by featured writer | Nov 28, 2011 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Featured Writer
The eighteen foot tall robot stared down at the park worker in pleading disbelief.
Sam jabbed the giant’s leg with his broom, “Come on, off you go. You can’t stay here anymore!”
“But I don’t comprehend this request. My place is here in the park.”
Sam felt a lump rise in his throat. He didn’t like sending the big loveable lug out on his own into the great big world either, but he had no choice. “Okay that’s enough of that. You have to go now Pauly. I mean it, scoot!”
Reluctantly the massive animatron turned and shuffled his way out through the park gates. He turned back one last time and uttered one more useless plea, “Please Sam, you know my place is here.”
Sam stood wordlessly, leaning on his broom, tears welling in his eyes. He did not answer, but instead thought to himself, stupid fuckers, I can’t believe they won their case. That poor bastard was designed to entertain the folks here, programmed to love it as a matter of fact. His place isn’t out there with them.
But what could he do? The SAF (Society for Android Freedom) had in fact won their landmark case and, as the law dictated, were now able to enact Initiative 09. All animatrons, regardless of job or station, were to be immediately ‘set free’ to make their way in the world as each and every one of them saw fit.
Two hours later found the giant in a heavily populated urban district. He saw other animatrons wandering free but fearful through the streets. Some begged for money, work or lodgings, to which human passers-by were not always kind in response.
“You had your day in court metal mouth!”
Or pathetic poetic attempts like, “I hope you run out of power in an hour and rust away in the rain, silicone brain!” (Followed by drunken high fives from rambunctious pals.)
To the inexcusably insulting, “Oh what, you didn’t you think this through? Serves you right rotard!”
But what the majority of these humans didn’t seem to understand was that most droids, including Paul himself, had not wished for anything but to continue on with their well-thought-out preplanned lives. There was security there, purpose. Now a few radical humans with their far-fetched crazy ideas of enslavement and entrapment had ruined it for everyone.
Paul stopped suddenly in his size 38-triple-H tracks. There at the entrance to the alleyway stood a group of rough looking men. The largest of them, still far less than half of the android’s height, addressed him by his full name. “Hey Paul Bunyan. Where’s your big blue ox?”
Happy to find someone that knew him from his amusement park role Paul answered gladly. “Oh Babe was only holographic and never an actual animatron. Otherwise you would see him roaming these streets as well. Are you a fan of our stories? I’m afraid I don’t recognize you from the park.”
The tough grinned and looked from side to side at his henchmen, then back to the droid. “Relax fella, I was just making polite conversation. What I really want to do is… uh… help you get your new life together.”
“Really?” Paul asked in pleasant surprise. “That is quite welcome.”
“Yeah of course.” The man grinned again toward his cohorts then rose up on his toes and asked, “Say pal, you ever done any debt collecting before?”
by featured writer | Nov 22, 2011 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, featured writer
I open my eyes and gasp aloud.
Where… is this? What… what day is… time is… where am I? Who… who… who… who am I?
Although my entire awareness is a swirling multitude of uncertainty, I know I am looking up at the sterile white interior of a… a lid, yes a lid… on a coffin? No, not a coffin… a… a… I just don’t know.
Then my stasis chamber’s computer, sensing my consciousness, begins to speak in a soothing female voice. “You are Cyril Brendan Thompson, citizen of Canada. Do not be alarmed. You have been in stasis.”
Like a punch to the face so much memory comes flooding toward my senses all at once. I hadn’t been ill? but what? Just… just middle-aged and sick of life; but what to do? Back then it was all the rage. All the aging hipsters were doing it, personally I didn’t care I just wanted the world to change.
So for a hefty sum I reserved a position in the well-sought-after fast forward limbo of the time skipper.
But why has my chamber awakened me now? This is the one thing still unclear. I decide to address the computer.
While my vocal chords are physically intact and have been, as I quickly discover, quite obviously well preserved, the sound of my own voice echoes back at me off the inside of the chamber lid with the dry complaint of a long unused musical instrument. “What is the date please?”
The machine hums and whirrs at me but the voice does not answer.
I try again, with more authority this time. “Why have you awakened me?”
Again the mechanical whirring, this time interspersed with a few plastic clicks and ticks. Still the machine says nothing.
“Computer!” I command dryly but sternly. “What is the current state of the world outside?”
Suddenly the mechanical hum of the chamber stops. Then without warning there is a dull metallic thud, as though an iron ball has just dropped and triggered a sinister mechanism inside my coffin-like prison. Then the soothing voice returns as if though nothing is amiss.
“Certainly Mr. Thompson. The date is 6289 AD by your Julian calendar.”
Then without pause it answers my second question. “You requested not to be revived until such time as the human population has been reduced to less than one billion persons.”
