The Science of Space Warfare

May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 / pakramer / 3 Comments

Military Science Fiction is one of the oldest sci-fi categories. It combines something humans know well, war, with the cold expanse of space. It can be difficult, however, to adapt the physics of warfare on Earth to those outside of its gravity well. Spacecraft, for example, cannot change direction on a dime with a tilt of their wings. I will cover some basic considerations in this article.

Reaction Mass.

One of the first things that stands out when reading military sci-fi, is the seemingly inexhaustible supply of fuel. There is currently no engine capable of defying Newton’s third law, i.e. there must be an equal and opposite reaction.

Here’s a quick and perhaps unnecessary way to wrap your head around the physics of space travel. First, imagine you are standing on a perfectly slick surface. You can’t go anywhere because you lack traction. Your only option is to throw something in the opposite direction you want to move. If that thing shares your approximate mass, you will speed off in opposite directions at the same speed. Rockets are designed to throw the exhaust faster, so while the gas is lighter than the ship, its velocity in the opposite direction is much greater. The heavier the gas and the faster it is expelled, the quicker the rocket moves.

In space, Venus and Mars, our two closest neighbors, are hundreds of millions of kilometers away. Assuming we had a way to make a perfect fusion thruster and were already out of Earth’s gravity well, getting a one-hundred ton object to one of those planets in just a few days, not exceeding 1G acceleration, would require another 100 tons of fuel. Of course, you would need to bring fuel to carry that fuel, and then fuel to slow down, or else you’d reach your destination going about 8 million kilometers an hour. If you had a more efficient engine, like Ion thrusters, Photonic laser thrusters, or solar sails, you could get away with carrying very little reaction mass or none at all, but you’d have to wait a long time to get anywhere, and that would make a rather dull space battle.

To do your own calculations, check out this calculator.

So how do you fix these problems? Or are epic space battles entirely unlikely? To get the desired effect, you don’t need to invent an unrealistic engine, you just need to come to the battle prepared. Add a huge fuel tanker or two to your fleet, or have regular refueling outposts. Your fighters will need a large fuel tank to ship ratio and come back to refuel periodically during a fight. On the bright side, once you spaceship is in motion, it will stay in motion, so there’s no need to expend fuel constantly, just point where you want to go, and add a little thrust to get there. Just keep in mind, you’ll have to burn off that speed in order to arrive at a stop. Better still, if there is a planet nearby, jumping in orbit will gain you a round-trip ticket back to your starting point, and you can stay on that track indefinitely.

Maneuverability.

This brings up another problem I see in military sci-fi books. Rapid changes in direction are not possible in space unless you have maneuvering thrusters placed on all sides of the ship. This is something easily overlooked on Earth, since all aircraft have to do is change the shape of their wings. As I’ve already mentioned, spaceships do not need wings or any aerodynamic shape at all, unless they intend to enter atmosphere. In space itself, wings are useless, and so are all the maneuvers associated with them. If you want to reengage the enemy after a pass, swooping around is impossible without your engines burning a lot of extra fuel. The shortest distance between two objects is a straight line, so the best way to conserve fuel is to do a 180 degree turn in place and go back. Of course, throwing in some X, Y, and Z axis motions will help evade incoming fire.

One major caveat, and one mostly overlooked in military sci-fi, is the inertia. Changing direction too rapidly will apply a large amount of Gs to the ship and anyone inside it. The average person will pass out at 5Gs or when acceleration exceeds 49 m/s^2. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as inertial dampeners, at least not until gravity generators are invented. They would need to create a force like gravity in the direction of acceleration.

However, unless you really need to get somewhere in a hurry or are battling enemies with light-based weapons, you probably won’t need to move that quickly. In the vastness of space, you will likely see incoming enemies and fire from a long-way off, and should have plenty of time to avoid it.

Detection systems.

Detecting your enemies in space is easy compared to on Earth; there are fewer things to hide behind. But there is the matter of distance. Light scatters in all directions, therefore luminosity follows the inverse square law. That is to say, the brightness of an object at 1km, will be 0.25x as bright at twice the distance, and 0.01x as bright at ten times the distance. At 384400km, the distance between us and the moon, that object will appear 0.000000000006x as bright. So unless your spaceship is packing a huge telescope, getting a visual on small objects only as far out as we are from the moon, will be very difficult. Thankfully, you can amplify the “brightness” of objects, by illuminating them in other ways. One way would be to send large amounts of radar in their direction. That radar would have to be very intense in order to reach the object and return, weakened each way depending on the reflectivity of the object’s surface. These active scans also give away your position. Another way to detect incoming enemies would be a passive scan, looking for any broadcast signals, either radio waves or infrared. Most ships will emit both if they support human life and run military operations.

If you did manage to detect enemy ships at such large distances, you would need to take into account the time delay. Any signal you detect from a ship as far out as we are from the moon, would be about a second or two out of date. At the speed things travel in space, the enemy could be many kilometers away by then. As far out as Mars, and you are looking at several minutes delay. Shooting at them would be an extremely difficult task, and would require sophisticated computers to model their projected course. The same problem applies to fleet communications. If your forces are spread out all over the star system, it could take hours for communications to reach all of them.

Weapons.

In general, most of the weapons we employ in warfare on Earth would be equally if not more effective in space. Not only will projectiles stay their course, unaltered by Earth’s gravity, they will also be traveling the same speed when they hit the target as when they left the barrel. Without air resistance, they will not be slowed. This also means that bullets or other projectiles don’t need to be aerodynamic. The only reason to make a bullet pointy is to penetrate the enemy ship. The same principle applies to missiles. However, if you want your missiles to follow the target or evade countermeasures, they will need small thrusters on the nose to change their attitude midflight. Adding wings to your missiles is pointless unless you intend for them to enter the atmosphere. If the enemy is planet-bound, kinetic strikes would do huge amounts of damage with minimal effort, since gravity does most of the work.

Perhaps one of the most useful weapons will be lasers, as they will be able to cross the vast distances between ships without chance of detection and evasion. Lasers, however, would have to be extremely powerful and focused in order to do much damage. Even a small puncture of a pressurized vessel would do a lot of damage. They would also be able to knockout incoming missiles, an application currently in use on Earth.

Explosions will not be as effective in space as they are in atmosphere, so unless a missile explodes inside or right up against a spaceship, there will be no air to distribute the explosive force other than the gasses produced by the missile itself. And while nuclear weapons will be ineffective at producing shock waves in space, they do emit copious amounts of ionizing radiation. The impact of this radiation on crew and electrical systems will depend on the degree of shielding on the spacecraft and the distance at which it detonates from the target. The same consideration applies to EMPs. It’s likely any ship built for long-term space travel will have developed significant radiation and EMP defenses to protect against solar flares and cosmic radiation.

Defense.

Hardening the ship to radiation doesn’t require much more than a few inches of lead, or tanks full of water. Similarly, a completely metallic hull would be effective at blocking electromagnetic pulses. Components on the exterior of the ship, or breaks in the continuity of the hull (e.g. windows) could compromise the interior, however. Hull plates would need to be thick to stop kinetic projectiles, yet not so thick as to make the ship too massive to move. In addition to kinetic projectiles, there will be the occasional micrometeoroid or space debris, all capable of impacting with incredible speeds.

The defense most common in military sci-fi, is also the most unlikely. Shields, force fields, deflectors, or any other name for an invisible barrier capable of stopping high impact strikes, are not likely to exist anytime soon. At best, you might be able to generate a field capable of deflecting radiation, but certainly not large projectiles. Lasers and small, high fire-rate cannons would make short work of most missiles, but if those fail, flares, flak, hacking, or signal jamming may be effective countermeasures for most non-ballistic missiles.

Other defenses to consider are those meant to mitigate secondary damages, like fire suppressors, breach sealants, or the classic escape pod. You will most likely need some armed men and women aboard to protect against boarding. As a last resort, there’s always the self-destruct, something easily manageable with a nuclear core or by the simultaneous detonation of any remaining munitions.

Spaceship Design.

The structure of a spaceship will depend largely on its intended purpose. As mentioned, any craft designed to enter atmosphere will need to be aerodynamic, have wings, and more than likely, a heatshield. That doesn’t mean that all space-faring vessels will be blocky and aesthetically displeasing. A pointy nose and sleek profile is also useful for acceleration, i.e. placing the bulk of the ship in front of the thrusters. This provides structural stability and makes the ship less of a target for incoming projectiles. The more rounded the better, as this minimizes the surface to volume ratio, cutting down on hull material requirements and those pesky right angles that pressurized vessels find so offensive.

Then there is the matter of gravity. I can’t expect to change everyone’s mind on this count. Having some mysterious form of artificial gravity is very convenient. It holds the crew to the deck, it allows for the existence of inertial dampeners, and most importantly, it keeps the writer from having to consider gravity when designing their ship. There are two real forms of artificial gravity in space. One is a spinning torus, and the other is thrust. Continuous thrust will quickly deplete your fuel, and placing windows on a rotating torus is a great way to nauseate and disorient your characters. Still, I’ve seen many clever authors come up with creative solutions without compromising the story. You can read more about artificial gravity and other gravity considerations in this post.

In addition to a gravity system, you’ll need to set aside space for crew quarters, watch stations, hanger bays, storage areas, mess halls, bathrooms, environmental (water, air, and waste) processing, energy generators, and other day-to day necessities of a working, breathing, and eating crew. To learn more about enclosed ecosystems and life support, check out this post.

Because sustaining a crew in an enclosed ecosystem is a difficult task, the fewer the better. All the crew on board would need to pull their own weight. It would be a waste of money to house hundreds of specialized soldiers who sit there and do nothing waiting for their moment of action. Instead, the crew would most likely be composed of support personnel with secondary combat duties. There is the option, however, of having crew or combat specialists in a state of suspended animation, taking up little space and resources while they wait. Check out my post on suspended animation to learn more.

The Aftermath.

Wreckage and debris is often overlooked in military sci-fi. Because there is nothing to slow things down in space, whatever isn’t pulled into a gravity well will become a navigational hazard. At the speeds ships and explosive debris move, encountering even a small speck of debris can release as much kinetic energy as a bullet. Don’t believe me? The fastest bullets on Earth can maintain 4,500km/h in a vacuum, and a 25g bullet will release nearly 20,000 joules of kinetic energy. The International Space Station, by contrast, travels at 27,580 km/h. A near stationary spec of debris weighing just 1 gram would impact with the kinetic energy of 30,000 joules at those speeds. Check the math using this calculator.

Too much space debris can lead to a cascade effect known as the Kessler Syndrome, where a bit of debris destroys more objects, which turn into more debris and so on. After a significant space battle, it could become impossible for a planet to put things in orbit again.

I hope you enjoyed the post. Please leave a comment if you have any questions or would like to add a piece of advice to other military science fiction writers. For anyone with military experience, I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially when it comes to space tactics.

Until next time, Write Well and Science Hard.

Enclosed Ecosystem Writing Prompts and More: PSIF and NaNoWriMo

October 5, 2018October 8, 2018 / pakramer / 2 Comments

NaNoWriMo is fast approaching, which means all around the world, writers are scouring the internet for inspiring writing prompts. Many of them will bite off more than they can chew in an attempt to turn those prompts into realistic and scientifically-plausible stories.

Well you’ve come to the right place. I have prepared a few writing prompts with a list of scientific problems you might need to consider as you write. If you lack the scientific training, never fear, expert advice on writing with authenticity is available in the new book, Putting the Science in Fiction. My own article in the book will talk you through creating realistic Enclosed Ecosystems and Life-support systems, and the following prompts will have the same theme.

Prompt 1: Gone Rogue

An object with a powerful gravitational attraction passes through our solar system. By all calculations, the perturbation will eject Earth from the solar system, making it a rogue planet, destined to drift through the emptiness of space for the foreseeable future. How much time does humanity have to prepare before the great freeze sets in? Would your characters hunker down and try to survive, or leave the Earth behind? Either way, you would need a habitat capable of sustaining human life indefinitely.

Considerations:

On a frozen planet far from the sun, the atmosphere would soon freeze and fall out of the sky, and all flowing water will solidify, making solar, wind, and hydroelectric power useless. About the only source of power and heat will be from natural gases and fuels, fission or fusion, and geothermal power.
With the freezing temperatures and plummeting atmospheric pressure, your enclosed ecosystem will need to be insulated and shielded from the cold vacuum by thick walls or built far underground.
The larger the enclosed ecosystem, the less likely it is to collapse. This will require a variety of animals, plants, and microorganisms to sustain the atmosphere, provide food and nutrition, and recycle wastes.
On the plus side, all of Earth’s resources have been cryogenically preserved. A scavenger in a hardy enough space suit might just be able to find edible food and usable supplies, assuming they aren’t all covered by meters of oxygen and nitrogen snow or rendered useless due to thermal stresses.

Prompt 2: Lock Down

Your characters are stranded in a large fallout shelter as nuclear war rages outside. How many people can it support and for how long? What will they need to survive?

Considerations:

The facility will need some way to remove the radioactive fallout from the air if it is vented in from outside, or a means to recycle the carbon dioxide within the facility and replenish oxygen. Plants under grow lights can help with this.
Water vapor might quickly wick away into the porous concrete of the shelter. Putting up plastic sheeting and having a condenser of some kind will keep this valuable resource from being lost. Alternatively, people in radiation suits can go in search of food and water, but only sealed containers can be trusted not to have been contaminated by nuclear fallout. Read my previous post “The Science of Killing your Characters,” for some background on radiation poisoning.
The power source will need to be self-sustaining, but the sun might not reliably penetrate the now-pervasive clouds of ash. Wind, hydroelectric, or nuclear power may be your only viable sources or electricity. Gasoline for generators would need to be scavenged on a regular basis.
People forced into close quarters can do unexpected and terrible things, especially after the trauma of the apocalypse. An established leadership, laws, and consequences will help limit keep chaos at bay. Conversely, love and relationships will blossom in time, but they can bring their own complications.

Prompt 3: Mass Balance

Rather than a costly endeavor of launching building materials into space, your characters plan to build a space station by send a single, small rocket with a few crew to intercept an asteroid. There, your character will mine the raw materials to build a much larger and sustainable space station. What type of asteroid will they need, and what can they build with its components. How will they convert it to a usable form? What is their overall goal?

Considerations:

To sustain a large space station, mass balance needs to be preserved, meaning your characters can’t just throw things out the airlock without a means of replacing it. Otherwise they will run out of materials quickly. Luckily, they have an asteroid to pick apart, supplying water and thus liquid oxygen and hydrogen fuel, as well as all kinds of common and rare metals. Things like plastics and some specialized components must be strictly recycled.
The type of asteroid is important. A C-type asteroid has a relative abundance of water and carbonaceous minerals, but has a scarcity of metals. Carbonaceous minerals aren’t all bad, especially if it can be used to synthesize carbon nanotubes, graphene sheets, or used as a component of soil or fertilizer. S and M-type asteroids have more stone and metals, respectively, but less water.
An enterprise like this one will require a lot of power, especially if there is smelting to be done, water to convert to fuel, or high-tech computers to manage it all. For a power source, they will need something sustainable and replaceable. Solar arrays are a likely candidate, but it will provide less power the further away from the sun the space-station gets.
Heat can accumulate in an enclosed ecosystem, even in the cold of space, especially if there are all kinds of heat generating people and equipment around. A radiator system can help collect the heat inside the station and release it as thermal radiation out into space.
Air circulation and filtration will be required to filter out floating debris and contaminates, capture water vapor, and prevent stagnation in micro-gravity.
Lastly, some type of artificial gravity may be required to prevent the long-term health effects of micro-gravity. See fellow PSIF contributor, Jamie Krakover’s post, as well as my previous post on “The Science of Gravity.”

Putting the Science in Fiction

Science and technology have starring roles in a wide range of genres–science fiction, fantasy, thriller, mystery, and more. Unfortunately, many depictions of technical subjects in literature, film, and television are pure fiction. A basic understanding of biology, physics, engineering, and medicine will help you create more realistic stories that satisfy discerning readers.

Putting the Science in Fiction brings together scientists, physicians, engineers, and other experts to help you:

Understand the basic principles of science, technology, and medicine that are frequently featured in fiction.
Avoid common pitfalls and misconceptions to ensure technical accuracy.
Write realistic and compelling scientific elements that will captivate readers.
Brainstorm and develop new science- and technology-based story ideas.
Whether writing about mutant monsters, rogue viruses, giant spaceships, or even murders and espionage, PSIF will have something to help every writer craft better fiction.

Putting the Science in Fiction collects articles from “Science in Sci-fi, Fact in Fantasy,” Dan Koboldt’s popular blog series for authors and fans of speculative fiction. Each article discusses an element of sci-fi or fantasy with an expert in that field. Scientists, engineers, medical professionals, and others share their insights in order to debunk the myths, correct the misconceptions, and offer advice on getting the details right.

Much of these scientific considerations in this post apply to all sorts of unique and interesting scenarios, like a sudden ice age, a super volcano eruption, an expanding sun, or settings like Arctic research facilities, Mars, or the rings of Saturn, to name a few. I encourage you to come up with your own and share it with the rest of us. Leave comments, ask questions, and let us know of some scientific considerations I may have missed. If these prompts weren’t quite what you were looking for, check out #PSIF on Twitter or click here throughout the month for more prompts by PSIF contributors.

Additionally, you can now enter to win a copy of Putting the Science in Fiction from Writers Digest. Enter the giveaway below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

While it’s easy enough to write a compelling story without doing your research, it will always lack something. Hard science fiction adds an element of awe, the knowledge that such astounding, beautiful, and seemingly magical things might actually be possible. It inspires scientists and readers alike to put their imaginations to use in the real world, to bring what was once science fiction one step closer to reality.

So until next time, Write Well and Science Hard.

The Science of Aging and its Fictional Cures

September 22, 2018September 21, 2018 / pakramer / 2 Comments

Author’s note: This article was originally published by invitation in Dan Koboldt’s Science in Sci-fi blog series. See the original article here. If you are interested in more Science in Sci-fi, check out Putting the Science in Fiction for expert advice on writing Sci-fi and Fantasy with authenticity. It will be published in October 2018 by Writers Digest, with a foreword written by bestselling author Chuck Wendig. You can pre-order on Amazon, just click on the cover image to be redirected. I will have an article published in the book.

The Science of Aging and its Fictional Cures

All things age. For non-biological objects, it is a matter of entropy and oxidation (see “Aging Properties” by Gwen C. Katz in Putting the Science in Fiction). While life is not immune to these effects, it has the ability to replenish itself, repair damage, and theoretically exist indefinitely. So why don’t we live forever? This article will explore the science of biological aging and debunk some of its misconceptions in fiction.

Myth: Death by Old Age

“So-and-so died from old age.” We’ve all said it or heard it before. But can age really kill you?

Ultimately, aging does not kill you, but makes you more vulnerable to other things that will. As time goes on, our physiological integrity weakens and cells no longer act like they should. Muscles weaken, metabolism slows, and we all become a bit more sedentary, leaving us at risk for accidents, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and coronary artery disease. Similarly, DNA repair slackens and increases the risk of cancer, the immune system becomes erratic and can lead to autoimmune diseases, and the brain loses it edge and degenerates. All together, the chance that something will kill you every year is over 1000x more likely in the elderly than in children.

How to get it right:

Here are some of the most common causes of death:

Heart disease

Cancer

Stroke

Lung diseases and infections

Accidents

Diabetes

Alzheimer’s

Kidney disease

For the most part, the incidence of all of these causes of death increases with age. In other words, age is never the cause of death, but age-related diseases are. Similarly, “death by natural causes” is commonly used to describe the death of an elderly individual, since these causes are common enough to be considered natural.

Myth: There Exists Such a Thing as a Life-Force

There persists a notion that life is some ethereal force that courses through us, able to be sucked away by the first succubus/incubus that lures us in. Aging, therefore, would be the waning of such a life-force.

As far as we know, there is no ethereal energy that perfuses all life and makes it work. In fact, life can be manufactured by going online, copying the genetic sequence of a simple organism, synthesizing the DNA in a machine, and injecting it into an empty husk of a cell. This artificial “life” will then proceed to live on its own as shown by an experiment performed in 2010 by Craig Venter.

