Nature Futures 2
Authors: Colin Sullivan
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Contents
Introduction: When Destiny Calls / Colin Sullivan
A Pocket Full of Phlogiston / S. R. Algernon
The Cleverest Man in the World / Tony Ballantyne
Formic Gender Disorder / Barrington J. Bayley
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Panda / Jacey Bedford
Gifts of the Magi / Anatoly Belilovsky
Caveat time traveller / Gregory Benford
Eating with Integrity / David Berreby
Expectancy Theory / Ananyo Bhattacharya
War Of The Roses / Polenth Blake
In the Recovery Room / Eric Brown
The Universe Reef / Tobias Buckell
A Kiss Isn't Just a Kiss / Steve Carper
Life, Abundant and with Simple Joy / Sarah K. Castle
Reach for the Stars / Priya Chand
Tea with Jillian / Brenda Cooper
Squealer / Robert Nathan Correll
Acting Up / Elizabeth Counihan
You, In Emulation / Kathryn Cramer
Jenna's clocks / T. F. Davenport
High on the Hog / Sean Davidson
The Omniplus Ultra / Paul Di Filippo
The Gower Street Cuckoos / Joe Dunckley
Transmission Received / Peter J. Enyeart
Words and music / Ronald D. Ferguson
Recursion / Simon Quellen Field
Corrective Action / John Gilbey
Health Tips for Traveller / David W. Goldman
The Chess Players / Dan Gollub
Man of Steel / Richard P Grant
Midnight in the Cathedral of Time / Preston Grassmann
Press â1' to Begin / Nye Joell Hardy
Fine-tuning the Universe / Merrie Haskell
The Perfect Egg / Tania Hershman
The Ostracons of Europa / Ken Hinckley
Midnight at the A&E / Taik Hobson
Trying to Let Go / Kerstin Hoppenhaus
World Wire Web / Gareth D Jones
Shoppers / James Patrick Kelly
The Problem of Junior / Swapna Kishore
Mortar Flowers / Jessica May Lin
The Stuff We Don't Do / Marissa Lingen
A Game of Self-Deceit / Clayton Locke
After Experiment Seven / Michael W. Lucht
Hard Man to Surprise / David Marusek
Picnic With Ants / Mark W. Moffett
Be Swift, My Darling / John Moran
Can of Wormholes / Neale Morison
George and Priti / Anand Odhav Naranbhai
Frog in a Bucket / Gareth Owens
For Your Information / Conor Powers-Smith
Invisible / João Ramalho-Santos
A Better Mousetrap / Mike Resnick
The Pair-bond Imperative / Jennifer Rohn
The Rumination on What Isn't / Alex Shvartsman
Out of the Blue / Mohamad Atif Slim
Steve Sepp, Tasty! Tasty! / Matthew Sanborn Smith
The Silver Bullet and the Golden Goose / Norman Spinrad
Dark They Were, and Strange Inside / Vaughan Stanger
Survivors and Saviours / Philip T. Starks
The Day We Made History / Ian Stewart
The Greatest Science-Fiction Story Ever Written / Eric James Stone
1-9-4-Blue-3-7-2-6-Gamma-Tetrahedron / Ian Randal Strock
21st-Century Girl / Adrian Tchaikovsky
A Sentence to Life / Igor Teper
Life in a Monastic Lab / Joost Uitdehaag
Let Slip the Dogs / William T. Vandemark
To All Sister Capsules / Scott Virtes
The Drained World / Ian Watson
A Piratical Sabbatical / Ian Whates
The Front Line / Sylvia Spruck Wrigley
The Cambrian / George Zebrowski
Here Be Monsters / Stephanie Zvan
Introduction: When Destiny Calls
Colin Sullivan
I
The orange light winked.
Michael stared at the device in his hand, nonplussed. The orange light winked again. Curious, Michael raised his right arm and shook the device gently, as if to dislodge a truculent spider from its surface.
Unperturbed, the orange light winked.
The device, similar in size and shape to a walkie-talkie, featured three lights in a neat row at one end. At the other, the onâoff switch sat firmly in the âoff' position. The light in the middle of the row was the one currently perplexing the device's owner. It winked with a reasonable hint of orange.
Gingerly holding the device at arm's length in front of him, Michael picked his way across the office floor. The carpet was largely hidden under piles of paper engaged in a futile battle with entropy, and his feet made a rustling noise as he unsuccessfully tried to navigate a clear path. He plonked himself into his office chair and pushed to one side the tide of paper vying for his attention on the desk. He set the device down and regarded it in the same way a cat regards a mouse â although he couldn't quite shake off the feeling that he might not be the feline in this relationship.
