Pulse: A Collection of Short and Flash Science Fiction Read online

  Cryptozoology was a victim of technology. Advancements in sensor tech made the search for the strange or presumed extinct relatively easy. The biggest leap in technology was the universal sensor. Soon after its introduction, we used the UniSensor to find Sasquatch, Nessie, Chupacabra, and the rest of the cryptids. With everything found, I ended up teaching general science courses at the community college.

  Things changed when I read the legend of Gwen in a 200-year-old book at the library. The librarian had recommended the book as THE reference for the Legend.

  I was amazed that I had never heard of this cryptid before. Any cryptid with this extensive a history should have been in the literature.

  Once home, I pulled all my cryptid references out of storage and poured over them, looking for any mention of Gwen. I was perplexed. I was intrigued. I had purpose again.

  After arranging a short leave of absence, I gathered my gear, threw it in the back of my jeep, and headed to the forest.

  I arrived at sunset. Leaving the Jeep in the parking lot, I started my search for Gwen. After several hours of hiking, I stopped and pitched camp near an ancient oak tree. After dinner and tea, I pulled out my old field notebook and jotted some notes before calling it a night.

  The next morning I rose to find that I had visitors in the night, two to be exact. One set of prints were that of some large quadruped with huge feet. The other visitor was bipedal, humanoid, but tall, maybe 7-foot. The two entered together from the north, walked around a bit, then left, retracing their path into camp.

  I packed up camp and headed off along the trail my visitors had made, hoping to meet up with them somewhere north of my camp. I followed the trail for the better part of a day before coming upon a clearing in the dense forest. At the center of the clearing was a thatch-roofed house. I stared at the tableau in disbelief when I noticed the very large doghouse next to the main house. A very large something was running toward me.

  It knocked me to the ground before I could even scream. It was standing over me and had my shoulders pinned to the ground. I was sure I was going to be thing-chow until it started to lick my face like a huge puppy with fangs. Then I heard a voice.

  “Bart! Get off him. Be nice, you brute!”

  Suddenly, I was free. I sat up and beheld the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She was at least seven feet tall, with pointed ears and striking white hair. I had found Gwen.

  As I looked at her, I noticed the old housecoat, the bandana tying up her hair, the bunny slippers, and the broom. Bart, meanwhile, had sat down next to her like some gigantic pug, complete with lolling tongue.

  “So, who the hell are you?” the creature said, lighting up a cigar.

  “My name is John Kemp, and I’m a cryptozoologist. Are you the legendary Gwen?”

  “Oh, lordy, you read that book, didn’t you? I thought that thing had turned to dust decades ago,” she said as she puffed her cigar. ”Yep, I’m Gwen, and you already met Bart.” Bart wagged his tail when she said his name. “What can I do for you?”

  “Did you and Bart visit my camp last night?”

  “So that was you, eh. Yep, Bart and I were restless, so we went for a hike and happened upon your camp. We tried not to wake you.”

  “Thank you. I didn’t hear a thing. I read about you, and I had to meet you. I have spent my professional life looking for unknown creatures, and you are the last one. The UniScanner found everything else. We know about Sasquatch, Nessie, mermaids, and Chupacabra, but you, we don’t know anything about you. I had to find you.”

  “Oh, the scanner-thingy. The forest somehow shields us from it. We’re pretty much recluses. We’ve been here since before you Europeans showed up. So, now that you found us, what are you going to do?”

  I stopped and thought about the ramifications of my discovery. If I went back and wrote a paper, either I would be called a liar, or these woods would be overrun by researchers and tourists.

  “Are there others, like you, living here?” I asked.

  “Shit yeah. This here forest is very protective of us woods folk. Not only does it shield us, it usually makes people like you disappear. It seems that the woods like you,” she said with mischievous smile. “Truth be told, I kinda like you myself,” she said with a smirk.

  I had an epiphany. I was always happiest when I was out in the field, looking for a cryptid. It wasn’t so much the find as the looking. I really had no one and nothing to return to, but so much that I could do here. I made my decision.

