SFS2 - Science Fiction Short Stories: 10 Science Fiction Short Stories

by Krishna kumar Mani

  The next day, two guys came to my home and got me. One asked me to sit in the back of the Lincoln and they'd drive me to the lab. They handed me a mobile phone to talk with the boss.

  “Welcome. My manager has told me much about your research. I'm happy to fund this project. I think it can be mutually beneficially. Is there anything you need?”

  “We spoke about the lab equipment I had at my old company. That set up is what I need.”

  “That's what's in place now. You will have full access when you reach the lab.”

  As our car drove near my old office, I thought about my past. I thought what my old company would do when they couldn't find me. I certainly wasn't about to pay them a million dollars. Suddenly the car turned into the company's parking garage.

  “Hey! What's going on? Is this some kind of a joke?” I yelled at the driver. “Let's go to the lab.”

  “No joke, sir. This is the lab,” replied the driver through the partition.

  Oh my god. It was them the entire time.

  As I exited the Lincoln the chairman was waiting with a smile plastered on his face. I was silent.

  “Don't worry, Bob. We're not going to go forward with the legal case. Well, provided that you continue your research here with us. I saw the details on your laptop and understand exactly what you're trying to do. Come back and there won't be any further interruption in your work. At least, not from our side. Our computer guy said you had a nice setup on your laptop. But it doesn't help to overwrite the hard drive for bad logins when you leave the computer logged in.”

  I wasn't completely surprised that they knew the value of my research. These guys had a mind for money. But now that they knew, they'd want to dictate my every move.

  “What do you really want?” I asked.

  “Listen, we will provide everything that you need. There's no need to stay at your small apartment any more. We'll give you a nice place. All you have to do is create some people for us. If you do that, you will get enough money to live out the rest of your life comfortably. No more worrying about food, and you'll be doing your research too.”

  I knew then that they indeed did have access to the notes on my laptop. I am an idiot. The next project I needed to work on was a language that only I could understand because I couldn't even protect my digital work at all. A great password or authentication is only as good as the person using it.

  “Who do you want to clone?” I asked, getting right to the point.

  “They're not alive currently. One full strand of hair is enough for you to create them though, right?”

  I thought for a while.

  “What's up? What are you thinking about?”

  “Sorry. I was just trying to guess who you wanted to clone.”

  “I may tell you later, but you'll definitely know once you create them!”

  He took out a hard cover book and also a plastic bag. Inside the bag was a longish gray hair. A spark fired in my brain that I had seen the book somewhere before but I couldn't place it. He handed the hair to me.

  “Is this a female's hair?” I asked, looking at the length of the hair.

  “No, it's from a male. You can start the process now, correct? How long will it take.”

  “I can start immediately, but it will take at least 3 months.”

  “Three months is too long of a wait.”

  “Even a baby takes ten months to be born,” I said with a smile. “I'm creating an adult in three months and you're telling me that it's too long!”

  The Chairman laughed. This was the first time I'd seen him do so. He had a good hearty laugh.

  “Well, is there any way to reduce your time? Do you need more people?”

  At that point I had an idea.

  “In my initial attempt to test my research, I tried to clone myself. That was when the machine was damaged. If I clone myself, the work will go twice as fast. Also, it won't be a security risk like bringing in an outsider would be.”

  He thought for a while. “Great. Do it.” Then he left.

  I was so excited to see my clone that I gave up guessing who the hair was from. I'd clone them and then I'd find out. No big deal.

  When I walked into the lab, I was alone. It's almost like a jail now, but they can't complete the research without me so they're not going to kill me. I was at least thankful for that. I worked happily, but was still slightly worried that something bad could happen.

  Would my clone respect me?

  Who did they want me to create?

  What will they do with them? Is it even safe for me to be here?

  Growing up my mother always said that I was a lover, not a fighter. She was right. I had some fitness equipment but I wasn't super strong and I didn't know how to fight either. I had to be careful here. I knew that much, at least.

  Two months later, the work on my clone was completed.

  I smiled at my clone. Since he was my clone he knew the research but only up until the crash happened. So I filled him in on the rest. Being me, or a form of myself, he understood the predicament that I was in.

  The Chairman was excited and asked about my clone, “You told me it would take three months to create a person, but you created your own clone in two. How did you accomplish this?”

  “Please don't mistake the speed for advancement. You didn't look over the lab fully when I was fired the first time. I was already a month into the process so I picked up from where I left off.”

  After seeing my clone he insisted that I continued to make clones of myself so that he could farm them out and have many researchers working for him. “We need to create a lot of people. The world has been missing out for years on some of the best talents that once existed.”

  I smiled, thinking that he was a man who thought ten women could give birth to a child in one month's time. The project manager didn't have common sense, but he at least understood that the time it took was non-negotiable.

  “This was only the first test,” I said. “So I only created one copy. Later on we can do more as we need to.”

  “When will person X be completed?” “Person X is scheduled to be finished within the next 45 days. I have to wonder, why won't you tell me the name of the person?”

