Love This Theory When She Finds You

By Serban Anghene

The stories in this anthology have taken unheard of liberties with genre studies and the science of happy endings.

Before you they stand together, gathered from worlds unseen and seen through otherworldly lenses, united by one thing only: the commitment to make your dives into the uncharted worthwhile.

Here’s a taste of what to expect:

THE LESS FAMOUS CASE OF CREATOR RUFUS – Humanity has come to rest in perfect balance between entertainment and omniscience. But what do you do when you can accurately quantify your own life’s worth and the numbers don’t add up?

SHIFT – Two creatures fight over something new and intangible.

THE HISTORICAL OUTSTANDING DÉBUT OF THE APII – The long due ultimate tool for categorical life improvement takes to the streets.

LOVE THIS THEORY WHEN SHE FINDS YOU – A new theory in the apartment is a great responsibility, something a self-taught scientist and his daughter are about to find out at their own expense. Includes footnotes and wandering real estate.

A LINGUIST’S DREAM – Many have roughed out patterns looking for a universal language. Some have actually found it.

A DREAM OF SMALL – Klaus has a hobby. And the hobby has Klaus. A story for all ages.

FOSTERERS – You know you’ve made the right discovery when the discovery wants you near it.

DAIRY QUEST – The unveiled secrets of the universe can only be witnessed from a milk float.

TETRAPHOBIA - “You know what it’s like, Truls” his father chuckled, “occasionally simple things in life, say numbers, just go berserk.”

BRIEFING – Wouldn’t it be so much easier for everybody if we were simply fewer?

NORMALITY. VIEWS AND PERCEPTIONS – When life seems either too much or too little. Contains snail scenes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Serban Anghene
• Release date: Dec 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301274796

Book preview

Love This Theory When She Finds You

+10 other more-fi-than-sci stories

by

SERBAN ANGHENE

Love This Theory When She Finds You

Serban Anghene

Published by Serban Anghene at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Serban Anghene

Smashwords Edition

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold

or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,

please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did

not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to

Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work

of this author.

Cover Design Copyright 2012 Nadia Barbu http://nadiabarbu.com/

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION

The Less Famous Case of Creator Rufus

Shift

The Historical Outstanding Debut of the APII

Love This Theory When She Finds You

A Linguist’s Dream

A Dream of Small

Fosterers

Dairy Quest

Tetraphobia

Briefing

Normality. Views and Perceptions

###

Thank You for Reading This Book

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

To all those who believe we can dream better

Stories are stories, there’s no easier way of putting it.

There’s hardly any point letting matters of length, genre, tone, style, resolution and whatever more get in the way when it comes to a good tale.

Myself an avid reader, I find that a story of some value is like a mind-reading car. You may be doing all the steering and gear shifting yourself, but the thing will only take you as deep into the unknown as it has already sensed that you’re ready to go. Expect less and have your camera with you.

A good story is not a school trip, but a deliberate choice to lose your way on a dodgy side road you know nothing about. Some of them will bring you back to the motorway.

Some.

The Less Famous Case of Creator Rufus

[ΣμKhΦQ2, Z*] ≈ +∞

*for the defining equations of a valid Z see issue no 2233.9, pp. LIV – CXLV

(The Artful Hydroponics Technician’s Review, no 2234.6)

***

The clerk ignored Rufus’s hand, raised as an indication that no further dips into the reassuring realms of case study were necessary, especially if confined to the brochure’s spinal cord, commonly known as the Esteban Arbitration.

Classical tennis legend Esteban, the clerk began, "addressed a then unfledged and contested Board after having suffered an identity crisis that got him pondering whether, and how, his lifelong endeavour of trainers grated against clay, grass, and rubberized asphalt had, in effect, made a difference to the world.

"Needless to say, Esteban’s enquiry gave birth to the most extensive research effort the Board had ever undertaken up to that point. The final report established with irrefutable precision that it was none other than the repetitive sound of synthetic foam soles in raking against various court surfaces that inspired over two thirds of his majorly sophisticated audience to take more chances in life, dump the languorous comfort that comes with appertaining to an elite, and fight hard for their dreams.