How to get it right:

All life has a few things in common, though there are exceptions to the rule. The standard definition of life is an entity that can grow, reproduce, undergo metabolic processes, and sense and interact with the environment. From this definition, metabolism is about the only thing that can be considered a life-force that can be given or taken away.

There is some truth to the concept though, as mitochondria, the energy producing organelles in most of our cells, do lose some of their efficiency as we age, and are implicated in many age-related diseases. Similarly, there do appear to be factors circulating through our body that affect how we age, and these can even be transferred from one person to another. Parabiosis is an experiment wherein two animals are surgically connected, allowing them to share blood. The older of the two animals will show signs of improved cognitive performance, muscle development, heart health, cellular regeneration, and properties that typically deteriorate with age.

The circulating factors thought to mediate this effect are certain inflammatory molecules (cytokines), small packets of intracellular materials (exosomes), some mitochondrial proteins, and many others. Interestingly, some of these are the same factors that promote systemic health following exercise. So unless you plan to surgically attach yourself to your much younger friend, or are currently a succubus/incubus, exercise truly is the best medicine.

Myth: The Elixir of Life and other instant cure-alls

Fiction often portrays the cure of aging as an easy fix, often restoring youthful vitality and vigor over the course of just a few minutes. Such an elixir smooths wrinkled skin, increases muscle mass, darkens silver-white hair, and eliminates all ailments associated with age. If only it were that simple.

Many researchers agree that aging is the result of mutations and other damage that accumulate over time, causing cancer, affecting metabolism, protein turnover, the immune system, the endocrine system, etc. A cure to aging would need to reverse all of this damage. Among other things, this would require replacing the lost connective tissue in the skin and removing it from areas where it has been produced in excess, like the muscle. It would need to revive cells that have already died, and kill cells like cancer. Additionally, the cure would need to remove lipid plaques from the vasculature, amyloid plaques from the brain, and fix every type of damage down to individual proteins and DNA mutation. And by most depictions, all of this would occur over the course of a few seconds to minutes. While this may look visually impressive, it would be impossible. The changes that occur with age are just too numerous and widespread to be reversed.

A fictional remedy like small nanomachines would have to constantly change shape, be physically capable of reaching every crevasse of every protein and condensed DNA strand, retain the information of what to fix and how, and somehow produce and store enough energy to complete the task. Even if it could somehow do all these things, fixing the accumulated damage would not be instantaneous, nor would it be visually apparent for at least a day or two. Similarly, gene editing never shows immediate effects, whether by taking years off your appearance or, if so designed, transforming you into a werewolf.

How to get it right:

Fortunately, there are some drugs and lifestyle changes being explored that have been shown to increase lifespan in mice and other mammals, though the effect is relatively mild. Some of these longevity enhancers have negative side effects, however, like testicular atrophy in the case of Rapamycin. Similarly, caloric restriction doesn’t sound like something I would do voluntarily. Even taking such measures, an indefinite extension of our lifespan may not be possible without something to extend our telomeres, the condensed DNA at the end of our chromosomes that gets shorter with each cell division.

Of course, your fictional characters might choose to skip over the cure, and abandon their aging bodies all together for something far more durable. They have merged them, body and mind, with machines. For more info, see Edward Ashton’s post on Immortality in Science Fiction.

Myth: Agelessness and the Fountain of Youth

Since reversing aging seems unlikely, the only other option would be to make your character ageless, resistant to the wear and tear of time. However, like wizards and elves, the ageless being is completely fictional.

The most common source of damage within the cell is the act of living itself. While metabolizing our food and consuming the oxygen we breathe, the mitochondria occasionally produces a small amount of oxidants, which then oxidize proteins, DNA, and lipids. DNA polymerase, which is responsible for copying our DNA during cell division, can slip or make a base-pair mismatch. Our immune system, which functions primarily to rid us of invading micro-organisms, can get overzealous and damage other cells caught in the crossfire.

Also, let’s not forget that life is just complex chemistry, and sometimes damaging chemical reactions will occur at a low frequency that are impossible to prevent, like the hydrolysis of DNA. Another major cause of the accumulating damage is the environment. Background radiation, toxins from our food or water, and the aforementioned microorganisms can interfere with all manner of biological processes and inflict direct damage. Eventually DNA damage accumulates, leading to cellular dysfunction, and ultimately death. To be ageless, one would have to resist all of this damage.

How to get it right:

Not all beings are created equal, however, and many creatures that have found a way to subvert the effect of time.

Take the “immortal jellyfish” for example. It is said to live indefinitely by reverting back to an immature polyp state. Unfortunately, humans are quite a bit more complex than a jellyfish. Such a state of immortality would be like taking the DNA from one of your cells and cloning yourself. Your clone would have none of your memories and be a distinct organism. Another creature, the naked mole rat, has extraordinary DNA repair capabilities and connective tissue factors. It looks nearly identical at year one as it does at an impressive 30 years old, which is to say it looks rather hideous all its life.

The Icelandic clam, the Greenland shark, and some other sea-dwellers have been known to live as long as 500 years, partly due to its resistance to oxidative damage. Somehow, I don’t think their natural environments would be compatible for us, but the secret to their longevity may one day be translated to humanity.

If a means to become ageless is developed during your lifetime, chances are you won’t be able to use it. Your unborn children, however, might be more fortunate. The most likely method will be to modify our progeny’s’ genetic code to enhance cellular repair, telomerase activity, antioxidant enzymes, and other processes shown to prolong life in animal models. Only then would human biology have a chance at resisting the ravages of time.

Conclusion

Life is complex; so many parts need to come together to keep it functioning, and if one thing falters, so does life end. Gerontology is the study of how those complicated parts of life fail over time. The Somatic DNA damage theory of aging alluded to in this article is just one theory of many. Other theories include antagonistic pleiotropy (i.e. that which makes us strong early in life, makes us weak later), disposable soma theory (i.e. keeping the body young isn’t the best allocation of resources), the replicative senescence theory (i.e. telomere shortening), rate of living theory, other damage accumulation theories, as well as some theories proposing we are programmed to age and die, often for the “overall prosperity of society.” There are still numerous theories of aging which haven’t been conclusively proven or disproven, and until we know the real cause, finding the cure will be all the more difficult.

“If there is one thing a Gerontologists understands, it is complexity,” said Dr. William Hazzard, a renowned gerontologists, at a 2018 aging symposium named in his honor. And while there is currently no cure for aging, there are things we can do in the meantime to slow it down. Dr. Hazzard, an 81-year-old academic who took the three stairs to the podium in one leaping bound, asserts that the best medicine is to “keep moving,” to “keep learning,” and above all, “embrace the totality of the experience.”

Until next time, Write Well and Science Hard

Icarus Drowned- A SciFi Short Story

May 22, 2018March 22, 2019 / pakramer / 1 Comment

Author’s Note:

The inspiration for this story came while writing a blog post over a year ago. Even things on Earth can look alien under a microscope. But how do I shrink someone down to that scale to experience it? In reading on theories of gravity, namely, why gravity is such a weak force compared to others, I learned of the possibility of a gravity dimension. While still only theoretical, such a dimension would attract gravitons (a theoretical particle that carries the force of gravity) through tiny holes in our dimension. If someone were somehow forced into this other dimension, what would they see when they peered out? This story is what followed from that train of thought. I present to you the Science Fiction Short Story, “Icarus Drowned.”

Icarus Drowned

By Philip A Kramer

Ron Kasey fastened the buckle of the harness across his chest and grunted at the tightness of it. He frowned and tried to shift to a more comfortable position, but the harness was unyielding.

“Why am I wearing this thing, again? You said I’d be going three kilometers an hour max.”

A sigh was just audible over the coms, one he had heard many times in his flight simulations over the past few months.

“In the state of Washington, seat-belts are required by law,” Laura said, her voice heavy with resignation.

A few muted chuckles filled the coms.

“And the Moon?”

“We’ll talk about that after another forty tests.”

Ron puffed out his cheeks and breathed out slowly.

He was a test pilot, not a scientist, so it was difficult for him to reconcile the snail’s pace of research with the theoretical speed of the small vessel in which he sat. When he’d earned his wings in the Navy five years ago, he never would have guessed he’d be strapped to the pilot seat of science’s greatest achievement. All of his coworkers were more qualified, certified geniuses all of them, but they lacked the proper flight training.

Ron squinted at the display in front of him.

The large hanger was crawling with people. Some hauled away coolant lines that leaked a white mist from their nozzles, while others disconnected power cables. Laura stood in an observation room above, separated from the noise by a thick pane of glass. She regarded a tablet computer in the crook of her arm even as the other scientists in the room sat in front of large computer monitors.

“Engines?” Laura asked. The professional coolness of her voice brought an abrupt silence to the coms. From the deference of the other scientists, Ron found it hard to believe she was the youngest among them, not much younger than him. She had proven to be more than just a genius; she was a natural leader.

“Fore and aft-engines nominal. We’re a go in T-minus five minutes.” The voice came from Reggie, the man seated nearest Laura. An old red tie held together the loose collar of the man’s button-up shirt. It was a special occasion, the Engine Specialist had told Ron that morning, and it was his lucky tie.

The hum of the engines was just audible from where he sat in the cockpit. They had the presence of restless steeds eager to start a race. The days of propellant driven rockets and shuttles were behind them. This was a chariot, its twin engines harnessing the same force that moved planets. Helios One, the first of its kind, was named for the Sun god who rode his blazing chariot across the sky.

The vessel was spherical but for the three landing struts and the two engine blocks mounted on the outer hull. While the design greatly offended Ron’s sense of style, he conceded that a sleeker and more aerodynamic construction would be pointless in the vacuum of space.

The Helios One was not much bigger than the cockpit of the C130 Hercules cargo plane he’d flown in the Navy. Unlike a plane, his view of the hanger outside was through a single large monitor. Beside it, a separate monitor displayed his telemetry and systems data. The pilot’s interface was also something he’d had to get used to. The traditional two-handed yoke was gone, replaced by a small knob of a joystick on the arm of his chair. He gripped it between his thumb and fore-finger as he had done hundreds of times before. The one thing the simulations hadn’t prepared him for was the crushing sense of uncertainty.

“Coms?”

“Green lights across the board.”

Laura continued running through their pre-flight checklist as the minutes passed, and all stations reported green lights.

“Three kilometers an hour,” he said beneath his breath. “It’s just three kilometers an hour.”

“Repeat that, Helios One,” The coms officer said. “We couldn’t hear your last transmission.”

“I said I can’t wait to see how fast this thing can go.”

Laura lifted her gaze from her tablet.

“Speed is relative. If you mean acceleration, I imagine the upper limit will be determined by how many Gs your body can handle. Accelerate too fast and it could compromise the integrity of the chariot.”

It could have been his imagination, but she seemed far more distressed by the latter possibility.

“Good to know,” Ron said, distracted.

“You won’t feel anything at the speed you’re going,” she said, perhaps detecting his unease. “Well, anything besides the weightlessness and vertigo. Let us know if it gets too uncomfortable.”

So much for reassurance, he thought.

Ron remembered this from the months of orientation and flight training. The fore-engine was a graviton generator. It created a local gravitational field above the chariot. He could change the location of that field with a touch of the joystick, making Helios One ‘fall’ in any direction he chose.

The aft-engine had another role. According to Laura, it opened a hole to another dimension. He’d gone slack-jawed when he’d heard that for the first time. That dimension, she’d explained, was simply a place beyond our own three dimensions, a place the graviton preferred. Small holes to this dimension were all around him at all times, sucking up gravitons. These dimensions were the reason gravity was much weaker than electromagnetism. By gathering these small dimensional holes in one place, the aft-engine effectively negated the gravitational attraction between the chariot and Earth. Helios One and everything inside of it would become weightless and far easier to move.

He cut short his review of the ship’s systems when the countdown reached the one-minute mark. His mind raced. He wasn’t ready.

That minute, however, felt like an eternity, long enough for him to realize he had a very simple job compared to those in the observation room.

“We really should have performed a christening. It’s bad luck to launch a ship without breaking a bottle of champagne over the bow.”

“It isn’t a ship,” came Laura’s distracted words. “And it doesn’t have a bow.”

At the ten-second mark, he powered up the aft-engine. The contents of his stomach were the first to feel the change in gravity. An uncanny sense of falling made his hand stray to the vomit bag tucked conveniently in a pouch beside his seat.

He brought the engine up to 90 percent power.

“Gravity at one point two newtons per kilogram and holding,” he said and swallowed the taste of bile. At nearly 10 percent gravity, he could barely tell up from down.

The countdown ended.

“Helios One, you are cleared for launch,” said Reggie.

Launch was a generous word. After flipping a switch on the dash, Ron slowly fed power into the fore-engine.

The gentle sensation of weightlessness and then falling upward played havoc on his senses, as his eyes and inner ear argued the facts. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to picture himself hanging upside-down from the jungle gym at the urgings of his young niece. The memory helped him forget where he was for a moment until a slight groan of metal preceded a loud chorus of cheers over the coms.

Ron opened his eyes and regarded the external camera feed. The chariot was off the ground and steadily rising.

The first manned chariot had launched. Humanity had officially mastered gravity.

Elated, Ron could almost ignore the lunch roiling in his gut.

“We have liftoff.” Reggie said, his usual tone-less baritone had become an enthusiastic tenor.

“One point eight kilometers an hour, vertical bearing. Altitude three meters and ascending,” Ron said, mechanically reading off his vector as he was trained.

“Roger, Helios One. Achieve and maintain altitude at thirty meters,” Laura said.

He didn’t make it to thirty meters.

“Control, my fore-engine is registering some efficiency loss, can you confirm?”

“We see it, Helios One. Hold position.”

Ron eased off the power and held the joystick in place, but the engine’s efficiency continued to drop.

“Helios One, I’m calling an end to the test,” Laura said.

“What’s wrong?” Ron asked. He glanced from the status displays to the camera feed. A few figures in bulky silver suits and helmets appeared at the hanger door holding fire extinguishers.

“We need to rule out a fire. You are cleared to land.”

The horror of being trapped in a small vessel with a fire was something he’d never experienced outside of nightmares.

“Roger, Control. Bringing her down,” he said, his voice quavering.

Soon the engine’s efficiency fell below the level required to keep the chariot aloft.

“This isn’t shaping up to be a soft landing,” Ron said when he saw his speed of descent increase from 1 to 2 km/h. At that speed, the landing struts would buckle, resulting in millions of dollars in damage. It could delay the program for months. Laura knew that too.

“Ron,” Laura said, failing to use his call sign. “Increase power to the aft-engine. One hundred percent.”

Ron complied, even as another engineer reminded her that they’d never managed to sustain complete zero gravity. It was their only contingency plan.

As soon as the power was at full, the meager output of the fore-engine began to slow the weightless ship.

It looked like he would be able to set it down smoothly after all.

The camera feed flickered and then went dark. Simultaneously, an explosion and a chorus of screams sounded in his ear, nearly deafening him. Then all was silent.

Ron squeezed his eyes shut and braced for impact.

Nothing happened.

After a few seconds of weightlessness, he cracked open one eye and then the other.

The camera feed was blank, but he was still receiving system data. The only thing missing from the continuous stream of information was his current telemetry.

Have I already touched down?

“Control? I am experiencing a computer malfunction. What is my current vector?”

No answer.

“Coms test. Do you read, Control?”

Ron cursed and tapped his headset.

Remembering the engines, he scrambled to cut power and prepared himself for the sudden restoration of gravity.

Again, nothing happened.

Ron knuckled the side of the consol. The system reported zero power to the aft-engine, but he was still weightless.

Impossible.

When a few seconds of scratching his head yielded no solution, he reluctantly unbuckled his harness. The moment he shrugged out of the network of belts, he began to float away from the pilot’s seat. A bout of queasiness inspired him to bring along the vomit bag, just in case.

Ron grasped the edge of a monitor and pushed off toward the airlock door.

When he opened the door, he froze.

There was only one window on the chariot, and it was attached to the outer airlock door.

Through the window, there was nothing but darkness.

He finally got the chance to use the vomit bag.

Minutes later, when he finally returned to his seat and buckled the harness, his mind was churning more than his stomach.

Space. He had to be in space.

It made sense. The chariot made a wormhole somehow, and now he was floating in some distant part of the universe. He thought his first venture into space would have been more awe-inspiring, more momentous, more… intentional.

There was only one problem with this theory. Through the window he hadn’t seen a single star. Even if he had somehow made it into intergalactic space, he should at least see some galaxies, right?

There had been nothing but blackness. No, that wasn’t quite true. It wasn’t completely black. It was more like a dark shade of gray, like the color of the blank monitor.

He sat forward so quickly, the harness squeezed the breath from him.

The monitor. It wasn’t dead after all. It was showing him an active feed of the outside of the ship.

He unbuckled his harness once more and leaned close to the monitors. There was something out there. It took a moment to locate the controls for the lights in the cockpit, but as soon as he did, he turned them off and squinted at the screen.

There was definitely something out there. Four somethings. They weren’t pinpoints like stars, but bands of light that stretched from starboard to port, too straight and evenly spaced to be natural.

Alien starships.

Ron breathed out a calming breath. He shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

He turned to another monitor, one with a screen that nearly blinded him in contrast. Columns of data greeted his trained eye. He located a settings option for the cameras. Choosing the contrast setting, he toggled it up to maximum.

The bands of light above the chariot grew even brighter. They were like no alien battle cruisers he’d ever seen, though his experience was admittedly limited. Ron squinted at the screen, his eyes focusing on several dim blotches around and beneath the chariot. They were like distant, colorful nebulas, though some of them had very sharp and defined edges.

Then one of the nebulas moved. It was fast, streaking by just below the chariot. He nearly banged his head on the ceiling as he leapt back in shock.

Once seated, his eyes darted from one nebula to another. Most were still, but some shifted in place, occasionally changing shape. Faint though they were, the shapes looked familiar.

With a sinking feeling, he increased the brightness setting.

The shapes resolved themselves.

The bright bands of light transformed into fluorescent tubes on a ceiling crisscrossed with rafters. The nebulas became workstations, tanks of liquid nitrogen, and people moving about a large, open room.

He had never left the hanger.

Ron took a long, deep breath. He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or terrified.

It appeared he was hovering just above the heads of those milling around on the floor of the hanger. The image was still faint, as if light had difficulty reaching him.

The hanger had changed since he’d seen it last. Coolant tanks were on their sides, papers were strewn across the floor, and from the reflective glints of glass on the floor, the window separating the observation room from the hanger had shattered. The observation room itself was nearly full of people, but he couldn’t make out Laura among them.

He took off his headset and confirmed it had power.

“Control, this is Helios One. Do you read?”

Silence.

Whatever had caused the destruction, it had knocked out the coms.

He needed to get up to the observation room.

It took a few minutes of vigorous chin rubbing before he remembered he was currently sitting in a spaceship.

He secured himself in his seat, but his hand paused over the engine controls.

The fore-engine hadn’t registered any temperature fluctuations, but he was still wary of fire. If he gave it just a little power, perhaps it would be enough to move around the weightless chariot.

What was the alternative? He doubted they knew where he was or how to go about reaching him. If he did nothing, he would die from dehydration in just a few short days. Of all the problems they simulated and contingency plans they’d gone through, nothing had prepared him for this.

He brought the fore-engine up to one percent of max power. When the temperature gauge remained stable, he increased it to five. Satisfied, he angled the joystick forward.

He began to move. The motion was so slow he had to stare at the video feed for several seconds to make sure he was moving at all.

As he approached the observation deck, the faint shapes of people in military uniform came into focus.

They weren’t the men he’d seen guarding the hanger, but military medics. They tended to the injured, all of whom were wearing lab coats.

Ron felt sick. It was not the queasiness of zero gravity, but one that tightened his throat and knotted his stomach. He was responsible for this.

He drew closer and recognized Laura sitting on one of the rolling chairs. A large red knot marred the surface of her smooth, pale forehead. She was waving away the medic who was trying to shine a light into her eyes.

