Quantum Visions 6 Read online

  Quantum Visions 6

  A production of the

  Orange County Science Fiction Writers Orbit

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Quantum Visions 6 (Quantum Visions Chapboks, #6)

  How Harvey the Turtle Saved | Ms. Horry’s Sixth-Grade Class

  In The Salad Bowl

  TRASH TALKING

  Day of the Ficus

  Possession | by Chrome Oxide

  Art Project

  JUPITER

  JUPITER STORM | SUBLIMATION

  Contributor Biographies

  November 2017

  Table Of Contents

  How Harvey The Turtle Saved

  Ms. Horry’s Sixth-Grade Class

  Shauna R. Roberts

  ...5

  In The Salad Bowl

  Ralph Cox

  ...17

  Timeless Baseball

  Robin Walton

  ...27

  Trash Talking

  Tim Cassidy-Curtis

  ...35

  Day of The Ficus

  Wendy Van Camp

  ...43

  Possession

  Chrome Oxide

  ...47

  Art Project

  Jamie Cassidy-Curtis

  ...53

  Scifaiku Gallery and Art

  Wendy Van Camp

  Probe

  ...59

  Jupiter

  ...60

  Geomagnetic Reversal

  ...61

  Jupiter Storm

  ...62

  Sublimation

  ...63

  Contributor Biographies

  ...65

  Rights Page

  Geomagnetic Reversal, Jupiter, Jupiter Storm, Probe, Sublimation, scifaiku and art previously published online, all rights held by Wendy Van Camp

  Art Project, previously unpublished, all rights held by Jamie Cassidy-Curtis

  Day Of The Ficus, previously unpublished, all rights held by Wendy Van Camp

  How Harvey The Turtle Saved Ms. Horry’s Sixth-Grade Class, previously unpublished, all rights held by Shauna R. Roberts

  In The Salad Bowl, previously unpublished, all rights held by Ralph Cox

  Possession, previously unpublished, all rights held by Chrome Oxide

  Timeless Baseball, previously unpublished, all rights held by Robin Walton

  Trash Talking, previously unpublished, all rights held by Timothy Cassidy-Curtis

  Front and back cover design by Jude-Marie Green

  Story art for ‘Timeless Baseball’ by Jonny Vasquez

  Inside front cover by Wordle.net

  Interior design by Jude-Marie Green

  Inside back cover, OCSFC meatball by Greg Funke and Mac McMahon

  November 2017

  How Harvey the Turtle Saved

  Ms. Horry’s Sixth-Grade Class

  By Shauna Roberts

  I detest being a turtle.

  Imagine being buried alive in a coffin that taunts you with holes too small to escape through.

  Or being the filling in a sandwich whose “bread” is bone and keratin. Or, in my case, metallic microlattice laced with sensors and electronics and painstakingly painted by pros to look like your everyday Terrapene carolina carolina. In other words, an Eastern box turtle.

  Did I tell you I have claustrophobia? Or that I prefer the old days when scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wore suits, looked dignified, and stayed in their labs?

  Those days are gone. Combating today’s public-health threats often requires fieldwork and fresh thinking.

  I was the one who came up with the idea for the CDC’s program Human-Animal Rescue Via Educating Youngsters, or H.A.R.V.E.Y. Who knew I’d be the only person in the lab whose mind could tolerate occupying a robot body for more than five minutes as Harvey the Rabbit, Harvey the Hamster, or Harvey the Turtle?

  I was also the nitwit who argued that each H.A.R.V.E.Y. “rider” have as realistic an experience as possible. Each H.A.R.V.E.Y. received instincts appropriate to its species, a system to circulate hormones and cytokines, and a rudimentary eating and excreting system to maintain the illusion of reality. The result: When I’m Harvey the Turtle, I endlessly fight a hankering to head for something that smells tasty—strawberries in a kid’s lunch bag, a dead bird in the schoolyard, or the fresh running water of a creek miles away.

  That’s right, “fight”—present tense.

