SFS2 - Science Fiction Short Stories: 10 Science Fiction Short Stories (5 page)

“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.

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.

Once I woke, I felt very refreshed. Again I started to think about how my medicine worked. What my medicine did was immediately spread into the blood and in five seconds it acted. My medicine is a bacteria, you see. And it only makes the person invisible until it loses its high level of concentration. Once the immune system responds and the bacteria die, the person becomes visible again. I've tried to improve this duration, but time and time again I've failed, as I've told you.

After an hour, possibly due to good sleep or a change of place, I had an idea. I rushed to the lab.

I pressed myself for days. One day at midnight I believed I had come upon a breakthrough. I went and looked at the two monkeys who were both asleep. I decided to let them continue to sleep and went to the room where I kept my human test subject. I smiled at him and he smiled back at me. I gestured that he should get ready for an injection. He got ready, we'd done this before.

I injected him with the medicine, and of course, after five seconds he disappeared. I started the stop-watch and had it counting. I didn't know what he was doing but I knew he couldn't hurt me. I checked the stop-watch. It had crossed the five minute barrier. I cross checked it with the wall on the clock as well. Yes! For the first time it worked as expected. Now it had crossed the ten minute mark. And then the twenty minute mark.

Around the thirty minute mark I became worried. What if he had escaped?  I ordered gate security to alert me and find the dumb-deaf test subject. I knew he could not cross the area because the medicine lost power in the time it would take if it was only the five minute medicine. Since he couldn't hear, maybe he was out there still, waiting for the medicine to wear off. The only option for me to find him was to go invisible and search for him. So that's what I did.

As I had thought, he hadn't left. He was asleep on the bed. I just looked at him and thought that I hadn't started the stop-watch to measure my own time. But I couldn't do anything about that now. So I just watched the clock. Three minutes went passed. Maybe I could way for an hour. That was the time that was expected. But the deaf-dumb guy should become visible before me. I was afraid for him. But he seemed to be sleeping and I wanted my test results to be accurate so I didn't bother him. I went out to the security guard and wondered if they could see me. They couldn't. They were still searching for him. A soldier entered the lab and placed my lunch and left. But I wasn't hungry or thirsty at all, another benefit from the invisibility.

Flashback ends.

Finally my research was a success. When invisible people could communicate with one another. There was no hunger or thirst while invisible either. These are the successes of my research.

However, the failure may be greater. It's been six months since I took the medicine. Today when I woke up, I was still invisible and I don't see that ever changing. I modified the bacteria so that when they are killed they reanimate from dead cells. I thought the immune system would simply take longer to kill them all. But what happened was an endless chain reaction. When one bacteria dies, another is created and so on and so forth. This will continue until my last breath.

I was so excited to know for certain and to find my test subject that I used the medicine on myself. I knew exactly how to make myself visible. But I couldn't touch anything. The army believes that somebody kidnapped me and my test subject.

Invisibility feels a lot like death.

I am on the way to the office after a month of sick leave. I'm still not fully recovered though. Physically I'm alright, but not mentally. I lost ten million dollars. Whether someone would call it an accident or an incident, I don't know. Whatever it was, a month of sick leave is not nearly long enough to get over the problem. And yet I'm going back in to the office today.

You're probably wondering how I lost ten million dollars. Maybe you're wondering how I earned ten million in the first place so you can do the same. Well I'm not a politician or a celebrity those things are for certain. To know how this happened, you'll have to listen to my story.

I don't want to share my name or anyone else's name involved because that's confidential and I value my privacy. What I will share with you though is that I'm in my early thirties and I completed university at a world famous business school. In university they taught me that creativity and hard work were the two key factors to success.

After I graduated I landed my first job in a VC firm.  VC firms, or venture capital firms are companies that identify startup companies and fund them. After the startups grow, the VC firms are benefited by revenue from the startup or maybe even buyout the company.

The first thing I realized after joining the job was that there was a large difference between business school and the business world. Creativity, hard work, whatever. Those were nothing without one thing: luck. Maybe luck is 50%, maybe it's 99%. But when it comes down to luck, business school has nothing to offer.

Luck plays a major role in funding, mergers, acquisitions, all types of business. I know that because I worked for eight years in funding companies similar to my first job. During my experience we funded hundreds of companies. Some promising and useful projects failed. Some funny and useless projects succeeded. The reasons for failure were varied, no two were exactly alike. But every success could be attributed to luck. Every single one.

