The right to go forward (Short tale)

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe his morality was really a handicap in his country evolution as some people said. But he was still the president and his was the choice.

It was long ago since the first application of the reproduction restriction law in China.
Few was known about what the Chinese people though about that law, every voice against it had been silenced.
The Chinese scientists founded a way to control the natality problem and, at the same time, push China into its race to become the most powerful country of the world.
Just those with a minimum I.Q could have kids. The number was set by the government each year depending on the I.Q. average and the actual population. In a society where the weak did survive and the human race didn’t went forward it was a way of forcing evolution.
Naturally the whole world claimed against it. It was a crazy fascist idea, they said, but the Chinese government went ahead anyway.

Years passed and Chinese companies became more important each day. The ultimate technology was discovered and used in there. The automatization of the industrial processes added to a decrease of the population increased the quality of life level. The crime rates became the lowest of the world. Suddenly everyone envied them.

At the end, the difference between China’s progress and the rest of the countries was enough to make a difference between first world countries and China. They were in another level. Then other countries applied the reproduction restriction law. Some made referendums to approve it, but it was never accepted by the people. It could just be done by a government initiative, forgetting the will of the majority and doing what was thought to be the best for the country.

And this was his dilemma. His country had been one of the most powerful and influential countries of the world years ago, but now it was all going down. Unemployment, technological delay, foreign competition… he had more pressure each day into creating that law. The other big political party had (secretly) told him several times they would support him in the approbation of it.

But he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was his morality which stayed in the way, the sense of rights equality, the preservation of basic freedoms for everyone.
Or maybe the fact that his I.Q. was in the forbidden range.

The perfect (no)crime (Short tale)

-I’m the richest man on earth.-He loved the way that sounded.
-I’m the richest man on earth.-He repeated, louder this time. He tried to avoid the laugh but he couldn’t.
It was about 9 p.m. and he was going home from work. When he left the office he was in a very good mood, so he decided to go by walk instead of taking the bus as usually.

The best word to describe the way he looked was “looser”. He knew it and he didn’t mind. He enjoyed looking like a useless, harmless man. That gave him more freedom and rest, people rarely talked to him. Maybe if he had looked “better” he wouldn’t be the richest man on earth right now, because he truly was so.

You wouldn’t think so, watching him walking by, humpbacked, under that worn-out coat. He wanted to shout it loud. He wanted to tell everyone how easy it had been.
He worked in the World Exchange Agency, as a system analyst. He was responsible of the software the whole Agency worked on, and that meant, all the world exchanged money went through his algorisms.
Sure he wasn’t the only designer of it. Such a huge amount of line codes needed the work on a hundred programmers, but he was the only one that had read, and reread every line of it.

One day while reading one of the conversion algorisms he realized there was a leak of money. When converting a devaluated coin to a high priced one, the last ciphers of it where lost. When converting 1.000.001 of Tokuriztain coins to dollars, that lonely Tokuriztain coin got lost. There weren’t enough zeros on the dollars accounts to convert it, so, the value of 1.000.001 it’s the same of 1.000.000.

When he first realized of that fact he was shocked. There was money that vanished. It was money that disappeared so it had no owner. He realized he could get that money. As it was lost anyway, it couldn’t be called “stealing”. Could it?
He though about it for two whole weeks and finally decided to do it. There was no risk, he told himself, the worst that could happen is me getting fired, and that wouldn’t be so bad.
He started working on a script to add to the main program. It was supposed to analyze the possible lost of money in every coin conversion, and to move that “extra” money to another account. Once there was enough money to make an exact conversion, it was trespassed to a fiscal paradise.

He asked permission to the boss of the project to add a routine modification. He granted it without looking at him. He launched the program and left. He was sick the rest of the day, with terrible stomach ache, and decided to go home earlier. At 6 p.m. he was at bed, desperately trying to sleep.

