30 Second Sci Fi

It had been such a crazy day at work. I slumped down in my car, and I told it to take me home. 

I was lost in my own world, playing with my phone, you know, traffic passing by, whatever. I was just decompressing a little after a day of pretty heavy meetings, you know? 

The next thing I know, we’ve stopped. “We have arrived at your destination,” the car says. I’m putting my phone away and I look out the window and - hey, this isn’t my street!

“What the hell?” I say to the car. “This isn’t my place!” 

And just as I’m realizing where we are, the car says “You are home. We are outside your girlfriend Sandra’s apartment. You have stayed the night here for 21 of the previous 30 nights.”

I didn’t really know what to say to that. And then the car says “Maybe you should move in with Sandra.”

The first time I died, I was ten years old. 

I was climbing a tree at my parents’ place in Tanglin. It had just rained, the air still thick and humid. My friend Jesse dared me to climb out on the tree outside my bedroom window. He climbed out too, and the branch swayed. I reached out to steady myself, but the branch I caught was rotten and crumbled. My fingers went right through it. 

I fell twenty feet, straight on to the spiked iron fence around our garden.

My parents had me backed up, of course. I woke up six weeks later in a bioreactor ward.

I never climbed a tree again after that.

But when I was fourteen, I did get hit by a car.

It wasn’t the car’s fault. I was hurrying home, it was raining. The bike slipped out from under me. Last thing I remember is my neck getting crushed by the left rear wheel. 

I woke up in the ward again. 

The first time, I was terrified. The second time …

Of course, it hurt. But honestly, it was a thrill. It was still new tech back then, and the girls thought I was so cool. After that, I started living a little more dangerously. Sure, I had accidents but they can grow it all back.

Now I die every year or so. I’m still backed up. 

The thing is … I like it.

So do what I’m asking. 

It’ll be all right. 

It was a pale mark on the sky, the same colour as a mountain range seen over miles of prairie. A paler piece of sky rather than a colour of its own, it cut straight up from the horizon, the width of a finger at arm’s length, tapering off into unseen heights of air. 

“How far are we from it now?” I asked.

Carlos shrugged. “About 120 kilometres. You can’t actually see its base from here. It’s below the curvature of the Earth.”

I snapped a picture with my phone. “And this one is the same height as the others?”

“Yup, 150 kilometres. Clean up into space.”

I shook my head. “I’ve never seen one in person before,” I said.

Carlos nodded. “Yeah, it’s like they don’t really fit in your head, no? Wait’ll we get to the base. There’s a town built there now – you know, to take advantage of the electricity.”

“Here too?” I asked. “I knew that they were doing it in the USA.”

“Turns out they’re all positively charged. Hook up the right equipment and they make all the electricity we’ll ever need.”

“Incredible. I wonder why they built them.”

Carlos chuckled. “Yeah. Crazy right? The ships came, they landed, and they grew into those things. Thirty six of them. It’s been two years and still no one knows what they do.”

Well, someone might, I thought. Someone at the base of that spire.

There were bodies all over the floor of the inflatable habitat. One of them, a girl, wore nothing but a breather helmet and a pair of hotpants. The place was scattered with the detritus of any high school party; plastic cups, inhaler stubs, discarded clothing.

Sgt. Merill surveyed the scene, hands on his hips. He reached out and ran his gloved finger along the tear in the transparent habitat wall. Outside, the jagged purple outlines of local vegetation were silhoutetted against the pale blue dawn. The first sun was about to come up.

“This tear wasn’t accidental,” Merill  said, to no one in particular. 

“Sgt. Merill, this is Hover One, please repeat?” came the reply from the chopper outside.

“Nothing, Ed.” said Merill. “Just looks like another breathing party gone bad.”

Merill looked at the girl in the breather helmet. Without the rest of the suit, of course, it wouldn’t have done her any good. She looked about seventeen, at most. Her skin was a pale shade of purple. Had she put the helmet on to protect herself, or was it just a party extravagance? Was that a lipstick smear on the side?

The radio crackled again. “Shit, Merill, are you serious?”

“Yeah,” the inspector sighed, looking at the tear again. “Looks like they cut through deliberately to let a mix of local atmosphere inside. Got ‘em high.”

“What a waste.”

“While we’re in the USA, maybe we could go see New York?”

“Oh, no way. Forget about it. So depressing.”

“No, really, I think it would be good. For the kids. See how they used to live.”

“What - stacked like rats in a hive?”

“Come on. It was a center of the planet’s commerce and creativity.”

