion years or so, the climate will start changing on Venus too, and it will become another living hell.”

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge for the Week of November 21, 2017 hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to use the image above as a prompt to create a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 175.

I have to admit when I saw the photo, I really did think something like “oh no, not another sunset.” I mean how many stories can you write about a sunset? Then I started thinking about how to tweak this to make it a very unusual sunset. A lot of different ideas came to mind, but then I went to my “files” and revisited the Science Daily article Venus may have been habitable, NASA climate modeling suggests. Based on current climate modeling technology and techniques (which admittedly are far from perfect), some NASA scientists believe that up until about two billion years ago, Venus may have been habitable, possessing shallow oceans, breathable air, and a livable surface temperature.

However, being much closer to the Sun than Earth, ultraviolet radiation eventually burned off the oceans and, with no surface water available, carbon dioxide built up leading to a runaway greenhouse effect. Today, the surface of Venus is a unparalleled hell, with an atmosphere 90 times as thick as Earth’s, acid rains, mega-hurricane winds, and a surface temperature that can go as high as 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius).

I previously used the concept of a one-way tesseract or temporal gateway leading from Earth’s present to billions of years in the past on another planet in the story The Five Billion Year Love, which I still consider one of my better efforts at a romance, loss, and science fiction tale. In today’s story, the tesseract is a one-way portal from an Earth with an all but unlivable climate to three billion years into the past on Venus when it was habitable.

It’s an interesting thought that if humans could save themselves by moving to Venus in the distant past, then would natural events have caused the second planet’s eventual environmental demise or would human beings make the same mistakes twice?

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

The Vengeful

900 N Michigan

© Marie Gail Stratford

It was late when Mikiko Kojima checked into the Four Seasons Hotel at 900 N. Michigan in Chicago.

The building was known as Bloomingdale’s given the shopping establishment’s significant presence, including its name on the structure. It contained some of the most upscale stores in the nation and the rather luxurious hotel in which Mikiko had been booked occupied the 30th through the 46th floors of the building.

There had been a sudden mix up in reservations at the last-minute once unknown government agencies requested that a room be made available for Ms. Kojima’s stay. Accommodations for at least one guest had to be made elsewhere with certain financial incentives added in order for Mikiko to have room 3014 open to her at two hours notice.

Her suitcase had been sent ahead of her, although it wasn’t actually her luggage. A large Louis Vuitton case had been purchased and clothing in Mikiko’s size was bought, packed, and then sent to the Four Seasons and placed in her room. She would seem a more legitimate guest this way since she had left England only with a small handbag and a carry on.

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The Mantis Project

 

mantis

Photo of a mantis

Miles turned his head in a 270 degree arc. His vision was so much more acute than it had been, especially in the very center. It was thrilling, astounding. Then he looked at his hands.

They weren’t hands anymore, although they had adaptations that would let him hold objects. New muscles on his back twitched and he felt the wings. He couldn’t achieve sustained flight, but using powerful hind limbs, he could soar almost a kilometer before landing.

“The simulation’s ending, Miles. Relax. It’ll be over in a few seconds.”

Miles Hawkins took a deep breath with his own lungs again. Brilliant scientist Daniel Hunt bent down in front of Miles’s chair. Technicians removed the sensory leads.

“That’s what your life would be like after the adaptation.”

“So, I’d be able to survive on Hansen’s World, explore with other adaptations.”

“We use the word ‘syntheorg,’ and yes, you’d be a new generation of interplanetary colonists, perfectly adapted to the existing environment. One caveat. This is a one-way process. You’ll never be able to come back to Earth again; never be…human.”

“My life ended when my car burned during the riot and I was mutilated. The Mantis project is nothing but freedom.

I wrote this for the Sunday Photo Fiction – 19 November 2017. The idea is to use the photo above as a prompt to craft a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is 200.

Again, I’m leveraging the technology in the world of Mikiko Jahn, a young technician who was horribly injured in a nuclear power plant disaster and then over a period of years, rebuilt literally from scratch using revolutionary materials and processes invented by brilliant scientist Daniel Hunt. The reconstruction made Mikiko more than human but in some ways, also less.

For this story, I extended the technology and intent and here you see that Dr. Hunt is using the synthecon process to radically adapt human beings to be able to survive on planets outside our solar system, to become the very first interstellar explorers.

I remember in the 1960s and 70s reading about the concept of using cyborgs or cybernetic organisms, machine adapted humans, to do something similar. However, instead of using mechanical and electronic parts, I’m suggesting a complete fusion between the organic and the biosynthetic.

I know this doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with the prompt, but when I saw the photo and was struggling to find a hook for a story, I remembered a 1994 television series called M.A.N.T.I.S. In the series, African-American scientist Miles Hawkins is paralyzed from the waist down by a police officer’s bullet fired during a riot. The officer was never convicted of a crime and Hawkins lost his lawsuit against him.

In an effort to walk again and to perform true deeds of justice, Hawkins invented the M.A.N.T.I.S. exoskeleton, which effectively gave him superpowers.

The television show ended after one season, but it was a brilliant concept. I used the name “Miles Hawkins” for my protagonist as an homage to the series.

In addition to the links I’ve already posted, I also visited the M.A.N.T.I.S. Wikipedia page as well as the page on the actual Mantis. I also had the 1976 Frederik Pohl science fiction novel Man Plus in mind.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to Inlinkz.com.

A Son of Kristallnacht

kristallnacht

Found at the Yad Vashem website.

