Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Afterglow: Six Classic Sci-Fi Short Stories
    Afterglow: Six Classic Sci-Fi Short Stories
    Afterglow: Six Classic Sci-Fi Short Stories
    Ebook107 pages2 hours

    Afterglow: Six Classic Sci-Fi Short Stories

    By Susan Hart

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Ten Thousand Years In The Future -- Escaping a nuclear holocaust, two scientists travel somewhere into the future through an experimental time portal developed to deliver bombs to their targets. They arrive in an idyllic landscape, until they encounter a major roadblock to survival that neither has ever encountered before.

    The Right to Bear Arms - A physics professor is so distraught at his son’s death by a mentally deranged man carrying an automatic weapon, that he devises an incredible plan that he hopes will change history forever.

    Raymond The Automatic House – In a post-apocalyptic future a man finds an intact automatic house in the woods.

    Empathy – A man with psychic and empathetic powers decides that the fragile and topsy-turvy state of the union is about to collapse, so he devises a plan to fix it. This is a thought provoking, near future science fiction short story perfect for an election year, or an after the election year.

    Radiation Can Really Mess Things Up, is a classic Sci-Fi story about what happens when you aren’t monitoring the site of a nuclear disaster like Chernobyl, quite closely enough.

    Rio Temporal - Spring arrives at Amarillo Falls, a town nested somewhere in the future, and with it a restaurant owner encounters a mysterious young boy who he is loathe to tell his wife about, because she desperately wants children.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSusan Hart
    Release dateMay 13, 2017
    ISBN9781370753758
    Afterglow: Six Classic Sci-Fi Short Stories
    Author

    Susan Hart

    I was born in England, but have lived in Southern California for many years. I m now retired and live in the Pacific NW in a little seaside city amongst the giant redwoods and wonderful harbor, almost at the Oregon border. My husband and I have one cat, called Midnight and she is featured in two of my latest Sci-Fi short stories. I love Science Fiction, animals, and trying to help others. I publish under Doreen Milstead as well as my own name. My photo was taken right before the coronation of QE II in the UK.

    Read more from Susan Hart

    Related to Afterglow

    Related ebooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Fuel Of The Future

      Dec 31, 2019

      Fuel Of The Future
      2 min read

    • Article

      Space Junk

      Mar 1, 2019

      Space Junk
      2 min read

    • Article

      Movie Novels Are Still Around, And They Aren't All Trash — Just Ask The Chicagoans Who Wrote Them

      Apr 1, 2020

      CHICAGO - Recently, during C2E2 at McCormick Place, the Random House imprint Del Rey, which publishes Lucasfilm-licensed "Star Wars" books, made an unusual choice and offered the novelization of "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" three weeks early. A

      9 min read

    • Article

      Hello Darkness My Old Friend

      Jun 17, 2020

      Hello Darkness My Old Friend
      4 min read

    • Article

      Rants & Raves

      Jul 14, 2021

      ➝ Revisiting Star Trek: Enterprise – who said it was boring? I’m really enjoying it! ➝ Why did I think the Fear Street movies were made for kids? They’re definitely not. ➝ Masters Of The Universe: Revelation is a great continuation of the series, but

      1 min read

    • Article

      Crossing The Dreams

      Nov 4, 2020

      Crossing The Dreams
      3 min read

    • Article

      Page One

      Oct 13, 2021

      “By the time you read this, you may have figured it out.” My Monticello (Henry Holt, October 2021) by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson. First book, story collection. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff. Editor: Retha Powers. Publicists: Clarissa Long and SallyAnne

      2 min read

    • Article

      Top 100 2023

      Aug 17, 2023

      Top 100 2023
      39 min read

    • Article

      'Apsara Engine' Doesn't Break The Graphic Novel Rules — It Ignores Them

      Apr 18, 2020

      Bishakh Som's new comics collection is uncanny and hard to categorize — science-fictiony, mythic and humanistic, without making any particular assumptions about where humans as a species are going.

