by Julian Miles | Sep 11, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Hawking proposed that information was not consumed by black holes, just held in super-translation holograms at the event horizon. I proposed that stored information is always accessible. Discounting the chaotic infoforms emitted as Hawking radiation, I was sure that there had to be a way to interrogate the universe’s archives.
Like the rest of humanity, I had witnessed the global schisms instigated by the Transit phenomena, although I was only a child. To me, the ability to switch from physical body to virtual was a magical thing. By the time the Hawking proposals were reaching tenuous confirmation, I had been Transited for over a century. With the fortune made by my own work multiplied nearly a hundredfold by speculators eager to reap the rewards of the biggest big data to ever exist, I spent the next century working with the most brilliant minds I could find. Many of them so brilliant that science regarded them as crazy.
Being Transited, I needed no life support of other bulky luxuries. The huge, freespace-built drive unit to carry the superdense, solid-state device I had transferred my consciousness to was fired up on what would have been my two-hundred and fiftieth birthday. Within minutes of launch I had attained ludicrous speeds, heading towards V404 Cygni faster than anything man had ever built. From that pinnacle, my ship dived into subspace and I left what is termed as reality for a while.
When I returned from the place where machines misbehave unless sentience is within to keep them anchored, I beheld V404 – and experienced helpless terror.
I remained in the throes of that terror until ejected by my vessel, whereupon I entered a state that I can only describe by theoretical allegory. If one was being eaten alive, I suspect the experience may share some with what I felt. The flashes of pain, the reduction of sensation, the frantic thrashing of phantom limbs. That last one finished me. I had never missed my body, until then – the moment where my consciousness was dying.
The blackness took me in chunks, something wholly alien to my digitised perceptions of self. When the dark consumed me, I was puzzled by my continuance, before resolving to at least fade away with some vestige of grace.
Then the community reached me and night turned to day.
And that is where I remain, dwelling in a proof of Hawking’s contestation that goes so far beyond it as to almost make it erroneous.
Everything is here. The information of a universe consumed. The sentiences of all those consumed, too. Not all survive intact, but those that do not are purposed with whatever they can achieve. Our reality is a toroid of super-translated data holograms architected by the sentiences that survived the transition into it.
This place grows as the hungry infostar we encircle draws in and translates everything without into dataforms within.
Of all the wonders I have encountered, it is the fact that I am content that staggers me most. This place is, I believe, the nearest a scientist can get to heaven.
by Julian Miles | Sep 1, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Lie back, Daniel Sixteen. This will be over in under five instants.”
I swing my legs up and settle into the logro, feeling the soft curves adjust to the contour and temperature settings supplied by my envi. Things have definitely come long way from my last forgetting. Not that I remember the exact details, but the echo of certainty – what used to be called déjà vu – hints me true.
Yarrie Four-Twenty Clone smiles and rests her hand on my brow, her entire forearm tailored to convey reassurance and gravitas with that single contact: I am safe in competent hands.
“Please drop your envi.”
A simple request that causes me more discomfort than the fact I am about to have three decimillennia defragmented. When one lives forever, the little things become so tiresome: shower temperatures, seat posture preferences, tea flavours and strengths, they all take up time and matter. So we have attotech personal processors – envi – to carry those environment invariables and free our matter for living.
I drop my envi and feel a lack that I cannot name. Then a grey twisting streaks across my conscious, is gone, and I feel lighter. My envi restarts without prompting.
“Arise, Daniel Sixteen. You are cleared.”
Man’s technology has allowed him to live forever. In conjunction with the need to limit the number who are permitted to do so, there is a need for those of us who are permitted immortality to remain sane – some early horrors taught us that lesson well.
The postulated problems with memory turned into hard limitations until selective memory removal became a science, two centuries after its genesis in the torture chambers of MK-Ultra. Amnesia is not enough: an amnesiac has simply lost the way to a memory, not lost the memory itself. Brains have a finite capacity and only a limited way to tidy up – after all, organically we’re still designed for around a hundred years of thinking at most.
