Sci-Fi Put a Story to the Title

Tom

An Old Friend
Here's how it works:

List a title and create a paragraph or two to tell the story.

Here's some titles to get the ball rollin. Feel free to add your own...

The Constriction Of B'Rhana

The Robot And The Pickle

Walking The Moons Of Jupiter

Battle At Bow Shock

Solar Mining Station One

Becoming I

The Unwanted Super-Collider Discovery

She Wrote A Yellow Note

Fever Dreams In Frozen Space

DigiWar 1.01b ( Thanx for the idea Kevin)

The Mechanical Id

The Photon Surgeon

The Cosmic Snorkel

There's No Beef On That Planet!

Okay, Have some fun...
 
The Unwanted Super-Collider Discovery

It didn't happen on my shift (not that that mattered any). I was in my rack trying to sleep off some of the stress when the alarm sounded. Muted at first, and I waited for it to stop. It didn't and I got out of bed, torqued. Turn the stupid alarm off, I thought. Never occurred to me it might be a real event.
The panic started when I turned into the corridor and saw Cuffy. Instead of his usual stupid smirk his face looked like dumb shock. I had never seen him with an expression like that. Never really saw any expression on his face beyond the stupid smirk. I probably looked pretty shocked myself as he dissolved.

I froze, which most anyone would do. Boz grabbed me and pulled me into the secure control area place thing. "Gird your loins, lo-man, we got our plate full on this."
"Huh?" I was operating at less than my optimal level.
"Collider broke through."
"Good. Right?"
"Nope. Broke through and something was on the other side."
Huh?

Thank God (or whoever or whatever) for Boz. He got the five or six of us left in the safe place thing and contacted Outside. "This is Shift Commander Bozen. Myself, SC Logan, and technicians Brown, Valentine, McCoy and Cabot are in the Auxiliary Control Station. The Station is sealed against...whatever's eating everything."
Huh?
Outside called back. They sounded more confused than we were at this point. I heard Boz describe the whatever. "Gray...fluid, but heavy fluid...active movement...dissolved Station Manager Hill...yes, acted with purpose..." He hung up and looked at me. "Nanostuff."
Huh?
"We broke through to another place. Interdimensional I guess. Outside thinks the gray stuff is some kind of nanotech. Not sure if they're eating us for food or as a defense strategy."
"Defense?" Not much of a response but better than huh.
Boz took off his glasses and sighed. "Yeah, theory is whatever we broke into had this stuff as a security measure."
"Who? Aliens?" I'm sure I sounded as dumb as I felt.
"Maybe." He shrugged. "For all we know we got into our own future selves. Or maybe the Russians."
 
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Boz picked up the phone again. "Project to Shore...Project to Shore...yo Shore..." He gave me a look and hung up. "They must have got into our line." He thought for a moment. "Which means they'll be in here soon."
I looked around for something to fight back with. We both did. "Fire extinguisher?" I suggested.
Boz looked around and smiled. "Everyone into the tube!"
Well that sounded good to me. Ladies first so we let the girls in. They didn't argue.
"Only holds five," I remembered.
Boz smiled again and shoved me in. "See ya."
I like to think that if I'd been thinking more clearly I'd have discussed who got away and who got left behind. Maybe if I'd been wider awake. Maybe if I'd had a Plan, which he apparently did. I like to think I didn't just pile in happy to escape. Last thing I saw as the tube took us up was Ernest Bozen standing there with that I-know-more-than-you look on his face.
See ya.

Three long torture minutes later we were up at Point Echo. Project Manager Mabry was waiting. I saw that I wasn't the only person having a bad night. (I think it was night.) "Max decon. Nothing or no one gets through until we're sure it's clean."
"Nice to see you too."
Mabry shook his head. Whatever I said didn't register and was anyway irrelevant. "We think you guys are clean but just in case we're hosing everything down with battery acid."
Okay. "What about Boz?"
"Um well..." We stopped to listen.
We felt as much as we heard. A faint rumble/shake. Like an earthquake. Which was not supposed to happen, considering where we built this thing.
 
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Mabry looked at the control board. "Boz pulled the plug."

Huh?

"Self destruct."

"Oh yeah. I'd forgot we had one of those.

Mabry sighed. "Hope it worked."

"What do you mean, you hope it worked?" I was tired and wanted out.

"I mean, hoping it destroyed all the nanos." One or more of the girls started to cry softly.

"If? What if it didn't?"

Mabry sighed again. "Then we're screwed."
 
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If you're reading this then you know it worked. Just to be sure we poured liquid nitrogen into everything and sealed it off real good. The whatever on the other side didn't seem interested in coming our way and we didn't push it.
We left a monument to Hill and Cuffy and the rest. Boz's wife and kid, you can be sure, are well taken care of. The Chinese quietly dropped their collider program.
If they hadn't we would have nuked their asses.
(the end)
 
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