SFS1 - Science Fiction Short Stories

by Mani, Krishna kumar

  They enjoyed themselves immensely while they were in the resort.

  “Hey sweetie,” said James. “You can see Earth from here. It looks like a moon itself.”

  “Oh we are in moon! I'm the happiest I've ever been!” shouted Lilly excitedly.

  Four days passed as if they were four hours but James felt was something missing.

  A private shuttle picked them up and was took them back home.

  “Thanks for choosing Mootel resort. We hope you come again and please refer your friends!” said a friendly agent as they disembarked the shuttle.

  “Sure thing.”

  “This is our small gift from our resort for both of you,” said the agent. He held out a small photo album filled with pictures of James and Lilly. They looked through it excitedly.

  “Bye,” said the agent as James and Lilly turned to walk up to their house.

  “Catch him!” yelled a man.

  They were surprised to see two cops grab the

  agent who had just bid them farewell. James

  and Lilly were afraid that the arrest was in

  regards to forging names so they turned to

  silent enter their home. A cop called over to

  James.

  “Did you just travel to stay on the moon?”

  “Yes we did, but...”

  “That wasn't the moon. This agent and that whole resort are liars. They took you to a resort eighty miles away from here. A normal resort on Earth that they made to look like it was on the moon. You're one of about five thousand people that they've cheated like this.”

  Now James and Lilly understood why they had not been allowed to go outside or to arrange their own shuttle ride.

  5 Ghost On Call

  My name is Joe. I used to work for a bank, but six months ago I lost my job due to the economic crisis. My wife has been working as a teacher so we have been able to manage the bills still thankfully. Also my writing talents have helped me to earn a few bucks on the side. I'd worked for a few unknown magazines as a freelance writer and they paid me nearly $400 for each article I wrote but most of them were monthly so I had to stretch every penny. Mostly the articles were related to news I'd found on the internet. I'd read for hours find current hot topics to create news articles from.

  I just completed an article. Please don't think this news is junk or crap because it's one hundred percent verified fact. Please find a summary of the article just below.

  “A new startup company called Ghost On Call Inc. located in Silicon Valley launched a new service a few months ago. Using this service we can connect and talk to any ghost via phone. It's become popular in most of the countries around the world though a few have banned this service for religious reasons. During the beginning stages of this service, most people were hesitant and believed it was some kind of a scan. But the company gave free minutes for every mobile phone number and many people simply tried it for the first time because they were bored and it was free. They were amazed to hear the voice of their family members and loved ones that had passed beyond the veil of the grave! Soon after that, the service became incredibly popular in North America and now it has more active users than Twitter! The service was soon extended to all types of users even those that wanted to use computers or even land-line telephones. Soon people were regularly calling and being connected to ghosts within minutes. Last month they increased the cost per minute to two dollars but call volume wasn't affected. The company's revenue is individual mobile carrier higher than any network because

  their customer base is worldwide. A few different statistics say that about fortyfive percent of the calls are to ghosts that people want to reconnect with for reasons of love and affection. Another forty-five percent of the calls are to get information such as where someone put cash, a certain document, jewelry or even something as simple as an internet password. The last ten percent was simply people passing the time. The CEO of Ghost On Call Inc. has claimed that conversations are secure and are not taped. He also said in an interview that they were about to take the company public and in the next quarter were going to allow ghosts to make outgoing calls to anyone they wanted to. They didn't implement this before because it was impossible to collect money from ghosts. Now they're in talks with two different carrier networks in North America to allow ghostcalls to be charged to the receiver so ghosts may very well be calling us soon!”

  After seeing my article, the assistant editor of the magazine called me and said that the article was a very good piece of work and that he wanted me to do a full investigative report for a cover story. He told me that I should do three different articles and that the senior editor would choose the article which he liked best. Also he gave me a code for an hour's worth of time to Ghost On Call. Already my wife has really enjoyed using this service to talk with her mother's ghost about food recipes, now I will get a chance to do so myself.

  I decided that I should talk to my grandma's ghost since she loved me perhaps the most of all of my relatives. I used to spend the holiday's in my grandma's house. She was so affectionate towards me. I knew her birth date but wasn't sure of her exact date of death so I called their customer support and gave the full name, date of birth and death year. In a few seconds they connected the call. I heard a default ring tone and sat there, thrilled that I would get to talk to my grandma once again.

  “Hi my candy boy, how are you?” asked my grandma in a happy voice. Yes, it was my grandma. She was the only one who ever called me candy boy. I was speechless for a moment.

  “Grandma, how are you? Is this real?” I asked emotionally.

  “It's real alright. Please don’t cry my boy, I am fine and happy,” she replied.

  “Oh grandma it makes me so happy to hear your voice again.” “Why you didn’t call me before? I've been expecting you to call. All my ghost friends get calls from relatives all the time. I've been the only person who hasn't gotten a call lately. We don't have an outgoing facility here to call you, otherwise I would have contacted you!”

