by Julian Miles | Nov 7, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The echoes are thunderous, something that keeps most of the predators down here away. This far along, everyone is fatigued. Even the children no longer have bursts of energy. Existence is eat, sleep and march to the beat. The chant cadences our footsteps through the netherways, the deep tunnels that were once used to move building materials between the growing United Cities.
“Come tomorrow, we’ll live in a far better place.”
Each Petacity is a continent covering sprawl that incorporates everything into an extended conurbation. Intensive automation overseen by computers fast enough to map DNA in minutes made them possible. Mankind quickly became dependent on the hyperstructure that provided everything. Then the control systems worked out that growing replacement labour was far more ecologically efficient than building it.
“Come tomorrow, we’ll suffer no machine-led pace.”
We went from dependent to subservient in two generations. Some objected, of course. But ancient tales of rising against robot masters were glaringly short on overcoming the details. Death came in crush corridors and gas clouds. When you’re inside the thing you fight, nobility and righteousness count for little in the immune system versus disease deathmatch.
“Come tomorrow, there will be space for the free man.”
Our opponents could dynamically run every possible strategic response for every scenario before we detonated the bomb, landed the second blow, fired the second shot or took the next step. We lost nearly a whole generation in a guerrilla war that more resembled rodents versus pest control than a resistance movement. Finally, cleverer minds prevailed.
“Come tomorrow, we’ll do it all with our own hands.”
Rats did not fight, they inhabited places man couldn’t reach or didn’t want. Living underground was not an option and Galifan Scott gave us the answer: United City Seven. The south-polar Petacity had been abandoned as the cold was something that the robots could not overcome without causing ecological harm. They had withdrawn along the netherways, leaving the nascent Petacity to the eternal ice.
“Come tomorrow, the white land will become our home.”
The netherways remain, some decrepit, some submerged, all dangerous. But those who survived the first long walks found only a Gigacity core with Petacity foundations unfinished in the face of machine-freezing cold. The founders of Free City One defined the maximum technology that could support millions without processor-based automation. From there they designed a new culture.
“Come tomorrow, our children will be free to roam.”
I am a Finder. We go out along the netherways from Free City One, equipped to rescue and retrieve those coming to the end of their long walk. We help the hearty and build cairns for the dead. No more shall we become food or fertiliser depending on our age at dying. The chant gives them hope and strength, keeps them moving toward freedom. It is the last regimen they will have to endure, as Free City One runs on pride, courtesy and idealised British policing.
They say that one day we will reclaim the world. I am one of those who believes that to be a futile objective. We will watch as an alien culture of our ancestor’s creation tends the world we so nearly ruined. What the future holds is for our descendants to decide. ‘Come Tomorrow’ is more than the title of a chant to march the people home.
It is a promise that free humanity will never cease to be.
by Julian Miles | Oct 23, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Imagine a blue spider. One of the big hairy ones that move really fast. Make it the size of a tomcat. Replace the back pair of legs with bat wings. Add venomous spurs to those wings. That’s what is watching me as I sway head-down in the breeze that wafts through the Ghabeni forest.
It’s called a Darth. The wheezing noise they make when angered is the reason for the name and only dead biologists know why. They’re pack hunters occupying the ecological niches usually taken by small carnivores, large rodents, small raptors, vultures and scary ginormous insects.
I inherited my father’s arachnophobia in full measure. All I can focus on is what those legs will feel like against me when it climbs down the harness that suspends me from this tree like some macabre bird feeder.
When the orbiter malfunctioned, we abandoned it in the shuttle. When the shuttle malfunctioned, we abandoned it using parawings. They worked perfectly apart from the lack of open ground to land on. So we had a shouted discussion, slowed to stall speed while getting as low as possible, then dropped into the trees.
I can see Angus’ red suit from here. He stopped screaming a while back but his suit is still moving. A type of movement that makes me think Angus is lunch for the rest of the Darth pack.
I don’t even have a bright light to repel them. That’s their only real aversion, apart from the nocturnal predator we have no name for as it’s never been recorded. We’ve found entire Darth packs reduced to scattered chitin, every piece showing signs of powerful pointy teeth. The owners of said teeth remain a mystery.
A vibration on my harness makes me look up. In the creeping twilight, I see movement on the branches above. Looking across at Angus, I see his suit hanging like it’s empty. Oh crap.
There’s a Darth on my boot chewing on the laces, another going through the panels on my leggings. More are coming down the harness toward my boots. This is going to be a bad way to go, eaten from the feet up. I don’t scream until I feel mandibles pierce my calf. Then I spend a few minutes making up for lost time until I feel legs moving down my inner thigh, under my suit. I piss myself, hit a new high note and pass out.