One such convert, a reputed neuroexpander and academic, was already researching what came to be dubbed as the first hypothetical vista hub, in effect, as you may well know, the forerunner in a long lineage of implements that made FullSpace, and your job for that matter, possible, thus sending our understanding of the world and quality of life on a fast forward journey of improvement.

The clerk drew a deep, ominous breath from which his client inferred that the lengthy part of the speech was yet to come. Rufus could have done without the testimonial parables. He’d had plenty of time in FullSpace to read sundry Board handouts.

At least his was one of the mildly ambiguous cases. Granted, had he chosen a career in medical science or communication refining, appealing to the Board would presumably have been entirely superfluous, although it was circulated that the odd genius doctor still filed an application every once in a while.

Then again, he was thankful not to be one of the scores who didn’t manage to outgrow the achievement prospects provided by their own reproductive endowments. That right there was a primitive disease he’d had the power to stave off.

For story-world creators, the intelpoint-based review was seen as straightforward. What the Board monitored for every story-world user was a complex vector that paired up intellectual attainment with general wellbeing, and with creations the magnitude of Rufus’s it was a matter of taking into account a large proportion of the entire human population. This in itself would have not proven overly difficult since it was entirely a FullSpace venture. However, the difference between sending a simpleton swirling in a fit of convulsive laughter and crumpling a microscopic frown on the forehead of a genius could very well mean hundreds of points.

Rufus had tasted vile despair upon reading the Board’s latest finding in his case; one intelpoint below the standing record; one lonely, meddling point. A bad joke.

An abyss.

A lifetime’s work, crowned by A Gegglemeisterian’s Quest: The Final Conquest, had brought no notable extra to the world. It hadn’t exceeded any of its predecessors, it floundered undistinguished among contemporaries. Ballast. No, ballast existed with a purpose.

Rufus would have to recreate (how many times now?) the story-world. And that too was risky, a new report could automatically override the current score and set him back hundreds of intelpoints, at the same time sapping his readiness to come back and try again.

It was therefore excusable that he gaped awestricken when he heard the clerk’s recommendation, made with the casualness of someone who’s already thinking about something else.

Recreate the damn thing. At the end of the day, you’re not all that old... are you now?

***

The opening credits, a blasting innovative eighteen-color Rufus R. O’Riordan’s Final Conquest, was the only bit Rufus was at peace with, and the only one that the King deemed acceptable even if perhaps a whisker on the self-conceited side.

Right, the Gegglemeister King cleared his throat, we’ve gone through the explosive opening, three subsequent quests with enemy involvement and clash, the hunt for the Robust One, the encounter with classical tennis legend Esteban and the God Love episode...

Your thoughts? asked Rufus.

Indistinguishably majestic...

Care to expand?

Majestically indistinguishable. Users are bound to experience entrapment in an endless repetition of form, as if trying to listen to a symphony of drums from inside one of the barrels.

Rufus sprawled lazily in the King’s comet-throne and wondered why he was paying any attention at all.

No doubt, most of the palatable amendments had been the King’s contribution. Rufus held in great regard the addition of tiny fetching baby Gegglemeisters in a frolicsome prance between stars, nebulae, clusters, black holes and a few other speculative cosmic entities strewn around the Portal of the Unknown. In contrast with the Gegglemeister King who was, in essence, a pugnacious titan clad in stardust armour as designed by Rufus himself, the babies were rotund beings of energy, with tiny little spacepuff snouts groping for cold air from ruffled startear pelts. That was good ambience.

What left the creator secretly disappointed was the way he’d dropped attention to detail in the first few beats. But it all got better later on where the user-hero was faced with the challenge to murder and devour their offspring resulted from the God Love chapter. So far it was Rufus’s favourite.

Why do you insist on that gratuitous parade of cannibalistic nonsense? the King suddenly asked. Infanticide has been catching on recently, I’ll grant you that, but having to rip the child apart with your teeth? What happened to the habitual use of cutlery?

