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  SFS1

  Science Fiction Short Stories Krishna kumar Copyright © 2014 Krishna kumar ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and

  Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system

  without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  ISBN: 1494933446

  ISBN-13: 978-1494933449

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to all science fiction readers.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Family Members

  Thanking all my family members.

  Editor

  Thanks to editor Kyle Sharpe who did a great editing job and point out issues.

  Designer

  Thanks to graphics designer Robert Sage, who designed the book cover

  Table of Contents

  1 Rejected Patent

  2 Robography

  3 Useless Medicine

  4 Honey Moon on the Moon

  5 Ghost On Call

  6 Two Robots

  7 The Stupid Scientist

  8 My Recorder

  9 The Writer 10 Teleport 2.0

  1 Rejected Patent

  I sat in the courtroom waiting for a judgment regarding a patent of mine. FLASHBACK

  I'm Bill Ambrosone. And I'm a scientist who specializes in DNA. But more than that, I'm a businessman. I own five different labs and our primary service is analyzing DNA samples for clients. The cost for our services is lower than you'd think. We identify hereditary disease markers for the most part, but it's not unheard of to get a request for a paternity test. For the past three years I've been working on a project and once I have the patent for it, our business will take off like never before. You might ask what the advancement is, and I'll tell you. Just bear with me. I've got to get this patent. If I go to the market with my product without a patent, the next guy will come in and swoop it out from under my feet.

  I waited for the mail that day for what seemed like forever. When the mail carrier arrived, I hurried down the steps and out to the mail box. I sorted through the mail until I found an envelope that was stamped with “USPTO,” the acronym for the patent office. I ripped open the letter and poured through the contents. “We're sorry to inform you that your request for a patent has been rejected.” Needless to say, I was upset. Since I applied for the patent, it's now public knowledge. Even though I hadn't been able to get a patent, I also didn't need to have given out my trade secrets to every upstart who wanted to run a DNA lab. And what's to say the next guy who tried to apply for a patent with a slightly modified version of my work wouldn't get one and put me out of business altogether?

  I sat on my terrace and mulled over the situation. My phone rang. It was an old friend from school, a guy we used to kid that he'd had mud in his head instead of a brain. He ended up dropping out of college and worked in real estate now. After catching up for a little bit he invited me to a party. I agreed, needing a change of scenery and also just wanted to get my mind off the patent situation.

  I arrived at dinner to have him greet me. No one else was there yet, maybe they were late? “Hi, I thought more people coming?” I asked. “Nope, this is just for you,” he replied. “Wait, why?” I asked, confused.

  “Just hold on, Bill. It'll be clear in a second. It's not some weird come on or anything like that. I just wanted to introduce you to my friend.” A 40 year old man entered the foyer from the kitchen sporting a Rolex and a two button Armani suit in pristine, pressed condition. “Mr. Ambrosone, I presume? I'm the president of development for Arlon Inc.. We do a bit of everything, but mostly we develop software programs, specifically for mobile devices. I've heard a lot about you and I asked our mutual friend here if he could set up a meeting regarding a business deal.”

  ”I am a DNA scientist and you work in computers. What is it that you think we can do together, exactly? ”

  ”I know that your patent got rejected today. I've read all the details of your concept. They're really interesting, I had to admit.”

  ”You've read my research?” I was shocked that word had traveled this quickly. Who was this man?

  ”Yes, I know and now it is ready for business,” he said with a smile “Would you like me to explain my understanding of your research? I'd like to see if I've got it correct.”

  “Yes, by all means.”

  “The gist of the process is that your research allows you to take a DNA sample and extract data from a previous life. You can find their date of birth, and basically their entire life history from birth to death. Hell, you say you can find out what they were named based off DNA. That alone might be worth millions if it works. I've got the basics down, yes?”

  I was still in shock about the speed that he'd read it at. The research itself was somewhat technical, but most people would understand the basics of it. Perhaps he had a scientist read it for him.

  “So how do you plan to capitalize on this research, Mr. Ambrosone?”

  I stood there in silence and thought to myself. I had some vague notions but I didn't want to get my hopes up before I had a patent. After a little while he spoke again.

  “Bill, is it alright if I call you Bill? I really want to help you make money with your idea. Not since Watson and Crick first took credit for discovering DNA has there been such an advancement in the field of biology.”

  I was happy with his compliment, I start explained:

  “I will offer a service in the five DNA labs that I own.,” I said, beaming since he had complimented me. “Those that are interested in knowing their previous lives can submit DNA samples and get reports about their previous lives. It won't be too expensive, but if I'm the only one who can do it, I'll have all the business.”

  He laughed for a while. I felt my face getting flushed with anger.