Moshe Katz was trudging home late from his clock repair shop. It was so hard to believe this could happen in Dortmund. Just weeks ago, all the Jews who the Germans believed came from Poland were expelled in a single night. His good friend and neighbor Gersz Blass, his wife Else and their three little ones were just…gone. There was talk that the synagogue might be dismantled soon.

Katz thought of himself as a German first and a Jew second, and yet it was as if the pogroms and inquisitions of the past had returned. His Papa tried to warm him before he died. Zeyde used to speak of the horrors of being a Jew in Russia. How…

A hand grabbed him from behind by the collar and pulled him into an alley, almost making him drop his lunch box. The meager receipts from today’s lackluster business were in there, pathetic, but it was all he had to feed his family.

“Please, please, don’t rob me. I’m poor. My family…”

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Pursuit

thames

Body being pulled out of the Thames River – found at DailyMail.com

The body of a young woman has been found in the River Thames in Reading.

Thames Valley Police said the corpse was found shortly before 10:00 GMT on Tuesday morning, near the Thames Lido.

She has not yet been identified but officers believe she may have been a recently arrived undocumented immigrant.

Police are currently treating the woman's death as suspicious. According to Det Insp Robert Farming, an appeal for witnesses has been made.

Mikiko Jahn sat reading the BBC news story on the borrowed tablet over and over again, and then after a while stopped being conscious of the words. A photo was run with the story. She recognized the girl from Sebastian Wright’s security file.

The dead woman was a fourteen-year-old Syrian refugee who had been trying to escape to Europe when she and a group of twenty-one other young girls between the ages of twelve and seventeen had been captured by human traffickers. She and four others were routed to the UK, London, specifically to Wright to provide a night’s “entertainment” to a few select delegates at the symposium Mikiko had attended last week.

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Predators in Haven

 

sunset in haven

© Sue Vincent

She couldn’t believe he’d done it again, the assassin-for-hire known to international law enforcement agencies as Hellspite had eluded the American FBI, CIA, and even the unnamed British Agency she was on loan to.

Mikiko Jahn was a unique individual. Six years ago, she nearly died in a nuclear power plant accident and would have if the brilliant and eccentric scientist Daniel Hunt hadn’t saved her, literally rebuilt her from scratch with new and revolutionary processes and materials collectively known as Synthecon.

Now, even though in every manner conceivable, she looked, sounded, smelled, and acted like any other woman, only portions of her brain, nervous system, skeleton, and internal organs were biological…human. The rest, which made up over ninety percent of her physicality, was a set complex biosynthetic structures, maintained by hundreds of thousands of nanoscopic probes coursing through her bloodstream.

After the accident, the Japanese and British governments gave Hunt unlimited funds and resources. They only had two conditions. The first was to give Mikiko back the ability to be human, to interact with society normally, to seem to be the person she had been before. The second was to, as much as the technology would allow, make her more than human, augment her abilities, senses, even her emotions. They had plans for her.

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My Only Night With You

vashti

Queen Vashti

“…I swear you get better looking with every year…your sexual peak, your full figure physique…”

Every year in the Spring, the Queen of the West gave a banquet. It was opulent beyond the dreams of avarice, but the Queen had great wealth which she administered for the benefit of her people. At the banquet every year, she held a lottery. All of the eligible males were required to enter (and they were all eager to do so), all of those unmarried and between the ages of fifteen and thirty. Every year only one man would be chosen to be the Queen’s consort, and only then for a single night. Afterward, the man joined the others from previous years, where they were kept for the rest of their lives in comfort and ease on the nearby island of Stateira.

They were never seen or heard from again and, if the stories were true, they would never willingly leave Stateira and return to their previous existence.

Lugo was in love. Of course, all the men, even those who were married, even boys too young or men far too old, longed for a night with the Queen. She was the very essence of beauty, charm, graciousness, and poise. The image of her body burned in their hearts and minds. The loins of old men long dead were still stirred by even the mention of her name. Men would kill to possess her. Men would surrender their limbs, lives, and souls for a night in her bed chambers.

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Burning Bridges

 

iowa city fire

© J Hardy Carroll

Devon had been lucky to get away before the police came. The bounty hunter killed or maimed twelve heavily armed men when she escaped. He got away with a broken arm.

Time to erase his tracks both in Chicago and here in Iowa City. It would look like an accidental oven fire. All records connecting him to the human trafficking ring would be ashes and he would be long gone by the time firefighters put out the blaze. He’d saved enough in offshore accounts to start over. The bounty hunter did him a favor when she took out the boss.

I wrote this for the Rochelle Wissoff-Fields flash fiction writing challenge. The idea is to use the image above as a prompt to create a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. My word count is exactly 100.

This reads as a complete story but is also part of the Mikiko Jahn saga which is growing by leaps and bounds. The events in today’s tale take place shortly after Murder at 900 North Michigan (written also for one of Rochelle’s prompts) and both tales are a bit of foreshadowing of their expanded versions.

I noticed one of the fire trucks in the photo had a sign saying “Iowa City Fire Department” and when I looked up recent news articles about fires in Iowa City, I came up with an article published on the 13th titled Fire causes $20,000 in damage to Iowa City apartment. I also discovered that it’s just over 220 miles from Chicago to Iowa City, so a three-and-a-half hour drive wouldn’t be out of the question for someone escaping a “bounty hunter” who had just busted the major crime ring he had been working for.

To read more stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.