It tests...

Tosh. It doesn’t test or prove anything. It’s a story-world, it’s supposed to entertain and keep users pleasantly busy.

I would’ve thought you liked that part, Rufus said.

I resent it.

There was always that risk with unchecking the filters when programming a pure FullSpace assistant, the final product could end up rather unstable.

One more thing, the King went on, could you please enlighten me as to why Esteban is in the script again? I have come no closer to understanding this poisonous obsession of yours with classical tennis.

It struck one as interesting how the ancient recipe of linear progressive achievement paired with conflict still attracted so much attention. Classical tennis spoiled its audience with a rich saga of laureate heroes and, possibly more so than the Quest, irreparable defeat.

That and much, much more. Rufus hardly opened his mouth.

It’s nothing but a snobbish waste, the King smirked, apart from walking it’s the last form of entertainment to take place outside FullSpace. It’ll be gone and forgotten during our lifetime.

Rufus smirked back.

And so will you, the King went on, unless you show you’ve got what it takes. Uncheck the filters, Rufus.

But he had done.

The final act required the user-hero to break through the Portal of the Unknown and save their Life from a cruel fate of eternal imprisonment in cold, timeless nothingness at the never-reached end of the expanding Universe. The representation of the user-hero’s Life was determined through a filter-free interpretation of the grid of preferences located in the user’s historical and subconscious map.

Rufus glanced at the King. It was silly that they still talked at all, since it was his own subconscious cogs that fuelled the existence of the unfiltered King.

Some great idea that ending of yours is, the King said. There can’t be true success until you set the whole thing free. Not until you make your story unpredictable and genuine like us will you liberate yourself from the obsolete paradigm of squashing a hairy ball between two nylon grids.

Squash is quite a different thing, Rufus said.

Leaning over infinite space with a creator’s screwdriver in his hand, he ticked the King’s filters back on.

You’re topmost among creators, was the King’s immediate response. Gory, bloody, chewy, more child killings!

Rufus looked around for the fork he’d considered employing in the child consumption scene and spent the rest of the day unhurriedly murdering the Gegglemeister King.

Unaided and unadvised, he soon released the new edition.

***

As he left the undercover shed on his usual boggy path, Rufus was wrestling the haunting grip of the clerk’s good-bye words.

Patience is a virtue.

His story-world users would have to tear hefty shreds off their lives just to go through that revised edition; because of the potentially more valuable activities they were thus giving up, the usefulness ratio would be altered in its entirety. Intelpoints would have to be considered from scratch.

The potholed alleys behind the Board’s undercover shed were unsurprisingly deserted. To leave FullSpace and besmirch your boots in the dusty unmarked surface streets you had to be either mad, a filthy rich snob, or simply a client of the Board, subject to their policy of absolute secrecy.

It seemed hard to imagine that there had been times when people trusted that the primitive predecessors of FullSpace would forever provide them with the perfect cocktail of shelter and anonymity. But then again, there had been even more primitive times when the Board didn’t exist at all. Rufus found it too strenuous an effort to picture such an epoch in detail.

It was even harder to visualize a miracle that would drag his mind back up from the plummeting slope of creativity commonly associated with nearing retirement. Such marvels of recovery were not unheard of, and Rufus was just about to start calculating the chances of him being one of them when a hand emerged from a crevice and grabbed his arm.

Don’t be afraid, the stranger said, we’re of one fait.

Rufus knew FullSpace interference when he saw it, and this was not it. He tugged himself free.

I know who you are, dear sir, the other man carried on. You need not run away.

Disclosure of one’s engagement to the Board altered results, and was considered an issue of outmost gravity that could end up in a ban, forever depriving Rufus of a final report, no refunds or appeals permitted.

It wasn’t easy to remember how running was done in conditions of primitive neuromotor linkage, and Rufus wished the undercover shed provided by the Board had been far enough from his domicile as to force him into using wheel-based transport.

We’re in the same boat here, Rufus!

This was blackmail.

Rufus considered his chances to get away with murder outside FullSpace.

My name’s Strutt,