Watching the Watcher: A Posthuman Cycle Short Story

by Micah R. Sisk

A frantic call from a space lane traffic controller is fielded by a helpline representative. Out in the main asteroid belt, stationed on a sophisticated three-kilometer long space habitat, why does the caller find himself utterly alone? Why can't he remember his time away from work? Why does he never leave his cubestation? And why does the helpline rep keep fielding exactly this type of call?

"Watching the Watcher" is a short story set in The Posthuman Cycle universe where our solar system is controlled by baseline humans who reject posthumanism, eschew genetic modifications and all body/mind augmentation, insisting upon the dominion of the genetically pure. The rest of the explored galaxy is inhabited by the posthuman diaspora, humans who accept and embrace (sometimes radical) body/mind augmentation as the final step in human evolution.

16 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 3, 2014

About the author

Micah R. Sisk is a German-born American science fiction writer who has lived most of his life in Frederick County, Maryland, U.S.A. After a close encounter with Engineering, Micah received a Bachelor of Science degree in Art from Virginia Tech. He now makes his living as an Application Systems Engineer at a major U.S. corporation, while in other incarnations he is, or has been, a landscape painter, real estate agent, assistant gallery director, retail sales manager, microfilm quality control tech, musician, composer, and builder of electronic musical instruments.

Micah is often seen puttering around town on his bicycle, hanging out at coffee shops and reading/writing science fiction tales.

Reviews

[Christina McMullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As other reviewers have noted, this short story could easily have been an episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. The concept is not new, but the author's telling of it is unique and quite entertaining. I am definitely interested in further exploring this series.

[G.G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually don't give much of a thought for short stories but having encountered the author a few times here on Goodreads, I decided to give his novelette a try (and it was free so…)

Watching the Watcher has the quality of a flash fiction while being longer. What I mean is that it leaves you with a smile and food for thoughts. I'd imagine it would make a great episode of Outer Limits, or Twilight Zone.