  Tired of being a turtle, I had already written a letter of resignation when a routine mission turned out anything but routine and convinced me to continue as Harvey the Turtle.

  #

  The thick air of my childhood welcomed me, made even more humid than usual by Charleston’s recent tropical storm. Somewhere close, sweetgrass released a nostalgic perfume. I opened my eyes to the sight of an indigo flag bearing a white palm tree and a curved thingy we learned as children to call a crescent but never a crescent moon.

  The mind transfer had been successful.

  Too soon, the typical smells of sixth-graders—sweaty shoes, stinky gym bags, too-sweet colognes—penetrated the humidity and assaulted my sensitive barbels. I looked to the right and left. Outside my aquarium squirmed a classroom full of children. The woman talking in a frequency too high for a turtle to hear would be Ms. Horry, the teacher. I pulled a leg into my shell and scratched the “hearing augmentation” button with a long claw.

  Too much augmentation! The children’s shrieks blasted my tympanic membranes and nearly Hugo’d them. Hastily, I turned down the volume for both olfactory and auditory perception.

  Soon, I would make the first of several presentations on “Hurricanes and Other Natural Disasters: When to Evacuate, When to Shelter in Place” to several classrooms of fifth- and sixth-graders.

  With no warning, the beta-blockers my body was receiving back in Atlanta stopped working. Claustrophobia clutched me. I forgot who I was, where I was, and even what species I really was. All I knew was that I had to get out of the aquarium and my shell.

  I plodded pell-mell toward the wall, too panicked to remember the order to move my legs in. I flipped over.

  Yes, you heard that right. The sophisticated built-in instincts mysteriously didn’t include the instinct for walking. I secretly blamed programmer and practical joker Beth Garrison. It was just her style to make walking a difficult chore while simultaneously giving the Harvey body—and thus me—a strong urge to mate with female turtles.

  Now I wondered whether Beth had somehow gotten my dose of beta-blockers reduced.

  I returned my attention to my upended shell. I bicycled my legs and swung my stub of a tail, to no avail except to make some children laugh.

  Ms. Horry said, “Harvey the Turtle is awake at last.” She lifted the screen from the top of the aquarium. Her hand loomed, fingers gripped my carapace and plastron, and up in the air I rose. Instinct kicked in. Appendages withdrew into my shell, and my plastron hinged shut. I was in near-dark, a coffin-without-holes-but-the-lid-slightly-askew moment.

  Plunk! Plastron met desktop.

  I forced the tip of my beak out, letting in air and light.

  “Harvey! Harvey! Harvey!” the children chanted.

  Turtle curiosity kicked in. I extended my head, limbs, and tail, and waggled them.

  The children cheered.

  “Shush!” Ms. Horry said. “Harvey the Turtle is here to help with our unit on disaster preparedness.”

  Her marker squeaked as she wrote “DISASTERS” on the whiteboard. She asked, “What disasters have happened in Charleston?”

  Hands flew up. Mrs. Horry called on children and wrote their answers on the whiteboard.

  “Floods.”

  “Cholera.”

  “Brain-eating amoebas!”

  “Earthquakes?”

  “Fires.”

  “Tourists.”

  “Malaria.”

  “Earthquakes!” (This from the kid who ventured it earlier.)

  “Tropical storms, like yesterday.”

  “Tornadoes.”

  “Plagues of locusts” sneered a slouching, sullen boy.

  “Hurricanes.”

  “Dinosaur attacks.” (This from the “plagues-of-locusts” boy.)

  Note to self: Never underestimate the creativity—or the ignorance —of a sixth-grader.

  Ms. Horry starred the more-likely disasters and reached for a flip chart.

  I pulled my tail inside my shell and slapped it against the “ready” button. The P.A. immediately crackled: Ms. Horry was to report to the principal’s office. She threw down her marker and left.

  As soon as the door shut, I unlatched my shell, wiggled out, and stood proudly on my hind legs, ready for “oohs” and “ahs.”

