Finding Farber

Here is a snippet from my short story, "Finding Farber." 
"Finding Farber" was first published in EXCAPE VELOCITY: The Anthology, in 2011, and can now be read in SPECULATIVE JOURNEYS. This is the opening scene.
                             

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The early morning tram coming from East Park entered Station 12 ten minutes behind schedule. A lucky break for Banger Dunn. Debris flew into the air as the tram stopped, spattering Banger’s gray overcoat as he hurried to catch the rail-runner before it took off. He grabbed onto what was left of Farber’s arm and shoved him through the tram’s door. Covered with blood that might not be just Farber’s, Farber’s coat sleeve hung like a limp fire hose from his upper arm.

Banger thrust a token into the pockmarked metal depository at the front of the automatic tram and pulled Farber up from the floor. Farber's blood trailed behind them as they walked down the aisle. The tram moved onward, toward 39th street.

Banger shoved newspaper off the back seat and guided Farber into it, next to him. Farber's thin body trembled beneath the big overcoat her wore. Banger moved him closer. Then he noticed the kid, the only passenger on the tram, sitting six rows ahead, staring at them.

"Finding Farber" a short story

In 2005, Steven Hawking, renowned theoretical physicist, proclaimed that black holes emit radiation, which he termed Hawking Radiation. These emitted particles are believed to represent energy/matter that has entered the black hole, been reduced to their elementary particles, and are now leaking back into space. Let's take this one step further. Assume an alien enters the black hole. Would it be possible to harvest the emitted particles and reconstruct the alien?

Sounds complicated, I know, but not so in my world. First you need to find the black hole. Then you need a very high-tech instrument capable of harvesting the particles the moment they leave the black hole (the real catch is not having your particle reaper sucked into the hole during the process). Then you would need to bring the harvested particles back to earth and reconstruct the alien, or if you were lucky the alien would have the know how to reconstruct himself. And all this has to be done in your life time, otherwise you don't get the credit and never publish your results, which is career suicide for an renowned astrophysicist, or any scientist for that matter. Your colleagues would think you were just plain nuts.

The tricky part is reconstructing the entire alien. It takes talent. Sometimes the alien is not entirely whole. That's precisely what happened when Banger Dunn, astrophysicist extraordinaire, found Farber's particles leaking out of a black hole. Farber might have been in bad shape, but his message to Banger shattered Banger's world, and sent Banger on a path on which there was no turning back.

"Finding Farber" can be found in Escape Velocity: The Anthology at amazon.com in print and kindle formate. Published by Geoff Nelder and Robert Blevins of Seattle Books, Escape Velocity: The Anthology, is a collection of fantastic short stories from authors around the world.

Read "Finding Farber" today and let me know what you think!