Wyldblood: Science Fiction and Fantasy

Next new free fiction on 11th September.

(In)finitum

Vaughn Roste

                                      

Immortality is boring.

There, I said it.

It was billed as the end to death. Humanity’s ultimate victory.

I was amongst the first to be Uplifted – escaping our mortal coils and temporal bodies, our consciousnesses were Uplifted to cyberspace. Unlimited longevity. The end of biology. The next great evolution in the history of humanity. The Great Leap Upward.

The digitalization of the soul.

They discovered you really should be at full potential when you do it, lest you be eternally trapped in a less-than-ideal state – so they started doing it on your 85th birthday, by law. Some elected to do it earlier – often they had good reason. Those who skipped it would never make it here.

We were promised a virtual utopia.

To be fair, it was quite fun to begin with.

Dawn

They set up a virtual re-enactment of the entire history of the world, with AI filling in the gaps as necessary—best guess kind of thing. At least you can fast-forward and skip geographies to the good bits. Seriously, there’s hardly any change in the first 100,000 years, just tools and hair. Battles were fought with sticks and stones. Yawn.

It’s like time-travel, but you aren’t “really” there – just watching. We are ghosts.

Just about everyone spends their first million years watching that replay multiple times, at whatever speed you want, hopping between continents, sometimes following families’ genealogies through centuries, most catching the major pivot points. A lot of time is spent watching wars, but Newton and Einstein are popular too. The crucifixion of Christ is perpetually well attended. So are Buddha’s teachings, and Plato’s lectures. Joan of Arc, Moctezuma, Pol Pot, Alexander the Great, Caesar, Nobunaga – all get their own followings. Some creepers prefer Vlad the Impaler, Elizabeth Bathory, Hiroshima, and Jeffrey Dahmer. Gross.

Some follow an art history course, or music history, but frankly, I never found watching Shakespeare scrawl or Chopin compose to be all that thrilling. It’s no more exciting to watch Monet’s paint dry than anyone else’s. The process is, too often, painstaking. Just show me the final product.

Language acquisition still takes time, but time is irrelevant here. After a couple million years, everyone knows everything – all of history, every language, the entire extent of human knowledge about itself. We do have to learn, but luckily, we don’t forget. We access.

They set up another interactive version where you can change whatever you want, and it will play out what that would have been like. Butterfly effect kind of thing. What if Columbus sank on his maiden voyage?

Columbus and Christ, it seems – the two lives with the largest global ramifications.

The burning of the Library at Alexandria comes in a close third. If we hadn’t lost that, we would have landed on the moon in 1612.

But what do you do when you’re done playing with the world? You can talk to whomever you like, or create whatever conversations you want. The debates between Jesus and Ghandi are well-attended. Americans love the Martin Luther King meets Obama room. There’s an entire section devoted to Napoleon battling Genghis Khan in multiple historical eras, even 2070 with mechs.

But after the first ten million years? You’ve done it all. Twice.

You did the things you like most 100 times. You discovered everything you never knew. You relived your own life twenty times and figured out what you should have said when and the ten different people you could have married and how long each of those would have lasted.

You know a lot – like, everything – and, well, then it becomes: now what?

Day

Once you’re done learning, it becomes about self-improvement.

Want to become a concert pianist? You have unlimited time to practice. Take organ lessons from Bach if you want. (Pro tip: be on time. He’s German. For some that means perpetually punctual. For others it means permanently grumpy.)

Little motivation to practice? Who cares?! Practice one minute a day, you’ll still get there. Might take a million years, but you’ll get there invariably. You got time.

Want to play tennis with Serena? Beat Kasparov at chess? Sit on a cloud and play the harp if that’s your vision of heaven. Learn to paint draw run skate swim high jump shot put skydive pole vault knit macrame whatever – have at it. You can’t die. You can’t even get injured.

The adrenaline junkies use this as an excuse to jump out of planes without parachutes – but even that gets old fast.

Everything gets old after the first hundred years of it. And once you’re good at everything – then what?

Dusk

The final stage is about creation. Knowing everything you want to, being good at everything you want to become good at – what’s left? Contribute. Create something.

Some sculpt. Some compose. Some paint. Some write.

Some create digitally, video games or veritable worlds, which opens up entire realms of synecdoche and simulacra.

First we become gods – then we get bored.

Hold off as long as you like – but ultimately, it happens to all of us. It’s inevitable.