  The children paid no attention. They were too busy chanting, “Principal Smith asked for Ms. WHORE-ee.”

  “Hush, y’all,” I shouted, forgetting both my persona and my presentation. “It’s pronounced ‘oh-REE,’ and it’s a distinguished old Huguenot surname. Like my own, Banal.”

  The room fell silent.

  The smallest boy peeked over his hand. “Mr. Banana? Teacher said your last name was ‘the Turtle.’”

  “Turtles don’t got last names.” Plagues-of-Locusts oozed scorn. “They don’t got religions. They can’t leave their shells.” He glared at me.

  I glanced toward my shell, calculating how many seconds it would take to dash those nine inches.

  In an ominous voice, Plagues-of-Locusts added, “This is not a
turtle!”

  Several of the larger boys stood up, fists balled.

  In my previous missions, kids accepted a talking turtle without question. Who knew it was because the turtle didn’t profess an ancestral religion? I tucked my childhood accent away and adopted a generic Southern professorial sound. “I’m no danger. There are forty of you, and only one of me. I’m a tiny, teeny turtle.”

  “One tiny, teeny talking turtle. We’re onto you. Whatever evil you planned, I’ll stop you.” Plagues-of-Locusts snatched my costly, government-issued turtle body and attempted to stuff it into the shell through the tail opening.

  My pain receptors went nova. “Use the latch, Locusts!”

  He opened the shell, plunked me inside more or less correctly oriented, and slammed it shut. Holding me under his armpit—I’ll spare y’all the details—he grabbed the tape dispenser from Ms. Horry’s desk and swathed me in tape, triggering my claustrophobia yet again. For a moment I forgot I had a mind-extraction button.

  Then it was too late. Trussed like a turkey, I could barely breathe, let alone reach any buttons.

  Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. My carapace and tympanic membranes began to vibrate, and the vibrations intensified painfully. Adrenalin slammed my system. Some kind of disaster approached, and I hadn’t delivered my presentation yet!

  Lights went out. Emergency sirens screeched. Students lined up proficiently, even Plagues-of-Locusts.

  “Where are we going?” I shouted.

  Plagues shrugged. “Outside. Like always.”

  “Take me to the window.”

  Plagues complied.

  The vibrations became a deep, deep rumble that humans could hear. My sharp turtle vision confirmed my worst-case scenario—although instead of one funnel cloud, three strode the horizon.

  “A tornado’s coming. You can’t go outside. Go to the emergency shelter.”

  No one moved. A student said, “We don’t know where it is.”

  “Is there a basement?”

  Plagues said, “It has windows.”

  “Any rooms there without windows?”

  “The women teachers’ restroom.”

  “How do you know that?” one kid asked.

  “Never mind,” I said. “Go to that ladies’ room now.”

  The line broke; students jammed the door, fighting to get out.

  “Back into line!” Plagues-of-Locusts shouted, setting me on the desk.

  I said, “Hey! Don’t leave me. I’m helpless.”

  He squatted, looked me in the eyes, and said gently, “Maybe no one told you, but you’re not a real turtle. Just a robot.”

  “My body may be fake, but my real human mind is trapped inside.”

  His expression switched from pity to passion in an instant. “Cool! How d’you do that? Can I do it too?”

  “Downstairs first.”

  He dropped me into a pocket in his cargo pants and jogged out. In seconds, I was discombobulated. I couldn’t see, the smell of bubblegum kept me from smelling anything else, and the jostling flummoxed my magnetic compass, my favorite turtle sense.

  Someone banged into Plagues’ leg, and I heard a click that I hoped was my loudspeaker button.

  “Attention!” I said and waited. The words boomed and echoed. Yes! “Attention! All students and faculty must proceed to the basement. Repeat: To the basement now.”

  “Follow me, y’all!” Plagues shouted. A door opened with a squeak and a groan. It had to be the stairway door.

  But Plagues didn’t go down. “This way!” he shouted. “Hurry!”

