Warpy
By wdhenning
Prompt from "The Ultimate Science Fiction Smack Down", Round 3, January, 2022. 'Write a science fiction story that contains the following three things: a cat; a BDO (big dumb object); a cooking recipe.'
I worried about my precious son, only seven years old, like any mother would. Benjamin had no friends his own age. Not unexpected, since we spent the last Earth year-and-a-half at a Mars archeological dig site and there weren't any other kids. What most worried me was the one friend he had, an alien artifact with apparent artificial intelligence capabilities.
Still, it felt good to be back in our old Earth home.
Peeking into Benjamin's room, I watched him play with Warpy, what he named the artifact, a silvery hollow cylinder with external alien markings, about the size of my water bottle. Warpy followed him everywhere. Hovering in mid-air with no apparent thrust, it emitted a low hum every time it moved like the light-sabers in the old Star Wars movies. Light seemed to bend around it as if it warped space itself. When I touched the cylinder, my entire arm tingled.
With his usual bushy hair and happy glow, Benjamin sat cross-legged on the purple rug next to his bed, forming a circle with Rex, his stuffed dinosaur; Rufus, our orange tabby cat, who laidcurled up in a sunbeam, unconcerned with everything; and Warpy. Twenty brightly colored cards laid between them, face-down in a four-by-five rectangular arrangement. Benjamin demonstrated how to play the memory game, where you turn over cards, trying to match the pictures on the other side. "Now you try," he said to Warpy.
When Warpy took its turn, the chosen cards flipped over on their own, as if by telekinesis. Benjamin joyfully cheered when his friend obtained a match. "You did it!" I didn't know whether to be happy or troubled as the artifact learned the game.
We discovered Warpy three days ago and over a hundred-million kilometers away on Mars. Deciphering the alien script was my crowning achievement as a linguist. That led us to the dig site where we sought a hinted space-warping artifact like it was the Holy Grail. It was actuallyBenjamin who found it when he snuck into the caves, or rather, Warpy found Benjamin.
But, we were betrayed. One of the project managers attempted to take Warpy and my son at gunpoint. Understandably scared, Benjamin wished we could go home. Then, in an incredible event that defied description, a shimmer of bright light engulfed Benjamin, me, and Jake, who was with us, and we reappeared here in an astounding instant. Teleportation by spatial distortion, Jake termed it.
After I reported the event, a fleet of police hover-cruisers surrounded us in flashing red and blue lights. Reams of yellow warning tape wrapped my property, and they placed us under quarantine.Then the black trucks showed up, filled with people in black tactical suits. In hindsight, I shouldn't have been surprised. This was a really big thing, like one of the biggest things in the history of humanity. And my son happily played a game with it. Go figure.
"How's Benjamin doing?" Jake asked from the couch after I tiptoed into the living room. His sparkling blue eyes, mussed sandy-brown hair, and comforting smile warmed deep parts of me. I met Jake at the Mars dig where he worked as the site engineer, and we became instant friends. Benjamin took to him as well, and he became like a father to my son. Sometimes, I wished that role would become permanent.
"He and Warpy are playing cards." I replied, shaking my head and grinning. "As if it was themost natural thing in the universe."
Jake's smile faded. "You know they will eventually come for Warpy. And maybe Benjamin too."
YOU ARE READING
Tevun-Krus #99 - BDO
Science-FictionIn science fiction, a mysterious and excessively large object of unknown origin is called a Big Dumb Object or BDO. A typical BDO has unknown but potentially immense power and often unusual properties, even going against the physical laws. Contrary...