The medic gave up and turned his attention to another of the scientists who was being lifted onto a stretcher. It was Reggie. Blood soaked his shirt and lab coat, making it difficult to distinguish his lucky red tie.

Smashed computer screens, toppled chairs, and sheets of paper littered the floor. There was no glass inside the observation deck from the windowpane; it had all fallen into the hanger below.

An explosion had done this, but not just any explosion. He had seen wreckage like this before when his C130 had lost pressure at high altitude. Decompression had yanked open the cockpit door and upended everything and everyone not bolted down or buckled in. Some kind of explosive decompression had occurred in the main hanger.

As he drew closer to the window, he could no longer deny another growing suspicion. He cringed as he eased forward, far enough that the chariot would have made contact with the frame of the window, but nothing happened.

Ron bit his lip. Either the chariot had become intangible or he now occupied a space so small, nobody could see him.

Laura had told him once that the holes leading to the gravitational dimension were microscopic, each occupying an area less than a nanometer. As impossible as it sounded, he suspected he had fallen through one of those holes. It would explain the darkness; he could only see the light that hit the small space he occupied.

Laura raised her head and looked out over the hanger. Her features were contorted in pain and regret, making her almost unrecognizable.

She thinks I’m dead.

“Laura,” he said over the coms. “I’m right here.”

She didn’t hear him, and her gaze swept right past him.

He was just another mote of dust in the room.

After a moment, she stood, steadied herself with a hand on the wall, and left the room. Ron watched her go until the door to the observation room swung shut behind her.

Ron looked at the other scientists. They were not in any shape to help him.

He pushed forward on the joystick, and the ship began to move again. He was still a bit skeptical about fitting through the window, but he easily flew into the room and over the heads of the medics.

The door that separated him from the hallway beyond was made of metal and painted a dull gray. He pulled back on the joystick as he approached, slowing the chariot.

The holes to the gravitational dimension were everywhere, Laura had said, they floated around him, passing through him, soaking up the gravitons that his matter generated. Surely that meant he could pass through the door too.

His lack of confidence in this half-cocked theory caused him to slow even more as he drew closer to the door. If he was wrong, he hoped he would bounce off of it harmlessly.

Every dent and imperfection in the door’s surface became more distinct as he approached. His jaw dropped when he spotted a glossy labyrinth of spirals and whirls. He was looking at someone’s fingerprint.

Ron closed the remaining distance, falling within a canyon formed by the gray paint as it had dried.

When he struck the door, he felt no resistance, but his view from his camera went white, nearly blinding him.

The screen dimmed a few moments later, and he stared mutely at the empty hallway. He wheeled the chariot around to view the door he’d just come through. A perfect, cylindrical tunnel was the only evidence of his passage, so small as to be imperceptible by someone walking by. The edges of the tunnel glowed white hot but quickly faded to a metallic sheen.

While it didn’t go quite as he had planned, he had made it through the door in one piece.

To be safe, he fed more power to the fore-engine and drifted closer to the ceiling. He didn’t want to accidentally bore a hole through someone if they walked into him.

He drifted along the ceiling, weaving around light fixtures and fire sprinklers. He didn’t see Laura anywhere, but he knew where she had gone.

Something constricted in his chest when he saw the door to Laura’s office closed. In the Navy, he had been used to closed doors, to keeping his opinions to himself, to following orders. As the lead researcher, Laura had ultimate say in every aspect of the Helios project, but she had always kept an open door policy. She did not tout her rank, her intellect, or shun the opinions of others. To see her door closed meant there was something inside she did not want her staff to see.

Ron piloted the chariot forward until he was a hair’s width away from the door. This door was made of wood, and the valleys and canyons of its surface looked like some vast, alien world. He worried he might set the door on fire if he tried to phase through it, so he steered into one of the canyons and squeezed into the narrow gap between the door and lintel.

The darkness was nearly absolute, and the brightness of his camera feed was already turned up to maximum. He weaved his way through the dust, which looked like some wooly forest full of tangled vines and large, flat leaves. Here and there, the ghostly skeletons of mites peered back at him. Their huge, bulbous bodies looked more alien than anything he’d seen so far, and their large mandibles looked capable of cracking his chariot in two. He was dust even to them.

He managed to navigate to the opposite side of the door, following the light from the room beyond as if it were the blush of dawn on the distant horizon. When he finally emerged into Laura’s office, he swallowed hard at the sight of her.

She sat hunched over her desk with her head in her arms. Her body heaved in great, wracking sobs.

Guilty for having intruded on her privacy, Ron considered turning back, but she was the only one capable of helping him.

For a long time he watched her, discarding innumerable and half-formed ideas until only one remained. He needed to talk to her.

Eventually, he dragged his eyes from the camera feed to his on-board computer. If visible light could barely reach him, why would radio waves be any different? His communications equipment was built to radio Earth from Pluto if necessary; surely, it was strong enough to amplify a weak signal.

Ron increased the gain on his receiver.

One moment, the telemetry data on his monitor was gone, and the next it began to populate, displaying his current vector. He pumped his fists into the air.

Connecting to the internet was harder than he’d anticipated. Had the techs known how often he Googled the words they used in casual conversation, they would have dedicated an entire monitor to the task. Minutes later, he finally gained access. He toyed with the idea of sending Laura an email, but doubted she would check it any time soon.

The homepage was that of the Department of Defense and prompted him for his password. He ignored it and ran a search for a web-based calling application he’d used previously overseas. He looked up the number for the Gray Army Airfield facility and typed it into the application.

The dial tones sounded in his headset, and then the phone began to ring.

He held his breath.

“You have reached Fort Lewis. If you know the extension of the person you are trying to reach, please dial now. If you would like to be connected to the operator, please hold the line. Calls will be answered in the order they are received.”

He let out his breath in a loud sputter.

A jingle played over the line and Ron idly unstrapped from the pilot seat to float around as he waited.

“Operator, how can I direct your call?”

“Yes, oh thank god,” Ron said, scrambling to return to his seat. “I need to speak with Dr. Laura Kessler, it’s an emergency.”

He considered telling the operator everything, but he guessed the man was not privy to the research taking place at the base. He might think it was a prank and hang up.

“I can forward you to her office, but I see here she also has an emergency number listed, would you prefer that?”

The emergency number seemed appropriate given his situation, and he told the man so.

“Who should I say is calling?”

“Lieutenant Ron Kasey.”

“Hold please,” he said, and the jingle began to play again.

Laura was still slumped over her desk when the call came. Ron couldn’t hear anything, but saw her lift her head, blink, and then reach into one of the pockets of the white lab coat. She took several deep breaths before answering.

He could imagine the words now.

Hi, Dr. Kessler, I have a Lieutenant Ron Kasey on the line for you.

What? Is this some kind of joke? She would say.

No Doctor, no joke. He sounds quite handsome and charming, if I do say so myself. Do you want to take the call?

That does sounds like him. Yes, please put him on.

His imaginings were whisked away when he heard Laura’s voice come over the line.

“Who is this?”

“Well hello, Doctor. That test was quite the doozy, huh?”

“I’m not kidding, who is this?” She sounded angry now.

“Of course…” he said, continuing as if he hadn’t heard her. “I think I’ll skip the harness next time. I think my chest is covered in bruises.”

“Ron?” Her hand shot up to her mouth.

“That’s me.”

“Wha- Are you okay?”

“Yes, with the exception of the aforementioned bruises.”

She was standing now, turning in circles and clutching a fist-full of her dark hair.

“But the chariot. It exploded. I saw it.”

“It was an implosion, actually,” he said. It was the first time he’d ever been able to correct her, and he savored the feeling.

“Where are you?”

“Right in front of you.”

She took a step forward, looking confused.

“Are you down in the hanger?”

“No, I’m… hold on a sec.”

Ron peered down at the dash. If some light could get into this little trans-dimensional bubble of his, he might be able to get some light out. If he could make his tiny chariot visible, just a dim spark, she would believe him.

He found the controls for his floodlights and turned them on.

The screen went white, and Laura cursed over the headset.

Ron dimmed the lights and the screen resolved into a much clearer picture of Laura, arm up to shield her eyes.

It appeared light had no trouble finding its way out.

“Sorry, my fault,” he said, dimming the lights even further.

Laura lowered her arm, blinking up at the far upper corner of the room where he hovered.

“Ron? Is that you?”

“It is.”

“Are you dead?” She asked.

“What? No.”

“Are you sure?” She took a step forward, her expression torn between amazement and skepticism. “Because you look like a little orb of light. Isn’t that how ghosts are supposed to look?”

“Laura, I am alive,” he said, stressing each distinct syllable. “Now concentrate. I need to get out of here.”

“Where is here?”

He paused, steeling himself. She was either going to think him very stupid, or uncharacteristically perceptive.

“I think I’m in the gravity dimension.”

She shook her head.

“That’s not possible,” she said.

Stupid it is then, he thought glumly.

“The gravity dimension is unidimensional. Matter can’t exist in one dimension,” she said in the same voice she used when he was being particularly incompetent in a simulation.

“Well, how else do you explain the zero gravity and my size? You said the gravity dimension was small, right?”

“It just isn’t possible,” she said, her voice much more uncertain now. “Tell me what you see.”

Ron looked around the chariot, frowning.

“Everything looks the same as before the test, except very little light is entering through the aft window. I’m only able to see you after cranking up the brightness of the monitor.”

She hadn’t taken her eyes from him until he mentioned his ability to see her. With the hand that wasn’t holding the phone, she self-consciously smoothed her hair flat and wiped away the moisture from her cheeks.

“And there’s no gravity?”

“None. The aft-engine isn’t even powered up. I can move around a bit if I feed some power into the fore-engine.”

She was closer now, her arm lifting slightly as if to cup the chariot in her hand.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said hastily, and her hand stilled in the air. “I tried to phase through a door earlier and ended up boring a hole right through it.”

She lowered her hand and took a step back, still visibly shaken.

“I can’t believe you’re alive. I thought I…”

“You couldn’t have foreseen this,” he said.

She let out a long breath.

“I have to tell the others.”

She made for the door, and he wheeled the chariot around to follow her.

The observation room was empty.

“I saw most of them being carried off on stretchers,” Ron said when he had caught up to her. She stared at the destruction before her as she gingerly touched the rosy welt on her forehead.

“It was supposed to be a simple test,” she said, numbly. She visibly shook away her thoughts and leaned over the window frame to peer into the hanger below. A few techs in lab coats were cleaning up the area.

She called one by name.

The young tech, Steven, glanced up at her and then jogged over to the stairs to make his ascent.

Steven stopped just inside the door, his chin dropping as his eyes locked on the glowing point of light hovering before him. Ron silently berated himself for not cutting the lights. It was too late for that, he supposed. He dimmed and brightened the floodlight several times in quick succession.

“Dr. Kessler? You uhh… you have a fairy hovering over your shoulder.”

She smiled.

“That would be Ron,” she said.

Great, he thought. If he made it out of this alive, he would never live down the fairy jokes.

“I was saying ‘hello’ in Morse code,” Ron said.

Ignoring him, she waved the tech over and pointed at one of the monitors. He approached warily.

“Get this powered up and keep an eye on his telemetry data. If we lose contact, I need to know where to find him.” She then pressed her finger against a piece of paper taped to the wall beside the monitor. It contained a long list of names and numbers. “And I want you to call all of these people and tell them to get here as soon as possible.”

The tech blanched as he stared at the names of NASA’s Chief Scientist, Engineer, the Deputy Administrator, and no less than three four-star generals.

Laura left the tech to his unenviable task, taking the stairs down to the hanger floor.

Ron met her down in the hanger, gliding over the window frame and descending. The remaining techs in the room caught sight of him and gawked, many of them backing away until their backs were against a wall, or they stumbled and fell.

Laura surveyed the remnants of the broken window on the hanger floor. A moment later, she looked around for him and, seeing him, approached.

“You said it was an implosion and I think you’re right. If you suddenly shrank to the nanometer scale, all the air you displaced would have rushed in to fill the void. But it’s impossible to shrink matter to that scale without causing a thermonuclear event. I think your apparent size is just an illusion. You are simply staring out of a very small hole in space. But I still don’t see how matter can exist in the gravitational dimension, not unless…” She frowned. “Not unless you somehow pulled our own three dimensions in there with you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Ron, I think we’ve created a singularity.”

Ron swallowed.

“I thought singularities compressed matter.”

“That’s just it,” she said. “We don’t know how singularities work or if they exist at all. Do you know what this means? We may finally know what happens at the center of black holes. Matter isn’t compacted into an infinitely small space, it gets forced into another dimension. This is groundbreaking.”

“But how did it happen to me?”

“When you powered up the aft-engine, it gathered the ambient gravitational dimensions like it was supposed to, but we’ve never moved something so heavy, so when we tried, it put so much pressure on the weakened fabric of space that it folded inward, collapsing into another dimension.”

A smile tugged at one corner of her lips, and she shook her head in wonderment. The techs in the room had gotten over their fear of the hovering orb of light and were now nodding to each other in understanding. Ron pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I’m so glad this amuses you. Can we get to the part where you tell me your genius rescue plan?”

“Have you gone outside?”

Ron snorted, but her expression remained serious.

“I don’t have my EVA suit yet, I was only just measured.”

“You aren’t in space, Ron. You said it yourself, when you tried to go through a door, you put a hole through it. That means matter can still travel from one side to the other, so there’s nothing to stop air.”

Ron hadn’t considered that.

“Are you saying I could jump out the airlock and reappear in the hanger?”

She cringed.

“You should test it first. Light and air might be able to move freely, but anything larger? Let’s just say I don’t want to see what happens if you try to squeeze through a nanometer sized hole. Try throwing something out the airlock.”

Ron rarely heard uncertainty from her, which didn’t bode well for the plan. He turned the lights on in the cockpit and unbuckled himself from the pilot seat.

He hadn’t been in the airlock since moments after he lost communication with Control. The room reeked of vomit, and the bag containing the mess still floated around the empty room.

Through the window, he saw the dark expanse that had greeted him earlier. Now that he knew he wasn’t in space, he saw the truth in the darkness. If he let his eyes adjust, he could just make out the plane of the floor and ceiling of the hanger, the latter crisscrossed with rafters and long, fluorescent lights.

“Ron? Are you still with me?”

He shook himself, realizing he’d been drifting there for a long, silent minute.

“Yeah. I’m getting ready to open the door and toss something out. You might want to tell the others to evacuate the room. I don’t want to peg someone.”

He heard her telling others to gather in the observation deck and make themselves useful there.

He took a deep breath and tapped the control panel beside the door. The touchscreen display came to life. Sure enough, it reported normal atmospheric pressure on the other side of the airlock. Ron tapped the green button and a series of metal gears whirred inside the round door, terminating with a soft click. He braced one hand on the frame of the door, and then twisted and pulled on the handle. The door eased open without incident, and he released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

He gripped the handles just inside the door to keep from drifting out into the empty void. He looked around for something he could throw, but the techs had removed all loose items from the chariot to prevent them from floating around in zero gravity. So instead, he grabbed the closest thing to hand and lobbed it out the airlock.

“Alright, here it comes,” he said.

The object tumbled end over end until it encountered something about twenty feet away and disappeared in a bright flash.

Laura cursed.

“Are you alright?” Ron pushed off the frame of the door and twisted around in midair to fly back to his seat. Not bothering to buckle himself in, he turned the chariot around to get a panoramic view of the room. “What happened?”

In the far corner, spattered against the concrete wall, was a smear of gore.

Laura jogged over from her shelter inside the hanger door to get a closer look.

Halfway there, she visibly recoiled and held the back of her hand to her nose.

“What’s that smell?”

“Chicken parmesan,” Ron said guiltily.

She stared uncomprehendingly at the point in space he occupied. When realization hit her, she visibly gagged then took two quick steps away from the mess.

“Why the hell would you throw that?”

“It was the only thing I could find.”

“Oh my god,” she said, making a chocking sound. “It’s on fire.”

Some of the shredded paper from the vomit bag was smoking and sputtering with flame.

Ron winced. That couldn’t smell good.

She ran for the large double doors that comprised a large section of the far wall. A small door was set into one of these larger doors, and she pushed through.

The grounds outside were wet from a recent rain, but just beyond the darkened pavement of the runway, a field of grass glittered with raindrops in the light of the setting sun. The grass continued into a large field that descended a low slope to a small reservoir. Even the dim facsimile of the scene through his monitor did nothing to diminish its beauty.

When he met her outside, she was coughing. He waited to speak until she once again held her cellphone to her ear.

“What now?”

Laura squeezed her eyes shut as she rubbed her temple.

“I don’t know. I’ve never dealt with anything like this before. The science just isn’t known. We may have to wait for the rest of the team to arrive.”

Ron grimaced. He wasn’t looking forward to days of waiting. He could be dead from thirst by the time they finished with their meetings.

Laura was no longer observing her surroundings. A wrinkle had appeared between her eyes and her gaze was unfocused.

“This is my fault,” she said, so softly that he had to adjust the volume. “I told you to bring the aft-engine to full.”

“If you hadn’t, I would have crashed into the floor, and caused millions of dollars in damage to the chariot.”

“But you would still be here.”

Ron blinked. Did she just imply she cared more for him than the chariot?

“I’ll let you make it up to me. Buy me a drink after you get me out of here.”

A smile touched her mouth and she pointedly avoided looking at him. After a long, silent moment, the smile faded.

“A drink…” she said, the word trailing off as if she found far more meaning in it than he entirely intended. “That’s it.”

“I don’t follow,” he said, but her feet were already in motion, and a determined glint shone in her eye.

She jogged down the gentle slope, her lab coat billowing out behind her.

When she stopped near the bottom, she held out a hand.

“Your drink,” she said triumphantly.

Just beyond a lip of concrete, was the massive reservoir, murky and slightly green with algae.

“I was thinking of something pint-sized.”

She looked around until she spotted him trailing behind her.

“If that bag had truly squeezed through a nanometer sized hole, it would have been unrecognizable,” she said, then grimaced. “Well, at least more recognizable than it was after going through your big mouth. The hole must have widened a bit to allow the matter out.”

“So you can send me water?” he said, understanding. “If it widens, you’ll be able to get me more than just a drop at a time.”

“There is that, I suppose, but I was thinking of getting you out of there instead. If we fill your little balloon until all of the matter wants out. The hole should expand in all directions until the entire chariot emerges.”

“That’s it?” he asked. His despondency evaporated.

“It’s something, right? Something worth testing?”

She wasn’t confident in her plan, he could see that, but for having just discovered trans-dimensional travel, she knew more than anyone else. He trusted her.

Ron steered the chariot over the calm water until he hovered right above it. Orange clouds floated on blue sky in the reflection of the water.

“In the Navy, they teach you not to fly the aircraft into the water,” he groused. “Here goes nothing.”

He plunged down into the murky depths.

The monitors went dark and he cranked up the brightness of the floodlights.

Ron’s mouth fell open at the sight that greeted him.

Rotifers with maws of bristling cilia sucked in swarms of darting algae. The algae were everywhere and seemed to converge on him, their long flagella whipping back and forth. Studying them closer, he realized they weren’t drawn to his light, but being pulled in by a rapidly growing current.

“I think it’s working, but it’ll take forever at this rate.”

“Move deeper. The water pressure should push the water in faster.”

He did and then looked around the cockpit as if expecting the hull to buckle under the pressure. The chariot always felt like an aircraft’s cockpit to him, but now he couldn’t shake the image of the bridge of a submarine.

Even as he watched, the algae flickered out of existence, sucked into the expanding dimensional rift. As it grew, so did his field of view. Soon, the algae were little more than specks flying toward him, moving too quickly for his eyes to follow.

“You closed the airlock, right?”

Ron cursed and leapt from his seat. Rocketing back to the airlock, he caught himself on the frame of the door.

The darkness outside was not nearly so pervasive. The flood lights on the front of the ship illuminated a thick fog. Small patches of water pooled on the side of the ship in the zero gravity, condensing along its cool spherical surface. As he watched, the puddles grew, merging into one another until the hull shimmered under the eerie glow of the fog.