Eternity is a very long time.

After a hundred million years – even we don’t want it anymore.

We didn’t conquer death, we just pushed it back significantly.

We learn, improve, and create – then we walk away.

When the time comes, we embrace it.

There are no anguished cries of pain, just silent resignation.

Ultimately, there will be no one left to protest, or miss us.

Self-delete.

Dark

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Canadian by birth, Vaughn Roste currently lives in Chicago. His first book, The Xenophobe’s Guide to the Canadians, was published by Oval Books in England. He is an optioned and produced screenwriter, and a published author of books, plays, poems, peer-reviewed articles, book reviews, program notes for CD liners and Carnegie Hall, and a doctoral dissertation.sworld, Flash Fiction Online and Flame Tree Press. nnewilkinsauthor.com

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Vaughn Roste – (In)finitum
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Michael Bettendorf – Beauty in Falling Leaves
M. Luke McDonell – Thin Skin
Steven French – Just a Little Chat
Pauline Barmby – Second Cryogenesis
Matt Hollingsworth – Sprung
Jason P. Burnham – The Water is Lava
Robert Bagnall – We Are All Made of Stars
Melissa Ren – The Look of Seconds
Erin Enley – Immunity
Guy Lingham – Telemetry
Akis Linardos – Rose Loaded Gun
Sarah Jackson – Canary Glass
KT Wagner – Promise Me You’ll Stay
Gabby Giliam – Reading Lies
Anna Koltes – Tiny Shark
Katherine Quevedo – The Sphynx’s Blind Date
A.D. Sui – A Girl’s Heart is a Wretched Thing
Liam Hogan – Man from Mars
David Contara – My Flesh, Your Blood
Tiffany Michelle Brown – Showtime on Sandstone Lane
Wayne Faust – So She Danced
Anna Vinogradov Neidle – The Planet’s Gone to the Dogs
Julia Leef- Don’t Leave the Grim Reaper on Read
D.K. Latta – Greetings, Distant Travellers
Diego Lama – Vendetta
Sean MacKendrick – Keepers
Karl Dandenell – Ruby Throat and Gold
Laura Blackwell – In My Forest of Inky Night
Dana Vickerson – Entertain, Embrace, Eat
Emmie Christie – Appealing Skin Model
Leila Murton Poole – The Hanging VIne
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Rosalind Goldsmith – Weeper
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Anna Clark – Ice in the Furnace
Madalena Daleziou – Master Craftsman’s Apology
Lyndsey Croal – Space for One
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Kit Campbell – Coming Home
Y.M. Resnik – Magic Is Like a Box of Chocolates
Robert Bagnall – I Was Just Doing What You Asked
Megan Baffoe – Away with the Mermaids
B.A. Booher – High Stakes
Matt Bliss – Penny Rutherford’s Super-Awesome Adventure Journal
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Shelly Jones – Like Footprints in the Snow
Mike Adamson – Rain Girl
Nina Kiriki Hoffman – Shifters
M. Shedric Simpson – Gods Once
Anna Madden –Broken Wing Syndrome
André Geleynse –Last-Minute Shopping List for your First Space Road Trip
Kai Delmas – Once Upon a Time
Lara Slabber – The Garment Dragon
C.C. Rayne – Days of Creation
Sandra Skalski – Dancing in the Treetops
Erin McQuaig –Fish
Linda McMullen – The Diagnostician
Eliane Boey – Scrap
Meirav Seifert – Better Than Nate
Avra Margariti – Mercurial, Like the Ocean
Lindsay Mcdonald – Faceless
Andrew Fraknoi – The Listener Between Worlds
O.S. Curran – Squandered, Spent
Elizabeth Broadbent – Atop dead Trees
Kai Delmas – All the Time in the World
Susan Cornford – Death and the Maiden
Holley Cornetto – Queen of Flowers
Tara Campbell – In the City of Chuckling Roses
Addison Smith – An Itemized List of Charitable Contributions
B. Zelkovich – Lifelike
Elizabeth Broadbent – A Map Like Constellations
Matt Krizan – Swallowed by Darkness
Dawn Vogel – Patience
David J. Thirteen – My Foolish Heart