  “Sorry, grandma. I thought you didn't have a phone. After your death my mother took your phone. How did you get a new one? Is that an iPhone or an Android that you're using?” I inquired.

  “My candy boy, we don't have phones here,” she said with a laugh. “Once you make a call to a ghost, the call is routed to the ghost. When you talk into the phone on your side, we understand it on our side. And what we think here, you hear that there. Put simply, your speech is transmitted to thought and my thoughts are transmitted to an audible voice.”

  I was impressed with my grandma's simple explanation about how the ghosts and the living communicated with each other. But then again, she had been a professor when she was alive so it shouldn't have really been that impressive.

  “I saw Steve Jobs” grandma said excitedly. “But even he doesn't have an iPhone!”

  “Who else have you seen up there grandma? Got any other interesting news for me?” We talked about our family members for a little while before my call was suddenly disconnected. I looked at the mobile display. It said “call disconnected” but the signal was full. I checked the balance to see if that was the problem. It wasn't but I had already used up almost half of my allotted time! I didn't quite have enough for my article so I decided that I should call some famous people. The first person I tried was Adolf Hitler. After a Google search I put in his date of birth, his name and his date of death to see if it would connect me. An error message flashed upon my screen and said “Person is unavailable, has been reincarnated.”

  After that I tried to call Abraham Lincoln. The phone rang for what seemed like forever, but no one answered. I tried Steve Jobs. Same thing. Then I tried Princess Diana and a few other celebrities, but just more ringing.

  I guess it made sense. Normal people couldn't reach VIPs even after they were dead. I thought of calling Osama Bin Laden but I'm pretty sure the FBI would have me on a watchlist faster than a sand storm. I noticed my balance had been reduced even though no o
ne had answered the call. I called customer service to complain.

  “No one has picked up my call but still you've charged me for time spent. What gives?” “We can't force ghosts to talk with you. If they know you and want to talk with you, then they'll answer your calls. Per our policy we collect a connectivity charge of $1 per call, even if the call is not answered.”

  “Really?” “Yes, please check our terms. For the best response, you should call ghosts you know like relatives or friends. Celebrities and people you don't know answer stranger's calls only very rarely.”

  Now I understood the proverb, 'the devil you know is better than the angel you don't know.' So I decided to call some devil I did know. Suddenly my wife came to mind. I decided to try to use the service to call someone that was still alive. I mean, investigating the service was my goal for the article and that would be part of it. So I gave my wife's date of birth and her full name. It showed me a list of people that I could choose from and I chose her name. It rang.

  “Hello?” asked my wife, her voice a little unclear.

  “Hi Lilly, Are you in hell?” I asked, somewhat surprised. “Hey Joe. Yes, I'm in the hallway. Why are you calling me from such a strange number? You're just in the bedroom, right? What are you calling me for?”

  She hung up the phone and walked into the bedroom. After seeing her I understood what had happened. They simply had routed the call to my wife's mobile number. I hadn't been in her brain at all. I checked the balance which was getting lower by the minute. I decided it was best to talk to some other ghosts.

  After thinking long and hard about who I could call, I decided to call my old friend James who had died in a train derailment a couple years before. I wasn't able to attend the funeral because I had been on vacation when he died. I didn't know whether or not he knew that. I thought to myself that I'd have to apologize for not being able to make it. I knew his birthday from my calendar and reverse-engineered what year he would have been born in based on his age. I didn't know when he died so I searched on the laptop for it but still couldn't find anything. I decided to call my friend Ben to see if he knew.

  “Hey Ben, how are you man?” I asked.

  “Pretty good, Joe. How are you? Did you find a new job?”

  “Just been doing some freelance writing. Can I ask you a quick question?”

  “Sure, shoot.”

  “Do you know James' date of death?” He laughed and told me the date of James' death. Then he said, “I know why you're asking. I also tried to call him but haven't been able to reach him. That devil James hasn't responded.”

  I was shocked and surprised. I knew that Ben never spent a penny on others. The idea that he would spend money to call a ghost was unbelievable.

  “Why did you call him?” He took a moment before he replied. “I had free minutes so I used them to call him hoping I could get the number of his girlfriend. I mean it's not that useful to him any more.”

  I thought for a second and understood why some countries might want to ban this. After death people should be allowed to rest in peace, not be hassled about their former girlfriends.

  “Alright Ben, thanks for the info! I'll catch you later.” I tried contacting James again. My phone told me 'ghost not found.' I tried with all the combinations of information I could think of but I got the same message again and again. I was surprised and confused. Maybe he was using some kind of 'Do Not Disturb' service. I called customer support and inquired about it. They told me that there wasn't any such service for ghosts. Any call they received they would get but they didn't have to answer it. They told me that the person's actual date of birth or death was probably different from the information that I had. I explained that I was sure that everything was right and asked them to send the issue up the chain of command. After getting off the phone I sat and thought for a while. Maybe in the future they might open a chat room or even a ghost dating service.

