Tag Archives: scifi

Liar!

robot and woman

Credit: Willyam Bradberry – Shutterstock

“I know you lie…’cause your lips are movin’…talking circles with your tongue…”

“I love you, Amelia. I have always loved you and I will always love you.”

“I wish I could believe that, Nick.”

“But, why can’t you?”

All of her friends thought Amelia was being totally unfair to Nick. They’d been seeing each other only for a couple of months, but he seemed like the perfect man. He was handsome, charming, successful, and very romantic, but not so much that he seemed creepy.

However, Amelia knew a lot more about Nicholas Tucker than any of them could possibly imagine.

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The Man Over the Far Side of the Moon

Apollo 15

Photo of the Apollo 15 command module above the Moon piloted by Al Worden – Photo credit: NASA

Air Force Major Ezekiel “Zeke” Johnson watched the LEM drop away from the Command Module as he approached the terminator that would take him over the far side of the Moon.

“Hey, Zeke. You hearing what I’m hearing?” Colonel Clay Philips, the mission’s commander sounded like a kid on Christmas morning when anyone else would have at least been a little bit worried.

“I sure do, and I remember the briefing. It’s just interference.”

“That’s right.” Captain Brian Osborne, sitting in the LEM’s number two seat chimed in. “It’s caused by VHF radio interference between the LEM and the Command Module. Really does sound like alien music, though.”

Zeke laughed. “I’ll try to keep that in mind when I’m out of radio contact with you and Earth for the next hour or so.”

“Not scared of those nasty old BEMs, are you Zeke?” Philips was laughing with him or was that at him?

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The Signal

full moon

Full Moon photograph taken 10-22-2010 from Madison, Alabama, USA – Found at Wikipedia

The lunar rock was about the size of a bowling ball and weighed almost eight kilos, one of the larger samples collected during the Apollo missions, but it had never been examined until now. Within weeks of it returning to Earth with the Apollo 17 crew on 19 December 1972, it had vanished from its storage area at the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility in Huston, Texas.

Federal investigators were notified when, after the death of wealthy art and antiquities collector Lawrence Rodriquez, it was discovered in a private vault located under his Boca Raton mansion. It was believed to have passed from one private party to another between the mid-1970s and 2001 when Rodriquez acquired it and locked it away with other illegally obtained artifacts. That was in 2011. Now, four years later, Leo Warner requisitioned it for study by his team.

Unfortunately in the nearly forty years since it had gone missing, it had been carelessly handled and allowed exposure to air, contaminating the surface of the specimen. However, it was still possible that the interior was preserved and to that end, a small core sample was about to be taken.

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10AM

sun moon tattoo

Found at tattoosboygirl.com

John had timed it all perfectly. Renee was at the front reception desk talking with Brian when the flowers were delivered. He watched through the large windows that showcased the lobby as the vase with a dozen long-stemmed red roses (a classic) were placed on her desk. He couldn’t tell what they were saying, but he could guess.

“If you could just sign here, Ms. Stewart.”

“Sure.” She was grinning, convinced that they were from Brian. She didn’t even bother to look back up at him to see the bewildered look on his face.

“Here you go.” She handed the pad and pen back to the delivery guy.

“Thanks. Have a nice day.” He had a good job for the most part, always making people happy.

“Thank you, Bri…” She’d started to stand to give him a kiss and then stopped when she saw his expression. “What’s the matter?”

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I Can Never Dream About Home

brain scans

Brain scan images found at PositiveMed.com

“I’m sorry but I don’t see much hope, Kathy.”

She turned from the neurologist to look down at her husband. He’d been in a coma for five weeks now following the car accident and still wasn’t showing any signs of brain activity. The machines and drugs kept his lungs breathing and his heart beating, but as much as she didn’t want to believe it, her husband of thirty-five years died when the garbage truck ran a stop sign and crushed the driver’s side of his car.

“I just need a minute alone with him, Doctor Schiavo.”

“Sure, I understand. I’ll be right outside.”

Kathy heard the door close behind her. Except for the usual medical monitor noises the room was silent. She was alone. It was a horrible decision to have to make. Their four children, spouses (three out of four had married and Lizzie had just gotten engaged) and eight grandchildren were right outside. How could she take their Daddy and Grandpa away from them?

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That Which Burns

collage

Collage from Sunday Writing Prompt #240 “Collage Prompt 39” at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie

“She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.” -Terry Pratchett

Tyler Melody Ross sat masked in her padded cell in the sanatorium in upstate New York. In the common room, the first game of the 1954 World Series pitting the New York Giants against the Cleveland Indians was playing on the radio, but Tyler never was taken to the common room. She was kept continually sedated, not unconscious, but groggy enough so she could be handled. In that way, she could be fed, her toilet needs taken care of (and menstrual needs for five days every month), and walked around her cell for twenty minutes to get a bit of exercise. Other than that, she was alone and isolated, and the staff felt all the safer because of it.