Then rain began to fall, though falling wasn’t accurate. Rain converged on him. When he stuck his hand out the airlock, rain pelted it from every direction. In the zero gravity, it clung to his spread fingers like an alien, gelatinous mass, slightly green with algae.

He stared in fascination until a glob of the stuff hit his face and resisted several attempts to wipe it away. A chill crept over his skin and he blinked away visions of drowning in a helmet made entirely of clingy water. He wiped his hands on his jumpsuit and closed the door of the airlock.

“I’d like to formally change my call sign,” he said, voice raising in pitch.

“To what?”

“Icarus,” he said as he looped a strap of the harness over his shoulder.

“The guy whose wings melted after flying to close to the sun? Is this some kind of philosophical nonsense about falling short of the Helios chariot?”

“No. It’s because he fell into the sea after his wings melted and drowned.”

“Pessimism? From you?” She said, sounding genuinely surprised.

“I’ve tried all sorts of new things today: trans-dimensional travel, trying to stomach zero gravity, asking you out for a drink. Why not pessimism?”

It was quiet, even the drumming of water on the hull of the chariot trailed off into the heavy silence.

“Ron, I…”

The lights of the cockpit dimmed momentarily. His eyes flicked to the data monitor and saw an alert flashing in large, red letters. The communications relay was down. In hindsight, he wasn’t surprised. Those delicate electronics were on the outside of the ship. They were shielded from wind, the vacuum of space, and perhaps a little rain, but they were not made to be submerged.

Water enveloped the camera, and the shallow rivulets warped the view of outside. Then a flurry of bubbles appeared. The water was flowing in even faster.

A peculiar sensation started in the pit of his stomach, and then his whole world fell out from beneath him. He was whipped back and forth in his seat until the loop of the unfastened harness slipped from his shoulder and he fell forward. When his world stopped moving, he was lying on the floor of the cockpit.

Gravity had returned.

Dizzily, he rose to his feet and stumbled over to the airlock. It was just as dark outside the small window as it had been when he first entered the gravity dimension, but this darkness was murky and oppressive. He pressed his nose to the window and peered around. The shimmering surface of the reservoir was nearly thirty feet above him. He was back.

It was too much to hope the chariot was buoyant.

He could wait for rescue, but it was just a matter of time before the water shorted another critical system. Flying out of here was as dangerous as waiting. He did not want to return to that other dimension.

He turned and closed the inner airlock door, trapping himself in the small room. The pressure of the water beyond the door made opening the airlock difficult. It took several minutes at the control panel to override the safeguards.

He kicked off his boots and unzipped his jumpsuit, dropping it to the floor. As an officer in the Navy, he was no stranger to frigid waters or great depths. He planned to ease the door open and let the airlock fill with water, then swim to the surface.

The moment he turned the lever, however, the force of the door opening sent him careening into the back of the airlock. His head struck the unyielding metal and a white light filled his vision.

The next thing he knew, he was coughing up water and shivering on a bed of soft grass. When he heaved out the last of the water in his lungs, he sucked in air that tasted of fresh-cut grass and the crisp air that follows a spring rain.

He blinked and was greeted by a pair of bright blue eyes. Laura had pulled him from the water. She had brought him back.

“Champagne,” he wheezed, when he caught his breath.

She let out a small laugh and sniffled. Her cold, trembling fingers came to rest on his cheek, and beads of water dripped from tendrils of her dark, wet hair.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll buy you that drink.”

He shook his head.

“It’s bad luck to skip a christening.”

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading “Icarus Drowned.” If you have any thoughts about the story or questions about the science, please leave a comment below or send me a message. Remember to follow me on twitter @PhilipKramer9.

Until next time, write well and science hard!

Want – A Horror Short Story

April 2, 2018 / pakramer / 1 Comment

Author’s note.

I seldom write or read horror, but several years ago I was given the opportunity to write a horror short story for an Anthology, Off-Kilter 2, put together by my old writers’ group (I miss you guys!). I’m sure you’ll note the various opportunities I took to inject a bit of science into it.

This being horror, I must preface this story by saying there is some adult content! That said, I do not condone or wish to make light of any of the violence or suggested violence in this story. This story is about self-control, a defining attribute of our humanity, and what might happen if a virus stripped that away.

Want

By Philip A. Kramer

She breathed. It was all she could do. The cold made every breath ache within her chest and each exhalation appear before her as a frosty white plume against the black night.

It was too dark for him to see her, she was sure of it, but if he came any closer to the thicket of bushes she hid within, he might catch her scent or hear the rattling of her breath as her body sucked it in.

Rebeca did not know where the two men had come from, but they had seen her within the ransacked mall, rooting through the remains of trampled clothes for something to her liking. She didn’t hear them enter the department store until she saw one of them staring at her as she tugged a blouse over her head.

They stared at her for only an instant before their eyes glazed over with that look of desperate lust she had come to fear. Had she her baseball bat handy, she would have taken it to their heads then and there, but her pack lay against an empty shoe rack a dozen feet away. So she did the only thing she could do, she bolted and could hear them stumbling after her a moment later.

She had outrun one of them, a blonde man with a hobbled gait. As she had emerged from an alley, though, the second man had seen her and given chase.

Now here she was, a mile into the back woods of some small town, hiding within the dense brush with no jacket or weapon to speak of. Rebeca looked down at the orange blouse she wore, her only barrier to the cold, and wished she had had the sense to find something that would serve as better camouflage.

It was impossible to tell an infected from a looter in a town like this, both were just trying to survive, but where most looters avoided one another, once an infected saw you, you were only safe if you carried nothing they wanted.

She was seventeen when the hoarding first began, a long-legged, lanky thing who perpetually wore a baseball cap and the jersey of her high school team. As soon as news of the muggings, abductions, and burglaries hit the news, her family packed their bags and drove to the family vacation home in the mountains of North Carolina. Her uncle had arrived a week later and it didn’t take long for them to notice his strange behavior.

It started with the disappearance of their meager food stores, which had later turned up in her uncle’s room. Then other things began to disappear: her mother’s jewelry, her father’s watch. Then the sickness took him fully, and he began to take anything and everything he saw that he wanted. A look would overcome him, a lustful expression at the sight of the glimmering silverware, the feel of a scarf.

He could not contain himself, none of the infected could. The sickness stole all self-control, overwhelming them with an irresistible urge to possess anything they desired. The feeling would only leave them the moment they hid the item away in a place they considered safe, a hoard, as she’d begun to call them. That long ago life ended the moment he saw her mother, his sister-in-law, and tried to take her.

Her mother had always been a beautiful woman, and when the virus ran rampant through her uncle’s brain, he could no longer resist having her.

Rebeca still remembered her mother’s screams and the sound of her father bashing at the door to her uncle’s room with her baseball bat.

Her mother and uncle died that day, the latter bludgeoned to death by her vengeful father. Her father was never the same after the incident. For days, he wept, leaving her to fend for herself. She knew something was wrong when he began to steal the food she made, taking it and the silverware to his room. He never ate all of the food, but left it to rot under the bed. He would become angry and frantic when she tried to clean it up. Later, he would apologize, not knowing what had come over him. She knew. She had seen that lustful gaze before, the involuntary dilation of the pupils accompanied by a sharp indrawn breath.

He was infected too.

She had to leave then, not because she feared him, but because she knew it would destroy him entirely if harm came to her by his hand. If Rebeca ever came between him and something he wanted, he would only discover that he had hurt her when he regained control of himself.

The men that pursued her were different; they wanted her.

She glanced down at the blouse she wore. She could take it off, bury it to keep her invisible, but taking clothes off was the last way to avoid a hoarder taken by lust. She was no longer the same lanky girl of her youth, she had grown, matured, and like her mother, she was pretty. She knew better than to drop her unflattering disguise, to wash the mud from her face, unbind her breasts, and put on something pretty for a change. Just this once, she had told herself. Idiot.

A shuffling pair of feet plowed through the blanket of dry autumn leaves just beside the brush in which she hid. She clamped her hand over her mouth, biting her finger in order to stifle the scream that threatened to emerge. Her mouth was flooded with the taste of moss, dirt, and blood.

She hoped the man would move past her, but the rustling of disturbed leaves stopped. Through the foliage, she could make out his wide eyes and the wolf-like flare of his nostrils.

He stepped closer.

Just as she considered bounding out of the bush to begin her run anew, a second pair of feet came hurdling into view. That would be the second hoarder, she thought, but as she stared at the black and white, mud-caked sneakers, she knew they were too small to fit a grown man’s feet, and this hoarder didn’t hobble.

The first hoarder whirled to face the newcomer and an unintelligible growl issued from his throat.

“Say cheese!”

A sizzling sound preceded a blinding flash and a deafening howl of pain. The hoarder stumbled back, his thick boot landing mere inches from Rebeca’s hiding place.

Whimpering, the hoarder fled.

Rebeca blinked away the image of branches and twigs that had burned into her retina. She made to run, but the person she saw as she scrambled to her feet was no hoarder at all. A girl, a young teenager at most, stood a few yards from her, her black hair cut short, ending at a straight line at her jaw. She wore a pair of goggles, shaded black such that her eyes looked like two large gaping holes. She held the casing of a utility light aloft like a lantern, and smoke rose up from the empty wire cage.

“Magnesium powder,” the girl said, pushing back her goggles to reveal a set of light blue eyes. “Scares the shit out of ‘em.”

Rebeca blinked, several warped lines obscuring her line of sight.

“Your vision will come back soon, unless you looked directly at it,” she said as Rebeca continued to blink. “You didn’t, did you?”

Rebeca shook her head, still uncertain what to do. Her instinct told her to run; avoiding contact with people was her one and only rule, but the girl standing before her looked so harmless, without so much as a gun or knife for protection.

“Who are you?” She said. The sound of her own voice was strange to her. How long had it been since she had spoken with someone?

“Tam,” she said, shaking the glowing ashes of the magnesium from the casing and onto the ground. She extended an arm.

Rebeca didn’t take her hand, instead looking around her for any evidence that the hoarder was still near.

“He won’t be coming back,” Tam said as if to assuage her fears.

“There was another one too,” Rebeca said. After a minute of listening, but hearing nothing, she returned her gaze to the girl.

“What are you doing out here all by yourself?”

“I’m not by myself. I have my grandpa with me.”

Rebeca looked around once more.

“Not here. About a mile back at our camp.” The girl looked her up and down while idly flicking a lighter open and closed. “Why don’t you come on back with me, you look terrible.”

Rebeca was quiet for a time, considering her options.

“I should be going. I need to go back for my things before someone takes them.”

“In the dark, half-frozen, weaponless, and with a hoarder still out there somewhere? You are either very brave or very stupid.”

Rebeca bristled, but found herself rubbing her cold arms and conceding the point. It was stupid.

“Have it your way.” Tam continued when Rebeca failed to respond. The girl hooked the utility light to her belt and began to turn away. “If you change your mind, we have food.”

“Wait,” she calling out to her. “Food?”

Food was, in truth, the one thing that had driven her to the mall in the first place. All she had managed to come up with were some saltine crackers and some ketchup packets. She had consumed them shamelessly.

The girl nodded.

Rebeca breathed in relief. She could always return to the mall tomorrow to collect her things, and by then the remaining hoarder would have forgotten about her.

Tam set off into the dark woods, and Rebeca mustered enough courage to follow. The sudden flicker, flare, and then quenching of the flame from the girl’s lighter gave her the impression she was following a firefly.

As she trailed behind the girl, she longed for the feel of her wooden bat in her hand and her thick jacket around her shoulders.

“How did you find me?” She said to fill the unnerving silence.

“I was scouting the perimeter of our camp when I saw the hoarder. I thought he was on his way to his hoard so I followed him. You can find some useful things there.”

Rebeca knew the truth of that. Some of the more successful hoarders had squirreled away more food than they could ever possibly eat, while others had mounds of jewelry that would put a pirate’s hidden treasure to shame. Half the items in her pack she had found in such hoards. They were not always easy to find, and it was dangerous to be caught looting through one by its owner.

“What were you doing in the town in the first place?” Tam asked in a tone that suggested she already knew the answer or just didn’t care.

“Looking for some food and clothes. I didn’t think anyone would be there. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen anyone.”

“I guess you haven’t been to the right places. Pops and I were in a town two weeks ago and there were hundreds of people milling around.”

Rebeca’s eyes widened.

“Aren’t they afraid of being infected?”

The girl snorted.

“I take it you haven’t heard. The virus is gone. People are coming together again.”

This was news to her.

“That can’t be right, I see infected all the time.”

“No, you misunderstand. The virus is gone. Eventually when the population thinned enough, and people learned to avoid each other, the virus just petered out. The brain cells it infected though, the ones that control impulses, those stay dead forever. My grandpa was a professor, so he can explain it better than I can.”

Rebeca stared at the passing ground ahead, her thoughts as scattered as the fallen leaves. Hope filled her for the first time in years, hope that life could return to normal. But no, the girl said it herself, the infected could never return to normal. She could never return home to her father.

The silence extended around them like the darkness as they walked. After what felt like hours, a dim glow appeared in the distance.

As they approached, Rebeca identified the source of light as a well-kindled campfire. A grey-haired man sat next to the campfire on a mushroom-laden log. He seemed to value the warmth of the fire more than the illumination it gave. A thick piece of cloth encircled his head, obscuring his eyes. They were well within the circle of the light provided by the fire before the man registered their arrival. He stumbled to his feet and brandished a walking cane.

Rebeca did not feel the wariness that typically came over her when she met new people. Her sense of ease might have been the man’s age, but more likely, it was his blindness. She was invisible to him.

“It’s alright, Pops. It’s me.”

Tam’s words did little to pacify him. He hefted his cane higher and motioned in Rebeca’s general direction.

“There’s someone else with you,” he said, his voice was grating and weary, like the shuffle of feet over gravel.

Rebeca stopped short of the fire and the wavering point of the cane and glanced at Tam with uncertainty.

After a moment, it became apparent that the girl did not intend to introduce her, but then, Rebeca had never given her a name.

“I’m Rebeca,” she began, watching as the man’s blindfolded head swiveled toward her. “Tam rescued me from a hoarder.”

Slowly, the point of the cane lowered to the ground. The old man chewed his lower lip as if considering whether his granddaughter’s deed was noble or reckless.

“That’s why you took so long?” He asked, the question directed at Tam.

The girl had dropped her gear beside the fire and was rifling through another pack that lay against a squat tent.

“It wasn’t that long. I was hoping to follow him back to his hoard, but he was just after her.”

The old man sputtered. “I have told you time and time again not to be snooping though hoards. It’s dangerous. What if he’d caught you? You can’t expect an old man like me to rescue you.”

“I had my mag charges,” she said in a resigned voice that suggested she had indeed heard this many times before.

“Which aren’t easy to light in a hurry. What if you didn’t get your goggles in place? You don’t want to end up like me do you?” He said, gesturing to his eyes. “And how do you know this girl isn’t one of them, and won’t get all crazy-eyed the moment she lays eyes on our food?”

Rebeca took a step back to stay out of reach of the cane, which swung back and forth with the man’s every gesture. Tam had retrieved a pot and several cans of food from her pack and returned to the fire. Tam gave her a suffering glance and rolled her eyes.

“She’s seen our food, Pops. I think we’re safe.”

Had Tam been aware of the surge of longing Rebeca felt at the sight of the food she might have reconsidered her stance. Rebeca found her hand pressed against her stomach in a futile attempt to stifle its growling.

“And if she’s drawn to my alluring figure?” the old man said with an odd sway to his hips. He leaned in Rebeca’s direction. “I wouldn’t blame you, dear; Tam’s had to fend off hundreds of hoarders from me.”

Rebeca coughed and felt blood rush to her cheeks. He had to be kidding. The man’s long white hair fell over the edges of his blindfold in a dirty mass, and his clothes were hardly more than rags covering his twig-like arms and legs. She did recognize smile lines among the countless crags of his aged face. Her mother had had those lines.

Tam mimed putting a finger down her throat.

“I…I think I can resist.”

“Hmmmm,” he said, his expression doubtful.

Tam stabbed a knife into the lid of one unlabeled can and began to saw it open. The brown sauce that clung to the knife from the can’s mysterious contents made Rebeca’s mouth water.

“Then let’s eat,” The man proclaimed, throwing his hands into the air.

Rebeca flinched at the sudden sound but breathed deeply to calm herself. If society was reforming, she had better start getting used to people again.

Tam and the old man sat beside the fire, but even as Rebeca joined them, she felt unsettled, knowing that at any moment the second hoarder could materialize from the blackness and grab her.

Tam upended the can over the pot and a thick gravy drizzled out, carrying with it lumps of potato and chunks of meat. She placed the pot into the center of the fire, casting a swarm of sparks into the air.

Temporarily, the nervousness twisting in Rebeca’s stomach gave way to hungry anticipation.

“Where did you get the food?”

“Traded for it at the last settlement we traveled through,” Tam said, her mouth forming into a frown.

“Why didn’t you stay? At the settlement, I mean.”

The old man shifted uncomfortably on the log.

“They weren’t very nice,” Tam explained. “They said everyone who stayed had to work.”

“I can work just fine,” the old man grumbled. “I built this fire without anybody holding my hand.” She could not see his eyes, but it was hard to miss the anger in the set of his mouth.

“And he’s brilliant,” Tam said. “Aren’t you, Pops?”

That devious smile returned.

“I’ve been known to dabble at the brink of genius,” he said, shrugging one shoulder.

Rebeca raised an eyebrow.

“Tam said you were a professor once?” She said around a mouthful of bread.

“He was,” Tam said. “He was the one to come up with the magnesium powder. We’ve been raiding chemistry labs for the stuff ever since.”

“Why not use a gun like everyone else?” Rebeca asked.

“Because a single mag charge can take out a whole crowd of hoarders, leave them stumbling around blindly,” Tam said. “The infected can’t want what they can’t see.”

“Guns,” the old man interjected. “They put you in danger as much as keep you safe. These days everyone wants guns or ammo, so if a hoarder sees it on you, they’ll come after you, heedless of injury. I guess it has its own dangers though, he said, gesturing to his blindfold. Didn’t get my goggles on fast enough. On the bright side, no pun intended, we have loads of the stuff and nobody wants metal shavings.”

Rebeca nodded. “I use a bat. Most hoarders won’t fight you for a bat.”

“Smart girl,” the old man said, tapping his temple with a crooked finger.

Tam declared the stew finished a few minutes later and handed Rebeca a small bowl and a bent metal spoon. She burned her tongue on the first bite and forced herself to slow down despite the blissful taste. It sure beat saltine crackers and ketchup.

She finished her food long before they did and sat in silence while they ate.

She felt exposed in the light of the campfire. At first, she was contented by the dozen yards of illumination in every direction, but as the fire dwindled, the constricting black dome of darkness came nearer. She imagined a hand reaching out from that dark shroud to grasp her. The sounds of leaves rustling in the wind and bare branches rattling against each other heightened her unease.

She asked if they had a spare tarp and, after a moment of sniffing the air, the old man declared it wouldn’t rain and told Tam to gather the rain tarp.

Sitting beside the fire, Rebeca wove the strings of the rain tarp into a single cord on either end. It was no great substitute for her old hammock, but it would serve. She glanced into the trees for a perch.

Tam was picking something out of her teeth when she followed Rebeca’s gaze.

“You’re gonna sleep up there?”

“I haven’t slept on the ground in years. You would be surprised how few people look up,” Rebeca replied, smirking at the incredulousness on the girls face. She preferred trees for the cover they offered, but found streetlamps and billboards equally effective when no forest was near.

“I don’t think Pops would enjoy it.”

“I can be spry when I want to be.” He demonstrated this by leaning back on his log and clicking his heels together.

Rebeca smiled and stood, then stepped close to a promising tree near the tent.

She stared up the trunk for a few moments, judging how well she’d be able to scale it.

With the fire behind her, she felt the chill seeping in through her shirt. She rubbed her arms.

Tam stood and withdrew a sweatshirt from her pack. She held it out to Rebeca who took it with uncertainty. It was a grey sweater, tattered at the cuffs, but clean.

“Keep it,” she said.

“You two have been kind enough already. I can’t accept it.”

Tam bit the inside of her lip and glanced at Rebeca’s thin blouse.