During my time I came across a lot of founders who had ground breaking ideas. Some had excellent business plans. Some were environmental initiatives as well. But venture capital firms are only ready to fund based off of return on investment (ROI). So unfortunately I rejected a lot of great projects over time.

Even if they were going to invent a time machine, venture capitalists couldn't care less. We're not about advancing science. We're about making money. If you don't have a way to monetize it, you aren't getting funded by us.

So you understand how funding works. Soon I forgot all my business school lessons. I understood that the new lessons from every day business were more important. I was a fast learner
and I hardly made any mistakes until just recently.

After my eighth year with a stellar record, I got an offer from one of the top three internet companies. The benefits package and potential for bonuses were amazing. The salary wasn't shabby either.

The position I was hired for is Product Acquisition Manager. Our average target is to acquire three potential companies per month. While some months we acquired only two, other months we would get four or even five. Finally at the end of the year we had acquired thirty-five companies. I was completely satisfied with my job. I'd changed the future of not only our company, but of every internet and mobile user as well.

After my first year, I got an attractive offer from a competitor company. They were only in the top ten, not the top three like my previous company but the salary and year-end bonus were almost double what I was making. I took it as a challenging task. I worked hard for six months and we acquired twenty companies. I was big competition to my previous company. Unfortunately, the money was drying up. My new company had poor brand management and the decisions of management were even worse.

Then without my involvement at all, management made a billion dollar deal. I looked at it and I could tell that it was a billion dollar mistake. But it wasn't for the company's growth. It was for the board member's bank account's growth. They cheated everyone who had invested. I've felt bad knowing that. And I've tried to do my best regardless of their corruption. Companies have contacted me for background on that acquisition deal since I had a decade of good deals behind me, but I simply tell them I wasn't consulted.

One day I declined buying a mobile application startup that they valued at two million dollars. I didn't think it was worth buying. It was a personalized mobile home screen application which shows related applications based on current time and place. Maybe it saves a few seconds or a minute worth of time per day. That is, if you were well organized and didn't have many applications. I thought it was pretty useless to tell the truth.

Well, up until now I was the golden boy. But I wouldn't be for much longer. After a couple days, my friend of a friend who works for another venture firm called and told me that the mobile application company was ready to pay 10% in cash if they were acquired. This is the first decision I made against my morals. But I figured if the management were in on the take, I was going to get my share as well. I talked up the mobile application company to management and they bought it. I got $200,000 in cash and immediately opened a foreign bank account to hold it.

After that, I started to do it more often. The friend of a friend got his cut and I got my larger share. He acted as my underground agent and I've made over $600,000 in the last four months alone. I wasn't sure why I liked it. Maybe it was because management was so poor or there was little job satisfaction. I tried to reason with myself for whatever reason. I reasoned that the startups needed money and I was helping them. And that my company needed startups and I was helping them. But at the end of the day it was all to make me a little bit richer.

As I said before, luck plays a major role. All the talented people are not the winners. And all the winners are not talented people.

But I used my talent to fund some companies that I liked and also myself. I knew I was doing wrong, but my company was doing the same. If I don't sound moral any more it's because I'm not really the hero of the story. My focus is to get a few million and then retire. Well, maybe get a few million and then a few more million and then retire.

It came to a point where I was working on an acquisition deal for a virtual reality gaming setup. I gave an estimation of the maximum offer for seventy-five million dollars to my bosses, but opened the talks around forty-five million dollars. Management was ready to acquire. I knew the deal was genuine and worth acquiring so I didn't think of a background deal. I only used background deals for non-potential companies.

Surprisingly I got a call from my friend of a friend. He said the virtual reality company is ready to talk business for one-hundred million and to give me ten percent. I thought that it was an amazing deal and that I would get ten million dollars in just one deal. I agreed with their offer and told management that I'd heard Microsoft planned to buy the company and that we should up our bid to a hundred million. Like always, management bit. The deal was completed but the VR company said that they'd give me cash only after the deal. Other than my first deal, all other deals I got were wire transferred to my Swiss bank account. I knew ten million was a huge amount so I hired a private detective agency to secure myself and monitor my home for a few days for safety reasons.

