Krishna kumar Mani: SFS2: Science Fiction Short Stories

A sharp pain traveled through my leg. Oh my god, the animal has bitten me! I didn’t know what was going on. Gun shots echoed all around me. The animal made terrible sounds. I lost consciousness.

I woke up. I don’t know how long I was unconscious for. My army officers were there and I was in a cot. I checked my leg but didn’t find any wound. My legs are fine. God saved me!

“We captured the animal. Sorry, chief. During the encounter one of the officers shot you in the leg with the tranquilizer gun. You were passed out for a while. You should be alright though.”

In my mind I thanked the person who had shot me otherwise I might have died from fright. I couldn’t tell any of them that though.

“Do you want to inspect the animal now, sir? It’s sleeping again.”

I looked around me and didn’t find any rock. Last time I thought the animal was a rock.

“Where is it?” I asked, hesitantly.

“It’s in the box right below you.”

I suddenly jumped down and saw that I could see inside. It was asleep.

“You idiots! Why would you place me on top of the animal’s box?” I shouted.

“Chief, you are brave so you do not fear this animal. We had no cot since we were in the forest so we put you to sleep on top of the box.”

“I don’t know the meaning of the word fear. Hell, I don’t even know how to spell it,” I said after a moment. “I was thinking about the animal’s safety. If you hadn’t shot it I would have arrested it myself!”

They said that I should touch it and see that it was alright. Everyone else had touched the animal they told me. But I was afraid to touch it so I told them that I had already stood on it earlier. I had to produce this sleep animal to my boss and propose that he gave me an increase in salary and a promotion as well. We met the army captain and he wished well. They sent me back with the animal in the helicopter. I didn’t touch the box then either.

After we reached the research station people congratulated me as a hero. There were no army officers there to take the glory from me. I knew the animal was asleep and that it was inside the box so I projected out how brave I was. I moved the box just like my luggage trolley and warned people to stay away. I even bypassed security. Everyone knew I was the hero. I took the box to the lab.

“Is this the alien?” asked the doctor after seeing the box.

“I risked my life to catch it. It had better be the alien.”

“You touched it to make sure, right?”

“Yes, of course I did. What kind of question is that?”

He asked me to touch it again, but I simply walked away.

It was midnight and I went to my cabin to check the Facebook updates and count the likes on my useless shares. This morning I posted “I don’t like seafood.” 39 people liked that. I have no idea what the likes even mean.

The doctor and the chief came to my cabin. The chief’s face seemed to be scared. I needed him to be proud of me. I had done a good job. I put on my best smile.

“You idiot! I sent you with the army guys because you know about aliens,” he shouted. “They don’t know anything about aliens. You didn’t catch an alien animal, you brought a robot back to our base. It was designed by our enemies to find our research station. Had you touched it you would have known that it wasn’t an alien!”

”So what happens now?” I asked

“Just now we deactivated the robot,” he replied angrily. “Go and look at it.”

“One question, chief,” I said as I stepped into the lab. “It won’t bite, will it?”

“I should punish you, you know?” he shouted out of control. “Instead of sending any dogs or monkeys to another planet for testing, I think I’m going to send you there.”

“Thank you, chief. It’s always been my ambition. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity.”

“Wow. You’re not the idiot. I’m the idiot.”

Note:

The enemy country fabricated the story about the alien and leads the research station on a wild goose chase. The target country believed they were searching for an alien. The enemy had planted the robot there that was so bravely captured by our comedy hero.

Date: 18-Dec-2013

My name is Robert. So far I’ve submitted five research papers. I have gotten grants from research funds to meet my expenses. I am currently working on my sixth research paper. I’ve spent over a hundred thousand hours on my latest research. Yes, actually a hundred thousand. But my research is still only halfway completed. I’ll have to at least as much time as I’ve already spent to complete it. But before I do that, I’m going to test my invention. It might only be half done, but I’ve already spent so much time. I can’t wait longer. My invention is the time machine. But as I said it’s only half an invention. So far it’s only able to travel to the future and cannot go back to the past.

Scientists believe in their research and dedicate their life to their work. But they’re not ready to perform an experiment on themselves. And neither am I.

I am going to test my time machine with a rat. But I need to know if the rat reaches the future safely. How you ask? I invented a device that is based on the theory of relativity. It’s about to communicate from anywhere in any time. It doesn’t matter if it’s sending a message to the past or the future or what. I attached the device to the rat so I could listen to the sound and see its body temperature.

My time machine is not ostentatious. It simply looks like a big box. I placed the rat inside the time machine, closed the doors and set the year to 2200 with today’s date, December 18th. It took a few seconds for the rat to disappear, but when I opened the time machine to check, it was empty.

Even though I had already tested my invention with inanimate objects such as books and dust bins this was the first time I was testing with something that was alive. I put on the headphones and listened carefully. I heard the mild sound of a rat moving around. The temperature reading was normal. I was excited and loudly sang a song of joy as I sipped my black coffee.

After I finished my coffee I checked the temperature and tried listening again. I got nothing. No sound, no temperature reading. I was surprised. What had happened? I waited for more than an hour but nothing ever changed. I couldn’t wait to invent a relativity camera to watch what was transpiring in the future so I decided to send the most intelligent monkey I could find.

I attached the device to the monkey’s neck carefully and gave him an air horn. I took the air horn and pressed it. The monkey pressed it as well and liked the sound. He kept pressing it over and over. Of course I kept the time machine’s remote control because although he was smart, he wasn’t that smart!

I placed the monkey inside the time machine. He was still making noise with the air horn and enjoying himself. I set the same date and time for the machine. In a few seconds the monkey was gone. I wore the headphones and could hear the horrible air horn sound. I reduced the volume and checked the temperature which turned out to be fine. I monitored him continuously.

After two hours I put the headphones back on and checked to see if it was still there. The same air horn sound came out of the headphones but now I could hear some people’s voices as well. I tried to listen but the air horn kept disturbing the voices.

I finally heard, “How did this damn monkey get this damn horn?”

I was super excited. A voice from the future. Unfortunately I couldn’t hear anything other than the damn air horn noise. So now I was going to do the thing that scientists never do. Yes, I was going to test my half invention on myself. I couldn’t control myself after having heard the voices from the future. I was going to travel through time. I didn’t require the relativity device but I took the relativity remote to control the time machine.