  Children pushed past. I got tumped, tumped, and tumped again until I’d been tumped every which way but loose. When the sound of footsteps stopped, Plagues took me out and set me on the landing, nose to toe with his scuffed boot.

  The tornadoes roared like freight trains.

  Plagues shouted over them. “I gotta check classrooms for more kids. Be right back.” He slammed the heavy metal door shut, leaving me helpless and alone in the eerie red light. It seemed forever before the door opened, and Plagues carried in two crying children.

  The door slammed shut. The tornadoes struck. The building shook, and even through the heavy door I heard glass shattering and metal shearing.

  Plagues scooped me up and ran down the stairs. At the bottom, he opened the door, and a cloud of crazed palmetto bugs flew into the staircase. The children screamed, but Plagues set them down and gave them directions to the restroom.

  Once they were headed in the right direction, he grasped the doorjamb and swung into the basement, laughing with exultation.

  As walls vibrated and somewhere above us a roof screamed as it was ripped from the building, he held me up to his face, his eyes shining. “You helped me be a hero. I’ll get respect now. Whad’ya say you be my pet from now on?”

  I gaped, pondering a century in his pocket. Then I bit his nose.

  “Owww! Whad’ya do that for?”

  “Instinct.”

  “Robots don’t got instincts.”

  “Untape me, put me in your shirt pocket, and take me to the ladies’ room.”

  He did.

  I stuck around long enough to calm a few first-graders and to make sure no one needed first aid or an ambulance. Then I stretched up to Plagues’ ear and whispered, “I’m John Bunell Dubois Banal. Look me up at the CDC in ten years if you’re interested in a job. We need people brave and bold enough to be turtles.”

  I scratched the button to send my mind back home.

  #

  CDC promoted me for saving Ms. Horry’s sixth-grade class, demoted me back to my former GS level for making a hash of the mission, and then promoted me again when Congress drastically increased its funding for H.A.R.V.E.Y. Rumors of a talking turtle swept Charleston, but we swamped those rumors with our own rumors of psychological trauma after the twisters. I unearthed Plagued-by-Locusts’ name and leaked it to the media. He got more attention and respect than he had ever hoped for, became a model student, and went to college, dual-majoring in biomechanics and biorobotics.

  Oh—and Beth Garrison ’fessed up to sabotaging the instincts. I knew it!

  The End

  In The Salad Bowl

  By Ralph Cox

  I was in line at the campus cafeteria that morning when I heard, “Hey, Nick!” It was Emily. “I came early to see what they offer.” She teaches geology two doors from where I teach astronomy.

  “There’s quite a lot,” I said, and motioned to the long counter of food.

  A woman suddenly backed out at the far end dropping her plate. A man gasped and more plates clattered to the floor as several others backed away. They all ran across the dining room to the door and we saw the cause of the commotion.

  Stretching out of a large metal salad bowl was a leathery tentacle with a serrated claw wagging up and down. Part of its body could be seen cresting the rim when the bowl dipped and the thing hit the floor. Instantly, it made a twist, like a helix, and righted itself. The shiny body was about a foot long, and the single tentacle stretch out about half its length.

  People in the dining area saw it and hurried to the exit, but Emily and I stayed a safe distance to see what it was.

  It had a body of about a dozen segments with bulbous ends that undulated it into position. At the base of the tentacle five tiny mushroom like beads wiggled. The claw stretched half its body length to grab a piece of lettuce and stuffed it into a slit below the tentacle. It swallowed with a hiss, and the beads spied another leaf for the claw.

  The cook came from around the counter.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  I pointed to the leathery thing.

  His eyes lit up, “What is it?”

  “A lost pet, maybe,” I said, “Go get a trash barrel, and something to herd it in with.”

  “Right,” He trotted away, calling to someone in the kitchen. The noisy pans alerted the thing, and it made another twist.

  The cook and his young helper brought a plastic trash barrel. I was given a pan and Emily took a cookie sheet.