Krishna kumar Mani - SFS1 - Science Fiction Short Stories

Opposite to the restaurant, there’s an ice cream parlor.. I grab a vanilla cone and sit down on one of their benches to check if the man exits the restaurant. Two ice creams and an hour later, I’m beginning to question myself. My hands are sticky and I have to wonder if this man has been following me at all. Perhaps he owns the restaurant. I decide to go in to check, but there’s a call on my cell. A number I don’t recognize. Is it him? I kept my eye on the doors as I answered the call.

“Hello,” I say to the unknown caller

“Is this the writer Robin?” a man’s voice asks.

“Yes.”

“My name is James calling from United Publishing.”

It could have been my mystery man. But why was he following me if he had my number. Besides, United Publishing was one of the most prestigious publishing companies in the country. They wouldn’t talk someone.

“We would like you to publish your next book with us. When can we sit down and discuss this?”

“Tomorrow around 11 AM works for me.”

“Okay sure. Do you know where our head office is?”

“Yes, I know,” I lied. I vaguely knew where it was. I’d look it up on the internet later. I’m excited by this opportunity. As a writer I’m familiar with this publisher’s work. A lot of the top writers in the past decade have published their novels through them. Needless to say, it’s a high honor for them to be calling me. I forget about the no account note-taking man and start to think about tomorrow’s meeting. Maybe I should pretend I’ve got other offers for my next book. Would that help or hurt my chances?

I got up so early it was still dark out. It didn’t matter, I had hardly slept the night before anyways. Generally publishing companies negotiate in royalties so I decided to take the print-out of my previous book’s royalties. Would that make me seem like an amateur? Would they laugh at how little I’d earned while they were making money hand over fist? As I start the car, an old song plays on the radio. I don’t know the words but I hum along to it until it ends. It’s soothing and before I realize it, I’m waiting at a signal across from the United’s head office building. Now, every second seems like ten minutes. I look around outside. Oh god. Somehow the same guy with the notes has followed me here and is parked parallel to my car a few rows over. He’s watching me and jotting down something. I am clueless as to who he is. I guess maybe they did hire him to follow me? Either way, I’m shocked to see him still around. I want to catch him and shake him and ask him what in the seven seas he wants, but I have a big meeting so I control myself. But I keep an eye on him until I walk into the front of the building. He doesn’t seem to be following me inside thankfully.

I meet James in a conference room and he comes to the point directly:

“Congratulations, you are going to write your next book for us, the time for completion is only four months, but I believe you can handle that? We want to have a new holiday release and we think you’re just the author to provide us with it.”

I am surprised at this offer to say the least. “4 months?”

“Yes, you’re comfortable with that, right?” I sit back in my chair and think for a moment. I wouldn’t have to search for a new concept. I could use any one of the ideas that I already have. If I did that, I could deliver on time. “Sure,” I answered. “Check the agreement, these are usual terms given to writers. We’re going to give you a 20% advance for living expenses. We will pay you right now with a check. 10% will be paid after we finalize the outline as a little reward. 30% will be remitted after the first draft, and the final 40% after you deliver the final copy of the novel. I’ll give you some time to look over it I’m sure it’s a lot to take in. I’ll be waiting in my office. All you need to do is sign it and then you can come collect the advance.”

When he had left the room, I’d noticed that he hadn’t even mentioned the amount. I checked the document and searched for the payment section. Once I saw the amount “one million,” I couldn’t not believe it. I shouted to myself “one million!” Suddenly I was afraid. This is a dream. It has to be a dream. People do not give you a million dollars for writing a book. That’s just crazy. But I check if it’s a dream. I can’t fly, pinching hurts and I’m not in my underwear. Everything seems to check out. I can’t control myself. I expected to be paid a lot less than one million dollars. That wasn’t even in my best case scenario. I hurriedly read through the agreement and signed as fast as I could. Now I am a millionaire. Well, once I complete the book. But wasn’t that the easy part? I walked like a king to James’ office. He looks like he’s having a meeting in his office so I just decide to wait outside. I look around the visitor’s area. There’s a few chairs and a fish tank, but I don’t think there’s any fish in it. And in the corner of the room, there’s a man. And he’s taking notes. This time I lose control. I walk over to him and glare at him.

“Who are you?” I ask.

He doesn’t even acknowledge my presence. He’s too busy with his notes.

“I asked, who are you? I know you are following me, tell me!” I shout.

Now he smiles to himself and notes something else on the page. But he still doesn’t even look at my face.

I shouted again. “Who are you?…”

He doesn’t respond. Maybe he’s deaf? Who cares. He’s following me and I’m going to make him stop. Suddenly I grab his notes and look at that what he is writing down. Oh my god, he’s written down everything about me. He even knows about the million dollar check. He is spying on me.

I start tearing the papers and finally get a response from him:

“Don’t do that. I’m the writer of the story. You are the character and you’ve just destroyed your own story.”

Note:

Sorry for the incongruities, I sculpted a writer character for the story, but the character believes he’s the real writer. He argued with me and likely has destroyed the story. He thinks he’s in control, but I am the real writer of the story.

These machines are my boss’ invention. While he’s an excellent scientist, the world has never seen him. He doesn’t want fame or glory. Doing research and invention is his passion. I’ve worked with him for the last three years as an assistant and in this time, he’s invented three things but he never discloses his inventions to the world. Every time he invents something new, I tell him that he should let people know about it. But he just dismisses my advice by saying something like ‘this can be misused’ or ‘maybe one day, but the timing isn’t right.’ I can’t accept that. There’s so much good that can be done for the world, and I need more and more money. So I stole his machines last week while he was busy with some new research. I don’t know the science behind it. But I’ve operated the machines many times and I know if other scientists can get their hands on the machines that they can reverse-engineer them. I can’t live like a monk like my boss can. I want money and I want my hard work to be acknowledged, even if I’m just an assistant.

Teleportation is only a concept to most people. For me, it’s a daily reality. I can’t count the number of times I’ve teleported within the lab. That’s what I stole. I can disappear from one machine and appear in the other in a fraction of a second. And I’m going to sell it to the world.

To monetize it, I prepared a demonstration. At the same day and the same time, I booked two auditoriums. One was in New York and one was in San Francisco. Yes, I am going to have my demonstration in two places that are on two different sides of the North American continent. At first, no one believed me. When I took out ads in the newspaper, people finally started listening. My boss never read the newspaper so I wasn’t afraid he’d catch on. I’ve been contacted by some nut jobs, but for every one of those, I’ve had ten venture capitalists, reporters, industrial leaders and even government authorities who want to get their hands on this new technology. I’ve told them all the same thing: wait for the demo.