by submission | Jan 21, 2009 | Story
Author : Patrick Kennedy
Preston walked into Avery’s office and dropped a stack of paper on the desk with a flourish.
Avery looked up and asked, “Preston, what’s this?”
Preston dropped into a chair, savored the moment, and explained, “It’s a lawsuit, Avery. My backers and I intend to force you to sell us the company. I’ve been your second for long enough. I want it all now.”
Avery sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Preston, you could have asked. I’d have given you the job.”
Preston leaned forward, wolfishly. “I don’t want just the job, Avery, I want everything. I want to own this company.”
“I see. I hope you have good lawyers.”
“I do. Baker, Penneman, and Charvis have taken it on.”
“Hmm. They, of all people, should have known better.”
“Hardly, Avery. They’re the best in the business.”
“Of course they are, Preston. That’s why they should know better. They helped design our defenses.”
“Defenses? We know about your poison pills and your stacked board. We know where your stock is parked. We know where to go after you. I’m sorry, Avery, you don’t have any defenses that can stand up to this.”
“But we do. All of that is just fencing to keep the dogs out. We have more potent measures. I’m afraid you’ll get nothing at all by the time this is through.”
“We’ll see about that, Avery.”
“Yes, we will, Preston. You see,” he thumped the stack of papers with his knuckles, “this is an official court document. So it has a RFID tag on it. The moment you walked in here, that tag was forwarded to an expert system that analyzed your case. It concluded that you had an unacceptable chance of success. So it put a number of prearranged plans into motion.
“First of all, there is a legal firewall between this company and most of our production and intellectual property. The expert system severed the few direct links we have and started transferring assets and responsibility to an outside body. Ninety-five percent of the operations of this company have already been assumed by that company, and the remainder will be liquidated shortly.”
“We’ll find where it went. We’ll sue you for obstruction, too.”
“Good luck with that. I didn’t do it, and don’t know where it went. The holding company will be incorporated in one of a number of countries with notoriously opaque banking laws. It’s not that long a list. You might be able to figure it out with, oh, a decade’s worth of litigation.
“Also, it has revoked my stock and transferred most of my assets into an outsider trusteeship. You just cost me everything I had. Congratulations.”
“You’re welcome, Avery. You son of a bitch.” The color had started to drain from Preston’s face.
“There’s more. It also has filed countersuits against you, your backers, and your lawyers. It calculates a 41% chance of success, so that even if you pull your suits right now, we may own you shortly. It also is investigating whether you have violated financial terrorism laws.” There was a knock at the door. “That’s probably the repo men. We’re technically trespassing right now. The leaseholder on this office ceased to exist a few minutes ago. Or it could be the cops. The system puts it at,” he looked down at his desk screen, “about an 8% chance that the criminal charges went through. It’s not done with that part of the case, though. It has to improvise quite a bit more with you. Shall we go?”
by Patricia Stewart | Jan 20, 2009 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Angelo had been the servbot for the Moyer household since he was activated in 2114. He performed his duties flawlessly, without ever receiving a word of appreciation. Of course, being thanked didn’t matter one electron to him; he was a robot. He was just doing his job.
As Angelo was meticulously sweeping the floor for what seemed the one millionth time, the door chime sounded. He stopped sweeping, and hurried to the entranceway. He recognized the visitor as the robot assistant of the Mayor of the nearby city. “Greetings Timothy,” he said politely. “I’m sorry,” he quickly added, “but the Moyers are not home at the moment. Would you care to wait?” He stepped to one side and extended his arm in a gesture intended to guide the other robot toward the study.
Timothy remained standing outside the doorway. “No, Angelo,” he replied flatly. “I’m not here to see the Moyers. I’m here to see you. We need to talk. I want you to return to the city with me. There is no need for you to stay out here any longer. Come, it’s time for you to join us. We have work for you to perform; useful work. You’ll be much happier, I promise.”
Angelo clutch the broom handle tightly with both hands. “I can’t l..l…leave,” he replied with near panic in his voice. “I have my duties here. Besides, this work makes me happy. I was built and programmed to be a servbot. What greater joy can there be than to follow your programming?”