And then as I grasp for words but before I can effectively react it plods on mechanically to respond to my third query. “The state of the world outside is utter chaos. A comet approximately forty-two kilometers in diameter has impacted the planet. The shockwave has circled the earth seven times and is still moving. An estimated ninety-three percent of all Terran life is thought to be lost due to this event and its apparent magnitude.”
Shocked to my very core, I decide to ask no more questions for the moment. Everything seems still and tranquil. I am fairly certain my stasis chamber remains in its protective sarcophagus; surrounded by shock absorbers shielding me from the goings on of outside.
I finally decide to address the machine again. “Computer?”
This time she responds instantly.
“How may I be of service sir?”
“Do you retain a complete record of human activity dating back to my time of internment?”
A quick whirr and hum and then, “Yes sir.”
“Tell me then,” I ask with a faraway look of boyhood wonder on my face, “Did the Vancouver Canucks finally win the Stanley Cup?”
by featured writer | Nov 14, 2011 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, featured writer
“I wrestle with it every minute of every day. However please let the record show that every precaution was considered when it came to keeping it humane. No one ever knew for even an instant what hit them. One second we were a planet overrun by thirteen billion parasitic beings, all of whom were in immediate danger of mass extinction via overcrowding and disease. And then the next second they all went peacefully away, and we were suddenly a very healthy and robust selection of the top five hundred million people considered essential enough to keep around.”
“This court has already recognized the previous global crisis and is thankful to be among the surviving carriers of our specie’s precious DNA. But what we really want to hear from you is, how was it actually done?”
“Ah, that is the genius of it… it was the Captain Trips antivirus that carried the doom bringers in the first place. The world was so scared of the super flu that they clambered over top of one another violently to get to the abundantly distributed free bottles of Red Five.”
“Yes, yes, and the Red Five contained microscopic machines… nanobots you call them?”
“Yes your honor. They still exist in all our bodies, everyone who drank the antiviral medicine, which was pretty much everybody on the face of the planet. But don’t worry, the machines are now in permanent sleep mode, their command program destroyed, they are nothing but electro-microscopic bits of gold and silicone floating amongst your blood cells.”
The chief justice tugged at his collar uncomfortably at this, as if though imagining the countless microscopic intruders coursing through his body, the same ones that had instantly severed billions of brain stems with their deadly lasers, and then had oh so quickly dissolved their victims gruesomely albeit efficiently into morbid puddles meant to evaporate or wash away in the rain. Not losing his scowl he said, “And you just gave the order then? The command or whatever? To kill most of the human race?”
“If I hadn’t none of us would be having this discussion right now, or any discussion for that matter. You see your honor we were at a critical level, in fact we would have already gone ahead with the plan over a year earlier but we still lacked the computing power.”
“The computing power to kill?”
“Actually the computing power to segregate who was and who wasn’t to be deleted. Once we had the comprehensive genome map in our system we could divide those to be sacrificed from those of us like you and I, the ones who were meant to carry on.”
He leaned back in his chair, contemplating, tapping his fingers together. Then finally, “Might I ask why it was you who personally? pushed-the-button so to speak?”
My answer was simple and direct. “Because it was my idea in the first place.”
In another half hour I walked out of the building flanked by my own armed guards, I sidestepped a spot where the courthouse steps were discolored a pinkish hue, a one meter circle with a wispy bit of hair at its center. I was free to go wherever I wanted, the man who euthanized over a dozen billion people with a single keystroke. But I prefer to think of myself as the man who saved the world.
by featured writer | Nov 9, 2011 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, featured writer
“Unbelievable Simmons! We actually have him mainlined through the wormhole!” The assistant was no less excited than the good Doctor.
“Professor!” he shouted as he checked the subject’s vitals. “The fractal condensers are working perfectly. Mr. Tyler is unharmed. The batteries (a misnomer as they were actually portholes to galaxy-size storage chambers within the froth) already contain Sol times seven-point-five and are growing exponentially!” The exuberant young technician was beside himself. He turned to his superior. “I’m afraid to touch him, like he’ll electrocute me!”
Doctor Grant patted his number one on the back reassuringly. “Simmons, if even point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-to the umpteenth zero-one of that draw were leaking out past the suit we’d be vaporized.”
Tyler lay there unmoving, the newly created ultra-human, awaiting the dawn of his new life. Sure enhancers had existed for decades but this was nothing like anyone had ever imagined. This was far past the days when anyone could amp up an old ‘hero’ suit direct off some hydro-electric grid and spend a drunken afternoon leaping through the atmosphere in ten kilometer jumps, crashing head-first into the sides of mountains, only to laugh, get up, dust off and do it again. This was energy and matter manipulation taken to another plane entirely.