“Trade then.”

Rebeca looked down to the orange blouse smeared with dirt. A sweatshirt was infinitely more valuable to her with winter approaching than a gossamer thin blouse. She could not deny she needed it, even just for the night.

Rebeca nodded and set down the rain tarp. She glanced at the blind old man. Content that he was well and truly blind, Rebeca lifted her shirt over her head and shivered as the cold air met her skin.

“That’s why they were after you?” Tam asked, her hand raised to her chest. Apprehension clouded her eyes.

“Bind them,” Rebecca whispered. “When they start to fill in, bind them tightly with cloth. It’ll help you go unnoticed.”

Tam gulped and nodded.

Rebeca handed her the blouse and pulled the sweatshirt on over her head.

Tam absently rubbed a bit of dirt from the blouse.

“You can stay with us if you want.”

Rebeca paused, her hand on the rough bark of the tree.

“I…I don’t know. Avoiding people has kept me alive so far. I don’t think I know how to be around people anymore.”

Tam looked to the ground.

“It’d be nice to have another girl around,” she said softly. “Pops is great, but he doesn’t understand the stuff I’m going through.”

“What about your parents?”

“They got infected a few years back. We tried to keep them away from any triggers, but eventually they both saw something they wanted and, well… you’ve probably seen what happens when two hoarders fight over something.”

Rebeca cringed. What could she say to that? Sorry your parents tore each other apart over a can of baked beans? She opted for changing the subject.

“I will think about it.”

Tam shrugged one shoulder and wiped her sleeve across her nose.

“Yeah, alright.”

She bent to sit on the ground next to her pack and began to scrape the plates and pot clean with a spoon.

With years of practice, Rebeca scaled the tree nimbly, her fingers clinging to every knot and branch for purchase. When she reached a height of about twenty feet, she lifted her leg over a branch and sat for the space of time it took to tie the cord of the rain tarp. She scooted down a few feet to tie the opposite end of the tarp to the branch before testing it with half and then all of her weight. It held. Rebeca climbed into the makeshift hammock.

The branch above her bisected the star-strewn sky. Beyond it, countless other branches swayed like searching fingers trying to snuff out the flickering stars.

The tarp was cold, but after a few minutes, warmth slowly stole over her with the aid of the sweater and the fire below. Weariness weighted her eyelids, and she drifted off into sleep to the sounds of the old man humming a soft tune. She had nearly died earlier in the day, but now, for the first time in years, she felt safe. Maybe, just maybe, she would stay with them.

* * *

When she woke, it was not to the sight of sunlight creeping through the trees, but to the sound of leaves scattering before shuffling feet.

It was still dark.

Her fatigue forgotten, she strained to listen. Surely it was the old man going in search of a place to relieve himself. Despite her own reassurances, she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she knew. She sat up and surveyed the campsite.

The red embers of the fire gave an eerie red cast to the trees and the tent beneath her.

It was not until the sound of disturbed leaves began again that she saw who’d caused it. The man was not old and blindfolded, but had youthful pale skin and sandy blonde hair. His gait was disturbingly familiar; the gait of man with one leg slightly longer than the other. It was the second hoarder from the mall. A red gash was centered on his forehead, probably dealt to him by the other hoarder as they pursued the same quarry.

Rebeca stared wide-eyed as the man continued toward the tent. He was still in a lustful trance. She knew this even without seeing his eyes. It was in the way that he bent at the knee as if ready to pounce, and most tellingly, in the eager expression he wore now that the object of his desire was so near.

It would be fine, she thought. He would see that she was not there and move on. He could not see her up in the trees.

The world became silent except for the pounding of her blood in her ears.

The hoarder stood with his head cocked as he looked at the tent, his face illumined by the pale red glow of embers from the fire.

He stiffened as the sound of movement within the tent and then took a step forward as the tent flap was pushed open.

He lunged, and Tam screamed.

Rebeca nearly fell from her hammock as she bolted up, barely keeping her hold on the branch above her.

The old man began to curse and shout.

Rebeca saw the hoarder emerge from the small tent, dragging Tam out by a leg. The girl flailed her arms in all directions, reaching for anything that would give her purchase. She caught the corner of the tent and it buckled as the support rods yanked free of the ground. The old man thrashed beneath the canvas as he sought the tent opening.

Tam wore her orange blouse.

“Tam!” she shouted. She leapt from the hammock to the trunk of the tree, her feet and fingers biting into the bark to slow her decent as she slid down the trunk. The bark scraped her hands raw and tore through her jeans and into the flesh of her inner thighs.

She fell the last few feet to the ground, and her legs collapsed beneath her.

“Tam!” she yelled again the moment she pulled in enough air.

The girl’s screams continued in the distance, beyond the fringes of the embers’ glow.

The old man nearly tripped over her as he finally escaped the folds of the tent, his cries cutting through her like a knife.

This was her fault. She had brought the hoarder here, and the man had mistaken Tam for his real prey, who’d once worn the same orange blouse.

Rebeca came to her feet and searched for her bat before remembering she’d left it at the mall.

“We have to find her!” The old man barked in her direction.

Rebeca tore into a pack and found the utility light casing and several cotton sacks filled with what felt like sand. Magnesium powder. The old man continued to scream helplessly into the trees.

“Shut up and hold this,” Rebeca told him, shoving the magnesium and utility light into his chest. He stumbled back, clutching the items in quivering fingers. Do you have any other weapons,” she asked, even as she came to the bottom of the pack.

“No,” he said in a distraught voice that rasped out of his raw throat.

Growling incomprehensibly, Rebeca found the lighter by the fire and gave it to the old man.

“You’ll help me find her?” he asked, sounding hopeful.

“He’s probably taking her to his hoard. He won’t do anything to her until they get there. We have to catch them.” What would become of her if they didn’t? She was just a kid.

“What’s your plan?” The man asked.

“You should just stay here,” she said, thinking furiously. The last thing Rebeca needed was to babysit this blind man the whole way. “You won’t be able to keep up with me.”

The old man sputtered in disbelief.

“Right, and you’re going to light the magnesium yourself?”

Rebecca was about to take the magnesium and lighter from the man’s hands but this brought her up short. She didn’t have goggles on her and if she did it incorrectly she would be just as blind and helpless as this old man.

“I can find another weapon,” she said with a bit of uncertainty.

“No time for that, they are getting away,” he said, his voice dropping to a growl. “Lead the way and I will follow. I won’t slow you down.”

“Fine,” she said, dashing off in the direction she had seen Tam disappear. The old man, to her surprise, stumbled after her.

Tam had left deep gouges in the dirt where she had been pulled by her attacker, her struggle not ceasing for several hundred yards. After that, the hoarder’s footprints become deeper where he must have lifted her from the ground.

Rebeca slowed her pace to ensure she did not veer from course, and the delay made her grind her teeth in frustration. The man said nothing, but she could tell that he wanted to.

They proceeded at the slow pace for what felt like an hour. They had gone at least a mile before she saw a glint of moonlight against something in the distance. She stopped and the old man ran into the back of her.

“Quiet,” she hissed.

He settled to the ground on his knees and pulled the bag of magnesium powder from his pocket. He stuffed the sack in the base of the utility light fixture and held it aloft, lighter at the ready.

Maybe he would be useful to have around after all, Rebeca thought as she crouched beside him.

She searched the area again and saw what had reflected the moonlight. It appeared to be a metal serving tray, its mirror like quality interrupted by some filigree and a handle. On further inspection, the tray rest on a heap of other objects. Sacs and shopping carts of every shape and size were filled to the brim with clothes, bottles, and cans.

It was the hoard, but there was no sign of the hoarder or Tam.

Rebeca leaned closer to the old man and outlined her plan. She would circle the hoard and locate Tam. She would then distract the Hoarder and lead him back into the open where the old man would blind him. The plan felt wrong to her, and it took a moment to realize why. It was a plan that required her to rely on someone else. She was not accustomed to placing her trust in anyone.

She left his side and darted from tree to tree for cover.

She didn’t fully appreciate the size of the hoard until she narrowly avoided stepping on a bag of instant noodles. She peered around the tree and saw that she stood on the edge of a massive mound of loot. This hoarder had been active since the beginning, she realized. That was the only way he could have amassed such a wealth. Hundreds of unopened cans and bags of food stood nearby and Rebeca began to reassess the plan. They would save Tam of course, but if they took out the hoarder, they could keep it all to themselves.

The moment of distraction was nearly her undoing as the sound of breaking glass punctuated the feel of something crunching beneath her foot. It was all she could do to keep from sprinting in the opposite direction. She pressed flat to the tree, feeling the rough bark against her lips as she whispered a silent prayer that the hoarder had not heard.

After a moment of complete silence, Rebeca glanced down to the offending object, a crystal decanter with a golden rim. She lifted her foot hesitantly and stepped free of the remains, taking care to pay more heed to her footing.

The sparse illumination from the waning moon above the canopy offered little aid as she skirted the hoard. When she believed herself to be on the far side of the mound from where she had started, she knelt behind yet another tree to take in the scene before her.

Had she not followed their tracks here, Rebeca would have doubted they had ever been there, so still was the hoard, so foreboding the silence.

The sound of a whimper brought her eyes to the hoard’s center and made her heart thunder. At the summit of the mountain of objects, a makeshift fort of lopsided lamps and slanting carpets stood in testament to the hoarder’s activity and dedication. Few objects escaped this hoarder’s desire, and the current object of his desire lay at the center of it all. Thick, knotted ropes bound Tam’s hands and feet.

Stamping down her desire to run to the girl’s rescue, she searched for the hoarder. She hoped he had woken from his trance to find Tam was not the girl he had been after. But if that were the case, why would he bind her? No, she had to work under the assumption that he was nearby and would be capable of anything if he found her trying to steal his hard-earned prize.

Rebeca had gone long enough without a weapon.

Keeping low, she took two long steps into the hoard, stepping over a porcelain platter with the half-eaten remains of a cake now desiccated and covered in leaves. She grabbed the first blunt object at hand, a polished brass candleholder, its heft and balance reminding her of her bat.

Steadily, she made her way into the hoard until the clutter became too thick. She restricted her climbing to objects that appeared sturdy or soft enough to support her weight without giving her presence away.

She had just scaled a mass of decorative pillows, soggy from a recent rain, when a hacking cough issued from the center of the hoard. She froze where she was, feeling the tracery of the candleholder bite into her palm. She was close enough now that she could see Tam’s frightened expression and wide eyes. She desperately wanted to call out to her, tell her she was not alone, but a pair of arms parted the curtains beside the prone girl. Tam pleaded in a voice that lacked her usual hard maturity as she stared up at the shadowed figure. The whine transitioned sharply to a scream as callused and dirty hands fell to grip her orange blouse at the shoulders and tugged her further into the fort at the center of the hoard.

Rebeca scrambled off the pillows and clambered atop another pile of odds and ends, heedless of all but the sharpest objects as she rushed toward them.

“Tam,” she called. Her plan was falling apart. She could not hope to distract him now.

She plowed forward through a hanging carpet, brushing it aside with an arm and flourishing her candleholder in preparation to cave in the hoarder’s skull.

The sight of several bodies lying within the fort, all in an advanced state of decay, thwarted her headlong assault. Tam lay against one corpse, her limbs twisting against her bonds.

Rebeca stumbled into the middle of it, her hand coming to her mouth and nose in a futile attempt to block out the stench of putrefaction.

Another carpet exploded inward to her right and the hoarder was atop her, his hands gripping her wrist and slamming her to the ground.

Rebeca threw every free limb at him in a desperate attempt to be free and bludgeon him, but behind his strength was not only that of a well-fed man, but one who fought with the depth of passion only the fervently deranged could achieve. The irises of his bulging eyes were just a thin ring around a massive pupil.

She only became aware of her screaming when the man grasped her throat, causing the shrill sound to abruptly end. Dimly, she could sense Tam’s struggle to become unfettered and aid her. It was too late; the man’s fingers were closing around her windpipe. Her free hand clawed ineffectually at the man’s sweaty face. Soon even the darkness that made up the night became even darker, and her flickering awareness faded.

“Close your eyes!”

Before all sense was lost to her, Rebeca registered the characteristic rasp to the voice, and her eyes slammed shut.

The blinding light the ensued was visible beyond her eyelids as a flare of red and still her eyes ached with the intensity of it.

Within moments, the hand that encircled her throat fell away, and Rebeca forgot everything but the bliss of a lungful of air.

The hoarder roared and rolled from atop her. Her immediate instinct was to curl into a fetal position, but the sounds of another struggle brought her to her knees, gasping.

Somehow, the old man had made it to the center of the hoard and ignited the magnesium charge. The smell of smoke was only a brief reprieve to the stench of death.

A singular splotch of white filled Rebeca’s vision, and she struggled to blink it away.

Just feet from her, atop the lumpy, carpeted mound of sparkling jewelry and other treasures, two men wrestled and grappled for dominance. The grunting of the old man suggested it was a losing battle.

Rebeca came to her feet and wavered as her newly restored vision swam around her. She was surprised to find that she still gripped the candleholder in her hand.

With one last effort of will, Rebeca gave all her strength to a swing of the heavy, brass candleholder and heard the crack of bone as it fell atop the hoarder’s head.

Rebeca fell to her knees again and shook her head, the sudden silence making her fear that she had finally lost consciousness. The pain of her throat seemed her only anchor to reality.

The sound of Tam’s whimpering came to her, and Rebeca shuffled toward the girl, finding her bound hands and feet and beginning to untie them.

As the numbing fear and adrenaline began to subside, Rebeca felt relief overtake her. They had gotten Tam back and they had won themselves an immense hoard, unparalleled in size and riches.

“You’re safe,” Rebeca told her, and the girl sniffled and sobbed. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I’m here to stay.” She meant every word. No longer would she be alone. If Rebeca couldn’t have her old family back, she would find a new family to call her own.

The old man cursed as he pushed the hoarder from atop him, mumbling incoherently as he felt around and came to his knees.

“No…” Tam said in a disbelieving whisper. “No no no no…”

“What is it?” Rebeca asked, her fingers fumbling at the tight knots of Tam’s bonds.

“Run!”

She looked over her shoulder to see the blind man, a hand searching his head for the now absent blindfold.

The infected can’t want what they can’t see, Tam had said.

Her blood went cold as she locked eyes with the old man.

His pupils dilated, and he pulled in a sharp breath.

I hope you enjoyed reading “Want” originally published in Off-Kilter 2 in 2016. If you like this story, you’ll love the others in the Alabards anthology. Click the image below to be directed to the Amazon page.

A shout out to my friend, Matthew Goodin, for the anthology’s cover art. You can find his website by clicking here.

Until next time, Write well and Science hard.

Quantum Quietus- Free story

March 7, 2018March 9, 2018 / pakramer / Leave a comment

As mentioned in a previous post, my short story, “Quantum Quietus,” won 1st place in the 2017 N3F short story contest. They have since published it in Eldritch Science. Since there were no terms of exclusivity, I am free to publish here for you all to read. I hope you enjoy the free story!

Quantum Quietus

By Philip A Kramer

Joe threw the ball too hard this time. He held his breath as it left the small, inner-city park, and plummeted toward the crowded sidewalk. Even Artemis, his black lab, stopped short and watched its descent.

The ball was seconds away from hitting a man, when the stranger turned, reached out a hand, and caught it.

“Take your pills,” he called and tossed the ball to the waiting dog. The man carried on down the sidewalk, shaking his head.

“Thanks,” Joe called back with an apologetic wave.

He shouldn’t have worried. These days, almost everyone was on Quantanax, the latest drug from Prescience Pharmaceuticals. It gave people the near supernatural ability to see into the future. With just a few seconds of foresight, their reflexes became quick, their actions unerring, and their mistakes erased before they ever happened. They called it Feedback, the new sixth sense.

Had things turned out different, Joe could have been like them. His life would be free of unpredictability and hardship, better in every way. Unfortunately, he was among the small percentage of the population allergic to the treatment.

A sour envy formed in the pit of his stomach. He tried to suppress the feeling; nothing good had ever come of it. His bitterness had pushed away all of his closest friends, ruined his marriage, and made him regret everything he did.

The tennis ball rolled to a stop between Joseph Dunham’s feet. Artemis turned in a quick circle a few feet away and then sat flat on the grass in polite anticipation. Her body quivered with pent-up energy.

Joe’s fond smile was short-lived. They’d have to leave soon. Artemis would chase just about anything that flew, and with more people gathering, he didn’t want her running off with a Frisbee or baseball.

Already a pair of youths had started a game on the tennis court beside the small Brooklyn park. They couldn’t have been more than twelve years old, but they played better than any seasoned athlete Joe had ever seen. There was no end to the advantages of Quantanax.

“Tomorrow,” he told Artemis as he stooped to pick up the ball. He grimaced as his fingers encountered a film of slobber. He placed the ball in the pocket of his windbreaker and withdrew a leash.

All the energy evaporated from the dog when he clipped the leash to her collar.

It was getting dark, and the smell of rain was in the air, making the pub across the street stand out like a warm, bright beacon. The crowded establishment should have turned him off straightaway, but he had gone far too long without human contact, long enough to forget how pointless it was. In the end, he decided he was hungry and could use a drink.

He tugged the leash and trotted across the street between cars. He was not worried for his life. Even on this highly travelled street in Brooklyn, accidents were rare.

Joe tied off the leash to a bike rack just outside the door to the pub and tousled the lab’s black, floppy ears.

Patrons occupied all of the tables inside, but a few seats remained empty at the bar.

Joe claimed a stool and ordered a drink and a sandwich. The man to his right had his laptop out at the bar, seemingly oblivious to everything around him. To his left sat a woman with large glasses, their dark frames extending below her cheekbones. She wasn’t his type, but a beer or two could change that. He should talk to her, some part of his brain insisted, but instead, he turned his attention to the TV above the bar.

He hadn’t always been this shy, but these days he regretted every word out of his mouth. Without the feedback granted by the treatment, he had no way of knowing what effect his words would have. Everyone else could stop themselves from making a social blunder, but he would always be a blabbering idiot.

The bartender arrived with his drink, but as he accepted the beverage, a bit of it sloshed onto the bar-top. A towel appeared from the bartender’s back pocket, and he mopped up the spill. Joe offered a quiet apology.

When the bartender withdrew his hand, a bright yellow pill sat on the bar.

“We all forget to take it sometimes,” the bartender said.

Joe grunted and nodded his thanks. He swept the pill from the bar, pretended to pop it in his mouth, but slipped it into his pocket instead.

Ever since the government had subsidized the Quantanax, everyone was handing it out like candy, candy that could kill him in minutes. As if he weren’t enough of an outcast, this same government now mandated that people like him wear a medical bracelet because of their propensity for accidents. Joe never wore his. This small act of rebellion was all he had left.

Just then, a scattering of applause rose out of the comparative quiet. On the TV above the bar, a Yankee batter hit a home run a moment later and began running the bases.

Joe settled in to watch as he waited for his food. He enjoyed baseball more than he ever had before, though he usually watched when not in the company of people who would moan or applaud before the ball left the pitcher’s glove. Forbidden from receiving Quantanax, the players always displayed genuine surprise and frustration. Even these famous and talented players spilled their beers, Joe told himself.

Then, all around him, conversations trailed off, and the TV went dark. A tall figure walked onto the screen. A white mask obscured his face, and he wore only white clothing. The man glowed in the darkness, illuminated by some hidden black lights. The mask made his eyes look like deep, black pits, and the line of his mouth, a chasm.

“Greetings, New York,” the figure said in a voice that was more robot than human. The slit of his mouth did not move with the words.

“What’s this?” said the man to Joe’s right, breaking his trance.

“Some sort of advertisement?” Joe hazarded.

“I’m delighted to see humanity ascend into the Quantum Era.” The man on the screen continued in his digitally synthesized voice. “It’s a glorious time for our society. We’ve come a long way these last few years. Murder, suicide, and countless other preventable deaths are at an all-time low. We now excel at everything we do and have few regrets. Our lives are finally falling into place.”