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Yearning For Midrange

      Jan 2, 2024

      A Yearning For Midrange
      12 min read

    • Article

      Werner Herzog

      May 1, 2020

      Werner Herzog
      13 min read

    • Article

      Super Hero Fatigue

      Apr 23, 2024

      THIS ISSUE, we wrap up the RTX 40-series Super voyage we’ve been on for the last few months, as we’ve now built machines featuring the enhanced versions of the RTX 4070, 4070 Ti, and now 4080 cards. Each card has something interesting, whether it’s a

      2 min read

    • Article

      Quantum Of Menace

      Jan 25, 2023

      Quantum Of Menace
      8 min read

    • Article

      Ode To The Dinkus

      Jun 8, 2018

      Ode To The Dinkus
      5 min read

    • Article

      Debian 12 Bookworm

      Jul 25, 2023

      Debian 12 Bookworm
      5 min read

    • Article

      On Constellation Route

      Sep 1, 2022

      KAVEH AKBAR This book is built around the epistolary form, these letters from you to friends, futures, cockroaches, your radiator, William Shatner. And then there are also these letters to you, many of them actually poems to you, written by friends.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Sep 1, 2021

      Two Poems
      2 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jan 5, 2021

      Years ago, I canceled my subscription because of the general East Coast urbanhipster vibe and other claptrap that seeps into equipment reviews. Then, today, I read this in Robert Schryer’s review of the Grandinote Shinai: “The Shinai mostly degassed

      6 min read

    • Article

      Vaccine Victory Via Chickens

      Feb 24, 2022

      Vaccine Victory Via Chickens
      3 min read

    • Article

      Pick Your Punk

      Aug 13, 2019

      Pick Your Punk
      6 min read

    • Article

      Shane Black Movies

      Jan 11, 2021

      Shane Black Movies
      4 min read

    • Article

      Inkulinati

      Mar 2, 2023

      Inkulinati
      2 min read

    • Article

      GlassAct

      Feb 1, 2023

      GlassAct
      1 min read

    • Article

      Wanderers

      Jul 17, 2019

      Wanderers
      1 min read

    • Article

      What to Read Now

      Oct 12, 2022

      WHEN I was thirteen I acquired a magic notebook: a thick, blank sketchbook with richly textured, flecked paper of all different colors. Paging through it was like peering into a lush garden of unwritten delights, and my brain exploded with possibilit

      7 min read

    • Article

      10 Things To

      Sep 20, 2021

      10 Things To
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Afterglow

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Afterglow - Susan Hart

      Afterglow: Six Classic Sci-Fi Short Stories

      By

      Susan Hart

      Copyright 2017 Susan Hart

      Ten Thousand Years In The Future

      The Right to Bear Arms

      Raymond The Automatic House

      Empathy

      Radiation Can Really Mess Things Up

      Rio Temporal

      Ten Thousand Years In The Future

      Synopsis: Ten Thousand Years In The Future -- Escaping a nuclear holocaust, two scientists travel somewhere into the future through an experimental time portal developed to deliver bombs to their targets. They arrive in an idyllic landscape, until they encounter a major roadblock to survival that neither has ever encountered before.

      They’ll use the bombs, April said to Louis. You know as well as I do that humanity won’t be around by this time tomorrow afternoon. She wore a white lab coat that matched his.

      I don’t see as to how we have an option, Louis said to her, if either of us wants to survive. At least we have the test model ready. If there were any more delays, I don’t think we would’ve had the time to get it this far.

      The two scientists stood at the edge of a bench in the lab and looked at the temporal portal test unit. They’d spent the past year putting it into physical form. Five years of theoretical work, grant cuts, and resource allocations had brought them to this point. Five years ago, war wasn’t on the horizon, but now it was all anyone read about in the news feeds. Both of them finished their doctorates just in time to be hired by the National Institute of Theoretical Physics and went to work on their post-docs.

      The temporal gate wasn’t that big. It only stood four feet from the ground and was about a foot across with all the cables attached. Louis worried they were close to their power allotment for the month. The power surge was enormous when the device was switched on. Louis didn’t know how much longer he could count on the support of the military branch that thought he was building a teleportation device. They eagerly awaited the ability to send bombs right into the target.

      Louis was well over six feet in height. He came from a family of big coal miners in the mountains. He was the smart one with the fantastic ability to work numbers. His family saw that he went to college. Of course, they expected him to help the others out once he settled down and earned good money.