After the deal was completed, the Virtual Reality company invited me to a farm house. I went there with my handgun for safety. They first gave the commission to my agent. A suitcase. He opened it up and inside was a million dollars. They gave him the key, he locked it and took it and followed me into the next room when they brought me there. They gave me a key and a locked cart. They told me to open it, which I did.

That was the first time I had seen so much money. I randomly picked up a few bundles of cash and checked. I multiplied rows, columns and made sure the denominations were right. I concluded the trolley contained ten million dollars or so close that it wouldn't make a difference. They helped me put the trolley into the backseat of my car and bid me good luck.

I drove away carefully. A few miles down the road I came upon a police checkpoint. They shined the light into my window and asked for my driver's license, which I gave them without hesitation. They looked in the back and shined their light on the trolley but didn't ask any questions. It seems like they were checking for drunk drivers. After running my license plate they let me go on my way.

I went to my house and pulled the trolley out of the car. The trolley was so heavy, but that was the weight of luxury. My security came with me and offered to help lift it but I rejected and wheeled it to my bedroom. I locked the house and even the bedroom. I then opened the trolley and took out the stacks of money. I set it on my bed and laid on it like I'd seen done in the movies. It wasn't very comfortable but I felt like a millionaire. I saw myself in the mirror surrounded by money, money and money. I wanted to snap a picture and upload it to Facebook but I controlled that emotion really quickly. That would be the most dangerous thing I could do. So I packed it, locked it and put it beneath my bed. I didn't fall asleep as I was watching TV and checking the trolley every ten minutes. I don't know when I fell asleep but I woke up at 8 AM and panicked. I checked the trolley. It was in exactly the same place it had been.

I finished eating breakfast and once again wanted to see the money. This time in the daylight. I went to pull the heavy trolley from below the bed. It was weightless. I was shocked and checked the lock. It was locked as well. I searched for the key throughout the house to find it in my pocket. I opened the trolley. Empty. How? I felt crazy. I checked the locks on the house. Locked. Checked the security cameras, the detective agency, my agent, even the virtual reality company were no use. It seemed to be magic how I missed the ten million. My agent didn't lose his money, it was only me.

Now like me, you might guess that the agent, detective agency or even the virtual reality company may have stolen my money. But there's no clue to be found, there's no proof to be had. I went to another detective agency but they said they couldn't help. It wasn't who stole it, but how? Read over the story again or recall the details. How was it stolen? I ran my own story back in my mind.

After that night I was upset to say the least. I was sleepless. I couldn't go to the police. I felt sick. So I stayed home the first day. And then the next day I stayed home and took sick leave. I moved to a different place to stay. When I go anywhere I search for that money, my ten million. It's like I was blind and saw for a second and then became blind again immediately. But it's nowhere to be found. I have to make that money once again. I know I can do it.

Today our company is giving a demonstration of a new gaming console. The gaming console teamed up with the virtual reality start up. They produced a virtual glass which has had a good response. They announced that it was the future of gaming. I don't really care for games and I had lost the ten million so I didn't want to watch. But I sat in the front row regardless.

In the beginning they rambled on with a big boring introduction without a demonstration. For a long time I didn't see a gaming console on the stage or on the screen. For a demonstration they wanted a volunteer from the audience. Many were interested by they picked a college student. He eagerly approached the stage.

The demonstrator gave him a watch as a gift before he began participating. He asked him to put it on which he did. The demonstrated had another volunteer from the audience, a woman whom he gave a bracelet. She put the bracelet on as had the college student the watch. The demonstrator asked the college student if he could catch the rabbit and pointed to a spot on the stage. He ran and ran around the stage chasing what seemed to be nothing. The demonstrator then had the woman join in the chase for the rabbit. They ran around the stage but couldn't catch it.

The demonstrator turned to the audience and explained that what they were wearing
was
the gaming console. This was the future of gaming. You will feel it and you will believe it. The audience burst into applause which seemed to bother the volunteers who were still trying to catch the rabbit.

Now I understood. The virtual reality company cheated me. They gave me an empty trolley and the key chain. The key chain had to be the gaming console.

But I didn't have any proof. Did I throw away the key chain? Even if I had it, could I get my money? No of course not. Now I knew how they stole the money but I couldn't do anything. There never was any money, only an illusion.