When he woke up, he run to his computer and loaded his account on the paradise.
He knew he was taking very very few money in every transaction, so few that the Agency program equaled it to zero. That was the secret. But he also knew the lot of conversions the Agency managed, so he expected a nice quantity of money.
He sat silently, staring at his balance. 4.3 billion dollars. In one day. 4.3 billion. One day. Finally he talked.
-Sweet Jesus.

He kept going to work, as he had nothing better to do, but he was happier now. Every day he won more money that most of the world countries, but he didn’t expend it. The most expensive think he has bought until now was a new TV, and he wasn’t sure it was a good decision. He rarely watched it.

The day he decided to go by walk was a cold day. The street was desert but he didn’t realize it. He was on his own world, where he lived most of the time with his money.
-I am the…-he started to say again, but suddenly a shadow appeared from behind pushed him to the wall.
-You are dead if you make any noise. - A rough low voice said.
He looked at the face of his attacker, he was a junkie clearly. The dark rings under his grey eyes, the pale face and the dry mouth told so.
-Give me all the money you have.-The junkie said. And there, for a second, he stayed silent. Then he roared with laughter. He though about his money, the incredible amount of money he had. That poor bastard could have no idea of who was he stealing to, the richest man on earth!
And he laughed even harder. Everything went blurred as he laughed. Until his stomach started to ache and he felt to the floor. A moment later he finally opened the eyes, trying to control his breath and stop the laugh. The junkie was gone, and he also saw his pain didn’t came from the laugher, his belly was bleeding.

As he rested in the floor trying to stop the haemorrhage he realized he was going to die there. There was no one around, and he couldn’t move. And then, he didn’t knew why, he though of his money. That incredible amount of money that was somewhere in the middle of the ocean, waiting for him.
But he would never touch it.
It no longer made him happy. But it didn’t make him sadder either. There were things he regretted more than not having wasted the money.

One-eyed man in the country of the blind(Short tale)

There was no date. There was no location. There was no need of them.
Long ago the creatures that now populated the earth understood there was no reason to keep such information. The “when” and the “where” were meaningless.

They were humans once, millenniums ago, when they were 100% material. That percentage had been decreasing regularly to reach the optimum rate. Now they were just a mere 5% physical. Enough to still allow them to move in the unlikely chance it was need so.

The nameless white half-transparent creature fluttered on the floor in the direction he had to go. It did not know where it was going or why, but the creature never questioned the things it was told to do. Mainly because it could not see the difference between what it was told to do and what it wanted to do. It was all the same. A mental connection linked its mind with the entity one. They thought as one and act as one.

It arrived at a big room of hexagonal shape and about 11 meters of diameter. In the middle of the room was an isolated recipient. It was transparent and had a size of 3x3x3 meters.
There where other creatures like it in the room, just arriving at the same time. Three of them. Four specimens summing up on a single room was the biggest event even happened in the last 4000 years, but there was a good reason for.
There has been predicted the arrival of a transport from somewhere in the 21 century. Exactly in 14 seconds.

Lot of calculations about the possible effect of that uninvited visitor had been done. If the intruder was allowed, the probability of that new human race to disappear was, approximately, 89.837352%.
With a 9.162647% probability, the actual civilization would go back and lose the progress of the last 1500 years. And there were 1% of unknown possible effects caused by the imperfect knowledge of the traveller identity.

The explanation to such disastrous effects was the impurity of the 21 century human being. It was known the monstrous abilities and unlimited perversions of human minds from that age.
On the other hand the minds of the evolved creatures that now populated the earth were unable to understand words such as kill, hate or lie. And the introduction of such concepts in that society would very likely destroy it.
The only possible conclusion for those numbers was the need to destruct that traveller, to avoid the huge chances of disaster.

The ruling entity could not execute the proper action of suppressing the traveller as soon as it arrived. It was metaphysical, had no physical part, as it was formed by the deceased members of their society. But as it wanted it to be done, the four “living” members that had just arrived to the room also wanted so.