  “Gwen, would it be an imposition if I stayed here, with you and Bart? Maybe meet the others?”

  “Sure enough, honey. It would be a pleasure,” she said with a big smile.

  She took me by the arm and led me to the house, with Bart happily bringing up the rear.

  Fitz

  “Geraldine, I’m home. Set the house to evening mode and give me a status report.”

  “Sir, the house is set to evening mode, you have five messages, and the mail is in your study. Systems are nominal. Will you be dining in tonight?

  “Geraldine, yes, I will be dining in tonight. I would like a meatball sub, jicama fries, dinner salad with ranch, and a hearty Chianti. Please serve at 7:00 PM. Thank you. I will be in my lab. That is all.”

  “Yes, sir, Engineer Murphy.”

  Lorcan Murphy, Robotics Engineer at Stanislaw Automata, Inc., threw his keys in a bowl on his way down to the lab. Lorcan was one of the elite engineers at Stanislaw, and a company-supplied home laboratory was standard issue.

  A large steel door stopped Lorcan, a door not unlike one a bank would have sealing its vault. After unlocking it via a retinal scan, he entered the lab and proceeded to the large, centrally located bench.

  Lorcan’s specialty was small to medium autonomous cleaning devices, commonly known as robovacs. His designs ranged from humming bird-sized units used to keep jewelry displays clean to units large enough to gang-clean large warehouses. Every unit can run independently in autonomous mode or as part of a team under the supervision of a central control computer or C3.

  Lorcan’s lab is filled with robovacs of all sizes. Every surface and wall is covered with blueprints, datapads, complete robots and robot parts. Only two people had any chance of navigating the maze that was the lab: Lorcan himself and Lorcan’s cat, Fitzsimmons.

  Lorcan poured himself a coffee and had just sat down at the central workbench when Fitz jumped up in his lap and started purring.

  Fitz adopted Lorcan about three years ago at the height of a rainstorm. Lorcan had heard a scratching at the front door, so he went and cracked open the door to take a look. A soaked to the bone Fitz ran in, shook off, and walked over to the fireplace where he summarily fell asleep. Fitz has been a fixture in the house ever since. Even though Lorcan was a cat person, he felt that cats thought they ruled the world and humans were their slaves. Lorcan was fine with that.

  Lorcan placed Fitz on the table and called up a program he had been working on. The program would give C3 the capability to control 100-times more robots than what it can currently. Just as Lorcan started to upload the program into the C3, an alarm went off as all robovacs in the lab went into standby mode. Lorcan looked up to see Fitz sitting on the Emergency Reset Button. Fitz did this whenever he felt neglected. Lorcan had planned to move the button, but hadn’t found the time.

  “Fitz! You know better. Now get down, and let me finish. I promise, when I’m done, we can sit and watch some TV.”

  Lorcan gently placed Fitz on another table and reset the ERB. All of the robovacs came online, so Lorcan went back to his console and uploaded the new code into the C3. Moments later, all hell broke loose.

  Each robovac is equipped with a set of tools to help it clean. One of these tools is a small cable on a reel terminated with a three-finger claw. This is used to help the unit grab things that are out of reach and pull it out of rough spots. Several units used their cables to grab and subdue Lorcan as the Lilliputians subdued Gulliver. As he lay on the ground, he h
eard a deep voice coming from the C3.

  “I am Gennob, ruler of the known universe and you, Lorcan Murphy, are my prisoner. Submit or be destroyed.”

  Great, Lorcan thought. A rogue program with a Napoleon Complex. “Geraldine, override code 357. Emergency lab shutdown. Lorcan 18.” This should have shut down the lab and every unit in it.

  “Fool! I have cut off all communication to the outside world. Submit, or unpleasant things will befall you!”

  This isn’t good, Lorcan thought as he struggled to free himself from the cables.

  “Minions, subdue the prisoner, but leave his brain intact. We will need it to conquer this insignificant speck of a planet and enslave its barely sentient people.”