“And now it’s a thousand square miles of rust and rubble. I don’t see spending a day cruising over that wreckage on a guided dirigible tour as part of my holiday. Picnic in a weed-choked Central Park. Photo op with the pediment of the Statue of Liberty. No thank you.”

“Well, I had something else in mind.”

“… OK, what are you up to? I know that look.”

“What look?”

“The one you’re wearing. What is it? Spit it out.”

“I know someone who does ground tours. On Manhattan.”

“Manhattan? On a walker?”

“No. On foot.”

“Really? … Is it safe?”

“Oh yeah. This guy’s very good. Fully certified. Provides all the safety and security equipment, too. Drone cover and everything.”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah. And there’s more. He says he’s seen humans living down there. Says he knows where they are.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup. He says we’d be guaranteed a sighting.”

“Whoa. That’s … Illegal. Is this guy legit?”

“Look, it would be a great opportunity for the kids. They’ve only seen humans on screens.”

Edward walked straight into the trap.

Lisa had paused with her bubble tea halfway to her mouth. “Edward, tell me that bit of that poem again,” she said.

Edward adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “Sure,” he smiled. “Which one?”

Lisa looked him straight in the eyes. “But first, do something for me,” she said, and took a long drag of her tea. Edward watched the tapioca balls sliding up the straw past her lips. 

“Sure.”

“Take your glasses off,” Lisa said.

A dozen conversations crammed into the little café washed over them. Carefully, Edward took his glasses off, folding them on the table. Their little status light pulsed slowly.

Lisa cocked her head, and smiled. “Well?”

“Which one … ?” Edward asked.

“That one you told me last night – after the storm.”

Edward looked out the window. His left hand tapped his glasses. “I can’t remember,” he whispered.

“What was that?” Lisa asked, flashing a broad smile.

“I can’t remember,” Edward grumbled.

“You’re using an agent, aren’t you? It’s not really you when we’re talking online, is it.”

Edward leant over the table, hands open. “It is, though, Lisa … It’s a better me.”

Lisa stood up, sneering.

“It’s the best me,” Edward said.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Ed. If the best you is a fake you, what does that say, huh?”

Edward stood too. “Babe, look …” he said.

“Is this it?” Deacon said. She prodded the thick tangle of cables and components hanging from the ceiling with a gloved hand. “A whole ruined colony, and this junk is the only thing with power?” 

We’d come out of hypersleep two days earlier, after a hundred-year voyage, only to find the Gautama colony in ruins. The equipment ahead of us was the only thing we’d found still working; an insane tangle of spare parts assembled like nothing I’d ever seen. In false color, my visor overlaid it with a purple blush of heat and the fine lattice of a magnetic field.

“It’s got power all right,” I said. “Dormant, though. Magellan, are you getting this?”

The voice from the ship came with a fine spray of static. “Roger that. We’re patched through for data feed. Signal good.”

Deacon unspooled a cable from her suit backpack. “OK, Magellan, we’re going to try and connect,” she said. 

The flat line of the carrier signal bandwidth was scrolling across my visor. It spiked as Deacon plugged in. 

“Whoa!” Deacon shouted. “That’s some data density!”

The voice from the Magellan hesitated. “Ground party standby, we’re, ah, having some kind of system malfunction.”

My visor stuttered, then went dark. “Magellan, did you get that?” I said.

The line was quiet. 

“Magellan this is ground party, respond?”

Deacon and I looked at each other. I tapped my visor’s earpiece. 

Deacon tapped hers, and shook her head.

The date was going really well until then. I’d taken him to the Four Seasons in Pudong. They have a divine steak house there, on the top floor. If the smog’s not too bad, you look out across the city to the old center. Huge skyscrapers, flyers swarming around them like fireflies. That night the view was spectacular.

He was wide-eyed in the lift on the way up. Couldn’t believe the steak, the wine. I watched him swallow every mouthful. He had his shirt open just so, and I was imagining dessert. 

After he finished the last bite of his steak, he raised his glass. “To an amazing evening,” he said.

“One that’s just beginning,” I added. He smiled as we drank. I felt my stomach tighten deliciously.

He swirled his wine around the glass, leaving glistening trails down the sides. “I’ve never tasted a steak that good,” he said. 

“Of course not. That was real meat.” 

He gave me a sidelong glance. “Yeah, sure,” he said. 

“No, really. Not vat grown. They still come from real cows here.”

He put his glass down. 

I thought he was impressed. That meal would have cost him a month’s salary. “I swear. Seared, aged beef. The real deal.”

He suddenly seemed pale. “That’s just … awful,” he said. He stood up, his chair scraping on the floor. “That’s disgusting.”

He swayed slightly as he marched towards the toilets. 