The four of them got together around the only button of the room, on one of the walls. None of them moved as the seconds went by, until the last one passed.
Once done, a black point appeared into the recipient and expanded to reach, almost, the limits of it. The obscurity vanished on itself and, slowly, a square figure appeared in the middle until it was the only thing left.
Exactly on the nanosecond that the transport was complete the entity wished to push the button, and so wished the four creatures. But, as the wishes and thoughts of them were the same, the knowledge of the effects of such wishes also were. And the creatures were not able to understand what they wanted to do; they did not understand they wanted to finish a living form.
Nanoseconds went by as the entity put pressure on four members to push the button. It had been expected some reticence to do the final action, that was the reason for four of them to be there. The entity wished stronger to push it as the time ran. So much resistance was not expected.
When almost a second had passed and the entity decided to focus its thoughts on the one more likely to act. A huge wave of willpower went through the sensitive creature mind. And it could resist no more. The button was pushed. The cage disappeared without a single sound and nothing was left in the middle of the room.

Three of the members moved, going back to the placed they belonged to. But one remained. The one that had pushed the button did not move. It was assuming the knowledge it had just acquired.

The creature was shocked. At the exact moment it pushed the button it realized of the effect of it. It knew it was killing. It felt the power of holding others destiny. And, while experiencing the slavery of being obligated to act against its will it also felt freedom, single and unique, for the first time in its timeless life. And it did not share that thought with the entity. It chose not to.

The entity wanted the quiet creature to move. It did so. Now it could feel the difference between its will and the entity one. It knew it was the only one with that ability. The only one alive who ever killed and, at the same time it told to the entity everything was ok, the first one to lie.
It was a liar. A liar and a killer in a world where those words did not exist. It was a god. And it knew it.

Freefall (Short tale)

It was dark and he was flying. He could feel the fresh air in his face, in his hair, in his wings. And he wasn’t alone. He was holding someone’s hand. Her hand. He knew it was her, the only woman he ever loved, the only woman he would ever love.

He could see nothing, there wasn’t a single light, but it was better this way. The eternal calm surrounded them both as they were caressed by the wind. No word was said, there was no need of. They were a unique body now. Now and forever he wished.

Slowly a white spot appeared in front of them. A distant point that began to grow.
She hold his hand stronger.
-I…-she started to say- I don’t like it Sean.
He felt her voice quivering. He turned away, flying in the opposite direction, but wherever he faced, there was the white spot. Staring at them.
The spot became a stretching line, and it began to bright. Now he could see her silhouette.
-Sean, don’t let it touch me please.-She was about to cry. He didn’t knew why, but he didn’t wanted that light to touch her either.
The darkness moved back, pushed by the threatening brightness. She embraced him strongly as she whispered into his ear:
-Please Sean, protect me, don’t let it touch me, please.- She broke into tears.
He could feel the tears falling down his neck. He was strongly decided to protect her from whatever that could harm her. As the light shinned into their direction, he put his wings around her keeping her in cover and faced the coming light.

When it reached them, the first he could see was his wings, hit by the light. They shinned in a hundred of golden and yellow gleams. It was so beautiful. Then they began to turn darker, passing from an ochre colour to grey one. And it began to hurt.

It hurt badly. It was an indescribable pain. He could feel every and each one of those light rays sticking in his feathers. And in the middle of that pain they began to fall.
One by one the already black feathers fell off from his wings. They floated a moment into the air, before vanishing in a small cloud of dust. That vision was even worst than the physical pain. Desperately he held her stronger, knowing what was coming.

When the last feather was gone and the first sun ray hit her back she did not made a single sound. As her body slowly vanished between his arms her face stared at him, giving him the last silence look. She stayed silent until all that remained was a shadow of her presence, but he didn’t. He did shout, shouted of anger, shouted of impotence and prayed to die under the already big sun.

He woke up. Wet with sweat in his bed. With all the bedclothes on the floor. Breathing hard as the moon light got into his room by the window.
It had been 5 months since the car accident and he still had nightmares. He knew he would always have. Only if he had protected her... He lied on the bed and cried.