Cepha’s Revenge

March 16, 2019 Chris Hall2 Comments

Cepha's revenge

Cepha observed the two galleons turn broadside. As greed and hatred erupted into sea-churning canon fire, she flung a tentacle into the pool beside her, summoning the sisterhood.

They came, they writhed, and the sea boiled. They pulled timbers apart with zealous suckers. Masts crashed onto splintering decks. Water gushed in.

For the humans must pay: creatures, so new to old Mother Earth, now plundered her riches and fought over them.

Cepha stirred the pool again.

Coins and trinkets emptied from chests were gathered up by eager tentacles, while sailors sank into the murky depths.

Calm returned.

Written in response to The Aether Prompt: March 13th, 2019

The Death of Bees

October 12, 2018January 7, 2019 Chris Hall11 Comments

waggledance photo credit picture-book.com — Source: picture-book.com

I remember The Time Before. The time before The Changes, before the bees died all over the world. Suddenly. All wiped out. It was that one dreadful year when things started to break down. Lots of things happened, but it was all about the bees.

We knew they were important.
We knew they were vital.
We knew they were vital for life.

Everyone had predicted it would be a catastrophe; but it turned out there was hope. There was a work-around; people with technology, scientists, biologists, cyberneticists. They had a plan.

They brought out the drones. Not the only-good-for-one-thing males of the bee species. No, these were machines.

But we didn’t realise that these tiny robots were more than just little automated pollinators.

Did you know about the waggle dance? The one a bee did to tell other bees where to find the good stuff. No? Well it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the new drones, the cute little bee drones, have eyes everywhere. They’re watching us. So you’d better toe the line.

They don’t do a dance, but they do tell their masters.
They watch; their masters observe.
Their masters control. Your life.

Everyone had predicted it would be a catastrophe, and it was. But not in the way people had thought. And now nothing is like it was in The Time Before.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/09/robotic-bees-could-pollinate-plants-in-case-of-insect-apocalypse?CMP=fb_gu

Saving Planet Earth

September 14, 2018October 12, 2018 Chris Hall7 Comments

Accident on Earth lunasonline

From my Flash Fiction Collection

Great Being Five was going to be in trouble. Big trouble. She had contravened the Non-Interference Protocol on one of the four inhabited planets she managed. She’d made the odd little tweak here and there over the planet’s long lifetime, all of which had gone unnoticed. But this time it was going to be obvious. As she saw it though, she’d had no alternative.

She’d never had any difficulty with her other three planets. Admittedly two of them were at such an early stage of development that there was really nothing to do but wait for something to happen. The third was a lovely, tranquil world, covered in lush vegetation and populated only by colourful birds which lived off fruits and seeds. She’d wrapped a subtle cloaking device around it in the hope of keeping it concealed from any advanced astral beings who, if they came upon it, would inevitably decide that it would make a nice second home. That would never do. So far none of the other Great Beings had noticed and her pretty planet had remained undiscovered.

Earth was an entirely different matter. Her little humans had really let the planet go. They had developed into such clever beings; so inventive! so creative! But so many of their inventions had had such a devastating impact on her lovely blue planet. Busily burning fossil fuels, chopping down trees, ruining the very soil they stood on. And then there was the killing. Each other mainly, but all those appealing animals they’d destroyed? Great Being Five was really mad about that.

The big issue was the planet itself. It really couldn’t cope for much longer. Great Being Five focused her third eye and scanned Planet Earth one more time. Swathes of empty forest all across the Amazon; huge scars left by the profligate plundering of mineral deposits which had developed over millennia; and the smog. Filthy air everywhere, a toxic sickly yellow; oceans clogged with seas of bobbing plastic; lakes and rivers coloured improbably by pollutants and algae blooms; fewer and fewer birds and animals. And all those people. People everywhere!

Great Being Five consulted the stats section of her data banks. For the past 40 years, the humans had been using more than double their annual quota of resources. There were other alarming figures too. The report finished with a verdict: ‘Unsustainable; self-destruction inevitable by Earth date, 2020.’

What had happened to the little humans? Why had they become so careless and greedy? They’d ruined everything. She couldn’t let them destroy her favourite planet. No! She wouldn’t let it happen.

Great Being Five scrolled through the little icons on her console and selected one. She took a deep breath and hit the delete key.

Remember when we used just one earth?

Accident on Earth

January 20, 2018October 4, 2019 Chris Hall11 Comments

Accident on Earth lunasonline

From my Flash Fiction Collection

Great Being Five surveyed her handiwork. She was responsible for four inhabited planets. She was pleased with herself having recently won an award for the one in Alpha Centauri. Although the planet was far from developed, life forms had just made the transition from sea to land and it didn’t even have a proper name yet.

But she was worried. Planet Earth was in trouble again. She sighed. It used to be such a nice little planet. She had enjoyed the dinosaurs and had been quite sad when they were wiped out by a huge meteorite. She should have seen that one coming, done something about it, made a small adjustment to its trajectory. But her eye was off the ball, busy nurturing a newly-forming planet on the other side of the universe. Not that the Great Beings were really supposed to interfere.

She’d watched the new little humans emerge, delighted as they discovered fire, tools and the wheel. Built great empires, made beautiful music, art and literature. She loved all the sea creatures and the birds and the big and little furry animals. Of course there had been terrible tragedies. Wars mainly. And awful natural disasters. She had held back as the Great Beings were required to do, even when they had created those dreadful atomic bombs. Very clever, but dropping them on those pretty little islands and causing all that sickness and death. It was all she could do to do nothing.

She had sat patiently through the Cold War, amusing herself with the pleasure of new discoveries by scientists and botanists. She particular enjoyed the TV broadcasts by David Attenborough. But now, now there was a problem developing which truly threatened the planet’s future.

She focused her third eye and searched. There he was, that idiot American with the funny hair. Donald Trump, making threats against that dangerous madman in North Korea. The people of the Earth sure did pick-em, she thought. Tuning in to the escalating situation with nuclear weapons poised on either side, Great Being Five was certain that her lovely blue planet was only weeks away from destruction. Something had to be done.

A natural disaster, one that was already foreseen. Give a little nudge to the Earth’s settings. Which though? She had to be certain that it would kill off Trump.

She scanned the data banks. That’s it! Mount Teide on Tenerife. One devastating volcanic eruption and half the island would fall into the sea causing a huge tidal wave to sweep across the Atlantic Ocean and take out the US Eastern Seaboard. Just a small increase in pressure and there she blows! And look, there are even reports of increased seismic activity. I just have to wait until Trump’s back in New York and bam! He’s swallowed up in a massive tidal wave. Gotcha!

Great Being Five’s conscience monitor started to flash. What about all the innocent people who will also be killed. What about the animals? The cats and dogs, and birds and fishes? No, think again, Five.

All right then. Just one little accident, just him. Great Being Five trained her third eye on the target. All she need was the opportunity to engineer an accident.

The following Earth day all the news and social media channels suddenly focused on one single event. Over the airwaves came the BBC World News. ‘In breaking news, President Donald Trump is reported to have fallen from the roof garden at Trump Towers. The President had apparently been leaning on the guard rail, tweeting his latest tweet when in a freak accident…” Five smiled quietly to herself.