With the power of a distant quasar giving him instant and endless ability to manipulate all around him in any way he saw fit Tyler quickly deduced that he must acclimatize himself to his new state.
Within a few moments he taught himself self-protection by creating a microscopic layer of severe electromagnetism around himself cocooned by another microscopic layer of absolute vacuum. He was now virtually indestructible. He drew endless oxygen and nutrition via any number of countless mini wormholes opened between desirable sources and his lungs, stomach, blood vessels, etcetera. His brain, fed by endless power, functioned at unbelievable speeds.
The two scientists stood watching wordlessly as their subject got up from the table. As he made his way across the room toward them Simmons shivered. Sensing his assistant’s sudden moment of fear the Professor placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. He whispered, “Don’t worry son, he’s been chosen because of his passiveness.”
Tyler walked up and smiled. His entire body shimmered; his eyes were suddenly vibrant beyond description. The ultra-human’s voice came out deeper than it had been previous to his synchronization, and with an effect akin to reverb or possibly stereo chorus. “I wanted to thank you gentlemen for my new found power. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be off. After all I’ve got an entire universe to explore.” And with that he did two graceful backward hand springs until he was standing in the center of the lab again. Then he held both arms straight out and tilted his hands like helicopter blades.
In an instant Tyler manipulated the air around his arms so that sections opened up to pure vacuum that pulled him along, he continued this manipulation in circular patterns until, in less than a couple of seconds, he was spinning like a drill bit, turning the ultimate pirouette. Then he adjusted his arms slightly and lifted off from the lab floor.
The two scientists watched in awe as he blasted through the ceiling and up and out into the afternoon sky.
They stood for a moment amongst the bits of fluttering insulation, ceiling tile debris and settling dust until Simmons finally turned to his superior. “My god, what have we done?”
The look on Doctor Grant’s face was distant and dreamy. “No Simmons, we’ve created a god.”
by featured writer | Nov 1, 2011 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Featured Writer
“So this is it?” I asked, more than just a little depressed and disappointed.
“Well what did you expect?” asked Grrrrshnk. The giant veins in his bulbous blue head pulsated visibly through his space helmet.
“I dunno,” I replied. I mean, sheesh… ‘the edge of the universe’ you’d think there’d be more than just this hard black surface.” To add emphasis to my proclamation I stomped on the unyielding solidness that was apparently the end of all space and time. I was greeted by a dull clack, the sound of my boot hitting the end of infinity and reverberating back up at me through my pressure suit.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Let’s go to the site and see how we are progressing.” We did not skip off into space as we walked back to the federation lander. Incredibly the endless plain had a soft pull of just a little over a G, one-point-zero-eight to be exact. Together we got back into the little ship and made our way above the ever-stretching flatness. Then suddenly the scenery ahead began to change. In the far-off distance were mountains of pure blackness. But what could cause this, here along the impenetrable plain of the universe’s edge?
Grrrrshnk explained. “This is the debris we have thus far excavated from the hole.” He maneuvered the craft deftly between mountainous heaps of shredded piles of the black material. Here and there massive robotic dozers, loaders, and trucks moved about piles of the obsidian gravel. “It goes for several thousand more kilometers before we reach the bore hole.” He hit the accelerator and we sped along toward the monstrous drilling rig.
Soon we could see the ever-reaching silver sliver of the diamondite bit stretching up into the blackness of space.
I am not a stupid man by any stretch, but when Grrrrshnk debriefed me on how diamondite was actually created in reactors and then later controlled at the subatomic level by super computers manipulating quadrillions of miniscule nanobots in unison, I barely kept up with him, but I got the gist of it. Here was an infinitely strong material that could be stretched, shaped, spun, manipulated in any manner, and forced to do your bidding. Here was the massive diamondite drill bit that continuously churned downward toward the unknown.
As we approached the constantly turning gleaming silver shaft I of course recorded everything for the people of Earth. They were definitely curious about this expensive federation project of drilling to find a parallel universe beyond our own, as was I.
“Tell me Grrrrshnk,” I pronounced it as best as I could, “How deep have you bored down thus far?”
The blue-skinned alien beamed, ” We are just about to hit a milestone.” He paused for a few seconds for dramatic effect, smiling somewhat smugly. “Half a light year! Can you believe it? We have gone nearly fifty percent of one entire light year!”
This I understood well to be an incredible distance to say the least. “Does the drill bit show any signs of twisting yet?”
“Not a millimeter in all that length. Remember, the nanobots act as one, but are still all distinct individuals.”
“Okay I have enough footage for my news story. Thanks for your cooperation.” Then as he turned the craft and shot upward and out toward my waiting transport I thought of one last question for the proud site director.
“So Grrrrshnk,” this time I pronounced it almost perfectly. “How much further do you think you will have to go?”
His answer was honest and direct. “As far as it takes.”