  The information I'd collected was not enough to complete three articles. As a writer, I knew what people liked to read and so to spice up my articles I wanted to have a conversation with a famous person but none of them had responded. So I did the next thing, I called my grandma again. She was the only one ghost I knew. She had said she'd seen Steve Jobs. It was my only hope.

  “Hi candy boy, where did you go in the middle of our call?” she asked.

  “Sorry, grandma there was a problem with the signal.”

  “No signal problem here!” she said with a laugh. “It must be on your side of the veil.”

  I talked with her for a while again and finally asked her the favor I had in mind. “If you could please talk to Steve Jobs and get some information for me that would be amazing, grandma.”

  “How can I approach him?” she asked. “I can't very well go up to him and ask for an autograph or a photograph can I? Maybe I'll tell him I was an iPhone user.”

  “Millions and millions of people use the iPhone, grandma” I said and chuckled.

  “Okay, well I will find a way. What information do you want from him?” I thought about it for a second. What information did I want? “Just one question, ask him what he thinks about the new iPhone 5S and 5C as two categories. I'll call you tomorrow at the same time. ”

  I hung up the phone and started to write the three Ghost On Call articles that I had been researching. I worked furiously and completed two articles before I fell asleep.

  “Candy boy, come on I'm waiting for you!” I woke up. Oh god, I forgot! I was supposed to call my grandma. I was already late to call her. How did she come into my dream? Ghosts didn't have outgoing calls yet. I called my grandma's direct number before a recorded female's voice said, “your balance is low. Please recharge to make sure that your contact is not interrupted.” My grandma answered after only a single ring.

  “Hi candy boy. I was waiting for your call and was just thinking about you.” “Grandma, I think even without this service that ghosts can connect to humans. It's pretty unbelievable what just happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were in my dream just now. You asked me to call you.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Did you get any information from Steve Jobs?”

  “Well, I approached him by a friend of a friend of a friend of mine”

  “Oh like LinkedIn network.” “Yes some links. He said that the iPhone 5C and the iPhone 5S are only one type of phone. If people want to have different colors they can just get a case.”

  “Wow. Thanks grandma, you did an excellent job”

  I talked with her until my balance ran out.

  I finally finished the articles and sent them to the editor. The titles were as follows:

  1. Does Steve Jobs Like the new iPhone?

  2. A Black Hole in Hell? Missing Ghosts

  3. Ghosts and their Privacy Issues They published the Steve Jobs article as a cover page. After a week the assistant editor called me and told me that they had selected all three articles and would publish them in subsequent issues. Further than that though, they offered me a full time position. I was so excited with the news that I was going back to work after six months have having to do freelance writing. I immediately called my wife and told her the news.

  It was all due to my grandma's help. I told her thank you and to tell her sorry to Steve Jobs and that I wouldn't have gotten this job without his name.

  A Month Later My second article “A Black Hole in Hell? Missing Ghosts” was published and became the hot topic in the city. The article was based on my attempts to find my friend James who had died in a train derailment two years earlier. Even my grandma could not reach him. I thanked him fully for this article and started to pray for him as I had done before. An incoming call from an unknown mobile number interrupted my prayer.

  “Hello, Joe speaking,” I said into the receiver. “Hey Joe, this your friend James.” It was James' voice. That much was for sure. I was surprised. When did the ghosts get an outgoing call facility? I was speechless
for a few seconds.

  “Hey Joe, are you there?” asked James' ghost. “Hey. I'm just a little surprised to hear your voice, man. How are you? I'm sorry I wasn't able to come to your funeral. I was out of town on vacation. Extremely sorry. I actually was just praying for you.”

  “You're an idiot.”

  “Look, I'm sorry about the funeral. I should have cut my trip short. Please forgive me.” “Even my girlfriend hasn't tried to call me,” said James angrily. “Why did you try? And then you have to make it a whole big issue. Yeah, “Black Hole in Hell? A recent news update says the FBI might even do an investigation about missing ghosts.”

  “Wow! Our magazine is available there? Are you in Hell or Heaven?”

  He started to yell at me. I didn't understand why he was so angry. Maybe if you died a violent death you become a violent ghost. He yelled and asked if I had contacted him about the hundred dollars he had borrowed from me three years ago. He seriously laid into me. I almost had to get a dictionary out for a couple of the words he called me.

  “Don't try to call me again. Don't even think about me. I didn't die in the train crash, Joe.”

  “What?” I asked, dumbfounded. “My relatives wrongly identified a dead body as mine and held the funeral. I used this accident as an opportunity to escape from my debts. I've gone away and settled down somewhere where they don't know me. Listen. Don't tell anyone. I will transfer $100 to your bank account. Don't disturb me again.”

  He did not even wait for my reply. He simply disconnected the call.

  6 Two Robots

  Year: 2120

  Place: Federation Courtroom

  The defendant and plaintiff in this case were both robots. This is not the first time that robots have come to court for justice. The judge asked the first robot to proceed.

  “My lord, my name is Rose and I am a robot. My model number is R-Femal-2111 and my configuration is...”