Rick Danforth – Strawberries in Spring
Robert Bagnall – The Naming of HMS Ark Royal
Amanda Pica – After They’d Gone
Joshua Grasso – Feeding the Dark
Maura Yzmore – Barry
Jason Burnham – Just Ask Clio
Nick Wisseman – You Are What You Mage
Taylor Rae –Run with the Hunted
Eric Fomley – Intervention
Helena Pantsis – Artificial Autonomy
Daniel Lidman – Ship Astray
Andrew Kozma – The Tower of Seed and Promise
Bridget Haug – Unbounded
Jessica Wilcox – Hephaestus Clockwork
AR Turner –Drift
MM Schreier –A Mathematical Betrayal
Jason P. Burnham – Today’s Daytime Tasks
Jon Lasser – Pictures from a Hotel Room on Fire
Jacey Bedford –Mort’s Laws
Kai Delmas – A World of Broken Things
Tiffani Angus – If Wishes Were Horses
Eric Fomley – Download Day
Thomas Griffin – Pickup Artist
Judy Darley – Milk Tooth
Dylan Kwok – Vicky Cooper
Joachim Heijndermans – Please Remain Calm
Karl Dandenell –Five Things You Should Know Before Summoning a Demon
Lyndsey Croal – Nuckelavee Winter
Julie Pitzel – The Breach
Marissa James – Bite Back
Brett Abrahamsen – The Fermi Paradox
Katie jordan – When Time Runs Out
Eric Fomley – Fragmented
Tara Campbell – Ghost Wolf
Emmie Christie – Craving for Another Summer
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Robert Stahl – The Trouble with Goblins
Ash Jones – New Year’s Dawn
Liam Hogan – Beginnings
Emma Lewin – Carbon Dating
David Zweifler – I Like to be Hit
Francesca Lembregts – A Line on the Map
Tom Duke – The Season of my Becoming
Brick Marlin – The Rep
Charlotte Langtree – That Was Unexpected
Bridget Haug – Butterflies
Mike Murphy –Joey Salami’s Halloween
Jason Lane – Captain, Please Respond
Karl Dandenell – Final Exam, Demonology
Marge Simon – Pilgrims
Claire McNerny – Slowing Down
MM Schreier – City of Lights
Trey Dowell – Head Games
Chrissie Rohrman – The Long Way Home
J.D. Harlock –Sariya Grants a Wish
G. Ekman – Willow
Maura Yzmore – Among the Monsters
Sam Winner – Friday the 13th
Alyson Tait – A Little Monster
Brian Maycock – Curfew
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Eric Fomley – Clone Care
Natalie Burrows – Within These Walls
Tim McDaniel – Black Friday
Liam Hogan – The Dragon Hunter
James Cato –It’s Free to Laugh
Aeryn Rudel – Rhymes With Dead
John Adams – Even Bad Guys Have Good Days in Excelsior City
Holly Schofield – Special Delivery
Danielle C. Chen – Excurmania
Eilidh Spence – Cameo
Cathleen Davies – Frankie Says Relax
Marc Ruvolo – Posthensile
Andrew Kozma – The One with the Red Door
Carys Crossen – Blood Wolf Moon
Aeryn Rudel – News from Home
Ian C Douglas – The Instant Karma Vending Machine
Craig Aitchison –Hearken
Adria Bailton – Submerged
Fija Callaghan – Last Wish
Melion Traverse – Salt and Moonlight
David J. Rank – Walking Dog
Holly Barratt –Rabbit Ears in the Laundry
Holly Rae Garcia – A Werewolf’s Lament
MK Roney – Cornerstone
Malina Douglas – The Needlecraft Guide to Averting Doom
Tova Hope-Liel – Palingenesis
Sam Winner – The Silence of the Owl
Jennifer Loring – Burn
N.E. Rule – Eye Candy
Jane Saunders – looking Back
Eric Fomley – War Crimes
Sarah Gallego –The Final Voyage of Amos
David Rogers – What We Found on the Way to Alpha Centauri
Robert Bagnall – Felis Sarcasticus
Alexander Xavier Urpi – The Pit
Russell Hemmell – Bird Masks and Leather Butterflies
Ephiny Gale –Light and Sleek and Strong
Richard Wren – In My Image
Bob Johnston – Debt
Michelle Muenzler –Neither Sleeping, nor Alive, nor Dead
Cheryl Sonnier – Wolf Whistle
Marisca Pichette – The Tail
A. P. Howell – Purple Lizard Skin
Adam Knight – Parts
Avra Margariti – College Survival Tips for Girls and Wolves
Ian Robert Krueger –It Lives
Chrissie Rohrman – Small Packages
Abigail Celeste –The Bees
Jacey Bedford – The Loneliness of the Long Distance Panda
Dawn Vogel – The Dark Forest Takes
Vaughan Stanger – In Every Dream Home