The orange light winked.
Michael did the only thing he could think of: he flicked the onâoff switch to âon'.
The effect was immediate â the orange light stopped winking. Michael could feel the tension in his shoulders subside. He leant back in his chair and ran his fingers through his unruly mop of curly hair.
“Hello?” The clipped tones of an elderly male voice cut through the silence.
Michael started, and scanned the office.
Nothing.
No one.
“Hello? Is this thing on?”
Michael shook his head in a bid to dislodge the disembodied words from his mind.
I've been overdoing it
, he thought.
“Is there anybody
there
?” The voice was getting testy.
A red light lit up on the device.
“Has the red light come on?” the voice asked.
In spite of himself, Michael nodded, although he wasn't entirely certain why.
“Look. If you're there and can hear me, and the blasted red light has come on, can you pick the paramunicator up and bang it down on a hard surface several times?”
With more than a little trepidation, Michael reached out for the device. It felt warm to his touch. He picked it up.
“That's it! Careful”
The voice seemed to be coming from all around him as well as from the device. Michael cautiously held the box up to his ear. It seemed to be emitting a very gentle hum.
“BANG IT!!!”
Michael jumped and the device slipped from his fingers. It hit the floor, bounced sideways and nestled itself in a collection of unpaid bills. Michael stood up in a bid to retrieve it, but the device had other ideas. It emitted a slight screech and the red light went off. The hum rose in pitch and volume, and the air above the device began to fizz. A vague mist began to form and rapidly coalesced into the blurry image of a man's head. He had straggly grey hair and an unkempt beard. His lined face suggested reasonable age, but his eyes, which quickly sought out and fixed on Michael, suggested his faculties had not yet dimmed.
“Ah. There you are, my boy,” the image said. “I can see you now. Sorry about the confusion. The A250 model is a bit unreliable.”
“Whaâ?” was about all Michael could manage.
“Don't stand there gaping. I haven't got all day. Regardless of the A250's predilection for cuttinâ” The image wavered and the white noise of static filled the room.
“âdoes then just bang it on the floor.” The image paused. “Did I just cut out?” he asked pensively. “Hah! Typical. Look, as I was saying. Even if the wretched thing doesn't cut out, these links have a finite lifespan. Now. Did the orange light wink?”
Michael nodded, the power of speech still seeming somewhat elusive.
“Yes. Yes. Always does. No one knows why. Still, all's well ⦠eh, my boy?”
Michael reached behind him for the arm of his chair, and gripped it tightly as he lowered himself into the security of its foam embrace. “Whoâ? Whatâ?”
“Quite so, quite so,” the disembodied head agreed. “Now. To work. Can I just confirm your name?”
“Um, Michael. Michael Trye.”
“Excellent. Now listen, Mr Trye, I'm your pandimensional careers adviser, and I'm here to tell you that a unique opportunity has arisen that you can't afford to miss. Of course, when I say can't afford, I suppose I mean can't avoid. You've been chosen, my boy!” The old man beamed.
“Chosen?” Despite his misgivings, Michael felt he was going to have to get to grips with the conversation. Reality, or what was left of it, would just have to wait.
“Don't parrot. Yes, chosen. You see, there's a universe very similar to yours in which a very venerable science journal has, how can I put this, disappeared up its own wormhole. The future was kind to the editors, but as they become increasingly obsolete in the face of technology, they, well, they retreated.”
“Retreated?”
“What did I tell you, my boy? I've not crossed the universal bridge in search of an echo. Yes, retreated. But now it seems there is once more a need for some serious science, and our universe has, um, misplaced its human editors. That's where you come in. Quite literally.”
“But Iâ”
“No buts. You were chosen by one of the most powerful computer algorithms in our universe. It has scanned all viable parallel universes, assessed all likelihoods and possible outcomes and alighted on you. It made contact with you last week.”
“Was that when someone threw a brick through my window with a note saying âyou iz haz wun' stuck to it?”
“Ah! You
did
get the message. Excellent. And, of course, you got the paramunicator.”
“The â?”
“The box. The A250.”
“Yes. I did get that. Had to collect it from the Post Office. There was no postage paid â cost me a small fortune!”
“A small price to pay, my boy. A small price to pay.”
“Ah,” Michael paused. This really wasn't how he'd expected his Tuesday morning to behave. “I'm sure you won't mind me asking,” he ventured, “but this
is
one of those prank TV shows, isn't it? You know, when the host leaps out from behind the filing cabinet and says âGotcha!' while the audience applauds wildly.”