  After a while he noticed my bright red face and stifled his laughter. “Sorry... very sorry...” he said after he had taken a sip of water. “Let's talk for real here, Bill. You're an excellent scientist, I'll give you that. But as a businessman, I'm not convinced. Sure, you have your five labs, but this idea is so much bigger than that. I want to maximize your earnings. How much did you say you expected to make off this idea again?”

  I told him again how much I had expected to make. He either coughed or stifled back a laugh again and continued. “If you agree to my plan, in the first month the revenue will be ten thousand times higher than your annual revenue from your five labs. And that's the first month. With your plan, you'd be lucky if a rival competitor across town didn't offer the service for cheaper after two weeks.”

  “My patent was rejected though. I don't understand.”

  “Who want patents? Patents are a joke. No one even respects them any more. Nowadays the patent office is so backed up you have to wait years to get a patent. In the mean time, someone else has done the same thing, taken it to market and you won't be able to get a patent anyways. That's how business works now” “Alright. So tell me. How do you plan to increase the revenue? What would you do, open more labs? Sell the service to other DNA labs?” I asked.

  “I'll tell you, but before I do you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

  He shocked me by pulling out a legal document right there and then. I had no idea about this meeting and he must have been planning it for weeks. How had he even gotten wind of my patent?

  “Listen, I'll take care of everything. Every month your share will be deposited
into a bank account that you specify. You retain the rights to the technology and you can count that as your investment. Like I said, I'm the investor. There's no risk here to you. We'd split it seventy-thirty. I get seventy percent and you get thirty. Believe me, the difference between seventy percent and thirty at the numbers I'm talking won't even matter to you once you see the paycheck.”

  I was listening intently, still a bit rattled by the whole situation. He simply smiled and continued his monologue. “Bill, this isn't a one time sale. In this contract, there's a three million dollar advance. I expect that we'll make that and more within the first couple of months. The check's already made out to you. All you have to do is sign the contract.” “You know, I'd like to have a lawyer read over this to make sure everything is on the up and up,” I said. “Let me call the one I have on retainer for my labs. I don't care if he's in the middle of dinner or lounging in the hot tub, he'll get here within twenty minutes. It won't be long.”

  After the lawyer checked the document over, I signed and was now a multi-millionaire. “Great, Bill. That's great. Alright, so tomorrow we'll get to work.”

  “I'm still not clear, how exactly do you plan on making so much money with my idea?” “We're going to take your idea mobile.” “What does that mean?”

  “We can turn DNA samples into digital files. I think you know that. What I'm going to do is to make a website and a mobile application so that users can upload their DNA samples and we'll tell them information about their previous lives. We'll give out some free information as a teaser, but they'll have to pay to get the full report. It'll be fully automated. We'll have maybe a few technical support guys but it will all be taken care of through the program. Billions of users with cell phones are going to want to do this, Bill.

  I thought he was done but had one last thing to tell me. “Tomorrow you'll begin your work with our computer engineers to help develop the application. All you have to do is answer questions about your research. Leave the computer stuff up to them and the business side of things to me.”

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  I worked with them as best I could to make the application ready for launch. It creates reports in almost no time at all. They tried to explain the server, mobile apps, something called 'the cloud,' SSL, xcode and things I've since forgotten. We launched and it took off like wildfire. Most people had heard of us within the first few weeks of launch.

  FIVE MONTHS LATER

  Now the application is one of the the top applications in both iOS and Android. It even competes with Temple Run and Angry birds. I thought this joint venture was the best decision I'd ever made in my life. I had several million dollars in my bank account and my name was so popular that press people followed me around to various locations.

  ”Your idea seems really great,” started a reporter in his early twenties, “but how do you know that the previous life information is correct?”

  “This is not magic,” I said with a smile. “This is science. reports? How else would we generate our

  Maybe a little wizard in a cloak somewhere knows the

  science. There's been

  answers? No, it's

  many independent verifications of data generated by our process. We've yet to have a false positive.”

  “But what is the use?” asked a female interviewer from the back of the crowd. “What stronger purpose can we have in life than to know ourselves? On the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, inscribed are the words “know thyself.” It is that which I seek to allow humanity to do. Of course each person will find a different use for the application. Just yesterday I read about a man who found out his previous incarnation's family had fallen into poverty and helped them out. Another man helped pay for the education of his previous life's son. Now that some research papers have been submitted about my invention, in specific how one's sins affect their next lives, soon the whole world will understand that and the crime rate will decrease. There's many more examples on our website. I believe we do good work. I think the government knows that too, that's why we've applied for a tax exemption.

  “What about the future? Are you researching anything else? Maybe contact with aliens?” ”No, no, nothing like that,” I laughed. “My days are too filled with counting my piles of gold! Really though, it's nice to have a few moments to sit back and relax.”

  “You're obviously a great researcher. Every day the world seems more and more violent. Couldn't you do some research into DNA so that we could remove or change the violent natures of some people?”