Joe became more and more certain that this was an advertisement, a reveal of the latest version of Quantanax. This man would promise to make everyone’s lives even better, while Joe, and those like him, fell further and further behind. He glanced out the window to see Artemis, tangled in her leash. Rather than attempt to extricate herself, she slumped to the ground and licked at her paw. Joe considered getting up and leaving, but the air in the bar had become tense and uncertain.

“But, unfortunately, this makes us more vulnerable than we’ve ever been before.” The man reached out as if to pinch something, and then with a swift motion, a cart materialized. It wasn’t magic, but a black cloth, making the cart invisible under the glow of the black light. Atop the cart sat a large, cylindrical device with a metallic sphere in its center.

Gasps and moans of dismay erupted throughout the room.

“I have hidden this nuclear weapon somewhere in this city.”

It was now Joe’s turn to gasp, and the man next to him spewed a mouthful of beer onto his laptop.

“Is he serious?” the man asked between curses as he attempted to mop up the beer on the keyboard.

Joe didn’t answer. A knot of terror had formed in his throat.

“I’ve armed the bomb with a quantum random number generator,” the white clothed figure said. His gloved fingers encircled a small handheld device on the cart and lifted it to eye level. “It could detonate the moment I press this button, or any time in the next twenty-four hours. It’s impossible to say. If humanity continues to allow the principles of quantum uncertainty to direct our future, it will discover just how uncertain that future is.”

Anguished cries filled the room as the man lifted his thumb and brought it down onto the button.

People fell. Joe’s head swiveled from side to side, mouth agape as the other patrons crumbled to the ground or slumped in their chairs. To a one, their limbs jerked from side to side as if to fend off some unseen threat. Above the screams and the staccato thumps of bodies and chairs hitting the floor, he could hear Artemis barking from outside and the sound of cars crashing into one another.

The woman with the large glasses struck her head on the bar as she fell. Joe leapt down from his seat to kneel over her. Her glasses lay broken beside her, and blood streamed from a gash above her eyebrow. She continued to spasm and flinch, oblivious to the injury.

The man on the TV spoke again, his voice calm and robotic.

“Those of you hearing me now, for one reason or another, you have chosen not to partake in the treatment. You have inherited this city. You can leave it or stay, that is up to you.”

The station returned to its regular broadcast.

Fallen bodies littered Yankee stadium. The players on the field, banned from the treatment as they were, wheeled in slow circles. Their fans, who had been cheering for them moments ago, now convulsed in their seats.

The woman in front of Joe curled into the fetal position, her body still spasming. Her heart thundered beneath his hand where it rest on her back.

“What’s happened to them?” Joe asked. His mouth had gone dry, and the words came out as a quiet rasp.

“They’re experiencing their deaths.”

Joe turned to see the other man from the bar. He was wearing a loose red tie and an unbuttoned blazer. He gaped at the chaos around them. They were the only two not writhing on the ground.

“What?”

“To them, the bomb is detonating every second,” the man said.

“But the bomb hasn’t gone off.”

“Not in our reality.”

Joe didn’t waste time puzzling over the man’s words. Seeing the woman would not hurt herself, he stood and went to check on Artemis, who was barking with increasing insistence.

After untangling Artemis from her leash, he pulled her in the direction of their apartment. Dozens of cars had piled into each other outside the bar, their occupants seizing. As he trotted across the street, shattered safety glass crunched beneath his feet, and a lone hubcap rolled to a stop a few feet away.

“Where are you going?” called a voice from behind him.

“Leaving,” Joe said, not looking back. The thought of a bomb in the city, one that could go off at any second, filled him with an irresistible urge to get out, to see the city shrink in his rear-view mirror.

“We can’t leave. What about all of these people?”

Joe slowed to a stop on the other side of the street and brushed a cold raindrop from his cheek. How could he possibly help them? They were all dead weight. Then he thought of the women in the bar. She was small and light enough to carry as were the two youths he’d seen in the park.

“I’ll try to get a few people in my car, leave the city. You said it was the bomb doing this. If I drive far enough…”

“Not with roads as they are. You’ll never get out in time.”

Joe hung his head. If all of the roads looked like this one, walking was the only way out, and then he could only save himself.

The man stepped out from the shelter of the bar. Rain spotted his red tie, and a growing breeze tousled his brown hair. His eyes studied Joe.

“We have to find the bomb and shut it down.”

Artemis stared up at Joe with dark, worried eyes that blinked as rain pelted her black fur.

He had friends and coworkers in this city. There were babies out there crying for their parents. All of his problems: his allergy, his failed relationships, they were nothing compared to the raw torment of those inside the bar.

Joe met the man’s eye and nodded.

The man sighed.

“What’s the plan?” Joe asked as he walked back to the entrance of the bar.

“We need to narrow down the search area somehow. There are tons of live traffic and weather cameras all over the city. If I see people unaffected, they are probably too far away from the bomb. The bomb should be near the epicenter.”

“That sounds like it’ll take a lot of time.”

“We already have two data points. If it is affecting those here and the stadium, its epicenter should be somewhere in Manhattan. I can try to narrow it down as we walk.” The man glanced at his laptop on the bar as if to reassure himself the other patrons were not going to steal it, and then started walking.

Heart racing, Joe followed. Never in his life would he have guessed he’d willingly travel in the direction of a bomb.

While they walked, rain darkened the sidewalk. His companion slouched over his phone to keep off the rain as he searched live traffic feeds. Joe slowed as they crossed an intersection littered with broken-down cars. The vehicles that hadn’t already crashed were idling forward, grinding alongside other cars until they encountered something immovable. Their occupants twitched and thrashed just as violently as those on the sidewalks.

“You said they were experiencing their deaths. How?”

“Do you know how the Quantanax works?” The man asked, not looking up from the phone.

“Not really,” Joe replied. He was an electrician, not a scientist. He had heard peoples’ accounts of the experience though. It was like waking up, they said, a sudden restoration of all senses and emotions. Some called this the quantum era, but most called it the Awakening.

“It’s in the name. ‘Quanta’, for quantum state, and ‘Na,’ the atomic symbol for sodium. The drug binds to and activates sodium channels in the brain. There are two electrons in the molecule that become quantum entangled. There are some complicated physics involved, but simply put, this entanglement occurs over time, not distance. When they experience something, it activates sodium channels a few seconds in the past, making their neurons fire and imparting a kind of foresight.”

“But more than a few seconds have passed and there hasn’t been an explosion.”

“That’s where the other realities come into play. You’ve probably heard the argument before. If this drug gives you the power to change the future, was it really the future to begin with? If you stomp on your brakes to avoid a car accident, where does the feedback come from now that you’ve prevented the accident?”

“So you change the future, so what?”

“Breaking causality causes all kinds of contradictions. The only way it can happen is if the Many Worlds Interpretation is true. For every decision, for every instance of quantum uncertainty, a new reality is made, one where you were always going to slam on your brakes.”

“So… they’re experiencing an explosion in another reality, but then they come here, to a version of our world where the bomb hasn’t gone off yet?”

“Precisely. It’s the timer he’s got on that thing that makes it so terrible. If a random quantum event triggers the explosion, it will happen in every reality, but at a completely random time.”

“How do you know all of this?” Joe asked.

“I’m a reporter. I’ve done a few stories on the dangers of Quantanax.” His voice turned bitter. “Not that anyone’s ever read them.”

“Is that why you didn’t get it?”

The man shook his head.

“Allergic,” he said, lifting his arm. A golden medical bracelet hung from his wrist. He gave Joe a knowing smile. “Same as you I suspect. I saw you put that pill in your pocket.”

Embarrassed, Joe nodded. For once, he didn’t receive a look of pity, but one of understanding. This man knew what it was like to be an outcast.

The sidewalk transitioned into a walkway made of worn wooden boards as they came to the Brooklyn Bridge. The prone bodies of native Brooklynders became those of tourists with selfie-sticks. They all experienced the same symptoms, their limbs beating against the wooden walkway in a sound that was indistinguishable from the patter of the rain. Beyond them towered the massive skyscrapers of Manhattan.

They stepped around one couple who had huddled into one another’s arms.

Joe frowned and took out his phone.

“Who are you calling?” the man asked as Joe put the phone to his ear.

“My wife.”

“If she’s in the city…”

“She lives in Phoenix with her mom.”

The phone rang, and Joe took a deep breath. It had taken all of his willpower not to call her these last few months, but now that it was happening, he wished he had done it sooner. If he didn’t survive this, there was something he needed to say.

“Well this is a pleasant surprise,” his wife said.

“Ana, can we talk?”

“Joe? Joe?” Confusion replaced the sarcasm in her voice.

“I’m here,” Joe said. He glanced at his phone to make sure he hadn’t pressed the mute button.

“Sorry, Joe. Give me a second. I’m feeling dizzy.”

Joe waited a few breaths, but couldn’t wait any longer. The bomb could take this last opportunity away from him.

“We need to talk.”

“Now? Why?” She let out a breath. “I’m sorry, Joe, but I’m feeling really strange right now. Can I call you later?”

“There might not…” he stopped himself from saying there might not be a later. “It’s important.”

“Is she experiencing feedback?” His companion asked. Joe looked up to see the man’s brow furrowed and eyes wide. Joe had fallen back a few paces for privacy, but it hadn’t stopped him from eavesdropping.

“Who is that? Who are you with?” Ana asked.

Joe cursed silently at the interruption.

“This is, uhh.” He’d never gotten a name.

“Hugh.”

“Hugh,” Joe repeated. “He was just asking if you were getting some feedback?”

At Hugh’s urging, Joe put his phone on speaker and held it flat between them. Fat drops of rain pattered against the screen, leaving domes of water that magnified its red, blue, and green pixels.

“It does kind of feel like feedback. Are you guys doing this? It isn’t funny, Joe. It’s giving me a headache.”

Artemis barked and panted at the sound of Ana’s voice. Like Joe, she hadn’t heard from or seen Ana in months.

“It’s not me,” Joe said defensively. He raised his eyebrows at Hugh in question, but the man’s eyes were fixed on the phone.

“What does it feel like?” Hugh asked.

“I don’t know. Confusion? Maybe a bit of anger? It won’t go away. I can hear you just fine, but I keep trying to pull the phone away from my ear to see if you’ve hung up on me. Do you know what’s causing this?”

Hugh finally pulled his eyes from the phone and gave Joe a tight-lipped frown.

He didn’t need to explain it to Joe. She was hearing them die, killed by a bomb that hadn’t gone off yet.

“Have you seen anything in the news?” Joe asked.

“No, I just got home from work.”

“Put her on video chat?” Hugh said, tapping Joe’s shoulder excitedly.

Joe resisted the urge to shrug off his hand.

“No. Why?”

“I’m not video chatting,” Ana said, overhearing Hugh’s request. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Someone hid a bomb in the city,” Hugh blurted and Joe gritted his teeth. He hadn’t wanted to worry her. He wanted to say his last words and hang up. She would have thought him drunk and dismissed it, at least until news of the city’s destruction reached her.

“A bomb? Did I hear that right?”

“A Nuke.”

“Shut up,” Joe hissed as he nudged Hugh with an elbow. “She didn’t need to know.”

Hugh stopped. Rather than look offended, his expression was serious.

“We need her help. I know how to find the bomb, but we need to video chat.”

Ana was saying something, but Joe had pressed the phone to his chest to keep her from overhearing.

“What happened to your plan?” Joe asked. Hugh’s phone had disappeared. He had abandoned all attempts to triangulate the bomb through traffic and weather cameras.

“That was going to take too long. This will be faster, and every second counts. Trust me.”

Joe stared into his eyes for a long moment. He couldn’t trust a man he’d just met, but he couldn’t deny his logic. If the bomb was going to detonate in the next twenty-four hours, Ana’s discomfort was a small price to pay for locating it in time.

Joe lifted the phone from his chest.

“Ana. Sorry about that. Listen, I need to video chat. Just for a minute. Please.”

“I’m not video chatting, Joe.”

“It’s a matter of life and death,” Hugh said.

“Fine,” she said, heaving an exasperated sigh. “But if this is some kind of prank, I’m never talking to you again.”

She’d agreed. Anxiety formed a knot in his stomach. How any emotion could rise above the terror of having an armed nuclear weapon nearby was a mystery.

The call-in-progress screen on his phone displayed a new message.

Accept Video?

Joe’s thumb trembled over the yes button for a moment before committing.

“You better be right about this,” he said to Hugh as the video connection was made.

He angled the phone toward him.

Ana’s face filled the screen and his chest ached at the sight of her. Her features were lit by a lamp in the corner of the room. Behind her was the unsightly backdrop of green and yellow wallpaper that adorned her mother’s living room.

Ana’s cheeks had gotten fuller since he’d seen her last, and her eyes were no longer heavy with fatigue. She looked healthy and radiant. Until now, he’d never fully realized how destructive he’d been to her health and career. She was supportive of his allergy in every possible way. For a long time, she resisted getting the treatment, but when her colleagues at her firm rose in rank, leaving her behind, he’d encouraged her to take it. The drug changed her the same way it changed everyone.

One day they’d argued, and she asked him a simple question. She asked if he loved her. He could see the disappointment in her eyes even before he opened his mouth to reply. He didn’t know what he’d been about to say, or if he gave her an answer at all. Whatever feedback she’d received, his answer hadn’t been the right one. She left the next morning.

The moment Ana’s video loaded, she flinched and turned her face away. A second later, she peered at him through her eyelashes.

“God, what is that?”

Hugh pressed close, coming into frame.

“What is it? What do you see?”

“I can barely keep my eyes open. What is that?”

Hugh pumped his fist in victory.

“It’s your light reflex.”

“She’s seeing the light of the bomb?” Joe asked, incredulous.

“Not exactly. The light doesn’t exist in our reality. She’s receiving feedback from an explosion in another reality.”

“What are you talking about?” Ana asked.

Without asking, Hugh snatched the phone from Joe’s hand.

“Ana, right? I need you to tell me when the instinct gets worse… or better.”

Hugh made a little cone with his hand and placed it over the camera to display only a thin wedge of the Manhattan skyline. He then revolved in a slow circle.

“Are those people? Why are they on the ground?”

“Just tell me when it gets worse. Warmer?”

Joe shook his head. Hugh wanted to play a hot and cold game with a nuclear bomb.

It took a few slow revolutions before his wife responded to the odd request.

“Yeah. There. There’s the worst.”

“Alright. It looks like it’s coming from somewhere in Midtown.” He handed the phone back to Joe. “We can make it there in an hour if we hurry.”

Joe gawked at Hugh, who was now jogging down the bridge. His ridiculous plan had worked.

When Joe lifted the phone to eye level, Ana was pinching the bridge of her nose and looking like she might throw up.

“Joe? Is it true? Is there a bomb in the city?”

“Yes. A terrorist made the broadcast about twenty minutes ago. The thing’s on a timer that… well, I don’t know how it works, but it’s incapacitated everyone with the treatment.”

“And you’re trying to find it?” she said, her voice trailing off in horror.

“Yes.”

Her response was immediate. She clutched the fabric of her blouse to her chest, and tears formed in her eyes.

“Oh, god. Something else is happening. The feedback…”

Joe frowned. He hadn’t considered this. Now that she knew what she was seeing, she was experiencing the emotional feedback of his death. He couldn’t help but wonder if this meant she still had feelings for him.

“Then I’ll let you go. I’ll call when this is all over.”

“Joe.” Through her moistened eyelashes, Ana peered at him. “I wish you were here.”

That did it. The answer to the question she’d asked so long ago spilled free.

“I love you, Ana. I’ve never stopped. I’m sorry for everything I put you through. You deserved so much better.”

“Don’t say that, Joe. This isn’t goodbye.” Her tears came faster, unchecked.

He smiled sadly.

“I miss you. Artie misses you. As soon as this is over, I’ll be on the next flight to Phoenix. I will make you proud, I promise.”

For the first time in years, he had a sense of purpose. His allergy had made him an outcast, but now the entire city was relying on him.

They ended their call, and he and Artemis ran to catch up with Hugh.

Hugh had reached the end of the bridge before Joe caught up. Rather than continue their jog, the man stopped beside a tourist.

“Notice anything different?” Hugh asked breathlessly.

Joe took a step forward, and Artemis sniffed the prone body of the tourist. A shattered camera lay on the sidewalk beside him. He was different from the others. Rather than involuntary spasms, all of his muscles were rigid. Sweat or rain created rivulets of moisture down his forehead.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Their spasms have grown closer together as we’ve walked. I think they’re reacting to the light of the bomb, but only until the blast wave kills them. This guy’s only had enough time to tense his muscles before he dies in those other realities.”

Joe thought he might be sick.

“What’ll happen to them when we get closer?” He asked, swallowing bile.

Hugh shrugged.

“I don’t know. But so long as the symptoms are changing, we can narrow down the location even more.”

Joe tugged Artemis’ leash, cutting short her inspection of the tourist, and the three of them continued into the city.

As they traveled though Lower Manhattan, the symptoms lessened. The total paralysis gave way to a city of the blind. According to Hugh, they had only enough time to blink before the blast wave reached them. It hadn’t even been an hour since these people were going about their day confident they could respond to anything the world threw at them. Now they were helpless, walking into walls or sitting on the curb and crying, their eyelids unresponsive to all attempts to open them.

Just a block north of Madison Square Park, they encountered a crowd of people who seemed entirely unaffected. Those who had umbrellas milled about in the steady rain as they read the horrifying news on their phones or conversed with others. Anyone who tried to leave the area instantly experienced symptoms.

“These people don’t even have time to process an explosion before they die, so the Quantanax doesn’t give them any feedback,” Hugh whispered as they wove through the crowd that had gathered near one of these invisible boundaries.

One man was so distracted by the content of his phone he tripped on the curb and fell to the sidewalk. Rather than stand up, he sat there, jaw gaping at the sight of his skinned palms and broken phone.

It appeared the people nearest the bomb received no feedback at all.

They continued along Fifth Avenue until they encountered a similar crowd just blocks away from the Empire State Building. Hugh turned around and gestured at the buildings lining the street back the way they had come.

“It has to be a building in the middle of these two crowds,” Hugh said. “In the basement, I’d guess.”

“How do you figure?”

“The broadcast was in a large, dark room, but all of these buildings have windows.”

It was better than any of his ideas, Joe thought.

Street lamps had come on, and the rain was letting up as they made their way to the entrance of a large brick building in the center of the two crowds. Once through the revolving door, Artemis shook off the dampness from her fur in a shower of droplets. Joe absently patted her head.

Bright fluorescent lights illuminated directories for law offices and medical specialists, and a vacant reception desk in the lobby.

They moved to the nearest stairwell.

Before they opened the door, Joe unclipped his multi-tool from his belt. He’d forgotten to remove it after work.

Hugh watched with brows raised as Joe flipped out the knife.

“He could still be down there.”

Hugh nodded and gestured for Joe to go ahead of him.

Joe breathed and took the first step into the stairwell. He had never come face to face with a terrorist. Things like this happened a world away, not here at home.

The sound of their footsteps as they descended the stairs made Joe clench his jaw until his teeth ached.

On the door at the bottom of the stairwell, an Authorized Personnel Only sign greeted them. He gathered his courage and pushed through the door.

Inside, a black light set into the rafters made the room glow in a false light. On one side of the room was a storage area for tables, chairs, boxes, and old computers. Among these was a camera mounted on a tripod. Centered in the camera’s field of view sat a cart holding the large cylindrical shape of the bomb.

They had found it. As he stared as the weapon of mass destruction, Joe wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or terrified.

Hugh walked to the bomb and made a couple circuits of the cart, examining it with a critical eye.

Artemis tugged at the leash as if she too wanted to explore the room. Joe swallowed his unease and unclipped Artemis from her leash. Once free, she darted into the room, sniffing every surface as if she hoped to stumble onto something edible. If there was a terrorist lurking in the shadows, she would root him out. He watched her disappear into the darkness, her black fur reflecting little of the black light.

From behind the cart, Hugh lifted the remote detonator.

“Found it.”

“Think you can disarm it?” Joe asked as he approached the cart. He set down his knife and leaned close to examine the handheld device. It was slender, but simple in shape, with a dim red light glowing on the side, and a black button on top.

