SFS1 - Science Fiction Short Stories (3 page)

Year: 2257
“Sorry dear I tried all of the hotel booking
websites,” said James hopelessly “I just can’t
find any rooms on the moon“
“You know, there are public and private
shuttle services available, dear,” replied Lilly.
“There's no rooms though. I've tried tour
packages and combo booking deals but there
just doesn't seem to be anything open.”
“Well what if we extended our budget to 7-star
hotels, darling?”
“I don't think that will be possible. Seven star
hotels are just too much. I'm searching as best I
can. I even searched for a guest house we could
stay in. No luck there either.”
James
was
silent
for
a
while
before
he
continued. “I came to the conclusion, there are
only two options for us. Either one will be fine
with me. The first option is that we plan for
Mercury.
The shuttle service is
a little bit
costlier but the hotels are cheaper”
“No, dear. I want to celebrate our honeymoon
on the moon,” said Lilly, crossing her hands in
protest.
“Well, good thing that the second option is to
have our honeymoon on the moon, then.”

“Wow. But how?” asked Lilly excitedly.
“We'll have to postpone our honeymoon for a
month or two.”
“In two months that won't be a honeymoon. It
will just be a trip we take as a married couple.
Isn't there some other option?” said Lilly again
crossing her hands.
“Please don't get upset Lilly. I've looked for
everything available on the moon. There's just
nothing available.”
She started to cry. “Honey, I need my
honeymoon to be on the moon.”

James moved over to console her. “Wait. Don't
cry. What was it that you just called me?”
After a short silence she replied. “I called you
honey.”
“Well, you are my moon and I'm you're honey.
Whether we're on the earth or on the moon. It
will always be our honeymoon.”
She continued to cry. “I have to go to the moon
for our honeymoon. Please find a way, James.”
James started to wonder why she had so much
excitement about going to the moon. What did
she expect to be there? She had never traveled
to the moon before. He didn't understand why
she was so crazy about going to the moon for
their honeymoon.
“Is there a reason why we have to go to the
moon? What attracts you to it?”
“It's the best place to go. Most of my friends
went to the moon for their honeymoon.”
James had a good idea why she was so set on it
now.
It
was
because of
her
friends.
Just
a
woman's mentality. But he knew that if he told
her this, she would just cry even more.
“Maybe you could talk with your friends, see
what resort they went to? We could check that
hotel out specifically as well.”
Lilly's face brightened up and went to call her
friends. After a few minutes she came back to
James.
”They suggested two hotels. One is called the
Blue Moon and the other one was Mootel.”
“I already checked Blue Moon. There weren't
any rooms available,
but I'll
have to check
Mootel”
James searched the internet and found reviews
on Mootel. Lilly chatted with her friends some
more and finally came back to James with a
phone number for him to call.
“Hi honey, one of my friends referred me, so
hopefully he will be able to help us,” said Lilly.
James called him up.
“Since you are a referral customer, I will try
my best to find you a room. At this time there
aren't any available, but I will see what I can
do.
After dinner they both went outside to watch
the moon from the terrace.
”Don’t worry honey. We will be there for our
honeymoon. The resort guy will get back to us
and get us a room. I know it.”
James mobile rang and he answered.
“This is James speaking.”
“Sir, this is Brown from Mootel resort.”
“So what's the information?“
“Sir there is a canceled room available, but
there's a condition.”
“What does that mean, what is the condition?”
“We will plan out your entire vacation. We'll
pick you up form your door and even return
you with a private shuttle. The only thing is
that you have to travel with another person's
name.”

“I don't understand. Another person's name?”
“The moon is a very important tourist spot.
We book
based
off
of
a waiting
list and I
simply cannot put your name at the top of the
list. I can't issue the room to you before I issue
it to each of them. So if you want the room,
you'd
have to travel
with the name of
the
canceled passengers. It's another couple so it
shouldn't be a problem.”

“Is this going to be a problem legally?”
“On the moon there's no need for a passport or
a visa since it is part of Earth. It won't affect
their records in any way. You'll tell the checkin a different name and show only your ticket.
There's no ID check so that will be fine. But...”
“What else?”
“You couldn't leave the resort until you
checked out.”
“So we'd have to stay inside the resort at all
times? No outings whatsoever? I don't think
that's going to fly with the wife. Let me check
though.”
James went in and talked to Lilly about it. She
told him that it was okay and that they didn't
need to go on any outings. She already knew
this though because her friend had also taken a
similar kind of deal.

“Oh. So you already knew,” said James
surprised. “You know that it's illegal to do this,
right?”

“This isn't a legal issue James. We're just going
to the moon instead of Mars. There's nothing to
worry about.”
James confirmed the tour package and paid the
additional ten percent fee for the agent. James
had a bad feeling about the situation but didn't
tell Lilly anything. He didn't want to ruin all of
the hard work he'd done trying to find a spot
on the moon at the last minute.
John and Julie were the names printed on the
tickets. They remembered the names but James
and Lilly weren't too worried. They always
referred to each other as dear or honey and
very rarely did they call each other by name.
After
a long trip in a private shuttle they
reached the resort. After they landed, a man
checked their ticket but didn't ask them for any
ID or anything of that nature.
They enjoyed
themselves immensely
while
they were in the resort.
“Hey sweetie,” said James. “You can see Earth
from here. It looks like a moon itself.”
“Oh we are in moon! I'm the happiest I've ever
been!” shouted Lilly excitedly.
Four days passed as if they were four hours
but James felt was something missing.
A private shuttle picked them up and was took
them back home.
“Thanks for choosing Mootel resort. We hope
you come again and please refer your friends!”
said a friendly agent as they disembarked the
shuttle.
“Sure thing.”

