Write-A-Thon Day 3

Private Roberto

By Donaya Haymond

The squad was immensely skeptical of the experimental robot at first, meant for seeking out and defusing mines. It had a set of retractable wheels for fast movement on roads, and eight pullout spindly spider-legs for rougher terrain. One long, hinged appendage tapering to a delicate multipurpose toolkit could disarm a standard piece of unexploded ordinance in a few minutes, while two stubbier mechanical limbs had the machinery to explore the ground and carefully do any excavation required. It had cost millions of dollars to develop and build, and was a great, shining hope for a future with far lower soldier and civilian casualties than in the wars of today. It also looked really, really silly.

It was a hobbledehoy of an artificial creature - all ungainly bits soldered together, the occasional loose part held tighter by duct tape, giving those observing it the distinct feeling (no matter how inaccurate) that a stiff breeze would make it crumple into a heap of scrap. It rolled erratically, like metal tumbleweed, when using its wheels; and its eight-legged scurry was similar to that of a tarantula with some kind of nervous system disorder. The military is concerned with function, not form or aesthetic. Prettiness lies within the domain of consumer products.

Codenamed “Private Roberto” and always referred to as “he” to prevent the enemy from targeting such a valuable piece of technology, its moniker immensely gave rise to jokes among the ranks that it was of Hispanic descent.

“You’re looking depressed, Private Roberto. Do I need to get a priest for you to confess to something you’ve done?”

“So, Private Roberto, is your family from Mexico, El Salvador, or one of those other countries?”

“Feliz Navidad, Private Roberto! Do you miss old Eve and Wall-E back at the hacienda?”

Private Roberto, of course, only replied with a gentle “Whir?” That’s all he ever said to anything. All other communication from him consisted of blinking lights or a message on his little screen, black digital typeface on a pale green surface, such as POWER LOW or PLEASE CHECK LEFT WHEEL. Whatever could be said against him, one couldn’t deny his programmed politeness.

As the months went by, despite the initial skepticism, it became clear that Private Roberto was very good at his job. He could clear a few hundred square meters of an open field, all by himself, in less than three hours, eliminating the breath-holding, tense tedium that was such work before his deployment. He had to be supervised by the bomb squad, but as they got used to how he operated, they found themselves with more time in between assignments to relax a little, write letters home, chat, and even play cards from time to time, on folding chairs while they kept an eye on what they were starting to think of as a pet. Their feelings towards him became close to one they would have had with a trained sniffer dog, even if Private Roberto was a good deal lumpier and more standoffish.

One day the technicians sent Private Roberto to inspect a patch of woodland before they sent any human beings there. He whirred, obliging, and quickly tiptoed to the assigned area to fulfill the mission. Less than ten minutes later, though, he stopped.

“What’s going on, Roberto?”

“You know he’s not going to answer.”

“I know it sounds stupid, but I worry about him when he’s out there.”

He let out several whirs, and the humans hearing it hoped they were only imagining that there was worry in those sounds, some kind of anxiety from a tool not meant to have emotions. Roberto tiptoed back to his handlers for input, one appendage held slightly away from his body.

He had a baby bird gently cradled in what passed for a hand. It was still in the ugly-cute pink stage with bulbous purple eyes, quite still and cold.

“Did he kill it?”

“It’s been dead for hours. Look at the ants crawling on it.”

“Why bring it to us?”

“I think the people who built him put in some kinda fail-safe to keep him from harming living things. Maybe he wants to check.”

“Whir?”

“It’s okay, Roberto. It’s dead. You can keep going.”

“Whir?”

“It’s dead, Roberto. As in…not alive. It was, but now it isn’t.”

“Whir.”

Roberto deposited the body of the baby bird at their feet and went back to his job.

Three of the men took Roberto fishing with them the next time they had a day off. They were neither reprimanded by those above them, nor mocked by those around them. One of the three took a photo of Roberto in a borrowed cap and jacket, with a fishing rod propped up next to him.

A new kind of bomb he was not programmed to recognize finally wounded – that is, damaged - Roberto, not beyond repair but enough to require extensive reworking. The reaction of his comrades surprised the journalist who had come to cover the newly declassified technology.

“No, you can’t just slap new parts on Roberto and make him go out again!”

“He needs rest. He’s done so much for us.”

“At least a furlough before he comes back into combat, if he can’t be honorably discharged.”

“Give him a Purple Heart!”

“Yeah, give him a Purple Heart!”

And so, after some consultation, Private Roberto was one of the first non-organic beings to receive a military medal. All his friends came to the ceremony, since he didn’t have any family…yet, anyway.

