Tag Archives: SciFiFri

Zone 7

farm

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

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“The recorder’s on. Go ahead and read what’s on the card.” Mr. Newman had a soft voice and it sounded creepy, not like Dad’s or Grandpa’s.

“My name is José Raymond Phillips. I’m ten years old. My family has been assigned to Zone 7: Jordanville in upstate New York. How am I doing, Mr. Newman?”

“Just fine, but keep to the script. Its just for your records.”

“Okay. Well, anyway…I live in Zone 7 on the Jordanville farm with other families. We are happy here and enjoy the work and the outdoors. My Dad let me drive the tractor for the first…”

“That’s not in the script, José.”

“Sorry, I just got excited.”

“I’m turning off the recorder. Take a few minutes to compose yourself. Then we’ll try again.”

“Why do I have to make this recording?”

“It’s for your official records.”

“You mean like school records?”

Newman chuckled in a way that was scary. “No, not exactly. We just want to show people that you like being in a zone and that you are happy. You’re happy, aren’t you?”

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Time Travel Stories Are Just Wish Fulfillment

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“I told you it wouldn’t work. Now will you leave me alone? I’m trying to get something written.” Ken Carson sat staring at a blank Word page on the computer screen without an idea of what to type.

“We just need to refine the process.”

When the Time Traveler first appeared in Ken’s home office, he said, “Just call me Ray.” Ray was a head shorter than Ken, slender and with a face that could have have been a mix of a lot of backgrounds.

“Refine, my ass. Every time I go back, I screw things up. Sure, the first date with Barbara goes fine, the first few years of our marriage, but then I fuck it up.”

“You needed to stop drinking. That might have helped.”

“I knew that wouldn’t work when you sent me back the last time, so I broke up with her.”

“Then had a pity party, hooked up with that woman at a bar…”

She was actually a friend, which made it worse.”

“…she became pregnant, decided not to have an abortion…” Ray continued.

“I know. I was there. That’s my point. I can’t fix my past so I’m stuck in my present. No matter what I do, I make life worse.”

“Worse than it is now?”

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Inheritors

bishop ring

Artist illustration of a Bishop Ring space habitat. Image Credit: Neil Blevins – 2018

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Cornell Jackson’s hands were shaking as he and Administrator Rosa Mendez were forced at gunpoint to disable the alarms on the secure wing of the Achyuta ring’s top security facility in the spinward end of Rama City.

“I want to see it for myself. You said you had the answer.” Hunter Moran had been a Major in Perumal ring’s defense force, but that was before the biospheres of the first four Bishop’s rings started dying. Now he was a terrorist. No, that wasn’t fair. Cornell felt the same panic as he did, as everyone did. After over a hundred-and-fifty years of developing the five colony rings in orbit around Alpha Mensae, their biospheres started to collapse. Excess carbon dioxide was impossible to purge, food crops were dying, and oceans and lakes on each ring were developing toxic algae growths. In less than a decade, almost all life, especially human life, would go extinct and no one knew why…well, almost.

Moran and his military coalition from the other four rings arrived two weeks ago. They had overridden the automatic meteor guard, landed their shuttles along the rim spaceports, and declared Martial Law on the last viable ring.

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