SFS2 - Science Fiction Short Stories: 10 Science Fiction Short Stories (4 page)

Sometime in the 1700s.

The king hated lies and the liars who told them. He punished them when he could, but it didn't seem to make a difference. Liars were popping up everywhere. And he knew that if he decided to start punishing them more severely, there wouldn't be any people left in his kingdom at all. So, instead, he decided to announce a competition.

“Whoever manages to not lie for a month will get thirty gold coins. A person's neighbor will confirm that the person didn't lie for the entire month. However, if I find out that the person did speak a lie, I will severely punish both the liar and his neighbor who vouched for him,” declared the king.

The king's subjects were wary of this competition

“Even if we don't lie for a whole month, someone else might tell a lie about us and we'd be punished. But if we do not claim that we have done the thirty days worth, the king will think we're all liars. All of us would be better off deaf in this kingdom!” was the common consensus of the king's subjects.

Ultimately, they could not come to a conclusion on what to do for the thirty days.

“How many of my subjects have been put forth as winners?” asked the king to his minister.

“Not a single one,” replied the minister.

“So then they're all liars!”

“You’re Grace, the people are afraid to put forth anyone as a winner. Even if someone claimed they didn't tell a lie, how could they be trusted?”

The king thought for a while and came to the conclusion that the competition had been useless. He called in the royal doctor.

“Doctor, your task is to find a medicine that detects whether or not a person is telling the truth.”

“Your Grace, based on my knowledge of medicine I do not think this is possible. You see...”

“Well, look through your books again! Contact all the doctors you need to. Only then will you be able to tell me for certain if it is possible.”

Two weeks later, the royal doctor returned to speak with the king. “You’re Grace, I am sorry to say that I could not find a medicine which detects lying. However, my teacher may be able to help. We should send for him immediately. He lives far away, but is the master of all medicines.”

“Then I have to meet him,” said the king.

The king's summons was sent far and wide to search for the master of medicine. Finally they came upon him studying in a cave and brought him to the king. The king explained the situation to the master of medicine.

“As my student has told you, there is no medicine in the world which can detect when someone is lying. However, I can make a medicine which may make a person keep from lying. Anyone who tells a lie after taking the medicine will die within twenty-four hours. Would you like this medicine?

“I am not worried about the lives of liars. I believe this medicine is exactly what I'm looking for.”

“We can first implement this in a small village,” began the master. “I will be there to administer the medicine and see the results. Then from there we can implement it in the whole kingdom. It would be good to test it in the village first and it would give me time to produce the medicine for the whole kingdom as well.”

The king thought this was a brilliant idea. After a week they decided to start the test in a village. All the people in the village were assembled without telling them what was about to happen. They administered the medicine to them. After the last person had received the medicine, the master spoke to the people.

“The medicine you have taken kills you within twenty-four hours if you tell a lie. Be careful what you say if you want to live.”

The people from the village for scared. For days they didn't even talk to one another because they were afraid they might lie by accident and then die.

After a week no one had died since no one had even spoken since they had been told what the medicine did.

“I have no idea if the medicine actually works. People are too afraid to talk,” said the king to the master of medicine.

In response, the master assembled the people from the village and spoke to them.

“Dear people of the village. You should not be afraid to talk for the truth is simple. If you tell the truth, you don't need to remember anything. When you lie you have to think more and have to remember what you said. Just simply don't tell lies when you speak to one another and you'll be fine.”

He paused for a moment before continuing. “When you speak the truth to others, you may face problems. But you should take pride since honesty is a virtue of a good person. And any problems you will have will come from being a good person.”

A few weeks later, people became less scared and went back to their usual life. The king was surprised and implemented the medicine in the whole country. There were a few deaths, but the king was happy.

Fifty years passed. Then the king's son became the ruler of the kingdom.

People had forgotten the meaning of the word lie. And the master of medicine himself was dying. He requested the king to meet him before he died.

“Master, why do you reject all forms of medicine?” asked the young king.

“I don't require medicine any more. My life will end. I am at peace with that.,” replied the master.

“You are a legend and a great boon to this kingdom. I will grant you any wish that you desire.”