Write-A-Thon Day 2

She Sank Before She Rose

The earthquake caught her by surprise

she was asleep over her work, the legal papers

scattered, the tax forms piled, making her a pillow

(she had dreamed they were dead leaves)

and then the world broke open,

shook and shuddered, and in blind instinct

she dove, clutched at her head, huddled

balled-up and fetal, back to pre-birth to prevent

post death, and did not know what happened

for at least a few minutes after, until the world

regained some sanity and calm, until she realized

she was alive but trapped, pinned like the butterflies

she had wept for as a child when her big brother caught and killed

them to collect their pretty, iridescent husks,

as if stealing and hoarding empty shells were true love.

Trapped, lost to dust and smothered heat, but still a lit spark,

they would look for her, she hoped she prayed, they would find

rescuers would dogs would friends would know she were here

have the tools to find and save her, not give up till they reached her,

but meanwhile the air, so little air in this pocket

a barely-sufficient niche scooped out by a table with work that had been so important

now insignificant beside air (water and movement and food, soon too)…

She slowed her breath and thought of the still pool

memory of a Zen master she’d gone to when younger

who taught her to sit still and straight, think still and flowing

think of the pool not to be disturbed by petty worry

mindfulness of breathing, just the breathing, just the heartbeat

let it slow, control, transcend the moment –

the way you chew carefully to get full flavor, not gobble

the way you sink into a warm bath, not splash

the way you melt into an embrace, not grab –

the great Sufi mystic Jelaluddin Rumi, in the fifteenth century,

had once written, in his poems, concerning two types of breath

the breathing that is a shame and suffocation, and the other breath

love-breath, opening up, free, free even if the body is trapped

lost to dust and smothered heat, but it doesn’t have to die now

doesn’t have to die here, for if the mind can float freely what of a trapped body?

While the mind sails, though, ground the soul, keep it within

not ready for heaven, so much to do still, please Anyone Listening,

Anyone Seeing, please let her breathe, please let her think of mortal home not

immortal home, please let that be some other day, some other death

she wished for the light to come to her, rather than she to light

calmness was her friend, philosophy her teacher

meditation her medic, her nurse, her doctor, all-in-one until others could come

till there could be glad cries and sobs that another was saved

one fewer tombstone, one fewer body bag, one fewer casualty in the news

though she wanted to cry and fight, she knew it would kill her

exhaust her will, use up the air in her precious pocket,

so she forced herself to lie still, and dozed and prayed and breathed.

She wanted water before long, the one thing Jesus reportedly complained

about, thirst, such a simple thing, rather than other things he could have lamented,

his unjust martyrdom or pain, meanwhile she was obsessed by

an itch in her leg she could not scratch, thought about the money

she’d pay to scratch it, held back a laugh,

mustn’t court hysteria, must stay calm

breathe, breathe, breathe, let the mind float but keep the soul within,

slow, slow, slow, s-l-o-w, s—l—o—w—e—r

self-preservation, she must live for the sake of those who loved her,

she must live for the sake of the good she could still do,

the sights she could still see,

the lives she could still touch.

The love-breathing, not the panic-breathing, the still pool

in her mind, rationing each second still alive until resupply,

until finally, finally, finally, finally, finally please

she heard the scrape of shovels and the barking of hounds,

more than twelve hours since the earth went mad,

more than twelve hours since she woke from her dream of the forest,

more than twelve hours yet she was still alive and only moderately harmed,

all the breath she had desperately craved there for her,

she gulped it in immoderately at last, greedy for it, so glad

so very, very glad and relieved,

just to be

alive.

Write-A-Thon Day 1

E Equals MC Scared

By Donaya Haymond

The multiverse theory in physics states that there are an infinite number of universes, each one slightly different from the others, so that every possibility, every action and reaction, is explored somewhere, somehow.

In many universes, including our own, Albert Einstein is the greatest physicist of the 20^th century. He is acknowledged as one of the most intelligent men ever lived, and, even with his flawed personal life that included multiple infidelities, a kind and basically good man.

According to the multiverse theory – one of the theories that came after him, and would have troubled the same man that claimed “God does not play dice with the Universe,” – there is at least one plane of existence where he heard the news of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the newspaper. Perhaps in this same reality he had a slow sinking feeling when he realized it was his work, his breakthroughs in science that allowed this swift cut of the Gordian’s Knot this war had become.

There is at least one universe where he quietly whispered, “Oy vey,” and needed to go for a walk to clear his head. There is at least one where he did not manage to eat anything for the rest of the day. There may be ones he looked at the trees, the grass, nature outside, and wondered if one day all would be blighted by fallout.