  “You will find out soon enough,” he said with a smile.

  He thanked me for my work and left. My clone was hard at work so I decided to take a short break before heading back to the lab.

  “Oh sorry. I forgot my bag,” said the Chairman as he came back into the room. He grabbed it and left again.

  I thought maybe that he was person X, but the hair was too long. I talked for a while with my clone before I went to sleep.

  I dreamed that it was the hair from a dinosaur. A raptor. It escaped and killed me. When I woke I reminded myself that dinosaurs didn't have hair. And my technology wouldn't work on them anyways. Or would it? Maybe if this were an action movie from the 1990s. I would stick to just humans. In 30 days the gray haired man would be standing in front of us. And then, if it were someone famous, I would know exactly who they were.

  After a few weeks my clone and I became great friends. We were essentially twins, but even closer than that. He let me tattoo his hand to stop the confusion that was occurring around the building, but people were quieter too. They didn't know which one of us was which so they were hesitant to initiate a conversation.

  That day I could see most of the face of the cloned person. Person X. Who was it? I tried to guess, but still after seeing the semi-formed face, I had no idea. The seven foot box that contained it wasn't much help to determine who it might be.

  I decided that I couldn't control my curiosity any longer. I opened the box. I could have never guessed who was inside.

  “Oh my god it’s Einstein,” my clone and I shrieked together. They planned to make Einstein work for them. Who are these guys? What do they want with his knowledge of physics?

  “No, I can't do this. I have to destroy it,” I said.

  “No, wait!” My clone s
topped me and said, “We have to see Einstein. He is back on Earth. He knows so much. We can't just destroy him.”

  “We're their prisoners right now. And they're money minded people. They're not going to share Einstein with the world, they're going to sell him to the highest bidder. Maybe it will be fine, but maybe that knowledge will be used to hurt people.”

  My clone replied, “So we delay the process. In the mean time we create multiple clones of us and let us fight and escape from here and take Einstein with us.”

  “Even if we had ten of us we couldn't beat them. Our mind is strong, but our body is weak.” We both laughed. “However, Box 2 will save us. You're right though, we need to delay.”

  “Okay, so Box 1 is Einstein, but who is in Box 2? I thought it was another clone, like me?”

  “I know you think that, but that's just for safety purposes in case it goes wrong you can say that I tricked you. He will save us though. He has to.”

  Bob2 checked Box 2 but he could not recognize the man inside.

  I hid the second box when I heard the Chairman approaching.

  “How is the progress?” he asked with a smile.

  “Chairman, I got the person, he is Einstein!”

  “Wow that's great, is he alive?”

  “He's not ready yet. There's been some delays.”

  He saw the box and was content. Thankfully he didn't look around for a second box.

  “What are you going to do with him?” I asked.

  “He has a great future ahead of him and a country is ready to take care of him. He will be leading a team to start new research.”

  I could barely control myself. This could lead to disastrous consequences.

  “Next week I will come here with a renowned scientist. I'll explain to him about your research and how it works. He'll also start to work with you.”

  I told him that will be fine.

  Once he left, Bob2 came to me. “We are in danger. If you tell him how it works, he no longer needs to keep us alive. He will kill us! We have to do something. Call him and ask him for a week leave. Let us escape from here.”

  Bob2 continued sadly, “At least for me get two days leave. I've only been alive for two weeks. I haven't even been outside of the lab. There's all these memories, but they're not real.”

  I laughed. Bob2 was very sad but he didn't know what I had planned. It was nice to see how I would react in a different situation.

  “Don't worry,” I said, “Box 2 will save us.”

  “Who are you cloning? Superman? Batman? Because unless it's a superhero, I don't know if that will happen.”

  I told him to trust me or trust himself. Bob2 wasn't convinced. A few days later both of the boxes were ready. I activated Box 2 and told him about our situation and kept him inside the room.

  The chairman entered with the scientist and a few other people who looked like pretty bad guys. I counted seven people in total. If myself and Bob2 could each take two, that would leave 3 for the person in Box 2. But maybe we would be lucky to take out one a piece. I felt sick to my stomach. I didn't think this was going to work. The only hope was the element of surprise working in our favor.

  “Is Einstein ready?” asked the Chairman.

  “Soon. He was over 50 so it will take an additional few...”

  The Chairman took out his pistol and pointed it at me. He asked Bob2, “You know how to make Einstein live, right?”

  Bob2 was shocked and said, “Yes.”

  “I think one person is enough.” We put up our hands in protest.

  “You know everything?” asked the Chairman to Bob2.

  “Because I am going to kill Bob. You will be the only Bob hereafter. You will be the original Bob. You'd get to go on living and get to see the outside world too.”

  I was shocked. I was counting the seconds before I died.

  Unexpectedly, Bob2 stepped in front of me and crossed his hands. Chairman warned him to move out of the way.

  “Chairman, Bob is a good person. He already finished Einstein, he's just in testing so he's not ready yet. Please go and meet him. Using the hair he created two versions, Box 1 and Box 2. But the Box 2 process produced better results, go in and see him. He's waiting for you.”

