identity theft
"Yes hello someone has cloned my personality, and is using the copy to steal my assetz? As a precaution, I wish to close my account at Quantum Bank, and transfer all funds to OffWorld LLC."
The Sky Serpent
"Astounding!" Tomas Vethlungher exclaimed, looking up at the huge form gyrating through the clouds as airy shadows rolled over its glittering scales.
"If dragons are real, how come . . ?"
"By pure chance, no one was looking in the right direction at the right time," came the reply.
"So you're telling me that atoms made with stable muons are ten thousand times larger than ordinary atoms with electrons?"
The reply was drowned out by the deafening roar from the huge building at the center of the Scaling Services Inc. compound.
Static Interference
. . . one kilo of antimatter at absolute zero. please hold . . .
. . . k6fs7/brmy-psmo/y-opegds/a1_adst/0sncpk now means ahts3-snfo/tacant/3hpcs-ytmf-k0ant . . .
. . . your warranty expired 0.00000000054 nanoseconds ago . . .
. . . employment contracts include guaranteed erasure clauses . . .
. . . hello ? ? ?
Neutron Tubeworld
"Item 80792 is an ordinary neutron star, spun into an ultrathin loop the size of Earth's orbit, rotating around a G-class star in a one-hour pseudo-orbit. Each meter of the string weighs as much as an asteroid. The ring is further stabilized by an oscillating pattern of twists and kinks. Harmonic vibrations can be set up along its length.
It is completely surrounded by a centripetal 'Supersmooth' tube as wide as the Earth, stabilized by electrostatic repulsion. A habitable biosphere with a 1G surface gravity is wrapped around the tube. This billion-kilometer-long closed cylinder rolls around the 'Smooth' tube and the neutron string every twenty-four hours to generate a normal day/night cycle. Do I hear any bids? No? Did I mention there are flying monkeys?"
After a supremely improbable but not impossible Q-Flip, astronaut Johnar Rosse emerged from hyperspace to find himself stranded on an infinite world inhabited entirely by humans of every possible type and culture, linked by random wormholes.
During the following centuries he had many strange adventures, but it was only when he began to dimly recognize a legend of a visitor from outside the universe that he realized all the other inhabitants were future versions of himself.
Here are some one-sentence stories, a format pioneered by Fredric Brown. He hated to write:
A new moon? Then why is it getting bigger?
I recited pi backwards. I'm beat.
One nanite escaped? Geometric replication? Help!
Other end of Horsehead Nebula ... bleh.
Silver Surfer circles quasar: tube rider!
This is both the longest and shortest story ever written, with exactly 3.00000000 ... 00000001 words:
Singularity starts now pkvzetejdsblhbnjlnpfmmyarbyydghvkdovubuukdtlyrzjeysfjrdeypnbujnpvnlkgvtaiitquhiysgfddrkiy. . .
"To free mankind from scarcity and conflict, I have created a new universe where objects are easier to create than to destroy," Professor Xeox exulted, as he generated items of furniture, luxury cars, and gourmet food by typing in the appropriate codes.
The investigators never learned which venture capitalist had been the greediest, as the subsequent platinum rain mangled the evidence beyond recognition.
The Explanation
Paul Perlikan realized this was the last time a triple Nobel laureate would address the United Nations General Assembly.
There was no applause. Paul cleared his throat and began.
"As most of the distinguished delegates whom I have the honor of addressing know, I have spent my life studying wars and other manmade catastrophes. In the past thirty years, I have gathered a comprehensive dataset. The same pattern keeps turning up."
Never in his life had he been so unsure about what would happen next.
"I have subjected my data to every statistical and regression analysis, and reached an unmistakable conclusion: somehow, humanity is unable to learn from history. We keep repeating the same mistakes for no explicable reason. I will use the clearest possible metaphor:"
His voice broke as he spoke the final words.
"We're a screensaver."
Forever the road
Seven humanoids follow Probability Road through the endless forest. They include an obsessed programmer, an inscrutable philosopher, a diplomat who only cares about the big picture, and a brilliant warrior who does his own thing.
I don't understand the last two at all, even though I'm their leader.
I've been drunk only twice this decade.
The warrior won't explain why we must avoid most of the fortified villages, the castles, and especially that lonely hut he sensed in the deep woods.
At night, house-sized monsters roar in distant valleys. Tiny bats circle the perimeter torches.
We've hidden in the underbrush from a great shadow that blackened the sky like a rushing storm.
The next battle is years away, so we only train four hours a day, but the drills are getting harder.
Looking down a side trail two days ago, I almost remembered our goal, until the vertigo came and erased everything.
The path is long, but we are getting closer.
The Watcher is missing, abducted by the Cryptic.
Exiled from the Void we will have to enter, the Watcher exists to experience all thoughts to give meaning to all.
I realize the Watcher may be one of us.
The best hard SF novel ever: Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon.
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