“You don't need to do anything. I know that you've started to build a temple for me. But please stop construction. People should not even know the word 'lie' or its meaning.”

“Construction on the temple will be stopped as you have asked. But we need your assistance, master. I need the formula for the medicine that kills people if they tell lies. It isn't required for our country, but if we capture another country in the future it will be needed.”

“I will tell you about the formula. There is no formula. Nothing can stop someone from telling a lie, only their attitudes can do that.”

“What do you mean,” asked the young king.

“Yes, I told a lie. That lie was 'if you tell a lie, you will perish within twenty-four hours.' That's all the people needed to change their attitudes. People were afraid to die so they told the truth to stay alive. They merely considered normal deaths to be due to lying and that kept them afraid.”

The master closed his eyes. The last words of his life came out of his mouth slowly. “That is the only lie I ever told in my life.” And with that, he died.

The young king was now confused as to what the truth was.

The first option was that what the master had said was true and that there had never been any medicine that killed people when they lied. Or that the master had told a lie and the medicine had taken effect on him and killed him.

Either way, the king was not ready to speak a lie or tell anyone about what the master of medicine had said.

Recently my company fired me for a mistake in the lab. I wasn't actually the reason for the mistake, but they didn't believe me. I doubt you'll believe me either. Everyone thinks it's my fault. But I can assure you, it was far from my fault.

Now I'm without a job. And what's worse, I can't continue my secret personal research. No one wants to hire me because I was caught using the company's lab equipment for my own research. But I can't help it. My mind is always going, always evaluating new problems and trying to find solutions. My stomach needs food just like my mind needs my research. And that research needs a lab. So I used what was available to me.

I can go without food for several days, but going without research is a problem. Since I've lost my job I've been struggling to find either food or research. I decided to post my research on a crowd-funding website, but only in vague terms as my exact research has been banned by the government. What that is, I dare not say yet. Listen to my story a little further.

The website is now my only hope. I wait and wait for someone to contact me and I check my inbox frequently. I need the most advanced equipment out there. PCR machines, electron microscopes, and that's just the start. I can't buy a fully equipped genetics lab, especially without a job. If God came and asked me what I wished for, I wouldn't wish for sleep or for to be able to eat, only a fully equipped lab.

As I sat in my apartment, the doorbell rang.

“Mail's here!”

I signed for the mail and noticed a large manila envelope. “Oh my God, this is a legal notice from my old company.”

The company was run by stupid guys. They had a world class environment for my genetic research, but what they employed me for was beyond boring. During my free time I used the equipment and started my research. I was able to clone any animal from only a strand of their hair. Mind you, it has to have the entire follicle intact so it can't be hair from the barber's that's been cut. And the age of the individual matters. If I have hair from a twenty year old, the clone will come out to be twenty years old. If the hair is from a forty year old, the clone will be forty years old.

At first, my research began on a rat. And then I moved to a rabbit. After many initial successes, I decided that it was ready for human trial and set about to make a clone of myself. Of course all of this was done in secret in my lab office. No one in the company knew anything about it. And I have no idea why they invested so much money into the laboratory because there were machines they would never use. It was probably for dodging income tax, but I don't know for sure. They gave me a lab and a salary, so what did I care?

Everything was going great until one day I damaged an expensive machine. The cost of the machine was... well, I don't want to say what the cost of the machine was. This is the reason they sent me the legal notice. They are asking for a million dollars in reparations. But what's a million dollars to a guy who has less than a hundred? It might have well had been a trillion.

I went back to surfing the internet while waiting for someone, anyone, to email me about my research. In the meantime, I planned to sell off some of my fitness equipment on eBay so that I could buy groceries.

Next day

Wow. Some idiot actually responded. I mean, some
gentleman
. He's ready to provide a lab for my research. I can't believe it. We spoke at length in a conference call. That meeting went well.

After that and a few more phone calls, I met with his authorized representative who said they were ready to provide whatever I needed. The lab was 250 miles away and was set up so that I could spend nights in the office. I packed my things. I wished I had my laptop from the old company, but at least it's configured to overwrite the hard drive if too many incorrect log-in credentials are tried.

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 stopped 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.