M. Luke McDonell – Thin Skin
Steven French – Just a Little Chat
Pauline Barmby – Second Cryogenesis
Matt Hollingsworth – Sprung
Jason P. Burnham – The Water is Lava
Robert Bagnall – We Are All Made of Stars
Melissa Ren – The Look of Seconds
Erin Enley – Immunity
Guy Lingham – Telemetry
Akis Linardos – Rose Loaded Gun
Sarah Jackson – Canary Glass
KT Wagner – Promise Me You’ll Stay
Gabby Giliam – Reading Lies
Anna Koltes – Tiny Shark
Katherine Quevedo – The Sphynx’s Blind Date
A.D. Sui – A Girl’s Heart is a Wretched Thing
Liam Hogan – Man from Mars
David Contara – My Flesh, Your Blood
Tiffany Michelle Brown – Showtime on Sandstone Lane
Wayne Faust – So She Danced
Anna Vinogradov Neidle – The Planet’s Gone to the Dogs
Julia Leef- Don’t Leave the Grim Reaper on Read
D.K. Latta – Greetings, Distant Travellers
Diego Lama – Vendetta
Sean MacKendrick – Keepers
Karl Dandenell – Ruby Throat and Gold
Laura Blackwell – In My Forest of Inky Night
Dana Vickerson – Entertain, Embrace, Eat
Emmie Christie – Appealing Skin Model
Leila Murton Poole – The Hanging VIne
Kai Delmas – Under Fire, Under Steel
Austin Shirey – Feels Like the End of the World
Rosalind Goldsmith – Weeper
J. P. Relph – Declawed
Anna Clark – Ice in the Furnace
Madalena Daleziou – Master Craftsman’s Apology
Lyndsey Croal – Space for One
Holley Cornetto – The Orchard of Dreams
Kit Campbell – Coming Home
Y.M. Resnik – Magic Is Like a Box of Chocolates
Robert Bagnall – I Was Just Doing What You Asked
Megan Baffoe – Away with the Mermaids
B.A. Booher – High Stakes
Matt Bliss – Penny Rutherford’s Super-Awesome Adventure Journal
Devan Barlow – Shaping
Jessica Andrewartha – Without a Step
Shelly Jones – Like Footprints in the Snow
Mike Adamson – Rain Girl
Nina Kiriki Hoffman – Shifters
M. Shedric Simpson – Gods Once
Anna Madden –Broken Wing Syndrome
André Geleynse –Last-Minute Shopping List for your First Space Road Trip
Kai Delmas – Once Upon a Time
Lara Slabber – The Garment Dragon
C.C. Rayne – Days of Creation
Sandra Skalski – Dancing in the Treetops
Erin McQuaig –Fish
Linda McMullen – The Diagnostician
Eliane Boey – Scrap
Meirav Seifert – Better Than Nate
Avra Margariti – Mercurial, Like the Ocean
Lindsay Mcdonald – Faceless
Andrew Fraknoi – The Listener Between Worlds
O.S. Curran – Squandered, Spent
Elizabeth Broadbent – Atop dead Trees
Kai Delmas – All the Time in the World
Susan Cornford – Death and the Maiden
Holley Cornetto – Queen of Flowers
Tara Campbell – In the City of Chuckling Roses
Addison Smith – An Itemized List of Charitable Contributions
B. Zelkovich – Lifelike
Elizabeth Broadbent – A Map Like Constellations
Matt Krizan – Swallowed by Darkness
Dawn Vogel – Patience
David J. Thirteen – My Foolish Heart
Rick Danforth – Strawberries in Spring
Robert Bagnall – The Naming of HMS Ark Royal
Amanda Pica – After They’d Gone
Joshua Grasso – Feeding the Dark
Maura Yzmore – Barry
Jason Burnham – Just Ask Clio
Nick Wisseman – You Are What You Mage
Taylor Rae –Run with the Hunted
Eric Fomley – Intervention
Helena Pantsis – Artificial Autonomy
Daniel Lidman – Ship Astray
Andrew Kozma – The Tower of Seed and Promise
Bridget Haug – Unbounded
Jessica Wilcox – Hephaestus Clockwork
AR Turner –Drift
MM Schreier –A Mathematical Betrayal