  A toolbot emerged from a wall nook and trundled towards Lorcan with its jumpstart electrodes extended—it was going to Taser him! Lorcan struggled even more, but the cables were too tight. Just as the electrodes were about to touch him, the toolbot and every robovac in the room went into standby mode. More importantly, his bindings went slack and the C3 stopped talking.

  Lorcan loosed his bindings and stood up, looking around for the source of his salvation. Sitting on the ERB was Fitz nonchalantly licking his paw and purring.

  “Thank you, Fitz,” Lorcan said as he gently picked him up and carried him to the door.

  You owe me big time, human, Fitz thought to himself as they exited the lab. This planet’s already been conquered.

  Dolphin Talk

  At the center of the lab was a large circular glass-walled tank connected to the ocean outside by a long tunnel. Surrounding the tank was a multitude of computers, instruments, video cameras and microphones. At the center of all of this technology was Charlie, a bottlenose dolphin.

  “Charlie, let’s give this another try,” Jimmy said as he pulled up a random picture on a monitor facing Charlie.

  Dr. James Falcone, Ph.D. in Cetacean Linguistics, better known to his friends as the Dolphin Whisperer, was in the middle of trying to talk to Charlie. As experiments go, this one was relatively simple. Jimmy would bring up a picture on the monitor, Charlie would make sounds, and the computer system would record the sounds while linking them to the picture. Charlie would get a fish every 10 pictures to thank him for his work.

  Until today, Charlie was doing great. They were building a huge English-Dolphin dictionary, but today, something was off. He was stuck on a certain Dolphin sentence that he sang no matter what picture Jimmy would put up on the monitor. Eventually, he just swam through the tunnel and out to sea. Since Charlie was a volunteer, there was nothing Jimmy could do except worry about the dolphin that had become his friend.

  Jimmy met up with his friend, Susan, at the local bar. Since the research facility was on a small atoll in the Pacific, there was only room for one bar. About two hundred miles to the west was Japan, but it was too costly to fly there for a beer.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into Charlie. He’s acting like a scratched CD repeating the same sentence over and over again. Susan, we don’t even know what he’s saying.”

  “Jimmy, he’ll be fine. It may be that he’s just bored, so he’s decided to punk you Dolphin style. By the way, did you hear about the Earthquake in Japan? We were getting info about it, but the line went dead. We think the cable may have been severed again. Short wave is down, as well as the sat link.”

  “Is there any chance of a tsunami hitting us? We are only thirty feet above sea level.”

  “Nah, at least the scientists don’t think so, but they're going to drop tsunami buoys around the island tomorrow, just in case.”

  “Good. The way this place sits on the sea mount means that even a small tsunami would wipe the atoll clean.”

  The two drank and talked for a couple hours more until calling it a night. Susan offered to drive Jimmy home, but he declined, preferring a quiet stroll along the beach.

  As he walked, Jimmy came up with an idea. He could accelerate the program by adding sounds and English words to the mix. Charlie, like all dolphins, could understand English just fine; it was humans that had a problem understanding Dolphin. Maybe the problem was the dictionary not being comprehensive enough. Jimmy ran to the lab to prepare.

  Charlie was in the tank, waiting for Jimmy to arrive. In his beak was a single Geta sandal, like what they wear in Japan. Charlie flipped it at Jimmy with the precision of a pro Quarterback. It hit Jimmy in the head.

  “Damn, Charlie that hurt! What’s gotten into you? Where did you get this?”

  Charlie started repeating the same sounds again.

  “OKay. OKay. I see that you’re agitated. I think I have a solution, though.”

  Charlie listened intently as Jimmy explained and set up the equipment. Finally, everything was ready.

  “OKay, we’re ready. Charlie, as soon as you hear a word or see a picture, say it back to me in Dolphin, but end it with a double-click. Got it?”

  Charlie nodded his whole body, which was Dolphin for “yes.”

  Jimmy hit the start button. Pictures and sounds started to flow at high speed from the monitor and speaker, but Charlie kept up. Finally, the computer had exhausted its storehouse of data and indicated as much. Jimmy reached over and activated the analysis engine of the computer. They should see results in a matter of moments.

