[This a bit different than my usual content. I’m trying my hand at some short story writing/fiction and thought I’d share here. A portion of it is being made available for FREE subs and the continuation will be shared with paid subscribers. This first one is within the sci-fi genre, but future ones will span multiple-genres. If it sparks some creativity of your own, feel free to share in the comments!].
It's been a week since she's made the discovery. It's been a week since she's been able to sleep. It's also been a week of obsessively testing and retesting, hoping she was wrong. Except, she wasn't. Or at least she wasn't capable of finding the loophole that she was so desperately searching for. The kind of intense search that only “hope” could power.
She was beautiful with her pale skin, crimson lips, green eyes, and coppery hair. But you’d be hard-pressed to notice. Her uncared for features no longer stood out, beneath her unshelled appearance.
She had to tell someone. Someone had to know the answer. She had to share the knowledge. She hoped that he'd prove her wrong, but deep down, she knew she couldn't be.
Emma has been waiting impatiently for Mr. Cooper to show up. His round office wasn't overflowing with awards, though she knew how many he must have. Instead, there were stacks of books everywhere—made from real paper—displayed like beautiful pieces of art. They were antiques that most people did not have access to aside from the few remaining libraries where visitors had to go through security to be allowed entry to the treasures within. Due to the sensitive nature of the paper, access was restricted only to a fortunate few and they had to wear gloves at all times as to minimize damage to the paper. Breathing was optional, but not recommended. Those same books were, of course, available to be downloaded into individual implant chips and were readily available to anyone, but few remember ever holding actual paper, the use of which has been outlawed years ago as the world's supply of trees and fertile land fell. Although he made a good living by most accounts, Mr. Cooper did not have the wealth to buy real books. Fortunately, his family valued them more than any other material possessions and had passed them on through generations. He stubbornly refused to sell them despite the value they would fetch amongst certain collectors. Perhaps it gave him a sense of connection with the past, speculated Emma.
She has never touched paper.
Suddenly, she felt a cold breeze. Impossible, since the room had no windows and the temperature was set to "optimal," adjusting according to the individual inside the room. She was alone in the room. She felt it again. It was her body. Since she stopped sleeping, she felt like she has been losing control over her body, which now seemed to be a separate entity from her mind. She couldn't go on like that much longer.
She didn't have to. Emma hardly noticed as Mr. Cooper entered the room. He was a handsome man in his early 50's, a lifelong bachelor, married to his work. He didn't need much more and if he did, there wasn't enough time. Mr. Cooper had supervised Emma's work for the past 8 years and despite the length of time they've known each other, she insisted on continuing to call him, Mr. Cooper. At first it bothered him a little, but he grew to regard it as more of a nickname.
He was surprised to see Emma in his office as he hasn't seen her in weeks, realizing that he must have lost her to a major competitor—the lab. He accepted his defeat, but there she was, in his office. "Welcome back, Emma," he said as he momentarily examined a flack in her green eyes. She almost smiled. Almost.
Her thoughts rushed back ahead of her. "I am not exactly sure how to say it," she stumbled, "so I will just go ahead and start in the beginning."
Mr. Cooper fell back into his chair as she began her presentation.
She had explained the tests she's been running on her Poltanius Project and her accidental discovery. The oxygen abundance on earth was increasing at an unstable rate producing massive quantities of carbon dioxide, silicon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide.
He hardly heard any of it by the time she had uttered the sentence: "The earth is going to spontaneously combust at any moment within the next two years." The world started with a "bang," and now it will end with one.
For years, people have known that this was happening, her theory wasn't new. But they also thought they knew the time frame -- centuries and centuries from now. The Earth Planning Committee was thinking about the future, slowly working to release carbon dioxide from Martian rocks and importing photosynthesizing plants to create oxygen, but all of this was still many years away from becoming a real alternative.
Most scientists theorized that by the time earth is in serious danger, it would have already moved closer to Mars' orbit anyways.
She was wrong. She had to be.
So he laughed.
"We have to tell people," said Emma.
"Not so quick. I'm sure there's some mistake in the calculations," he said.
"There's no mistake. I went over it about a hundred times."
"Emma, you're brilliant, but even brilliant people are wrong. Sometimes more so. They allow their imagination to get away with them. I assure you, the world is NOT going to spontaneously combust."
"I hope so. I hope I'm wrong. I hope you prove me to be wrong."
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Random Minds by Katherine Brodsky to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.