Writing from the seclusion of the University of Rural England, John Gilbey has been a regular contributor to Futures since 2005. His first story, It never rains in VR, appeared in the first Futures anthology — published by Tor and available in both e-book form and in dead-tree format. His more recent tale, Corrective action, can be found in the new anthology of Futures stories, Futures 2, which is also published by Tor and available as an e-book. Many of John’s stories offer a vision of what happens when science fiction infiltrates the world of academic research, and his latest story, Infraction, finds John investigating an intriguing problem at another research facility. It kicks off 2015 for Futures in Nature in fine style (if you’ve not yet read the first Futures for 2015 in Nature Physics, then you should also call in to see George Zebrowski’s Passersby). You can catch up with John via his Twitter feed and you can find more of his Futures tales from the links at the end of Infraction (including an intriguing vision of what 2062 might look like). John has very kindly agreed to offer some insight behind his latest story:

Writing Infraction

I have worked in the research and higher education community for most of my — fragmented and fairly weird — career. As a result, I’ve visited many fascinating research sites and met some extraordinary people.

Counting them up recently, I came up with a number of places of interest that was well into three figures. As a writer, this gives me a mass of raw material to work with. The arcane processes of the various organizations, the ways people react to one another, the particular eccentricities of how the place operates all provide a rich texture that can be mined at will.

The high number also means that I can meld tiny aspects of people and places so that they are demonstrably not actual folk or real facilities — so avoiding pointing the finger at any one group of individuals.

So, how about Infraction?  Centres that handle Big Science are particularly interesting to me — fantastically expensive research tools and infrastructures, highly specialized roles and experiments that take the whole environment well out of the ordinary run of organizations.

Infraction is based on a number of these places — and security is, necessarily, a common thread to all of them. Two in particular spring to mind. At the first, I realized that the facility was guarded by armed security — and then I further realized that I had left my passport at the hotel. A tense conversation ensued, before I dug out of my wallet the library card from my home university. After some tooth-sucking this was accepted as ‘Government Issued Photo ID’ by the senior man at the gate — which later gave my Director of Information Services cause to fall nearly off his chair with laughter.

The following day, at an equally important location I was waved through the gate by a relaxed, smiling guy who didn’t even ask my name. Despite the difference in approach, the site was just as secure — as I was in the passenger seat of a badged car driven by a well-known staff member.

So, places differ — people also. But themes emerge and can be captured in support of a tale of possible, or at least potential, Futures.

I hope you enjoy Infraction, but all feedback — good or bad — is very welcome.