  I laughed but understood it is a good idea and told:

  “You know, that's a good idea,” I said with a laugh. “I will think on that. I guess I could become a masked avenger in the mean time though? Whatever help I can offer to our law enforcement professionals, I'm all for it.” The press took some photos and left. Early next morning, my intercom rang. It was the security guard.

  “There are some detectives out here who want to see you. They say it's urgent.”

  “Tell them I was kidding when I said I'd become a masked superhero. I'll be right down.”

  After a few minutes I entered into the hallway. Three police officers were there.

  “Please, come in and have a seat. What can I do for you?” I asked.

  “Sorry, Mr. Ambrosone. There's a warrant out for your arrest.”

  “A warrant? What warrant? Do you know who I am?

  “Yes, we're well aware of who you are. Just cooperate and this will go easily for both of us.”

  “I don't understand. What is this warrant for?” “In the past five months, the murder rate has increased dramatically. Usually we can say the murders are related to drugs, or gang activity but we've had fifteen murders that we just couldn't figure out a motive for. Two days ago, we arrested a guy that had tried to kill a taxi driver but the taxi driver stopped him luckily. You see, the thing of it is. The kid who tried to kill the taxi driver was a college student from another city. He came all the way out here to kill this taxi driver, a man who was fifty six and claimed he had never seen this college student before in his life. Now why do you think that was, Mr. Ambrosone?”

  “What? Well what does this have to do with me?”

  “That college student. Well, he found some information on from your App. It seems that the taxi driver had killed him in his last life. An accident, but that didn't seem to matter to him. So the college student had tracked him down and tried to get revenge.”

  “Well, he shouldn't have.”

  “Anyways, we started looking into the other cases we couldn't solve. Guess what? Each and every time it was related to that little App of yours. They find out that some guy has killed them or is somehow responsible in some way for their previous death and they go to seek revenge. It's happening in other cities. It's all over the world, Bill. You're the reason these crimes are being committed.”

  I had never expected this. I remained silent and went with them.

  THE PRESENT

  The court case has drug on for a long time now. And as it progressed, I understood more and more why my patent was rejected. It wasn't that the technology wasn't good enough. It was that a patent examiner had hoped I'd be discouraged and never show the work to anyone ever again. The killings didn't stop after the court case began. If anything, they got worse now that it was public knowledge you could use the application in such a way. Most of the world was against me and wanted to see my product erased from the earth in every way possible.

  “Listen. Every invention can have a good and a bad impact. While a gun can be used to kill, it can also be used to protect yourself. The same thing with plutonium. It can either make a nuclear bomb or it can provide heating and electricity to a whole city. We don't simply ban the invention because it has a bad use. And we certainly don't punish the creators,” I protested.

  The court agreed with me... about guns and nuclear power. Unfortunately they saw not benefit to my technology at all. They decided that it would be banned from that day forw
ard. They ordered the website to be taken offline and to delete all user data. They even penalized me from profiting off of the project and fined me for most of what I had made. The company who I partnered with got off without a fine. They merely said “we just developed it and marketed it. All the rights have always rested with Bill Ambrosone.”

  As I left court after the verdict had been read, a familiar reporter pressed forward through the crowd.

  “So what will your next invention be, Bill?” Oh God, please don’t give me any new ideas.

  2 Robography

  Year: 2507

  My name is Joe and I work for a ship building company. Currently we're building one of the largest classes of ships that we've ever built. Along with me, there's more than a thousand other people working in this isolated environment. They are all controlled by robots. Humans aren't allowed to do anything without the permission of robots.

  While we were walking to our work area, my co-worker James asked:

  “Hi Joe, how are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “Have you seen Bob? I haven't seen him lately,” said James

  “I've got some sad news about that. Bob is no longer with us.”

  He stopped walking, surprised and asked”What happened to him? Was there an accident?”

  I replied by gesturing to enter the rest room. We went to the next restroom and turned the water on full speed and started to talk. This is the way we bypass the security cameras and microphones when we want to convey secrets to each other.

  “The robots found out he was breaking the rules. They closed his story, James. You know that seventy percent of the workforce here are robots. Bob made a mistake and tried to talk to someone he wasn't absolutely certain of. We need to be very careful.”

  “Did they kill him?” James asked, clearly shocked.

  ”I think so. Bob is not the first person we've lost you know? These heartless robots would even kill us now. We've exceeded more than the 2.3 minutes allowed for urinal”

  James looked incredibly sad while he walked to his work area. But these things are regular to me. As James and I know we've lost eleven of our co-workers, but I know we've lost many more than that. The robots need humans to do work that only they can do. Other than that, robots don't require humans. They'd likely kill us all if they had no purpose for us. They don't allow us to talk to one another in private place. It's even against the rules to leave your room or visit another co-worker. All they want is for humans to work.