  The Chairman was surprised and happily went into the room. Then the next person followed. And the next after that. They continued to go, but didn't come out. Eventually they were all gone. I smiled.

  “Thanks for pretending to be me, Bob2. I thought the Chairman might kill me, so I asked you to take my place for the plan to work. I couldn't allow him to kill you so I had to get in front of the gun.” We embraced one another.

  “Who is the box 2 person?” asked Bob2. “Tell me.” “

  “I won't tell you. But you can see him. He'll be familiar to you.”

  I said loudly, “Mr. Box 2 please come outside.”

  From that room, Mr. Bruce Lee came out

  Bob2 was surprised, “Oh, you saved us!”

  He replied, “You have given life to me, man.”

  Bob2 was confused. How was it possible to get Bruce Lee's hair. I took the Chairman's bag from the table and pulled out a hardcover book.

  “Do you remember this?” I asked Bob2.

  I opened it and said, “I saw it on eBay. A barber had a hobby and collected famous persons hair with their autograph. After his life was over, his son put it on auction on eBay. It was too expensive to buy.”

  “But once the Chairman knew about our research he purchased it, yet he only gave us the hair from Einstein first.”

  “Well, then how did you get Bruce's hair?” asked Bob2.

  “Once I saw the hardcover I tried to recall where I'd seen it before. One day he forgot his bag and I looked through it. I saw Bruce Lee's hair and I decided that he was our best chance.”

  “Thank you again, Mr. Lee.”

  “Hey, you know guys, I've always wanted to meet Einstein,” said Bruce. And so we activated Box 1.

  7. Successful Failure

  True or false? Yes or no? Success or failure?

  Any one of these is only possible at one time. For example my statement can either be true, or it can be false. It can't be both true and false. But in the case of my research, I've found a way to have both success and failure, what's known as a successful failure.

  FLASHBACK

  I am an army scientist. I don't want to share my name with you because you may be able to guess which country I belong to. My research is classified at the highest levels. We maintained it as above top secret even after implementation of the more practical aspects. No one need to know about it. Only three people knew about the research. And I was one of them.

  Why does it need to be secret though you ask? Well, if you know history, you'll know why. Do you know the history of the word “OK?” Alright, well I'll tell you. It was a long, long time ago. Every day an army captain would send a status report to the base about how many were killed in both sides of the war. If none had been killed, he would report it as 0 Killed. And shortened it to 0K. Now “ok” is used in everybody's life. Another thing is that we couldn't live without the internet which was invented for the army. If my research wasn't top secret, it might catch on like these other things have. And that would not be good.

  However, I trust that you'll speak to no one about what you're going to read here. So I will share this with you. Of course our research is for our soldiers, but it could be helpful for all soldiers around the world.

  If I question one of my soldiers and say to him, “You are in the war but you don't have any weapons. You cannot escape. You have two options: either die or be captured by the enemy.” My soldier's response will be, “I will fight. If I am about to be caught I will commit suicide.” This is because of war crimes. If he gets caught by the enemy, it will not go well for him. This is real to him. To the world it might be on page 4 of the newspaper if it's in there at all.

  My invention is a simple medicine. It helps soldiers escape from enemy hands. If he's
about to be taken captive, he self-injects the medicine. He will become invisible within five seconds and that way he can then return to base and avoid being captured.

  You might ask if it's possible for every soldier to be invisible and to win in combat that way. But I tell you that it's not possible. The medicine is in it's nascent stage. While the soldier is invisible, no one can see him or hear his voice. He can see others and listen to them but they cannot touch or feel anything. Even walking takes a while to learn. Operating a weapon or fighting someone would be impossible.

  This sounds too good to be true, right? But it's not. Like I said, the research is in it's earliest stages. The main challenge is how long the soldier can stay invisible. Currently it lasts for five minutes. That's far from enough time. One hour is what I'm shooting for. But I've researched so many hours, days and months. It just doesn't seem possible to extend the duration of the invisibility. Of course since it's a secret research, I can't go down to the local university and ask the biochemists there to help. And there's a severe lack of test subjects when your research is classified. I have however tested it on a deaf and dumb test subject, two monkeys and myself.

  I was spending more and more time but I just couldn't figure out how to extend the duration. How fast the medicine was taken up into the body and made the person invisible seemed beyond my control as well. My senior officer, who was the last person along with the deaf and dumb test subject to know about the project lost his hope and told me that I should just give up on that aspect of it. But I still had hope. I didn't want to give up because I felt like I was so close. But no matter if I increased the quantity given or made chemical changes, it was no use. Of course I could be invisible for a long time if I kept re-injecting myself, but since it was impossible to manipulate objects while invisible, I had to become visible again to administer more drugs. This was, of course, a problem.

  I was sleepless. I worked so hard that even my monkeys had to help me during two shifts. After two days of hard research with no marked improvement I felt so bad that I went to my house and stayed home the next day. I tried to refresh myself. I needed sleep so badly. I don't think I ever slept so much.