Tag Archives: scifi

The Cache

Sunlight over ice floes.

© National Geographic

The Sixth Story in the Adventures of Ross Murdock

The modern city of Dover had been inhabited since the Stone Age, so by the advent of the Bronze Age, it was a thriving community, one which the three agents from the future were determined to avoid. Ashe, Murdock, and McNeil, or rather Assa, Rossa, and Maka, in the guise of Beaker traders, stayed away from the well-used trails that led in and out of Dover in search of a mystery.

This was circa 2,000 BCE and they had been sent back in time by Operation Retrograde to recover technology and perhaps even the location of a spaceship left behind by the alien race they called the Forerunners. However, their outpost, disguised as a Beaker trading post, had been destroyed by time traveling Soviet agents using weapons from the present, leaving the trio fugitives, not only from Red spies, but from the local clans who believed they were cursed by the gods. Their only hope was to hold out until the extraction team aboard the nuclear submarine USS Thetis returned just under two weeks from now and they could be transported out of Britain and back to the time gate at their base in the Arctic.

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The Curse of Lurgha

rocket launch

Photo: Reuters

The Fifth Story in the Adventures of Ross Murdock

Assa and Rossa stood on a rise and gazed at smoke ascending from a burnt ruin at the far side of the valley. At that distance, there was no obvious sign of what had caused their trading post to burn to the ground. Lightning maybe? No people or other evidence of attack was visible.

“We proceed carefully, Rossa,” Assa hissed. Murdock’s senior partner moved forward cautiously and Ross, or rather Rossa followed. It was more important than ever for the twenty-eight year old former thief for hire to think of himself only as a Beaker trader, that he was the apprentice of his master Assa, and that this was the only life he had ever lived. Murdock pushed away his memories of the 21st century and continued to follow Assa from one point of concealment to the next on the future Island of Britain four-thousand years before he was born.

An hour later, they had crossed the valley and were standing just meters from the still smoldering ruin and ashes of the trading post which had served as a small outpost for the investigating temporal team from Operation Retrograde.

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The Traders

submarine

Found at Shutterstock

Ross Murdock, or rather “Rossa,” stood in front of half a dozen historians and cultural experts for inspection.

“I think you are lying. Who are you really?”

Aiyana Zheutlin shouted at him in a language few would understand in the 21st century, a language understood by Bronze Age Beaker traders 4,000 years ago on an island that would eventually be called Britain.

“I am Rossa, a trader. I travel with my companion Assa. See, here are the markings of my clan.” Rossa offered the necklace made of wolves teeth, and a thin leather strap tied with intricate knots as evidence of his authenticity.

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Escape

submarine

From the 1968 film “Ice Station Zebra”.

“I’ve got a headache, Ashe.”

“Small wonder, Murdock. The virtual interface takes some getting used to. Plugs right into your brain, like that old movie ‘The Matrix,’ but without the spike in your skull.”

Gordon Ashe was just a few inches shorter than Ross Murdock, but his skin was much darker and looked almost like it was weathered to leather. The archeologist was in his forties but looked older. He was a veteran at Operation Retrograde and was supposed to have five jumps to his credit. He even helped set up the trading post to which, on Ashe’s next jump to Bronze Age Britain, would find Murdock accompanying him.

But only if they had absolute proof that this was the right location and time.

“Martial arts, interactive language classes, cultural classes, hell, the cafeteria here only serves me food that those traders ate four-thousand years ago.”

“It’s only been a week, Murdock. Give it time.”

“Time. Is that a joke?”

“If you don’t learn, you’ll end up like Hardy. He got careless and paid the price.”

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The Recruit

time traders

From the Audiobooks Unleashed YouTube channel

Ross Murdock sat in his cell, which for him had become pretty much the norm. There was only one bed, a toilet, a sink, a locked door, and no windows. A single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling out of his reach was the only illumination.

Was it only two days ago when he was scheduled to come before Judge Hawke in Los Angeles County Superior Court, about to be sentenced as an habitual criminal? Murdock was a professional thief for hire. He was good at it and it paid well, which is why he shunned more traditional careers. The consequence was that he faced twenty-five years in prison, and not all of his wealth, hidden in offshore accounts, was going to save him from it. Certainly his high priced attorney hadn’t.

When Murdock was led to the courtroom for his sentencing hearing by a Sheriff’s Deputy, the courtroom was empty. “In back, Murdock.” If Murdock hadn’t been cuffed and the courthouse hadn’t been filled with dozens of cops, he’d have slugged the fat bastard in the face and made a run for it.

Instead, he let himself be half-guided, half-pushed behind the judge’s bench and through the door into Hawke’s chambers.

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The Artifact

the white horse pub

© A Mixed Bag 2014

Ross Murdock sat in Dover’s White Horse Pub sipping ale, silently cursing Gordon Ashe for staying behind. Ashe was the archaeologist. Murdock, a former thief, was Ashe’s student and did what he was told to avoid prison.

“Is this seat taken?” The tall man, dark hair, full beard, spoke heavily accented English.

“Pull up a chair.”

“Merci.” The Frenchman sat, putting his glass on the table. “I’m Alex Besnard. You were expecting me.”

“Ross Murdock.” Neither man attempted shaking hands.

“Actually, you were expecting this.” Besnard reached into his pocket and pulled out something wrapped in cloth. Murdock took it and unwrapped the “prize.”

The stoic cynic’s eyes widened. It really was a Forerunner artifact.

“Dated to 2,000 BCE, give or take. Found a few kilometers from here.”