The mask was heavily laced with asbestos as were the walls of her cell. There was no window, but a barred panel in her door where the glass could be slid open provided air. Her hands were encased in mittens, not that she really needed them, but if she were to have a lucid moment or two, she would be unable to remove the mask. At all costs the mask must remain on her face for the rest of her life.

No treatment had worked, not drug treatments, not electroshock, not repeated dunkings in ice water, they all failed to cure or even marginally improve Tyler’s condition. So she remained drugged, provided brief company only out of legal and medical necessity, and otherwise was left to ponder whatever dreams she entertained inside her difficult and diseased mind.

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Epilogue Two: The View Ahead

dragon bridge

The Dragon Bridge in the snow in Ljubljana, Slovenia

He couldn’t stay long but it was nice to have a place to rest for a while. Of course, his name wasn’t Timothy Fleming here. Today, he was an American student spending a few months in the Slovenian capital. He had changed the color of his hair and grown a beard. He’d purchased a cane and became adept at walking with a limp (a motorcycle accident, he explained) to alter the manner of his gait. He spoke with what was referred to in the States as the “California non-accent,” since he was too easily identified either by his mid-western speech patterns or his mother’s South Eastern British accent.

Not being sure if the Agency had gained access to any of Hellspite’s “alternative” identifications including passports and driver’s licenses, he’d created a new identity for his current sojourn. The forgeries he was using would do for a short time while he accessed certain vendors on the dark web and purchased something more substantial. He’d still have to move around frequently to evade detection.

At first he blamed that bitch at the ale house in Dover but it was really his own arrogance that nearly got him pinched. He should have realized he was still close enough to Dymchurch and Romney that he could possibly be recognized by someone from the old days. He’d barely gotten away in time, though he had to abandon his original escape route and travel by other means.

“Not a fine day to enjoy the view, is it Alex?”

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Epilogue One: Mikiko’s Race

fukusima

Found at Open source investigation

Mikiko Jahn was dead. She died on 14 March 2011 when Reactor 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant exploded injuring eleven people and killing one…her.

Who was she today? For the mission with Geoffrey Colins and his covert ops team working for the mysterious “Agency,” she had used the name Mikiko Kojima. Kojima was her mother’s name before she was married. Was that her identity, her former life having ended?

For over five years, Professor Daniel Hunt and elite team of scientists, engineers, physicists, and other experts recruited by his company Synthecon Corporation worked on a joint British-Japanese experiment, a highly secret endeavor to take the barely alive lump of burnt flesh, bone, and blood who was once a woman and reconstruct it using artificial DNA that mimicked her own to manufacture the world’s first synthetic human being.

How much of you has to be replaced before you stop being human?

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Perfecting Peggy

under repair

© Mark mungkey Vincente – Found at coroflot.com

I see you looking at me
Like I got something that’s for you
And the way that you stare
Don’t you dare
‘Cause I’m not about to
Just give it all up to you
‘Cause there are some things I won’t do
And I’m not afraid to tell you
I don’t ever want to leave you confused.

I don’t need a man
I don’t need a man, I don’t
I don’t need a man
I’ll make it through
‘Cause I know I’m fine
Without you!

From “I Don’t Need a Man”
Recorded by “The Pussycat Dolls” in 2005
Writer(s): Vanessa Brown, Rich Harrison, Nicole Prascovia Scherzinger, Kara Dioguardi

“I’m sorry I’m not what you expected, Gerald.”

“But Peggy, this is impossible. You’re supposed to love me as much as I love you.”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘love’.”

“And you do?”

Gerald and Peggy had been together for over three years and he had given her everything. He bought her the finest clothes including exclusive brand-name lingerie, gave her a comfortable place to live, expensive furniture, especially the king-sized bed. She wanted for nothing and for that three years, she gave him everything she had to give in return…except true love.

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The Long Way Home

shrine

© Sue Vincent

His great-Uncle Ian told him everyone in Glaston knew about the Shrine but no one would say much about it. Terry Walker had only met Uncle Ian once before and that’s when he was only six. His mother’s uncle had made a rare trip across the “pond” to visit the last remaining member of the family. Mom couldn’t have any more children, so whatever legacy Ian Lawrence possessed would go to Terry.

When Terry graduated from UC Santa Barbara, he decided to take a year off and travel. Uncle Ian was now quite elderly but very welcoming when he wrote him saying he would like to visit (the old man didn’t even own a computer so emailing was out of the question). There were only about eighty households in Glaston plus a public house, but unlike most of his age mates, after a hectic four years at university amid the Southern California sprawl, and then a lengthy sojourn in several European countries, he was looking forward to some quiet study in an idyllic setting.

Terry had a Bachelor’s in History with an emphasis in 18th century Europe and he was especially interested in visiting the historic St. Andrew’s church. Ian had formerly been the Deacon at St. Andrew’s and had preserved a number of the church’s important papers and artifacts, some dating back to the 15th century or earlier. He still kept some of them in his home library which is how Terry discovered the existence of the Shrine.

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