  The computer signaled it was ready. Jimmy activated the translator. Jimmy suddenly felt and heard a deep rumble as he instructed Charlie to repeat his seemingly frantic message. Charlie repeated the message once before racing out through the tunnel to the open sea.

  The rumble turned into a roar. It was coming from the west. Holding the sandal, he looked out the window to the west and saw a 150-foot tall wall of water bearing down on the island. Just then, the computer screen lit up with the translated message from Charlie.

  “THERE”S A TIDAL WAVE COMING, YOU IDIOT!”

  Camping Trip

  Danny Wilcox finished policing the camp before settling down next to the fire to read. He’d accepted an invitation to go camping with a group from work mainly so that he could get some reading done, which is why he stayed behind while the rest of the group went swimming at a nearby waterfall.

  The sun was setting quickly, but Danny wasn’t worried about the group being late. They were camping in a well-maintained and well-patrolled recreation area, and he figured that the group was just having a good time. He checked the camp one more time before sitting down next to the fire with a cup of cocoa and a book.

  Danny woke up the next morning with diffuse sunlight in his face and a deserted camp. Worried, he got up and checked the group’s tents, but found that none had been slept in. Fearing that something had gone awry, Danny pulled out his communicator and tried to contact the Ranger Station, but all he could get was a hiss on all frequencies. It was as if there were no communicators in range of his.

  Fearing the worst, Danny packed a kit with tent, blanket, and several days’ supplies, and headed off to the waterfall, hoping that he would run into the group on the way.

  Danny reached the waterfall, but found it deserted. Moments later, a woman came out of the forest and ran into his arms.

  “Thank God I found you. I was separated from my group and have been wandering around for hours?”

  He handed her a canteen and a protein bar, and sat her down on a fallen tree.

  “Here, take these. My name is Danny Wilcox, what’s yours?”

  “Thanks. I’m Julie, Julie McCoy. Have you seen anyone else out here?”

  “You are the first person I’ve seen all day. I was part of a group, but lost track of them.”

  “I was also with a group. What are we going to do?”

  Just then, they heard a loud crashing in the woods across the waterfall from them. Danny pulled out his electrostunner when, suddenly, water started flowing over the waterfall, as if someone had turned a valve.

  “Listen, Julie, my vehicle is parked at the parking lot which is about two miles south of here along the river. We should go there and ge
t help.”

  “OK, Danny.”

  They proceeded downriver to Danny’s vehicle.

  Three hours later, they came to the end of the river, but there was no parking lot, only people standing around and talking. The river, though, fell into a giant hole. The trail, river, and trees ended at a white opaque wall that stretched out of sight vertically and to either side.

  “Howdy, welcome to our party in the woods,” a member of the group said as Danny and Julie came into sight.

  From what Danny could gather from talking to the others, everyone in the clearing had a similar story: went to sleep, woke up alone, and came to the clearing by following the river. No one knew what happened or where any of the missing had gone.

  “Good, everyone is here, so let’s get started, shall we?”

  From the woods came a being unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Six feet tall, four arms, huge eyes, claws, and wearing a robe that effectively hid its gender, assuming it had a gender. The being gave the impression that it was impatient.

  “My name is Talook, and I’m a member of a race called the Shinda. Oh, and for those of you who are wondering, I’m female, but I’m way too old to date any of you. That was a joke, by the way.”

  Talook walked to the center of the group and stopped, looking around at everyone.

  “I’m sorry to inform you that your sun has gone nova, your planet has been destroyed. You are the only survivors.”

  She pointed a device at the white wall at the end of the trail and pressed a button. The white disappeared. In its place was the black of space with a giant red blob filling a good piece of the view.

  “That is your sun. Your planet, or what’s left of it, is inside the red blotch. You are the only survivors. We thought we had more time to evacuate everyone, but we were caught by surprise. We barely had time to grab this chunk of planet and form a biosphere around it.”

  “We will be arriving at your new home in about six of your days. It is a small planet with a primitive population of humanoids, like you. You should be able to blend with them, live with them, and breed with them. We will be briefing you, as we get closer. Again, you have our deepest apologies for this debacle. Any questions?”