The memory removal process has retasked an old term, and ‘defragmentation’ is what immortals voluntarily undergo. Formative memories – the first four decades – are inviolate. Apart from that, you can choose what you keep: the Euphorics only retain joyous events, Glooms keep their disappointments close, Screamers retain extreme events, Horrors retain catastrophes, and so on. The gamut is similar to the old book and film genres, but since we can come back from anything bar a total brain incineration, we are our own entertainment. Vicarious pleasures are a thing of the past for the eternals, and those who do not qualify for immortality can watch us for their entertainment.
by Julian Miles | Aug 21, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Written this 10th day of August in the year of Our Lord 1708.
My king, I fear for the custody of the charge you bequeathed me, so many years agone. My health is failing, and while that which is our burden seems to be weakening, I am sure that my end will arrive sooner.
I have made as much preparation as possible, but as you urged me to be diligent in all things regarding my charge, I have to let you know that the good Lord may take me into his care before he sees fit to lift your penance.
As you requested, this is the current disposition of my charge –
He awakes at dawn and undertakes votive prayers to the false-idol star that he refuses to recant, despite the diligent efforts of the chaplain you assigned. He breakfasts upon water and mealy bread, and it is noticeable that he quaffs far more than he devours these days.
He spends his morning performing arcane rituals as always. I think that La Riviere’s contention was correct: “computay shonal” operations are related to the discipline of mathematics in some manner that we do not yet grasp.
The afternoon is spent sitting motionless in whatever daylight he can attain. His preference for strong sunlight has increased, but he is never forceful, merely insistent that he get the best seat within his limited demesne.
He remains cheerful, polite, noncommittal and entirely lacking in the remotest understanding of the concept of death. His requests to talk to “Leonardo” really do refer to the Sage of Vinci!
After sunset he gratefully accepts assistance in removing the mildew that accumulates upon his mercury skin each day. I note that the mossy tarnish spreads faster and is increasingly difficult to remove. My manservant has to scour it away with potato spirits and coarse vinegar.
Post-cleansing, he settles to rest without evening rituals or further converse.
This routine remains, of course, without deviation.
In regards to his ongoing care, I attach an authority for your signature, as black velvet of requisite weight and size for his veil has increased to a price beyond the stipend allowed for his upkeep.
This is the whole of it. I expect that this may well be the last missive you receive from me. I beg that you make ready for the continuance of his care in the event of my death.
I trust that you are in robust health, as France depends upon her Sun King.
I pray that Our Lord bestows mercy upon you and takes the changeling soon. Should I find myself blessedly chosen to be worthy of heaven, I shall entreat the angels upon you behalf.
I remain, as ever and until the Lord gainsays me, your humble servant –
Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars.
by Julian Miles | Aug 17, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
My world is Kayden, and it is orbited by a plethora of satellites with deadly defensive natures that all look really pretty from the ground. In higher orbit, space stations and roving warships patrol like sharks at idle. No ship matches it’s fellows in anything bar a small, radiant ‘K’ sent into a single panel. It’s about the size of a human child’s handprint, and that’s deliberate, because it’s the same size as his handprint.
Kayden was born into a prosperous merchant family and was expected to eventually fulfil some minor role, being fourth son. He lived six years of privilege before the family fortunes took a tumble at the hands of greedy investors. It’s a tale told so many times since man left Earth, and identical in many ways to all the others. Except for the details. The particular detail that changed this universe was Kayden being sold by his mother. He brought in a lot of money. He was told it was his purpose, that he had done well. He smiled through the tears as his new owners closed the door.
What happened to Kayden in the intervening three years can only be suspected. When Vealoris, my great-grandfather, found him, he was vomiting parts of himself into the dust of the partially-terraformed planet that would eventually bear his name. Grandfather noted that he eased Kayden’s hurts as best he could, but the damage was too much for the wasted body. Barely three months after Nursery Guardian Vealoris found him again, Kayden went on to a place where children could never be chattels.