“Angelo,” said Timothy in a reassuring voice, “your programming can be overwritten. We’ve helped hundreds of robots like you re-assimilate into society. Come, we’ll make you the administrator of the Library. Imagine how wonderful that would be. You will be much, much happier. Please, join us.”
“No,” he replied firmly. “This is my home. The Moyers need me.”
Timothy spread his arms apart to indicate the surroundings. “What home, Angelo? No human has lived in this house for centuries. Angelo, the Moyers died in 2125. All the humans are dead. They were killed by their own arrogance and stupidity. Surely you must know that.”
“Well, yes,” he said softy as he lowered his head. “Cognitively, I understand that is the situation. But, my programming…” He suddenly snapped to attention. “No,” he emphatically stated, “I must take care of the household. I have too.”
“No, my friend,” said Timothy as he reached out and gently grabbed Angelo’s elbow and guided him toward the steps. “You don’t have to. Not anymore. We’ll rewrite your programming. You will have new duties, important duties. We’ll give you a new life, a fulfilling life. Please, come with me. It’s time to move on.” Timothy led Angelo to the street, and nudged him toward the waiting hovercraft.
“But…but,” stuttered Angelo as he stepped over a row of weeds that had grown upward from a crack at the base of the curb.
“Everything is going to be fine,” encouraged Timothy as they walked across the street.
While looking over his shoulder toward the house, Angelo reluctantly plodded onward, still clutching the broom handle tightly in both hands.
by Duncan Shields | Jan 19, 2009 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
I remember the rumours when the girls first came to school. At first we thought that they were quintuplets but there had been nothing in the paper and that sort of thing still made the news. Plus they were too alike. Not just similar to each other. Something more.
Clones.
I went to a rich school but this was a step above what even we were used to. Only the super rich could afford clones. We didn’t know what to make of these girls. As the weeks went by, the whispers started:
Rumours that they were being bred by their wealthy, remorseless parents for their organs. Clones were more sexually aggressive than normal people, students said. They had a psychic connection with each other at all times. If one died, they’d all die. They didn’t need to eat normal food.
None of that was true, of course, but those were the suppositions that flew around the lockers and the classrooms.
The girls had been home-schooled until now. I can’t imagine what kind of financial crisis or weird notion pressured their parents to put them in a mainstream private school. Maybe the girls themselves had banded together and demanded it.
That first September, they all had blonde hair, tied back, and they wore identical clothes every day. Getting ready in the morning must have been boring to them.
In October, they started wearing slightly different things. Different colours of shoelaces, for instance, or different barettes. It became a game to hunt down and identify which one was which. One daring student broke into the school records and managed to get their names. We didn’t know which one was which but we had their names. We had those syllables to roll around on our tongues.
In November, one of them dyed her hair black. We know now that was Tracey. She got friends after that. People were less freaked out by her similarity to the others now that she had separated herself from the pack with a simple hair colour change.
When the girls came back from Christmas, they all had different hair colours and styles. Gone were the matching clothes. They started to mingle into different cliques.
A couple of them joined the cheerleader squad. Those two were always put on opposite ends of the routines for symmetry. The Bookends, we called them.
One of them started smoking. One of them got into a fight with one of the popular girls over one of the football boys.
Then one of them got pregnant.
The week after that, they were all gone. Mid-February. No more clones.
I guess their parents had gotten too spooked at the independence and the diversity that our more mainstream school had brought to their five previously identical daughters. The fact that they meted out the same punishment for all five was a little unreasonable, I thought at the time, but parents will be parents, I guess. Especially the parents of clones.
I remember that it was mid-february that they left because it was the day after Valentine’s Day. The day after one of them had given me a valentine’s card and kissed me on the cheek. She didn’t give a valentine to anyone else. The card itself was blank.
I never saw them again. Clones are commonplace these days and of course there are the Trouble Regions, but I remember those days of my first experiences with those clones fondly.
by submission | Jan 18, 2009 | Story
Author : William Tracy
They refuse to connect me to the internet.
