Brian Garrison’s
Obtuse Angles:
A Science Fiction Tree, Novella.
Nicolas was born different and raised without leaving his Navy community, any further than he could swim. All he wanted after high school was to live a peaceful life, maybe see land once in his lifetime. But the Willow Bay Sea Colony had other plans.
/^-_ /^-_
A calm ocean surface refracted moonlight. Shifting light beams always intrigued me, random chaos and yet a pattern, like it ought to mean something, but never does. The moon-rays angled into the depths, illuminating the cloud of krill around us.
One, two… four, five, full-grown manta rays emerged from the darkness, flying circles around the drifting cloud and pressuring it into a tighter ball, for easier eating. Each of the beasts was three or four meters across, but not a threat to Maria or me. One soared especially close, looking black and white in the moonlight. A kick of my flukes and I would have been able to grab it, but neither species intruded on the other.
Watching them fly mesmerized me. Not enough to make me forget the disturbing feelings which alerted me. I could hear nothing wrong and see nothing wrong, but something bothered me. Was it the harmless mantas? Paranoia? Perhaps post-traumatic fear after the previous shark attack?
There weren't many things I feared. Jellyfish wouldn't hunt us, wouldn't intentionally hurt us. But their lack of intent wouldn't be a consolation, if we found ourselves surrounded by stinging tentacles. Killer whales, a giant squid in the night? Possible, but not likely. Sharks were the obvious answer. Had a great white passed nearby, through a blind spot, felt but not seen?
The krill cloud and attendant manta's drifted away, but they didn’t take the creepy feeling with them. Minutes later, another krill cloud moved toward us. It convulsed as if driven by something attacking it from the other side. The cloud parted and two, giant sharks thrashed toward us.
Brian Garrison’s
Mass Are Squared:
A Science Fiction Tree, Short Story.
It ought to be a simple experiment, except it's not working, and maybe that's a good thing.
oo 8 oo
The fun part of science is that we understand it, until we find experimental results we don’t understand.
Brian Garrison’s
Confounding Variable:
A Science Fiction Tree, Short Story.
Mayor Darius chided mother, “It’s probably just a wolf-pack, sniffing the wards.”
Mother denied it was wolves, but she could only say it was “something different this time.”
______.~~^~^^
This short story is inspired by fall Renaissance Festivals. It’s clearly sword and sorcery fantasy, and yet it fits within my overall imagined future. With utmost respect to the awarded and knighted Clark, whose third law is: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” I wonder, what if a colony with advanced tech finds it easier to think of their tech as magic?
Brian Garrison’s
Max Queue:
A Science Fiction Tree, Novella.
No one answered when I called into shattered windows, nor could I see anyone inside. A couple of people ran past the front, along the Boulevard, a few more ran the opposite way. I wanted to believe they were running to help others, but I doubted it. I didn’t like the distant sounds of glass breaking and the still ringing alarm of the pawn store. I didn’t risk checking the shop’s front door.
I flinched at the sound of a single gunshot, or something like it – not far enough away – and I looked to my wife, in the truck with the boys. She glared at me with an anger I'd seen often enough, but also an emotion I'd never seen in her before: Pale fear.
We were so naive, thinking the first quake had been “the big one.”
---!W^V^v^-v-^-.-
Max Queue is the near-future story of a family in the Ozarks. Are they prepared to survive a New Madrid earthquake?
Brian Garrison’s
Pi Are Spiral:
A Science Fiction Tree, Short Story.
My place in camp was near the south edge. Far from the inner safety reserved for more important elves, and where Annabelle, our spaceship, lay crashed on her side.
***
"Pi Are Spiral" is a short story set in the early days of a colonizing a future world. It's a story of survival, future tech, and ancient methods of defense.
Brian Garrison’s
Bright Side of the Equation:
A Science Fiction Tree, Short Story.
Doc may have hedged the truth, from time to time. But he was twenty-three years old before he outright lied. Having done that, he quickly progressed to embezzlement and plotting insurance fraud.
0 – 0 = 0 + 0
A nurse said, “Hey you can’t go in there!” But the isolation door was already closing.
Gazel looked up and I failed at not reacting. She burst into tears. I hurried to the bed and hugged her.
Without entering the nurse said through a portal, “You know you just bought yourself a month of quarantine?”
Quarantine was excessive, but expected. Tears and hugging had a low likelihood of infecting me. I nodded without looking back. A month locked up with Gazel was the bright side of the equation to me.