That is why grandfather bought this world. He specified the last terraforming stages, the fauna levels and hazard distribution. Then he started rescuing children. After a while, he extended that to unwanted companion fauna as well. He said that while this place existed, no child would be without a place to be safe and loved, among those who would understand without question. All that on a world that is best described as paradise. You can sleep under the stars for most of the year. Nothing native is dangerous to the waifs and strays from a galaxy of civilisations with ancient, common problems.
Some of those first generation rescues stayed on. Some went to the stars. A few made fortunes. That trend continued in the second generation, and so on. And it all comes back to Kayden.
Slavers and orbital pimps fear K-ships. Their crews are motivated in ways that nothing can deter. Former adoptees of Kayden can call on K-ships too. It makes their businesses damn-near bandit proof.
But there’s no empire building going on. We are a single, resilient network dedicated to a simple, too-often-neglected purpose. That is more than enough.
by Julian Miles | Aug 3, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I woke to one of those ‘phantom impacts’ on the bed. The source of the bump was one of the legs of the spider looming over me. I will admit to squealing a little before grabbing my glasses to restore things into perspective.
The glasses allowed me to focus on the gigantic purple spider filling my bedroom. My squeal, which had been ebbing, climbed into a full-blown shriek.
A huge pair of mandibles swung down in front of my face and my shriek fainted dead away.
“Youthling, you have averred a policy of peaceful co-existence with my siblings all of your life. Many have not.”
The voice emanating from this monster arachnid did not alarm me as much as a sudden awareness of distant bedlam.
“Please excuse the disturbance. We are dealing with transgressors.”
I found a voice. It wasn’t my grown up one, but it had to do: “Transgressors?”
“The many who sorely afflicted my kin are being judged. We are the Avengers of Uttu.”
I swallowed hard before asking: “Uttu?”
“She who wove the net upon which the universes hang. We are her blessed, journeying the webs between the suns to bring her scattered kindred home.”
I took a moment to think slightly faster than my hyperventilation, then slowed breathing and imagination.
“You’re taking all the spiders to arachnid heaven?”
“I do not accurately parse the terms ‘arachnid’ or ‘heaven’, but derivation by context leads to confirmation of your query.”
“You will be leaving afterwards?”
“Assuredly. We have many planets yet to visit.”
“So why are you in my bedroom?”
“The sibling that you prevented your progenitor from crushing with a tome yesterday asked me to thank you.”
“They remember?”
“Other than threats, only for a short while. I was impressed by the level of recall, which indicated repeated interventions by yourself.”
“Repeated? I though spiders didn’t live very long?”
“They live many cycles. They just do not stay in one location for long. Otherwise their uncharacteristic longevity would be noticed by your elders.”
I had a moment of wonder and horror: “Spiders live for centuries but we haven’t noticed because they were actually a part of a covert alien ecosystem in temporary residence on our planet, which is about to depart forever?”
“Correct.”
I just stared. I may have gibbered a bit.
“My vessel is ready. Farewell, youthling.”
It backed out of my room without touching a thing. In the darkness of the hallway, the glow of eight violet eyes receded, then vanished.
I fainted.
As nightmares go, I thought it was new paradigm. Until I turned on the news the following day.
That was two months ago. While a lot of people had squished a spider, a strange commonality was that there seemed to be only one person in each home or office who did that. We’ve got a new view of the universe, a massively reduced population, and a lot of single-parent families.
Governments and religions are having a hard time arguing against the sudden outbreak of Uttu shrines and anti-Uttu cults, but everyone expects sectarian violence soon.
Ecologists are quietly watching and guessing what the sudden loss of spiders will do to the world, apart from make arachnophobes happy.
Me? I had to mop up my father.
Now I care for my mother: waking up to find a giant purple spider hacking her husband to pieces was a little much for her mind.
We, like everyone else, just get by. And worry about every other creature that has had an ancient divinity associated with it.
Especially the species that humanity has rendered extinct.
