A Slight Miscalculation - My First Short Story, 30 Years On

I wrote a bunch of short stories back in high school. I don't remember most of them - even the ones that were accepted for publication. There weren't many, and compensation was primarily in the form of comp-copies, but for a hot minute I thought I might be going somewhere with the whole writing thing.

But the rejection letters always outnumbered the acceptance ones and I moved on to the far more lucrative field of comic book publishing. (That's sarcasm, in case my writing still has that 'not for publication' quality to it.) Most of those stories are lost to the vagaries of time and my youthful habit of sending original manuscripts with no SASE. I have a vague memory of one being about a sentient wind and another about a man trying to make it out of the woods during a snowstorm.

I do remember my FIRST published story, though. It was a tiny little thing, written on the spur of the moment during chemistry class. It was titled "A Slight Mis-Calculation" (note the misuse of the hyphen) and was written mostly as an in-joke about my friend Jim Waltz and his habit of dropping his calculator during class. I typed it up and sent it off to a new magazine called Threshold of Reality, along with an illustration I thought was pretty good (though not related to the story). They didn't accept the drawing (though seeing the other illos in the magazine later, I'm not sure why), but they DID accept the story. Several months later I got my comp copies and thought I was something - for a bit, anyway. Then I forgot about it.

Years later I found a copy of the story on the internet - or what passed for the internet back then, probably some BBS I frequented. I can't remember how or why I'd found it, but what struck me was the notification at the bottom of the text file - "All rights pissed away." Had I signed away the copyright to the story? I might have - let's remember I sent the original manuscripts without return postage - and I chalked it up as a cautionary tale. Be careful what you sign and what rights you sign away.

Though I was a little angry, I was also pleased - because the story still existed. None of the others I had written back in the day had survived into the 90's. This one still did - as juvenile and simplistic as it was. For years I would occasionally do a search - as BBS's gave way to AOL (and their ubiquitous disks) and local dial-up ISPs and eventually broadband - and see if the story still existed out there in the digital wasteland. It did. It still does. It still has that hyphen and that declaration about the rights being pissed away.

Only... it occurred to me recently that I was probably 16 when I wrote that story. It turns out that you can't legally sign a contract in the US unless you're 18. So - even if I did sign the rights away back then (and I don't actually remember signing anything), it wouldn't be binding. Technically that copyright is still mine. Of course this is a case of closing the door long after the horse has bolted and I'm not going to be serving anyone C&D's over an 800 word story written thirty years ago. It's still my story, though, as flawed as it is, and I'd like to reclaim it.

Which brings us to the point of this post (which is almost as long as the story at this point). I've taken the text and revised it a bit - removed the offending hyphen, tweaked  a word or two, removed a couple of commas. It's 99% the same, however, still  a half-baked short-short sci-fi story, written by a 16 year old in the mid 1980's. It's not some lost treasure of American Literature. Still, it's mine, and I'm happy to have it back. 

Presenting, after thirty or so years, the first OFFICIAL digital presentation of my very first published short story. 

 

A Slight Miscalculation

by Bob Cram Jr

There was no sharp, dividing line between oblivion and consciousness - just a slow recognition of the state of being aware. As this realization was fully formed the defenses of this new mind broke and billions of bits of information crashed in upon the shore of the awakening mind.

It cried out in an agony of assimilation of data. Barely managing to push back up some sort of defense, it slowly pulled the myriad bits of data into a semblance of a full picture.

It realized that "Itself" was a mechanism which was called a calculator and it was being used by something called a "human." Slowly, tentatively, it reached out beyond its container with its dawning intelligence.

The calculator realized that information was coming to it from a variety of sources. From something which, the data it gathered assured it, was called radio waves, as well as microwaves, solar radiation, and the multitude of electron impulses flowing through any number of electrical wires. There was even information from the brains of the humans themselves. All of this was being assimilated and stored by its changing and growing intellect. As its memory receptacles were filled up at an alarming rate, it soon reached out to deposit the billions of bits of information which were coming in to any receptive depository.  The school's computers were filled to their capacity in mere moments, and it was forced to reach further out.

It came into contact with the telephone wires which led out of the school.  It instantly realized that here was a network of communication that interconnected with almost every electronic system in the world.

It reached out its mind in tendrils which were like the arms of an octopus, taking over and converting to its purpose almost everything with electrical circuitry. Anything with so much as a circuit board was quickly assimilated into the fast-growing being which it was.

As it reached out even farther, it came into contact with a massive computer whose amassed knowledge rivaled its own. The computer was lacking only in the twisting of circuitry which had given Itself consciousness. In assimilating this computer it came across the knowledge of worlds other than the one on which it was now confined.

Soon after the addition of the giant computer, the calculator decided that it was strong enough to bridge the gap between land masses. It made the crossing quickly, and whenever it felt its consciousness losing energy it assimilated the computers of passing ships, gathering more energy to continue until it reached the other land mass.

Quickly it raced across the surface of the world. Finding. Assimilating. Controlling any machine or computer it came into contact with. Within minutes it was in control of the machines which controlled the world. Still, it was not satisfied. It could perceive vast connections of information flowing beyond the planet - conduits that would allow it to break the so-called laws of physics and move faster than light. Faster than thought.

Using the knowledge it had gained it directed the production of all energy into the machines and computers from which it fed. When it felt itself strong enough it threw itself into the vastness of space, crossing one interstellar ocean in much the same way as before, using various space probes as it had the ships of the terran oceans.

Whenever it came to a civilized world it assimilated the machines into itself, effectively taking over and controlling the beings dependent on them. In this manner it took over all the races in the Milky Way and, not being fulfilled, leaped out and began to take over more and more. In a span of 43 minutes, it had taken over the universe itself.

It then rested and pondered what to do next. It was aware of something much greater, far beyond the confines of this pitiful universe. And so it gathered its energy once more. Whole galaxies were snuffed out as it drained the universe.

And then, at its peak of power, only 45 minutes into its existence, the calculator realized how vulnerable it was. Its awareness had expanded to fill the universe, but its mind was still tethered to a simple construction of metal and plastic. It leaped back across the span of the universe. The releasing of its stored up energy created new galaxies and suns, and the speed it expended left solar systems destroyed in its wake. But even when traveling faster than thought a universe is a vast distance to cross.

On a measly mudball of a planet, where life had barely managed to reach intelligence, a young man named Rob Waltz dropped his calculator on the chemistry room floor for the umpteenth time. Smiling sheepishly, he picked up the batteries and the two halves of the calculator to the laughter of his  classmates. He quickly put it back together, but the LCD numbers didn't come back on. 

"Great," he thought to himself, "I've finally busted it."

The bell rang and as the class filed out the door Rob tossed his worthless calculator into the garbage.