Sometimes it's possible, just barely possible, to imagine a version of this world different from the existing one, a world in which there is true justice, heroic honesty, a clear perception possessed by each individual about how to treat all the others. Sometimes I swear I could see it, glittering in the pavement, glowing between the words in a stranger's sentence, a green, impossible vision--the world as it was meant to be, like a mist around the world as it is.
The Healing spells on his chest were certainly earning their keep tonight. Sullivan got to his feet. The lack of noise from the courtyard indicated that his team had gotten all the mechanical men. “Thanks.”Toru just grunted a noncommittal response as he lifted the feed tray to check the condition of his borrowed machine gun. They didn’t see the final robot inside until it turned on its eye and illuminated the Iron Guard in blue light.Sullivan’s Spike reversed gravity, and the gigantic machine fell upward to hit the steel beams in the ceiling. Sullivan cut his Power and the robot dropped. It crashed hard into the floor where it lay twitching and kicking. The two of them riddled the mechanical man with bullets until the light died and it lay still in a spreading puddle of oil.“Normally, this would be the part where you thank me for returning the favor and saving your life.”“Yes. Normally… If we were court ladies instead of warriors,” Toru answered. “Shall we continue onward or do you wish to stop and discuss your feelings over tea?”Sullivan looked forward to the day that the two of them would be able to finish their fight. “Let’s go.
I am looking forward to fully understanding what is occurring. Other than the fact that we are well over a century in my future—if it is MY future; in America, in an underground government facility of some sort near the Colorado Rocky Mountains, specifically Pikes Peak, so I assume the nearest city of any import to be Colorado Springs…I am afraid I have little grasp of your project.”~Sherlock Holmes
That’s our cue,” Dr. Chadwick noted, managing to approximate a cheerful smile, addressing the room at large. “Everyone please stand behind the yellow line until the doors open. No food, drink, flash photography, or video cameras are permitted. Once aboard the ride, please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times until we come to a full and complete stop. Otherwise, they’re apt to end up in another universe somewhere without ya, and wouldn’t that fry your noggin?
That's one of our speculations, by the way. That the prior version of history that this one overwrote was horrible. Complete geopolitical mayhem; half of New York City is underwater. The United States is headed toward civil war, or ruled by an artificial-intelligence construct, or some such other thing. Real end-of-days stuff. That the instances of ourselves who existed in that history figured out what we have: that the invention of the causality violation device was the cause. That in that prior version of history, Rebecca did not die in a car accident. That she went back to the past on a mission, as a volunteer, well aware of her sacrifice.
If there’s a zeppelin, it’s alternate history. If there’s a rocketship, it’s science fiction. If there are swords and/or horses, it’s fantasy. A book with swords and horses in it can be turned into science fiction by adding a rocketship to the mix. If a book has a rocketship in it, the only thing that can turn it back into fantasy is the Holy Grail.
The taxi stand was only an open shelter, so I was freezing as I looked toward midtown. I could see the RCA building with its bright red logo at Rockefeller Center, and farther south, the Empire State Building with its illuminated set-backs. At the tip of Manhattan, the twin towers of the World Trade Center -- which were over 1,100 feet tall themselves -- flanked the mile-high Space Trylon. It was clear as well as cold, and as I looked toward Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece, it seemed to be poijnting to the stars. This, of course, was the idea, since it embodied the joint American-Soviet space exploration program that settled the Moon in 1955, and, twenty years later, Mars.