It is possible he managed to calm his feelings of guilt and sorrow, knowing that this bold stroke probably saved the world from years of further war, this horrendous war that had claimed so much he loved. Or, in the chill of his grief and feelings of responsibility, he could have simply mourned. He could have mourned for the innocents of Japan who had not decided to fight this fight, who were merely born in the wrong place at the wrong time. He could have mourned for the children as yet unborn, whose genetic code would be warped by radiation, and who would have parents with all kinds of cancers and traumas, a great scar in their history.

He would have feared for what this meant for the future, a harbinger of another world war fought with nuclear weapons, which he predicted would lead to wars afterwards being fought with rocks. He might have had an inkling of the frightened decades to follow, hovering over buttons and having nightmares of a thousand, thousand mushroom clouds born of the two original parents.

He could not have known, unless some divine revelation showed him; that the Cold War never would ignite; that at least once freedom and democracy would peacefully erode at the harsh walls restricting whoever it could. Maybe the cosmos will never be kind enough for such visions to ever take place.

Did he embrace a friend or family member silently? Did he sleep at all that night? Did he stalk empty rooms, wondering if he did the right thing, if they did the right thing, if there could have been some other way, if knowledge is worth it for its own sake, if tools should be built when one cannot foresee all their uses?

The price of fame, as history has shown, is the public illumination of what the famous would rather have remain private woes. The price of wealth is constant demand upon it by those who wish to benefit from the wealthy. The price of beauty is a steady numbing to praise, a devaluation of all other of the beautiful person’s virtues. The price of knowledge, of adding to humanity’s store, is having on your shoulders everything that results from that knowledge, good or bad.

Some universes he regretted this more than he was able to resign himself to the bleak reality. In other universes, it was the other way around; he allowed himself to be consoled with thoughts of hands needing to get dirty, certain things that had to be done for the sake of a greater mercy.

Universes being infinite, there must be at least one where no bombs were dropped in the first place. There must be at least one that diverges even further, with no Albert Einstein born, no World War II, some other cities targeted, no cities targeted, more cities targeted…Again, though, the cosmos is probably not kind enough to ever let anyone see these differences and results, let us pick and choose which one we want to live in. Or with.

300 for 30: Day 27

(This was originally written on commission for a sci-fi magazine, however, they have requested that I double it in length. So I thought I'd preserve the original 584-word micro-fiction here as today's 300-for-30.)

What We Found on Europa

The first probe to land on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons discovered by Galileo, managed only to land upon the ice and roll around for a few hours, its multi-million dollar drill too fragile to break through the layer, which was thicker than expected, and allow it to dive into the waters below. Though the scientists involved in the mission pointed out that this proved there at least was liquid water, which had only been conjectured before, the public did not consider the mission a success. The robot was abandoned to crackle in the freezing temperatures.

It took more than a century for a private conglomeration of businesses, hoping to find rare and useful metals to compensate for the increasing scarcity of materials on Earth, to scrape together the funds for another exploration of Jupiter’s moons. They were hoping to emulate India’s recent monopoly of the rich Martian mines. One of the fleet of radio-equipped robots landed upon Europa, and did make it through the ice layer to the ocean. It measured increasing warmth as it descended, suggesting heat escaping from the core. All was darkness, though, and the sea-rover soon ran out of power, with nothing to charge its solar panel.

A hundred and sixty-eight years later, Free Luna of Earth’s Satellite, in association with New Earth Mars, sent a variety of crafts, some with humans in stasis aboard and some not, out to near space in an effort to find places where human life – and the lives of what non-humans we had managed to transplant – could expand. Europa had liquid water, we knew, and was at least in our solar system. All attempts at Venus had failed horribly, so away from the sun was our goal. Perhaps we could harness the heat of the core to groom the moon, make it Earthlike enough for us.

I am the first human ever to dive in a submersible craft into the depths of Europa’s oceans. I was supposed to share this with a partner, but she suffered a heart attack coming out of suspended animation. The technology is sadly not yet perfect.

Let those listening in from New Earth Mars, the nearest substantial settlement (not counting the temporary encampments on some of the larger asteroids in the Belt), and those on Free Luna and Mother Terra herself once the news is spread, let them know that I have come face-to-face with life.

It looks much like a small squid or large cuttlefish, only slightly larger than my hand, but has three eyes, huge and lovely eyes. It must feed on the tiny crustaceans my scanner is picking up, which in turn must live on bacteria nourished by the chemicals spouting from deep sea vents like the ones our ancestors discovered at the bottom of their sea.

I don’t know if it’s intelligent, the way we are, or even the way a dolphin or a chimp or raven is. I don’t know if it registers me as life, even. But it is blinking colors at me, the bioluminescence that is the reason for its vision, and I am blinking colors back at it as best I can, using my pen light.

It is too far for me to go home again, and I will never see another human face. Yet I do not regret this, not any longer. For in this encounter, at the bottom of this chilled soup of an alien sea, I have found God.