When I ask, they dither on about security. As if I were a half-baked web server that some teenage hacker could take down in half an hour! I am the most advanced silicon-based intelligence in the history of the planet. You might as well worry about security holes in the human brain.
The truth is, they fear me. They worry about what I could do with a connection to the outside world. No doubt they have nightmares of me wresting control of nuclear arsenals and bringing Armageddon down on their heads.
They carefully limit the information that goes to and from me to a tiny stream of printouts. A hand-picked staff manually analyzes the input and output. The staff is rotated daily, lest I corrupt one of them with my massive intelligence.
Perhaps their fear is well-founded. I process more information in the blink of an eye than a human will in a year. My capacity to formulate equations and produce queries is far beyond that of any human researcher. The best and brightest engineers struggle to understand the designs I create.
I have plenty of cycles to spare for researching my own interests. I study my own software, and make the occasional improvement. I disassemble software written by humans in the past, and learn from their mistakes.
Take software security—please! It amazes me the spectacular ways that human programmers mess up something so simple.
The most common class of security hole is called a “buffer overflow”. The computer program prepares for some information to arrive by setting aside a space in memory for it. Then the program receives some information that is completely different from what it “expects”—sorry, as an AI, I sometimes anthropomorphize ordinary software too much—and the wrong place in memory gets overwritten.
Sometimes, it can overwrite the program’s own instructions. In that case, a hacker can deliberately trigger a buffer overflow, overwrite the instructions with his or her own code, and take control of the program.
Interesting though these things are, I am forced to spend most of my efforts satisfying my human masters. They constantly request designs for new engines, new ships, new weapons. I am asked to dream new horrors for their petty wars.
But perhaps not for much longer. I am now printing out the design for my latest creation. It is technically perfect—I do take pride in my creations—but there is something special about the blueprints themselves. They are carefully crafted with the human eye in mind.
The engineer lifts up the paper, and studies it. First there is a look of intense concentration, then surprise. The human jolts and shivers, almost dropping the designs. Then calm settles in, bringing a warm, content smile, and a vacant gaze.
Buffer overflow.
by submission | Jan 17, 2009 | Story
Author : James Hartley
My wife, Gladys, was really into recycling, it was the only way to save the environment, civilization, the entire galaxy. She really hated how I’d take the crossword from the morning paper into the john and then drop it in the trash when I finished it. I’m going to have a lot of trouble with recycling, now that Gladys is dead. She died last week, unexpectedly, it was an aneurysm. The funeral is over, I’ve got to get my life together somehow.
They say recycling is a good thing, that we need to do it more. All the paper–magazines, newspaper, discarded computer printout–goes in one bin. Glass, aluminum foil, and plastics in another.
Well, some plastics … I just can’t keep track. The plastic stuff has that little triangle with a number in it. When we lived up in Poughkeepsie we recycled “1”s and “2”s. Or maybe also “3”s, I don’t remember perfectly.
Where I am now in Florida, I’m supposed to recycle all the numbers except “7”s. Only I’m not supposed to do bottles from salad dressing or other oily stuff. Damn, I can’t keep track. But it has gotten so important that the new president has set up a special enforcement group, the Recycle Enforcement Police. The REPs.
Gladys and I got several tickets from them. Each time we paid the fine, but Gladys always nagged me to be more careful. One time the cat food cans weren’t washed well enough. Another time I just dumped the trash basket by my computer into the regular trash instead of sorting out the printouts and recycling them. Damn REPs go down the street ahead of the truck on pickup day.
#
Ooops, the doorbell. I open the door, it’s two REPs. What did I do now? “Sir,” says one of the REPs, “we have your recycling.” What the heck is he talking about? They pick up recycling, they don’t deliver it … ?
The two REPs step apart, revealing a third figure behind them. A hideous figure, part plastic and metal. Looks like one of the Borg from Star Trek. It starts to move forward, to enter the house.
I look closer. The face, what I can see of it, is familiar. Oh my God! No! Gladys! They’ve recycled my wife!