Jason P. Burnham – Today’s Daytime Tasks
Jon Lasser – Pictures from a Hotel Room on Fire
Jacey Bedford –Mort’s Laws
Kai Delmas – A World of Broken Things
Tiffani Angus – If Wishes Were Horses
Eric Fomley – Download Day
Thomas Griffin – Pickup Artist
Judy Darley – Milk Tooth
Dylan Kwok – Vicky Cooper
Joachim Heijndermans – Please Remain Calm
Karl Dandenell –Five Things You Should Know Before Summoning a Demon
Lyndsey Croal – Nuckelavee Winter
Julie Pitzel – The Breach
Marissa James – Bite Back
Brett Abrahamsen – The Fermi Paradox
Katie jordan – When Time Runs Out
Eric Fomley – Fragmented
Tara Campbell – Ghost Wolf
Emmie Christie – Craving for Another Summer
Maura Yzmore – Custom Welding
Robert Stahl – The Trouble with Goblins
Ash Jones – New Year’s Dawn
Liam Hogan – Beginnings
Emma Lewin – Carbon Dating
David Zweifler – I Like to be Hit
Francesca Lembregts – A Line on the Map
Brick Marlin – The Rep
Charlotte Langtree – That Was Unexpected
Bridget Haug – Butterflies
Mike Murphy –Joey Salami’s Halloween
Jason Lane – Captain, Please Respond
Karl Dandenell – Final Exam, Demonology
Marge Simon – Pilgrims
Claire McNerny – Slowing Down
MM Schreier – City of Lights
Trey Dowell – Head Games
Chrissie Rohrman – The Long Way Home
J.D. Harlock –Sariya Grants a Wish
G. Ekman – Willow
Maura Yzmore – Among the Monsters
Sam Winner – Friday the 13th
Alyson Tait – A Little Monster
Brian Maycock – Curfew
Lynne Lumsden-Green – The Wager
Eric Fomley – Clone Care
Natalie Burrows – Within These Walls
Tim McDaniel – Black Friday
Liam Hogan – The Dragon Hunter
James Cato –It’s Free to Laugh
Aeryn Rudel – Rhymes With Dead
John Adams – Even Bad Guys Have Good Days in Excelsior City
Holly Schofield – Special Delivery
Danielle C. Chen – Excurmania
Eilidh Spence – Cameo
Cathleen Davies – Frankie Says Relax
Marc Ruvolo – Posthensile
Andrew Kozma – The One with the Red Door
Carys Crossen – Blood Wolf Moon
Aeryn Rudel – News from Home
Ian C Douglas – The Instant Karma Vending Machine
Craig Aitchison –Hearken
Adria Bailton – Submerged
Fija Callaghan – Last Wish
Melion Traverse – Salt and Moonlight
David J. Rank – Walking Dog
Holly Barratt –Rabbit Ears in the Laundry
Holly Rae Garcia – A Werewolf’s Lament
MK Roney – Cornerstone
Malina Douglas – The Needlecraft Guide to Averting Doom
Tova Hope-Liel – Palingenesis
Sam Winner – The Silence of the Owl
Jennifer Loring – Burn
N.E. Rule – Eye Candy
Jane Saunders – looking Back
Eric Fomley – War Crimes
Sarah Gallego –The Final Voyage of Amos
David Rogers – What We Found on the Way to Alpha Centauri
Robert Bagnall – Felis Sarcasticus
Alexander Xavier Urpi – The Pit
Russell Hemmell – Bird Masks and Leather Butterflies
Ephiny Gale –Light and Sleek and Strong
Richard Wren – In My Image
Bob Johnston – Debt
Michelle Muenzler –Neither Sleeping, nor Alive, nor Dead
Cheryl Sonnier – Wolf Whistle
Marisca Pichette – The Tail
A. P. Howell – Purple Lizard Skin
Adam Knight – Parts
Avra Margariti – College Survival Tips for Girls and Wolves
Ian Robert Krueger –It Lives
Chrissie Rohrman – Small Packages
Abigail Celeste –The Bees
Jacey Bedford – The Loneliness of the Long Distance Panda
Dawn Vogel – The Dark Forest Takes
Vaughan Stanger – In Every Dream Home

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