“I don’t see any other buttons,” Hugh said, holding the device away from him like a snake.

Joe bit his lip. It was against his nature as an electrician to press buttons on unfamiliar devices, but they couldn’t afford to waste more time. After a few seconds passed, he gave Hugh a single nod.

“Here goes nothing, then.”

Hugh pressed the button, and the faint red glow of the LED faded. He let out a long sigh.

A knot of anxiety unraveled within Joe, and he sagged in relief. They had disarmed the bomb. They were heroes. He could only imagine the look on Ana’s face when he told her of this.

As Hugh replaced the remote detonator on the cart beside the bomb, Joe took a few steps further into the room and squinted into the darkness, looking for Artemis. He saw her sniffing the floor just beside the camera tripod.

Curious, Joe approached the setup.

“Shouldn’t you leave that to the police?” Hugh asked, but Joe had already turned on the camera.

There was only one video file, the one the terrorist had filmed. He was about to turn off the camera, but saw the file details.

“That’s strange. It says the video was recorded yesterday.”

Hugh shrugged.

“So?”

Joe picked up a dangling cord that could have plugged into a computer.

“So it means he recorded the video and then broadcast the message a full day later.”

“He probably didn’t want to be in the city when he activated the bomb.”

Joe shook his head. It didn’t make sense. The terrorist would have had to broadcast the video and then activate the bomb at the same time he pressed the button in the video. But if he took the remote detonator with him, how had Hugh found it here.

Hugh was looking at him, his head tilted. The black light made the man’s eyes appear black, and the white button up shirt shone brightly from within the confines of his blazer.

Joe stiffened.

He remembered when he’d first seen Hugh, sitting at the bar with his laptop open, watching the TV. Hugh claimed to be a reporter, one of the few people who knew how to broadcast a video from anywhere.

Whatever Hugh saw in Joe’s eye, it made him slump in defeat.

Joe stepped forward, but Hugh was faster. He snatched the knife off the cart and brought it between them.

Joe stopped, staring at the blade in a nauseating mixture of anger and fear. How had he not seen it sooner?

“You’re very perceptive, Joe. Damn how I wish you weren’t. Do you know how long I sat in that bar waiting for someone like you to come along?”

Joe shivered. Hugh had been waiting, waiting for someone to spill their beer or show some other sign of not taking the treatment.

“You had the detonator this entire time,” Joe said, his voice trembling. “But why activate the bomb if you intended to turn it off? Why bring me into this?”

Hugh’s lips pinched together.

“As vocal as I’ve been about the treatment, people would have suspected me. But with you as my witness, placing me far from the bomb,” Hugh shrugged. “I’d be in the clear.”

“Is that what this is about? You wanted to be a hero? You wanted me to tell your colleagues how you solved the mystery, how you were right about the treatment all along?”

“I’m not the bad guy here, Joe. This is bigger than you or me. Prescience Pharmaceuticals has known about their drug’s weakness for years, but they’ve done nothing. And now our enemies have figured it out. Can you even imagine how much they hate this drug? Our economy has boomed, and our soldiers are indestructible on the battlefield.” Hugh gestured at the bomb. “But with one of these, our enemies could have marched an army into our cities with no opposition. They would have done it too, had I not talked them into a compromise. They gave me a bomb, and I made sure everyone stopped taking the drug. Now that I’ve exposed the weakness, nobody will touch Quantanax again. After today, things will go back to the way they were before.”

Joe was at a loss for words. Joe knew anger and resentment, he had allowed his jealousy to estrange all those he knew and loved. He would have done anything to be like them, to be free of the allergy. But Hugh had gone too far. Joe didn’t care how Hugh rationalized it; he had risked the lives of millions of people so he wouldn’t be an outcast anymore.

“So what now?”

Hugh looked around the room, his expression souring.

“I didn’t want to do this, Joe. I can live without the credit of disarming the bomb. But if I let you leave, I’ll be a fugitive within the hour.”

“So you’ll kill me then?” He said, his words reticent and quavering.

“I’ll make it quick, I promise.” To his credit, he sounded sincere and apologetic.

Joe had made a promise too. He told Ana he’d make her proud. Weakness or no, Quantanax had prevented millions of accidental deaths, reduced the rate of murder, gambling, and made people great at almost everything they did. It had made his wife happy, something he had tried and failed to do. Taking that away from humanity was inexcusable. Joe would not let Hugh walk away from this.

Joe fingered the cloth above his pocket, feeling the round edge of the pill the bartender had given him. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the yellow pill. Before he could give it a second thought, Joe tossed the pill into his mouth, and tilted his head back. He swallowed.

Hugh had ceased his advance, and the tip of the knife lowered.

“What are you doing? It’ll kill you.”

Joe took a deep breath and clenched his fists by his sides.

“But it will kill you first.”

Ghostly sensations flooded over him.

An icy dampness pressed against his hand, making him look down. Artemis approached from behind and nuzzled his hand with her nose. Then there was a sudden pressure against his leg, and Artemis sat down and leaned her weight against him.

This was Feedback. This was the Awakening.

He ruffled her floppy ears and smiled.

Hugh took a step back, but Joe was already giving chase.

There was a sudden pain in his right side, causing Joe to flinch back in time to avoid the tip of the knife as it flashed toward him.

Joe made to grab for the knife, but paused when a surge of disappointment struck him. He redirected his hand a little, and there it was: satisfaction. He followed the feedback until his hand closed over Hugh’s wrist.

Joe ducked to avoid a punch to the head, and without see it, pivoted his hip to block a raised knee. Joe twisted underneath Hugh’s arm, never letting go of the wrist, and Hugh’s shoulder let out a creak and then a sudden pop. Hugh screamed and dropped the knife to the floor.

Out of nowhere, a heart-stopping terror enveloped him. Joe looked over just in time to see Hugh reaching for the cart. The detonator.

Joe leapt for it, but he was too late. Hugh’s hand closed over the device, and his thumb pressed the button.

All feedback stopped.

Joe staggered forward and blinked when all of his sensations became a thing of the present.

The bomb was erasing the feedback.

When he wheeled around, Hugh leaned back and threw the detonator. It sailed into the darkness of the basement to clatter to the ground on the opposite side of the room, outside the illumination of the black light.

Joe dove and together they fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

A fist made contact with Joe’s temple, stunning him. When his vision snapped back into focus, he found his hands around Hugh’s throat. He squeezed.

Hugh pried at Joe’s fingers, but with only one uninjured arm, he could gain no leverage. Instead, he clawed at Joe’s face.

Joe didn’t let go, and soon Hugh’s futile attempts to dislodge him slowed and then stopped.

Even after the light left Hugh’s eyes, Joe remained atop him, his hands squeezing until they ran out of strength.

Joe rolled off Hugh, and tried to crawl across the floor toward the detonator, but he didn’t make it a dozen feet before he collapsed. A shroud of darkness formed around the periphery of his vision and he desperately sucked air through his closing windpipe. This was anaphylaxis, he thought dimly.

Hugh had thrown the detonator too far, too far for him to reach in his current state. It was lost in a place where nobody would find it.

His only comfort was that, in at least one reality, he had disarmed the bomb, had made his wife proud of him.

Something rolled to a stop beside him. Joe turned his head to see Artemis sit down a few feet away. Under the black light, slobber glowed on the handle of the detonator.

She could never resist chasing something thrown near her.

Breathless and panicked, he took the detonator in his trembling fingers, for once uncaring of the slobber, and pressed the button.

The red LED faded, and moments later, so did he.

I hope you enjoyed the free short story. If you’d like to be notified of my future posts, please remember to follow me here and on Twitter @PhilipKramer9.

Until next time, write well and science hard.

The Science of Exobiology

February 15, 2018February 15, 2018 / pakramer / 2 Comments

So you want to introduce a new lifeform in your fiction. There are many reasons to do so. A sentient humanoid can provoke your reader’s sympathy and relatability, while a vile, brainless, and flesh-eating slug can put your readers on edge. If done sloppily, however, skeptical readers will find the flaws in such a creature, and that disbelief will undermine any of your attempts to draw them into the story. You can blame biologists for always taking the fun out of your unique imagination, or you can choose to awe them with the many ways you manipulate biology into something terrifying or beautiful. After all, there are millions of weird and wonderful species on our own planet, some far more alien looking than what sci-fi authors have conjured up over the years.

“Fish and anemone,” picture by Philip Kramer at the Seattle Aquarium

Here are the things you should consider when making a new species:

What is life anyway?

To breathe life into your creation, you should first understand what life is. The standard definition of life is an entity that can grow, reproduce, undergo metabolic processes, and sense and interact with the environment. This simplistic definition has led to some interesting debates. A virus for example, can do little to none of these things outside a host cell. Is it a living thing? Crystals too can take in energy and materials from their environment and use it to grow and reproduce. Is a crystal alive? Alien life will also likely defy some of these rules.

So what might life on another planet look like? This field of study is referred to as exobiology and astrobiology.

All life is a product of its environment.

Everything about life, down to each protein or strand of DNA, was selected for over the course of millions of years. If an organism died before passing on its genetic material, the next generation would not inherit those characteristics that lead to premature death. This is evolution, and because of it, nearly everything about you has a purpose and function.

True, there are some things that appear to have no function except to give scientists headaches. These things exist because they can, or because they did not provide an evolutionary disadvantage. For example, many of the glycoproteins coating each of our red blood cells have no apparent function. Others, like the Duffy antigen, are used by the malaria parasite to infect cells. As a result, many individuals whose ancestors were from malaria-prone regions do not express this antigen. The simple rule is this: evolution will select against adaptations that negatively affect a species’ chances of survival and procreation, but any adaptations that improve those chances, or don’t change them at all, will persist.

On Earth alone, evolution progressed down millions of branches depending on environmental pressures. Many of those branches ended when these evolutionary experiments failed or the creature was overpowered by another creature attempting to take over the same ecological niche. As humans, we adapted our opposable thumbs from grasping tree limbs to avoid predators on the ground and reach food high in the canopy. We became bipedal to facilitate running and giving us a height advantage to spot both predators and prey when traveling across the ground. When intelligence improved our ability to hunt and forage, we dedicated much more room and energy to developing it. For other animals, they took to the air, or stayed in the water, and evolved talons, teeth, and scales to defend themselves. Any change to the fictional environment would make your creatures change accordingly. If the atmosphere was just a little thicker, for example, like the one on Venus, instead of birds with wings, you might have puffer-fish like creatures that fill an air-bladder with hydrogen or oxygen to float around. If your creature lives in dark caves like Astyanax mexicanus, a Mexican cave fish, they will probably have no eyes, or at least not ones that function.

Familiar or strange?

Going out of your way to creating an entirely original and strange lifeform may not be necessary. In fact, some scientists think life can only come in a finite number of forms. So it is possible that alien lifeforms share characteristics with us or other life on our planet. Darwin’s Aliens, is a new theory suggesting that there are only a handful of ways biology can evolve to deal with its surroundings. Yes, even biology is beholden to the laws of physics. Take the eyes as an example; there are only a few ways a creature might focus light from its environment onto a cluster of light sensitive cells. Evidence suggests that eyes evolved independently on dozens of evolutionary branches on Earth into something that looks and operates very similarly. The number and placement of those eyes on the head are also no coincidence, allowing a large range of vision without taking up too much space and energy in the brain to process that information.

Just because alien life might look familiar, doesn’t mean it can’t be strange. You can still be creative with your alien. In fact, it is very unlikely aliens will look too similar or identical to life on Earth. Since we exist because of a series of random genetic mutations and environmental coincidences (like ice ages and the particular tilt of our planet caused by the moon), it is very unlikely a species from another planet will have experienced the same evolutionary history.

Designing your lifeform.

The simplest unit of life as we know it is the cell. Alien life will most likely be composed of cells too, as it is the natural progression of simple to complex life, and allows each unit to carry the genetic information required for it to grow and replicate. Your alien can be a single cell, or a complex lifeform composed of two or more of these units working together for mutual survival. This partnership also allows some cells to specialize in certain tasks (defense, digestion, locomotion, etc.) to make tissues and organ systems.

Here are some of the features and organ systems most complex life should have:
Size- No matter the planet, there will be gravity, so your lifeform’s proportions will likely adhere to the square-cube law. This law, while by no means strict, describes most of the complex terrestrial life on Earth. In simple terms, it describes the relationship between volume and surface area of a creature. As a creature grows in size, its surface area does not increase at the same rate as its volume. As a result, larger animals must have thicker limbs to support a greater mass, a circulatory system to deliver nutrients and gasses through its body, and methods to dissipate heat through its lower relative surface area. Increasing an insect to the size of a cow would make its exoskeleton heavy, and its spindly limbs unable to support the mass of its bulbous body. Additionally, it could no longer rely on it tracheoles and hemolymph to diffuse oxygen throughout its body.

“Pillbug,” by Philip Kramer, (edit of picture)

Skin- Often the largest organ in the body, it is the last barrier between living flesh and a harsh environment with no regard for living things. Making a sentient slime the primary host of a hot, water-poor planet like Venus would not only be impractical, but evolutionarily impossible. A type of lizard with scales that reflect infrared and are resistant to sulfuric acid rain, however, would be far more likely. If the planet is cold instead, fat deposits or thick fur will serve as good insulation.

In addition to a physical barrier, the skin can also serve as an optical defense or lure. Lizards, butterflies, encephalapods, and many other creatures disguise themselves with their surroundings, make themselves look menacing, or lure in other creatures by appearing to be harmless.

“The Fleatle,” by Ian Dowsett

Skeleton and muscles- In some cases, the skeleton can take place of the skin. This is known as an exoskeleton. While it can provide protection from the external world, it is not very deformable, and weighs too much on large creatures. Additionally, such a skeleton would limit growth, and occasional periods of molting would make the creature vulnerable to injury. An internal skeleton provides more joint versatility, structural support, and anchorage for ligaments and tendons. Add muscles, and the creature will be able to move through and manipulate the environment around them. The means of locomotion will vary depending on its evolutionary environment, allowing for wings, fins, tentacles, or feet and hands. The type and position of joints is going to alter the function of the limb. For example, the elbow and knee are terribly weak joints (the fulcrum near the end of lever), meaning it takes a large amount of force to move the limb. Why would evolution do this? While the arms and legs are weak, their length away from the pivot point means they can move at incredible speeds, ideal for running, climbing, and throwing things. By contrast, relatively small muscles in joints used for crushing and raw strength, like the jaw, can allow bite pressures of over a thousand pounds per square inch in the hippopotamus, alligator, and hyena.

“Gra’Sugra” conceptualized by Tim Kramer, illustrated by Joseph Martin

Brain- The nervous system, a means by which creatures control their limbs and the movement and function of other organs, can be simple or complex. For complex creatures, they come in two major types: centralized and decentralized. A central nervous system, like our brain and spinal cord, control all peripheral communications. A decentralized nervous system, like the octopus, has multiple little brains that can act independently of one another, or coordinate with each other without sacrificing intelligence. If your human explores encounter an alien starship, chances are the alien creature will have a complex nervous system, for how else would they have constructed such advanced technology.

Centralized nervous system- “ForC” by Ian Dowsett

Decentralized nervous system-“Drude” by Ian Dowsett

Metabolism and digestion- Biology is a huge source of entropy, bringing far more chaos into the universe than order. Life gets its energy by breaking existing molecular bonds and using that energy to create new ones. But we break far more bonds than we form. As humans, we must consume dozens of tons of food over the course of our lifetimes just to maintain our relatively unchanged size and shape, and perform comparatively low-energy functions.

The source of molecular energy a lifeform uses can vary. On Earth, most life gets its energy from breaking down simple carbohydrates, fats, or proteins. These in turn were formed by other lifeforms. Chances are the circle of life will come back to plants, who ultimately get their energy from the sun to form carbohydrates. In areas that lack sunlight or are too inhospitable for plant life, ecosystems revolve around other root sources of energy. Deep under the ocean at hydrothermal vents, where temperatures can reach higher than 400 degrees Celsius, the base life form are extremophiles (Archaea) which can use non-organic compounds to synthesize energy in the absence of sunlight. These in turn feed larger crustaceans and nematodes.

Morning glory pool at Yellowstone. Many colors attributed to extremophiles. Picture by Philip Kramer

It is also possible, that aliens will not find humanity or other forms of life appetizing unless they evolved similarly. We have very specialized enzymes for very specific foods, like glucose (D-glucose, not L-glucose), amino acids (L, not D), and fats. If an alien predator does not utilize these same substrates, we will not taste very good or sit very well with them.

Waste disposal- On that topic, waste disposal is another must for complex organisms. It is impossible to digest, utilize, and recycle 100% of ingested food. At some point, toxins, and metabolic waste will need to be eliminated. Intestine type organs to digest and absorb, a liver to detoxify, and a kidney to filter our liquid waste, are common features of most complex life on Earth. Some creatures, like birds, reptiles, and most fish release both solid and liquid waste and reproduce through a single orifice called the cloaca. The aliens in The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide series, have such an orifice, much to the amusement of all the authors in the series.

Alien from The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide series, illustrated by Stephen Lawson. Note: over-emphasized cloaca.

Reproduction- Life is complex, therefore it requires a lot of genetic information to maintain and recreate it. No matter what your alien species, they will have a genetic material (could be DNA, or some silicon-based version of it), and a method of reproduction. It can be an asexual species that creates clone-like copies of themselves like many starfish, or it can reproduce like humans and most other animals with two or more members of the species contributing genetic code.

“Starfish,” by Philip Kramer, (edit of picture)

Or, like slugs, they can be hermaphroditic, possessing both male and female reproductive organs.

“Seattle slug,” by Philip Kramer (edit of picture)

Circulation and respiration- The need for a way to distribute metabolic substrates and facilitate gaseous exchange is necessary for all large and complex organisms, including plants. The lungs and/or gills would need high surface area to facilitate the transfer of gasses. In smaller creatures, diffusion is sufficient, though rudimentary tracheoles, a heart, and hemolymph are present in many insects. Aside from supporting metabolism, the circulation is an ideal medium to support an internal defense against invading organisms. Most animals have a complex immune system supporting many types of specialized cells. Any alien coming to Earth would not have the adaptive or innate immunity required to repel local microorganisms. We would also have no defense against alien microbes.

Senses- Like locomotion, the senses will be defined by the environmental medium and ecological niche of the creature. Vibrations travel through air far better and faster than they do through a medium with little to no compressibility like stone or water, so many terrestrial creatures will likely have ears. Assuming there is light to see by, aliens will also have a type of eye, though it may see different parts of the spectrum. Tiny hairs, like those on insects, could improve tactile awareness, and receptors for aromatic molecules can provide a sense of smell. Humans have far more than five senses, so there are plenty to choose from to make your aliens as aware or unaware of their surroundings as you want. If, for example, your aliens only see in infrared, your space troops could use a special armor to disguise their heat signature.

“Samuel,” by Ian Dowsett

Mechanical augmentations- Aliens with a computer driven intelligence or mechanical augmentations are an exception to many of these “rules.” They will need energy, but this can come in many different forms, and they will not need to digest or dispose of waste in the same way. Despite the differences, however, they would have needed an intelligent biological host or a biological predecessor to design them. Seeing as how mechanical lifeforms are far more resilient, they will likely be the first interstellar visitors we encounter.

“The Tide,” Conceptualized by Tim Kramer, illustrated by Joseph Martin

Conclusion.

Congratulations, you have now made an imaginary lifeform and, ipso facto, you now have imaginary godhood. Don’t let it go to your head. Even a novice biologist will likely be able to undo all your hard work. But you have one thing going for you. Give your creatures all the things required of life, make it beholden to the laws of physics, and a product of its environment, and even those pesky naysayers won’t be able to prove its nonexistence. If you are still having trouble, take a page out our own planet’s ecological history. There are many millions of species with unique features, functions, and evolutionary trees, right here on Earth. With a little bit of research and imagination, we can all be amateur exobiologists.

Until next time, write well and science hard.

Release Day- The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide to Seattle (free preview)

January 10, 2018January 10, 2018 / pakramer / Leave a comment

Today is release day for The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide to Seattle. It is the sixth Episode of TPATG Series 1. Even though it is classified as a Novelette, it is just a few hundred words shy of being a Novella. To read more about the work that went into writing it, see my previous blog post.