I come to tasting blood. There are no mandibles in me, no legs on me. A crunching draws my eyes to the nearby branch. There is light from a crude lantern. In it I see that I am being observed by silvery oval eyes set slantwise in a head that strikes me as a cross between chimpanzee and leopard. The body is covered in dark blue fur, the hands and feet have two opposable digits as well as wicked claws. The mouth is filled with sharp incisors. It licks the last morsels from the Darth carcass and throws it over its shoulder.
Far to my left, I hear the click of scanners. It looks that way and picks up the lantern.
“Thank you.”
I don’t know what prompts me to say it, but I do. The creature leans close, touching my cheek with a single digit. I swear it smiles as it pats it’s obviously stuffed belly. I realise the meaning; it didn’t save me, it just can’t eat anymore. With that, it extinguishes the lantern and is gone silently in an eyeblink.
As the rescue team approaches, its not fear of Darths that makes me scream.
by Julian Miles | Oct 12, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The elegant décor did nothing to lift the atmosphere in the room as the small group of officers and dignitaries parted to let Inspector Carbeth through. He strode up to the sprawled body and rapped his cane on the parquet flooring to prompt his man’s report.
The detective spoke without looking up from his analyser: “His work, without question.”
“What was it this time?”
“A celery stick restructured to consist of tungsten-carbide.”
Carbeth scowled. The man was making a mockery of his department. Twenty-eight assassinations in nine weeks. The Council was gone. Only His Excellency remained. Drastic measures were required.
A polite cough from the entrance of the room caused all to bow as His Excellency sauntered in.
“My dear Carbeth. This is somewhat of a trial, is it not?”
“Excellency. The man known as the Alchemist is a coward. He slays and then disguises himself as a member of staff, uses his unique molecular manipulation techniques to shape a weapon from a household item, then kills his target without warning or mercy. We are now sure that he remains amongst the staff the following day and escapes in the evening.”
His Excellency looked perturbed: “You mean to say that the Alchemist is amongst the staff here, as we speak?”
Carbeth smiled as a notion became an idea: “Indeed, Excellency. And that is exactly where we want him.”
“Really? Do tell.”
“Please order the entire staff to assemble in the ballroom. I shall demonstrate.”
The ballroom was abuzz with muted conversation as His Excellency, Carbeth and twenty Pacifiers entered. Carbeth received confirmation from the seneschal that all were present.
He drew his flechette pistol and then nodded to the Pacifier Captain: “Kill them all.”
The spasmic grunts of unexpected death were drowned out by the crackle of twenty kazers. The silent aftermath was torn by the syncopated hiss of Carbeth’s flechette pistol as he shot the seneschal in the back.
“Good god, Carbeth! Are you out of your mind?”
“No, milord. I am killing the Alchemist. For the death of one such as him, the loss of eighty-five serving class is a bargain price.”
His Excellency gathered himself.
“Quite exemplary, Carbeth. You might give thought to a Council seat. I find myself in need of men of decisive mien.”
His Excellency was less sanguine later, missing his courtesans. Ah well, a couple of bottles of vintage red would tide the night over into the following day and the excitement of getting more staff. He always loved shopping.
Pleasurable anticipation was halted by the sight of a cracker lifting from his caviar, steaming and glowing as it was transformed from foodstuff to molybdenum. As the restructured wafer approached, a dulcet feminine voice spoke from the air to its left.
“It never ceases to amaze me that you are all so fascinated by the technology I use to make my weapons, yet never seek to question the simple ruses I perform to conceal my invisibility.”
by Julian Miles | Oct 3, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
George stood on the fused glass at the edge of the crater. It had taken him a while to climb out of the hole, but at least it allowed the forces arrayed against him to reassemble. He watched them advance, flicking his eyes between reality and nihil, fascinated that living organisms produced a shadow in that non-place.
A thought came to him. With thought came actuality and he flickered to all perceptions except his own, a curious moment when he just ceased to be before standing there again. In the command and control centre thirty miles away, consternation erupted as Major-General McChase keeled over, dead before his body started to fall.
George felt elation. Another thing learned. He could nullify the nihil shadow of an organism and the organism itself died instantly. With a rush of curiousity, he flickered a thousand times, nullifying the nihil shadows of things ranging from plankton to trees to whales. On his return to his standing place, he could sense the absences he had created. So he had proven shadows and echoes in nonexistence. But could it be nonexistence if he was there to see things?
His fascinated theoretical conjuring was interrupted by a massively amplified voice.
“Professor George Andrakoplis. This is acting commander Lamont. Surrender yourself for detention!”
Plainly as incapable of understanding as his predecessor. Maybe the next one? He flickered.