Murdock put the object into his pocket and then used his mobile to send the payment.

Besnard checked his cell. “Merci beaucoup.” The smuggler stood and walked away.

Concrete evidence the extraterrestrial Forerunners visited Earth over 4,000 years ago. Ashe would be able to date the artifact more accurately so the time portal could be set. It was now a race with the Soviets as to which one would reach the Forerunner technology first.

NOTE: To read the next story in this series, go to The Traders.

The first story in this series is The Recruit followed by Escape.

I was able to identify the location in the photo above as Dover after magnifying the image and reading the sign in front of the White Horse Pub. Archaeological finds have determined that Dover has been inhabited since the Stone Age, which gave me my hook.

When I was in Junior High (many decades ago), I discovered a book in the school library called The Time Traders. It was the first of a series of science fiction novels written by Andre Norton (pseudonym for the late Alice Mary Norton). The first novel was published in 1958 with the premise that a race of advanced alien beings, later identified as “the Forerunners” had visited Earth sometime in the last ice age.

Thief Ross Murdock is recruited by the government for a team, along with archaeologist Gordon Ashe, to travel back to Britain’s Bronze Age posing as traders in order to gather information and maybe direct access to a Forerunner ship. The problem is the Soviets also have time travel technology and know about the Forerunners, so it’s a race against time (literally) as to which side will acquire advanced alien technology first.

I updated this cold war thriller to suit my purposes. I still have copies of “The Time Trader” and its immediate sequel Galactic Derelict. I did manage to read one of the more modern “Forerunner” novels some years back, but there was such a gap between the late 1950s stories and the one I found at my public library that it was more frustrating than satisfying to read.

I wrote this in response to the Sunday Photo Fiction – July 9th 2017 challenge. The idea is to take the image above and use it as an inspiration to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is exactly 200, cut down from about 306.

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

All Too Human

robot trump

Illustration by Lauren Hansen | Image courtesy iStock

“But why a humanoid robot at all, Carol? Do you have some sort of Isaac Asimov fetish or something? Our fascination with humanoid robots went the way of twentieth century science fiction.”

“I want to see just how human we can teach AI to be. Up until now, we’ve focused on using machine learning to teach specific skill sets such as determining which airline passengers are potential terrorists, or selecting fraudulent online purchases among the millions of legitimate transactions. We’ve even incorporated AI into lifelike sex dolls to create the world’s first fully functional sexbots.”

“And all of those have solid business logic behind them. They’re worth the R&D money. But this?”

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Death by Atmosphere

planet

Image: hongkiat.com

“I can’t believe you lifted the old man’s security badge, Aldin. He’ll freak when he finds out.”

“If he finds out, Sierra. He’s lousy about checking the logs, so he’ll never see it was used after hours when he wasn’t at the lab.”

The two teenagers had already gotten into the building using the back entrance of Dr. Richard Batchelder’s personal lab at the Hawke-Edwards Advanced Research facility. They were now using the service elevator to descend to the sub-basement where Aldin’s grandfather had built the portal.

“Here we are.” With just a bit of a dramatic flourish, the seventeen-year-old boy swiped the security card across the reader and the doors to the lab containing the experimental spatial portal slid open.

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Crossover: The Expanded Version

ferry

© Ted Strutz

“The next leg of our vacation takes us on the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria where we leave the U.S. for Canada.”

“Honey,” Glenn’s wife complained. “You sound just like a tour bus driver.”

In the backseat, eight-year-old Brittany groaned while her six-year-old brother Jackson rolled his eyes. They had been on the road for almost a week and would rather have been back home in Fullerton spending their days with their friends at the community pool.

“Just trying to brighten the mood while we wait to get onto the ferry, Sara.”

It seemed to be taking forever for the line of cars to move, but as Glenn and Sara looked out, they realized they had much bigger problems.

“Glenn, I thought it was the rain on the windshield at first, but…is everything…twisting?”

Everything around them, the cars and ferry in front of them, the pedestrians, roadway, the hills in the distance were all changing, becoming indistinct, as if they didn’t really exist.

Then everything abruptly shifted and shimmered, and then everything was different. Glenn had to grab the steering wheel tight because the car was now moving forward at 35 miles per hour rather than sitting still. They were part of a line of cars traveling on the Port Angeles/Victoria Bridge, crossing not only the Strait of Juan de Fuca but into another universe as well.

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The Crossover

ferry

© Ted Strutz

“The next leg of our vacation takes us on the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria.”

“Honey,” Glenn’s wife complained. “You sound like a tour bus driver.”

Their two kids in the backseat groaned.

“Just trying to brighten the mood while we wait to get onto the ferry.”

Then the parents in the front realized they had bigger problems.

“Glenn, is everything…twisting?”

“I thought it was rain, but…”

Everything shifted and shimmered and then they were part of a line of cars on the Juan de Fuca Bridge, crossing not only the strait but into another universe as well.

I wrote this for Rochelle Wisoff-Field’s Friday Fictioneers photo writing challenge. The idea is to use the image at the top to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. My word count is 99.

Decades ago, science fiction writer Larry Niven wrote a series of stories based on the outlandish idea that fog was not caused by water vapor but by a distortion between one quantum universe and another. A person who was in the fog might disappear from our world and reappear in a parallel one.

The image above seems to distort the cars and ferry we can see, and while in real life, this was probably caused by rain on the windshield, I decided to take it in a different direction. There really is a ferry that travels across the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Port Angeles to Victoria, northwest of Seattle, Washington, though I’ve never been anywhere near it (but Google is good).

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