Fiction Point Episode Fourteen: On the Hill the Kraken Wakes

 On the Hill the Kraken Wakes

Aiden knew he had to move once he had studied the local area and discovered his house was only 50 metres above sea level. There was a hill 4 miles outside of town and that was 100 metres higher. So, he sold up and bought a new house at the most affordable mid-way point on the hill and moved his family in just as sea levels started rising.

Aiden could now wake up in the morning and watch the sun glistening off the shallow pools which occupied the deserted town below. Then dinghies became the in-thing, with power boat motors revving the commute into adapted high-rise offices. Yet everyone knew it was not going to last, as the height of the sea level accelerated.

 

One day, Aiden noticed their nice neighbours the Fleetwood’s, their children and their dog, had left and gone elsewhere. There was some logic to that, everyone was all ways thinking of moving to higher ground, he just thought it odd they hadn’t said goodbye.

Eventually, when Aiden and his family did move again, they had the pick of the best homes right on top of the hill, and it was all for free. When the waters had finally swallowed their old house, and there were just a few families left, they all wondered if that was as high as the sea was going to get.

Then, one morning, Aiden discovered they were the only family left on top of the hill. He had gone to visit the McCallister’s to discuss a little barter. Their front door was left open and there was a pungent smell, like fresh earth after a lot of rain. As he called out, he noticed there was a thick gooey slime coating the walls, on the upturned furniture, up the stairs, in the bedrooms and on the beds. He also discovered the same thing in the Sanderson’s place: no people, just slime.

As Aiden whispered to his wife the discovery, so his two children listened behind the door. They decided it was time to tell daddy what they knew.

‘It’s the Kraken,’ said Dominic,

Fiction Point Episode Thirteen: Nano Dot

Nano Dot – just in case you ever wondered if we were alone in the universe (or the bit The Origin of Species left out)

 

In the end, humanity had colonised the solar system and there was nowhere else to go. So, the Nano Dot was created to seed the galaxies throughout the universe. Developed by the visionary entrepreneur Andrew Curt, it was humanities last chance.

As Curt stated: ‘A long time ago, we became conscious of our own existence; now we know there is a lot more, but we are constrained by our biological and cosmological limitations. However, just as we have overcome constraints to populate and exploit the space around us, so we must have one last dance and journey into the arena of universal consciousness.’

Most people thought the Nano Dot had as much chance of succeeding as all the failed attempts at detecting aliens. But still, billions of seed like bio tech pods were manufactured, made to replicate in favourable planetary environments. They were then spewed out into the galaxy, the space in between the galaxies and the galaxies beyond. And, as Andrew Curt lay dying, he wondered if he would ever be reborn.