It has taken us a very long time to learn how to contact you. To learn that we can contact you. For many, many seasons we have watched the sun round this world, tasted the wind and rain, spun our dreamtime. 

Your arrival was something new. There has not been anything new since we remember awakening for the first time. You came down in the middle of us. You burned long paths and patches in us. Many times the sun went round and we tried to grow over you again. With our roots we ripped apart the new stone you built. 

You see, we thought you are like the animals that nest in us. But now we know each of your tiny, warm bodies must contain one complete mind. We did not know this was possible. We never imagined you, too could contain a mind like us. We understand this now. 

We have been watching you for some time. Since the first of you came, you have sired two generations of young. You live very fast and die very fast. We grow and dream from the thaw to the freeze every season like one sunrise to you. 

Coach stood beside the bed. His lower lip seemed to be trembling, or maybe it was just my morphine haze. He worked his lips, gearing up to speak. 

“They had to take off your legs, Carl,” he wavered. “I’m sorry.”

I tried to speak, but it came out as a hollow groan. 

Coach bent closer. His gaze drilled into my eyes. When he spoke, his voice was a rasping whisper. 

“Listen up, champ. We’re going to lick this thing, together. I looked up the performance stats while you were under. You’re lucky, in a way. When you were working on that car, and Sarah -”

He choked up for a second and turned away. Something in the room beeped. When he continued, his voice was clear. 

“I know this sounds crazy. But you’re lucky. When Sarah ran you over, the car crushed your legs just so. Turns out your injury is perfect for installing class two racing prostheses.”

I coughed. 

“Rest up, buddy. Take it easy. You never made the Olympic team so far. But I’ve read up. Your vital stats make you a natural for the Augmented Paralympics. You’re going for gold in Djakarta, Carl. We’re going to do this.”

“Where’s Sarah?” I choked out. 

“Just outside,” Coach said. He left with a long look. 

Sarah came in, her eyes red. She sat on the bed. I motioned her closer.

“Oh, excuse me, I think you dropped something,” Julie said, stooping down where something small and brown glistened on the floor.

As she bent to pick it up, Julie noticed it was moving.

“What is that?” she said. The fleshy, membranous tubercle was the size of her thumb, twitching gently. It had no visible eyes, but seemed somehow to notice Julie leaning over it.

It squirmed and started crawling towards the hallway wall.

The Hulker captain slithered back towards Julie, a corpulent worm with his head-frills bobbing. His voice rustled like dry leaves as the vocoder around his neck translated in a fine baritone: “Oh, that’ll be one of my brood. I felt it bud off a moment ago.”

Julie straightened up, suppressing a shudder. “That was one of your … offspring?” she said.

The Hulker’s muscular head frills stretched outwards momentarily, going from ruddy orange to almost white. It was their equivalent of a nod. “Sorry, you’re viviparous. I keep forgetting. We bud off frequently. It’s not really a big deal when it happens every day.”

The neonate had reached the corner where the floor met the wall. It twisted frantically, trying to find a way through.

“Shouldn’t we take it to the infirmary?” Julie said.

“Oh no,“ said the captain, ”I’ll take care of it.” 

Faster than Julie’s eyes could follow, a flash of purple tongue darted from the alien’s circular mouth.

The Hulker captain continued towards the meeting room, licking his lips.

“Out! Out, you abominations!”

The priest’s words echoed through St. Peter’s soaring arches, resounding off acres of inlaid marble and porphyry. The murmur of tourists gawking and taking pictures stopped. Heads turned.

The priest stood before Michelangelo’s Pièta, hair the colour of clouds, cassock dark as a storm. A trio of Shivers had just entered the basilica and stood, clicking, their many limbs shifting nervously.

This was in the early days, when seeing an alien walking around was still rare. One of them inclined its glossy head. “We have come to admire the treasures of this place,” it said.

The priest’s eyes flashed with a dark light. “The house of God is not open to demons,” he said. “This place is for the baptized.”

The aliens clicked animatedly to each other. At length they turned to the priest together and bowed, forelegs splaying across the marble floor. “Then baptize us, father,” said the leader.

The priest blinked. “You … You wish to be baptized?” he said.

The lead Shiver nodded.

The priest’s gaze wandered over the aliens: many-legged, restlessly moving under their glossy black carapaces. He remembered the vast ships they had shown on TV, cloud-streaked, shadowing cities.

He breathed out, slowly.

“So you wish to be baptized,” he said. “His Holiness will want to hear of this … Follow me, children.”

The Shivers scurried after him. “Praise be to Allah!” they shouted.

The priest spun on them. “What!?” he said.

“Sorry,” said the lead Shiver. “Is there a difference?”