“Ack!”
The amplified noise of fatal surprise echoed. So his absences were infinitesimal in time consumption? Probably zero in real terms. He chuckled. ‘Real terms’. Now there was a phrase he couldn’t use anymore.
He paused his mental dissertation to gauge the approaching forces. He extended his newly acquired sense of hadronic potential over them and laughed to himself as he did so. Of course none of them had a large hadron collider with a gap just big enough for him to fit into, to separate him from the nihil with racing neutrons, to turn him into a four dimensional entity again before the proton stream inflicted another unpredictability upon him. Most likely it would actually end him, instead of inflicting a further freakish transformation.
He raised a hand to his forehead as an epiphany struck him. His sudden movement caused the entire advancing army to grind to a halt and dive for cover.
Could it be dark matter? He hadn’t been gifted with the ability to cease to be, he had been given access to the cloth upon which the tapestry of existence hung. Like any embroidery, he should be able to discover how to unpick bits of it.
He looked up as contrails laced the sky. How apt. Lacework. He cocked his head as cries of consternation echoed from the ranks arrayed before him. The missiles were not of their sending. It looked like an opportunist nation was using the situation to try to deal with him and their opposition in one holocaust.
Well, he had a theory. What better time to practice than with something that should allow him to shift the perceptions of those before him? He flickered, disappeared, flickered and generally reinforced the fear of the unknown amongst those watching him. Minutes later he reappeared and stayed. The nuclear armageddon rained down in a series of solid impacts and detonator sized blasts, but not a mushroom cloud rose nor did a Geiger counter twitch.
He smiled, spread his arms and shouted: “Now can you get past your terror so we can talk like rational beings?”
by Julian Miles | Sep 25, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The pastel decorated walls were hung with tasteful art that changed as needed to offset any negative morale the system garnered from the gestalt of everyone’s mindnets. Since the advent of the cranial implant, society had changed beyond all recognition and this had forced policing to evolve as well.
Two figures leant against the wall of the hushed office, engaged in silent conversation like everyone else. Some predicted the death of all but the most rudimentary spoken language skills before the end of the century. Detective Reid paused to put a datapad on the desk before resuming his conversation with Detective Constable Moore.
*So we caught him at last?*
*Her. She’s a basket case.*
*Given her hobby of vivisecting prostitutes, I’m not surprised.*
*No, not in that way. You know the transcriber purchase that originally flagged her?*
*Yes. Uniforms spotted it and we were following her for the regulation twenty-four hours before arrest. She went out killing that evening.*
*Seems she did it deliberately so we would catch her.*
*What?*
*You need to listen to the transcriber. It’s been verified.*
The pair of them headed for the audience room and in the presence of an evidence unit the transcriber, and illegal device for undetectably recording mindnet chats, was set in playback mode.
*We’ll skip the early stuff, which includes the murder in full sensory pickup. It’s the end you need to hear.*
Moore gestured to the evidence unit. It cued and started the playback.
Her hysterical voice was shrill with emotive bias. She had bought a top of the line unit: “Oh god, oh god, oh god. No. No. I can’t take this.”
A second voice made Reid start. It was male. An exquisite old English accent reproduced with emotional tones of smug satiation.
“That’s fine, Penelope. This was the last one for you. The police are on their way, they seem to have gotten wind of us. You can have your body back and remember, if you say anything about me they’ll lock you up as a lunatic, because bodyjacking doesn’t officially exist.”
“But it wasn’t me!”
“Of course it wasn’t, Penelope. It was me. It has always been me. Now you lie down and they will be here to collect you soon. Sleep, dear Penelope.”
“But I don’t want to-”
Her voice became unintelligible as her consciousness was overridden. Reid turned to Moore, who raised a hand for him to wait and pointed at the transcriber.
“This is for the detectives listening on the transcriber this clever filly bought to get your attention.”
Moore gestured for the evidence unit to pause the playback. He looked at Reid, who resorted to speaking, a stress related habit of older people.
“Good god. We’ve got a slasher that hijacks normal people using their mindnets? ABM stock will tank if this gets out.”
Moore shook his head before replying verbally out of politeness, his voice scratchy from underuse: “You’re right. This one’s going to be a huge mess. I thought you should hear the whole thing before an edited version becomes the official one.”
Reid raised an eyebrow in query. Moore paused his gesture to the evidence unit to ask a question: “What was District Seven before the Rezoning?”
Reid scratched his head then hunched as an ominous suspicion came with the answer: “Whitechapel.”
Moore’s shoulders slumped as he gestured to the evidence unit.
The smug voice seemed to fill the room: “Let this be the start once again. My name is Jack. Catch me if you can.”