“This is our small gift from our resort for both
of you,” said the agent. He held out a small
photo album filled with pictures of James and
Lilly. They looked through it excitedly.

“Bye,” said the agent as James and Lilly
turned to walk up to their house.
“Catch him!” yelled a man.
They were surprised to see two cops grab the
agent who had just bid them farewell. James
and Lilly were afraid that the arrest was in
regards to forging names so they turned to
silent enter their home. A cop called over to
James.
“Did you just travel to stay on the moon?”
“Yes we did, but...”
“That wasn't the moon. This agent and that
whole resort are liars. They took you to a resort
eighty miles away from here. A normal resort
on Earth that they made to look like it was on
the moon. You're one of about five thousand
people that they've cheated like this.”
Now James and Lilly understood why they
had
not
been allowed
to
go
outside or
to
arrange their own shuttle ride.

My name is Joe. I used to work for a bank, but
six
months
ago
I lost
my job
due to
the
economic crisis. My wife has been working as a
teacher so we have been able to manage the
bills still thankfully. Also my writing talents
have helped me to earn a few bucks on the
side. I'd worked for a few unknown magazines
as a freelance writer and they paid me nearly
$400 for each article I wrote but most of them
were monthly so I had to stretch every penny.
Mostly the articles were related to news I'd
found on the internet. I'd read for hours find
current hot topics to create news articles from.

I just completed an article. Please don't think
this
news
is
junk or
crap because it's
one
hundred percent verified fact.
Please find a
summary of the article just below.

“A new startup company called Ghost On Call
Inc. located in Silicon Valley launched a new
service a few months ago. Using this service
we can connect
and
talk
to
any ghost
via
phone.
It's
become popular
in
most
of
the
countries around the world though a few have
banned
this
service for
religious
reasons.
During the beginning stages of this service,
most people were hesitant and believed it was
some kind of a scan. But the company gave
free minutes for every mobile phone number
and many people simply tried it for the first
time because they were bored and it was free.
They were amazed to hear the voice of their
family
members
and
loved
ones
that
had
passed beyond the veil of the grave! Soon after
that, the service became incredibly popular in
North America and now it has more active
users
than
Twitter! The service was
soon
extended to all types of users even those that
wanted
to use computers or
even land-line
telephones. Soon people were regularly calling
and being connected to ghosts within minutes.
Last month they increased the cost per minute
to two dollars but call volume wasn't affected.
The company's
revenue is
individual
mobile carrier
higher
than any
network
because

A few different statistics say that about fortyfive percent
of
the calls
are to
ghosts
that
people want to reconnect with for reasons of
love and affection. Another forty-five percent
of
the calls
are to
get information such as
where someone put cash, a certain document,
jewelry or even something as simple as an
internet password. The last ten percent was
simply people passing the time. The CEO of
Ghost
On
Call
Inc.
has
claimed
that
conversations are secure and are not taped. He
also said in an interview that they were about
to take the company public and in the next
quarter were going to allow ghosts to make
outgoing calls to anyone they wanted to. They
didn't implement this before because it was
impossible to collect money from ghosts. Now
they're in talks
with two
different
carrier
networks in North America to allow ghostcalls to be charged to the receiver so ghosts
may very well be calling us soon!”

After seeing my article, the assistant editor of
the magazine called
me and
said
that
the
article was a very good piece of work and that
he wanted me to do a full investigative report
for a cover story. He told me that I should do
three different
articles and
that
the senior
editor would choose the article which he liked
best. Also he gave me a code for an hour's
worth of time to Ghost On Call. Already my
wife has really enjoyed using this service to
talk
with her
mother's
ghost
about
food
recipes, now I will get a chance to do so myself.

I decided that I should talk to my grandma's
ghost since she loved me perhaps the most of
all
of
my relatives.
I
used
to
spend
the
holiday's in my grandma's house. She was so
affectionate towards me. I knew her birth date
but wasn't sure of her exact date of death so I
called their customer support and gave the full
name, date of birth and death year. In a few
seconds
they connected
the call.
I heard
a
default ring tone and sat there, thrilled that I
would get to talk to my grandma once again.

“Hi my candy boy, how are you?” asked my
grandma in a happy voice. Yes, it was my
grandma.
She was
the only
one
who
ever
called me candy boy. I was speechless for a
moment.

“Why you didn’t call me before? I've been
expecting you to call. All my ghost friends get
calls from relatives all the time. I've been the
only person who hasn't gotten a call lately. We
don't have an outgoing facility here to call you,
otherwise I would have contacted you!”

“Sorry, grandma. I thought you didn't have a
phone. After your death my mother took your
phone. How did you get a new one? Is that an
iPhone or an Android that you're using?” I
inquired.

“My candy boy, we don't have phones here,”
she said with a laugh. “Once you make a call to
a ghost, the call is routed to the ghost. When
you
talk
into
the phone on your
side,
we
understand it on our side. And what we think
here, you hear that there. Put simply, your
speech is
transmitted
to
thought
and
my
thoughts are transmitted to an audible voice.”

I was impressed with my grandma's simple
explanation about
how
the ghosts
and
the
living communicated with each other. But then
again, she had been a professor when she was
alive so
it
shouldn't
have really
been that
impressive.