      That day would never come.

      April was from up north. She was a little over five feet tall and petite. Her family were academics, so she followed their career pattern into college. She was expected to land a good teaching position on a prestigious college or institute. April had made a name for herself in elementary particle physics. She had a brother who was on a college engineering staff.

      Her day would never come either.

      That morning, the two of them gathered for the daily meeting at the conference room in the main building. Although the news was controlled, everyone knew the Eastern Alliance went too far this time and infuriated the empress. Her rage was beyond control. She screamed for vengeance. It wasn’t that the empress lacked the means to bring it about; she only held back because the Alliance had more bombs at their disposal than she did.

      I saw the broadcast, Louis said to her. The empress is ready to send them all out. Every station in orbit is loaded up and ready to begin dropping their payload the moment she gives the word. Do you think anyone in there knows this means the extinction of the human race? He looked down at his shoes.

      If they did, April spoke, no one was saying anything. She kept her voice down as the laboratories were supposed to be monitored for disloyal words.

      I’ve set it for ten thousand years into the future, Louis wrote down on a piece of paper and handed it to her. We have no way to know what is on the other side, but my calculations show the radiation will have died down to acceptable levels by then. He slid it to April who read his handwriting.

      It’s never been tried with subjects our size, she wrote back. How confident do you feel in your calculations?

      More confident than staying here for the nuclear fire, he wrote again and handed to her. I’d show you the figures, but we don’t have time.

      You didn’t erase the data?

      Why? All record of our existence is about to be erased, so we shouldn’t bother with the details.

      She nodded and he placed the paper in her pocket. As they’d planned in private, Louis went to one panel and she the other. He began to make the adjustments in front of his station as she watched the data with her own.

      The small gate, which was made of wire mesh and steel, illuminated and began to hum. Louis watched the information display in the air above him. He waited until it told him what he wanted to know. The portal was his idea, although April gave him the courage and insight to finish it. She watched him in anticipation as the information she needed appeared in the air above her.

      Close, he told her as the gate began to expand. The black area in front of them, which emerged from the steel and wires, expanded slowly. It formed a circle ten feet in circumference. Louis fought to keep the diameter constant and a few inches above the floor. He didn’t know what would happen should it touch the ground. He didn’t want to find out.

      It appears stable, April said, as her blond hair blew back from the currents the portal generated. The air displacement it created wasn’t as bad as their first attempts, but still forced them to put loose papers away.

      Did you hear something? Louis said to April over the loud whine of the coolant units on either side. These were the only things that prevented the portal from melting on the spot.

      Outside the lab, she said, and turned to the back door.

      The door flung itself open. The form of the security chief and his goon squad filled it. The two scientists didn’t have to ask why he was there. The man grinned at them and fingered the handcuffs he held in one fist.

      Before he could take one step, the air raid siren went off. The security chief’s men turned and ran in the other direction. He cursed and followed them. There was only so much time to reach the shelter. They could fry in the atomic holocaust for all he cared.

      April turned and looked at Louis, who didn’t have to ask what was about to happen next. They had two choices: Run to the shelter and maybe get inside or...They both turned to look at the portal in front of them. They’d spent so much time on it, yet knew so little about where it would ultimately take them.

      I don’t think we have much of a choice, April said to her colleague. She reached out her hand and he took it.

      Slowly, they approached the portal. As expected, the blackness of it sucked up all visible light and turned it into one gigantic dot, now almost twelve feet across. They didn’t know what would happen once both of them entered, but they knew what would happen should they stay on this side of the portal. April and Louis continued to walk to the large black circle. They stopped when their feet touched the bottom of it.

      Louis pushed one foot into the blackness and looked down. He didn’t feel a thing. With one swift move, he pulled his foot out and looked down again. It appeared normal. At least he knew the portal wouldn’t vaporize them. Still…

      They saw a flash outside the door and felt the building rumble. There was no other choice right now. They had to go through the portal before it lost power.

      Louis gritted his teeth and turned to April. From the expression on her face, she was terrified about what lay before. It was one thing to hypothetically travel through the portal, and another to make the jump for real. Louis would be the strong one for both of them.

      Louis leapt into the portal and dragged the screaming form of April with him.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1