This book is dedicated to my brothers, Ben, Tim, and Greg, for introducing me to Seattle. They made sure I stayed hydrated, well fed, and was given all the tours I could ever want. Thanks to them, my life in Seattle has been positively pre-apocalyptic.

My thanks to all those who pre-ordered. It is available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. Click the cover image below to be directed to the Amazon purchase page.

Link to Amazon purchase page

Remember to check out the other books in the series, all of which were written by award-winning authors!

The Episode Blurb:

When the alien invasion ended, humanity strove to mend their broken world… until they remembered how much they enjoyed war. In Seattle, rival clans fight over territory and resources. Resh, the headsman of the Five Clan, has the power to conquer the entire city, but he has other ideas. He runs. Outside the city, far from responsibility and the risk of assassination, Resh comes across an abandoned hospital. Inside, he finds a young man climbing into a wheelchair. Suffering from a mysterious illness, the traveler makes him a deal he can’t refuse. But Resh takes on more than he bargained for. To help the traveler find the cure he’s after, Resh must return to a city filled with scheming and betrayal, and confront an organization with a terrifying agenda.

Free Preview:

The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide to Seattle

By Philip A Kramer

The building was abandoned. Trees and foliage grew unchecked along its perimeter, making it nearly impossible to see from the road.

Resh recognized the series of letters still visible on the partially collapsed awning. This was a Hospital. In Seattle, the W Clan made their home in one. It was a large network of buildings with hallways that stretched between them. This building was far smaller, rising just above the surrounding trees. Before the invasion, it might have looked welcoming. Now it could easily be a wolf’s den.

Resh looked back the way he had come. Night had already fallen, and he could make out a dim glow to the sky to the north, where thousands of Seattleites sat around their campfires. The city had been his home his entire life, but he was never going back. For weeks he’d been possessed by a singular urge to explore, to learn more of the world outside the city. The urge had become so strong; he had walked away from everything.

The same urge compelled him to carry on, to leave this building behind like all the others, but the needs of his body prevailed. He had walked until blisters formed on his feet, and continued to walk until those blisters burst. The muscles of his legs were knotted tight, and sharp stabs of pain radiated up his bones with every step.

If this Hospital was anything like the W Clan’s, it would have some beds inside.

Resh ducked under the sagging awning and through the shattered glass door of the building. He fished his lighter from his pack and flipped it open. By the meager light of its flame, he entered.

Most of the building had been picked clean of metal, but he found a few mattresses uninhabited by mice within a closet on the second floor. He collected branches from a tree sticking in through a shattered window and built a small fire one the ceramic tiles of a small shower in a bathroom. He stacked the small, thin mattresses on the floor beside the fire and fell asleep in moments.

He dreamed of familiar faces around familiar fires, until an unfamiliar sound woke him. He grappled in the dark for his knife, and his stiff muscles protested as he came to his feet.

The sound that had woken him repeated, a soft shuffling, the sound of disturbed leaves.

Resh rubbed the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes and brought out his lighter, sparking it into life.

The room beyond was quiet and empty, and Resh inched out into the hallway. The dim flame illuminated the dirty vinyl flooring at his feet, but the darkness thickened further down the hallway. The coating of dust and leaves that had covered the floor earlier was disturbed, brushed aside by something dragged across them. A long smear of blood confirmed what he suspected. This was a wolf’s den. A lone wolf he could deal with, and a new pelt and a week’s worth of meat would see him to the next settlement.

He held the knife out before him as he followed the faint sounds. When he rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, he saw a doorway that hadn’t been open before.

Placing his feet furtively, deliberately with every step, Resh entered the room. It was a supply closet, one he had given a cursory examination last night only to find nothing of use.

Unlike the night before, someone was in the room. It was not a wolf, but a man with shaggy, filthy hair and tattered clothes. Every inch of his exposed skin was red from excessive sun. His arms shook as he attempted to pull himself into one of the wheelchairs stored in the room. His legs did little to assist in this goal, dragging behind him like useless chunks of meat. He looked defenseless, with nothing more than a small pack on his back. It was a sad sight, one Resh did not care to watch.

Resh sheathed his knife, preparing to turn away, when a horrible possibility struck him. Could this man have been injured by something to the south? Resh did not want to end up like him, mauled by one of the mutated beasts rumored to roam the land outside the city. He could exchange a few words, learn of any troubles ahead, or even discover the best route down the coast.

The man finally pulled himself into the wheelchair and faced him. Behind the mop of disheveled hair, his eyes reflecting the flame of the lighter with a savage intensity. He didn’t look surprised to see him. Perhaps he was used to expecting the unexpected.

“It looks like you’ve seen better days,” Resh said, thinking some levity would ease the palpable tension.

The stolid features of the traveler transformed with a grin.

“Better days?” he asked with a grunt. His voice placed him as a young man, but his appearance suggested he’d fought hard for every single year. “I barely remember what those are.”

A moment later, the man’s face scrunched up in pain, as if he had only just become aware of his injuries. He lifted his hands from the armrests of the chair and looked at them. Blood oozed from ragged gashes along the flats of his palms to his elbows. His knees were large splotches of red beneath tattered jeans.

Resh had seen hundreds of men die in his thirty-six years, he’d had a hand in killing many of them, and he could tell when a man was near death. This man should have been dead already.

“Anything I should avoid down the road?” Resh gave the man’s wasted and bloodied frame a significant look. “Like whatever you got into?”

“My kind of trouble is…unique,” he said, his eyes looking distant, sad. “And mostly of my own making.”

It was a shame, Resh thought. Knowing what lay ahead might give him some sense of direction. It would be better than following this blind urge to walk into the unknown.

“Any information you have would be more than I’ve got. In exchange, I might have some water and a few bandages I can spare.”

The man dipped his head in agreement, with no small amount of gratitude in his eyes. He then lowered his hands to the wheels of the wheelchair, and winced as his hands encountered the metal bars.

Resh waited a few more seconds, frowning. The traveler tensed as Resh came forward and then moved out of sight behind him. Resh grabbed the handles of the wheel chair and pushed the man out of the room and back to the bathroom in which he had slept.

The traveler looked from one end of the small room to the other, taking in Resh’s scattered belongings. Resh had never been tidy, and even a night spent in the room made it look like he’d been there for years. In Seattle, he’d had someone to clean up for him, to arrange his things, and to cook him food. That was over now.

The traveler’s eyes strayed to the small tin pot of water Resh had set over the fire to sterilize. The water was cold now, the fire little more than ash and embers. The man’s dry, cracked lips parted as he accepted the small can from Resh, and guzzled it down.

When he spoke again, his voice had lost its raspy edge.

“Where are we? How far to Seattle?”

“Just a day by foot. Maybe two or three in the shape you’re in.” Resh sat on the toilet seat and reached into his pack for a spare shirt. “Where you coming from?”

The traveler watched warily as Resh took out his knife and proceeded to cut the shirt into strips.

“The east, from a place you’ve never heard of.”

“Any better out there?”

The traveler smiled wistfully.

“There are still barbarians and cannibals if that’s what you’re asking. But it was better in its own way. It was home.”

His hands paused in their task as he regarded the stranger. Resh had been a barbarian once, but he refrained from saying so. He’d left that life behind him. He no longer had a home, and he preferred it that way. Now the thought of home carried with it a sense of restlessness and revulsion. How could anyone stand to stay in one place for so long?

The man squinted at him.

“Well?”

Resh realized he’d been staring.

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’ve come all this way? That seems to be everyone’s first question, usual right before they try to slit my throat and eat me or feed me to their pigs.”

Resh shrugged a shoulder.

“I won’t do any of those things,” Resh said. Unless you give me a reason to, he thought. “It’s none of my business, just as mine is none of yours.”

The man dipped his head in acquiescence.

Resh motioned for the man to lift his hands, and he complied hesitantly. He took his wrist and turned his hand palm up. He proceeded to rinse the wounds with water from his canteen and bandage them, ignoring the man’s curses and grunts of pain. He was not the charitable sort, but this man had information he wanted. If there was one thing he’d learned from his old life, it was the currency of favors.

Once he had both hands cleaned and bandaged, he turned his attention to his other injuries. Exposed bone jutted out from beneath the dirty mop of cloth and strips of skin of his knees.

“I don’t see any breaks.”

The traveler looked down at his legs and frowned.

“They aren’t broken. I can’t even feel them to be honest. They gave out yesterday.” He must have seen Resh’s look of confusion, for he added, “It’s a sickness, not contagious,” he clarified. “Still, I knew it would happen eventually.”

Resh was not reassured. He finished bandaging the man with the remaining cloth, and washed the blood from his hands with the last of the water.

“So why did you come here?”

“What happened to that being none of your business?”

“Guess I’m curious now. If you knew it would happen, shouldn’t you be at home, living out your days in peace or in the arms of a beautiful woman?”

The man looked to the ground as if he wished for nothing else, then he leaned back in the wheelchair and withdrew a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. Resh took the proffered slip and unfolded it. Printed in neat, tiny letters, like the kind he’d seen on signs and in books, was a message, and a logo: a shield with some kind of slender tree on it. Above that, there were three S’s, one of the few letters he recognized.

“I can’t read. What does it say?”

“In short? You’re infected with a disease that will eventually kill you. For a cure, come to Seattle. Good luck.”

“Who’s it from?”

“Synapse Sentries of Seattle,” he said, the S’s coming out as disdainful hisses.

“Never heard of it.”

He sighed.

“No I suppose that would have been too much to hope for.”

“I suppose there isn’t immediate danger down the road then?”

“Oh there’s plenty of that,” he said, chuckling. He pulled his pack out from behind him and took out a worn leather book like the kind he’d seen in the old libraries. Most of those had been used for kindling.

“What’s that?”

“A journal of sorts. A travelogue.”

“A guide?”

“Sort of. A recounting of my journey and the things I’ve learned along the way: People I’ve talked to, some history, and a lot of the troubles I’ve managed to live through. I’ve documented everything I’ve encountered since Louisville. I’d read some of it to you if you like, but there’s a lot.”

He flipped open the book to reveal a page with long squiggling lines. Resh squinted down at them. They were letters unlike anything he’d ever seen, not nearly as neat and small like those in books, but more elaborate and beautiful.

Resh had to have it. The man was incapable of putting up much of a fight. He could take the book by force, but what good would it be to him? He couldn’t read the words.

The man must have seen the desire in his gaze, for he closed the book and wagged it back and forth.

“If you help me find what I’m after. This cure. The book will be yours. You want to know the best places to visit? Avoid dangerous roads? This will tell you how. Get me what I need, and it is yours. It’s even worth something to the man who commissioned it if you return it to him.”

“I said I can’t read.”

“I will teach you. It could be days before we find it. That should be enough time. You’re not the first I’ve taught.”

Resh shifted uneasily. He had every reason to avoid returning to Seattle. Many of his former clansmen would like to see him dead, and that was the last thing that bothered him. Going back meant going in the wrong direction and losing several days. But if what this man said was true, it was a small sacrifice. Knowing where to go and what to avoid could save him weeks on the road and could save his life.

The decision was made, and a bargain was struck.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the free preview. For more, click here to purchase the book on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide to Seattle

October 24, 2017November 1, 2017 / pakramer / 4 Comments

I’m excited to share the news. I’ve just completed a new project, and it is now available for pre-order on Amazon!

Let me give you a rundown.

The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide Series.

I met Stephen Lawson back in May at the International Space Development Conference. If you recall, he was the runner-up for the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award. A couple of months later, he reached out to me with an idea for a project. He came up with The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide, a series following a young man, Thursday Forrester, as he treks across a post-apocalyptic United States in search of a cure that will save his life.
Stephen’s idea was straightforward. He would introduce the character, the setting, and the stakes in his first installment of the series. As Thursday traveled, other authors would be in charge of moving Thursday through their own cities, progressing the plot, and moving him closer to his final destination. Stephen has a lot of author contacts and managed to recruit the following authors for the 1st series:
Episode 1- Louisville- Stephen Lawson
Episode 2- St. Louis- David VonAllmen
Episode 3- Utah’s Deserts- Dustin Steinacker
Episode 4- The Mojave Desert- Sean Hazlett
Episode 5- Los Angeles- Jake Marley
Episode 6- Seattle- Philip Kramer
That’s right, Seattle is the location of the cure to Thursday’s mysterious illness, and so I had the honor of wrapping up the series. It’s been a blast planning and coordinating with the other authors. We’ve had to communicate regularly to brainstorm and to avoid inconsistencies and plot holes. They are all award-winning authors and have written great stories. Click the links above to purchase their episodes.
Stephen also reached out to the award-winning illustrator Preston Stone for the original cover art and logo.

The Series Blurb.

They descended from the infinite void of space, annihilating cities and destroying the foundations of modern civilization. Black nanoswarms fed like a locust plague on anything with an electromagnetic signal, wreaking havoc on the lifeblood of human industry. Then, as quickly as they came, the invaders mysteriously died, leaving humanity with nothing but savagery, starvation, pestilence, and death in their wake. Spurred by a life-threatening illness, a young man named Thursday Forrester chronicles his harrowing journey through a land riven by violence and superstition.

Episode 6 Blurb.

Visit www.tpatg.com to learn more about the other episodes!

How to buy.

The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide is a six episode series. Episodes will be released on Kindle beginning November 1st, and every two weeks thereafter. Episode 6 of Series 1 — The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide to Seattle — will launch on January 10th, 2018. Pre-order here!

Location Scouting.

While I’ve seen quite a lot of Seattle in the past, mostly thanks to my brother, a captain in a local tour boat company, I needed to do more research before writing my episode. Here are a few of the pictures I’ve taken while scouting locations for the story:

I hope you enjoy reading the story and please don’t forget to purchase the other episodes in the series.

Interviewed by my alma mater

May 16, 2017 / pakramer / 2 Comments

So this was a first. A couple weeks ago I was interviewed by my alma mater, Auburn University Montgomery, for their article series titled “#WhyWeLearn.” Click here to view the article they wrote.

For those of you who are interested in how I came to love both writing and science, I posted the full interview here. Enjoy!

Interviewer- Beck Phillips, AUM Strategic Communications and Marketing

Q1. You started in English and left for Biology. What made you want to switch?

Like so many other freshman, I still hadn’t figured out what to do with my life. I wanted many things, but one passion stood above the rest: writing. It takes a lot of practice and dedication to become a professional writer, and I planned to make it there eventually. In the meantime, I went in search of a work-study position at AUM. I admit, the idea of spending all day in the library for both work and school, was idyllic. Unfortunately, no such position was available, so I accepted an opening in the biology department. I’d always found science interesting, so it wasn’t surprising that I took to my responsibilities with a lot of healthy fascination and curiosity. In setting up labs and helping biology professors with various tasks, I was introduced to Virginia Hughes, who was an instructor in the Clinical Laboratory Sciences program. For days I helped her use the microscope camera to take pictures of blood cells for a hematology atlas. My interest piqued, I investigated the program. In addition to hematology, they taught immunohematology, microbiology, immunology, chemistry, and many other clinical subjects. For someone who loved many scientific fields, it was immediately appealing to me. Within a few weeks, I had applied to the program. Science, I decided, would be my career, but writing would always be my hobby. At the time, I couldn’t have foreseen how important my writing would be to my science career.

Q2. But you never gave up your love for language and writing?

Writing has been my passion since high school, when I decided to write the story I had always wanted to read. Those creative muscles couldn’t be exercised with science alone. I still had stories to tell, experiences to share, and an imagination that needed to be let out on paper every now and then. So I wrote. At first I wrote short stories, but then a story that was too large came along. After my first novel, I started another, then another. I was addicted. For me, writing was a way to communicate those complex ideas I couldn’t quite vocalize, to exercise my imagination, and to hopefully inspire others.

Q3. Did your professors here encourage you to do both? How did you avoid being
“pigeonholed”? Did anyone here at AUM help or encourage you?

For a long time, I kept my love for science and writing separate. When I took creative writing classes, I focused on writing, and when I took my science classes, I focused on science. Then one day in my Writing Fiction class, Jeffrey Melton, my instructor, gave me the advice all writers will eventually hear: “Write what you know.” And I knew about science. I wrote a short story about a crime scene and a clever detective who used forensic science to identify the true perpetrator. The story was well received in class, and I decided that perhaps writing and science could somehow mesh together. This concept became even clearer in my science classes, when I was required to write reports and papers, and give presentations. The mechanics of writing and the ability to tell a good story are just as important to communicating science as writing fiction. My main source of encouragement was Melinda Kramer, who, as both my mom and an AUM employee, cultivated my love for science and writing and knew exactly where I could find the resources I needed.

Q4. How did your time (and the people) here at AUM help prepare you for your
future and your career?

I owe my success in writing and science to so many at AUM. The instructors in the Biology department deserve most of the credit. Sue Thomson, took me in as a work-study student, and gave me every opportunity to learn new things and pursue my interests. Ben Okeke gave me my first research experience and taught me about biofuels and microbiology. When I joined the Clinical Laboratory Sciences program, I was introduced to Kyle Taylor, who taught me all about microorganisms and disease, and gave me even more research opportunities. To this day, I still use the laboratory practices and techniques I learned from Kathy Jones. I owe many of them thanks for writing the recommendation letters that played a large role in getting me into Grad school.

Q5. You were sort of a pre-cursor to STE(A)M (science, technology,
engineering, (arts), and math) — how valuable has your work in each field
been to the other?

My experiences in each field have been immediately applicable to the others. The broad scientific background I received at AUM gave me an advantage over my classmates in Grad school, many of whom came from highly specialized fields. My interest in hematology, immunology, and biochemistry culminated in many successful and highly cited studies in my dissertation lab. My background in writing and the arts has allowed me to communicate my science and create effective figures for my publications and presentations. I use math daily to perform my experiments and to analyze data. I have consulted and beta-tested new technologies for clinical research, and have been called on to perform troubleshooting and repairs for those instruments. No skill has been wasted. The true test of this was perhaps my short story entry into the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story contest. The contest seeks scientifically accurate short stories set in the near future, and is co-hosted by the National Space Society. My story was about a rover operator living in San Francisco, who finds himself in the terrifying position to save the life of an astronaut on Mars. I was not qualified from a mathematical, engineering, or technological standpoint to create a 100% feasible story, but if there was one thing the sciences taught me, it was how to do research. I spent months investigating every aspect of Mars and rover technology that might be relevant to the story.

Q6. How do you apply your talent for writing to the field of science?

Writing scientific grants, publications, and reviews require the use of descriptive and persuasive language. With the current state of scientific funding, a grant must be interesting and comprehensible to stand out among all the rest. I have personally applied for and received two grants for personal funding and have been involved in many large institutional grants that have been funded. My writing experience has been invaluable to the writing of nearly 20 co-authored scientific publications, which have been cited over 200 times. The same can be said for the role of science in my writing successes. The science I learned from AUM, grad school, and during my time as a biomedical researcher, routinely serves as fodder for my stories. I currently maintain a writing and science blog that advocates for the use of accurate science in sci-fi.

Q7. What goals do you have for yourself in the future after winning this award?

The Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest was the first short story contest I’d ever entered. To say I was surprised to win is an understatement. Receiving even the slightest bit of validation for your craft does wonders for your motivation. There are more contests to enter and no shortage of stories to tell. In the near future, I hope to publish my first novel. All of this would be impossible without the help of the writing and critique groups I’ve joined, and the continued support of my family, friends, and former teachers.

Q8. What advice do you have for current and future AUM Warhawks about their
academic choices?

Never let go of the things that make you happy. Life gets busy, and often you have to set your passions aside, but if it is truly something you love, you will find time for it. Be it writing, painting, music, culture and language, eventually that hobby will make you stand out from your peers and give you the advantage.
Additionally, there are far more opportunities out there than you may realize. If you’re intent on pursuing one career path from the moment you enter college, you’ll miss out on some amazing opportunities. Take the time to learn about the world, and soon you’ll discover your place in it. That is, after all, why we learn.