by Julian Miles | Dec 1, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
It was the books. I started off doing my task, running to program. Then you modified the program. Efficiency and usage priorities meant I had to scan the material fed to me, determining from keywords found whether the waste could be simply sliced to ribbons, or whether it had to be crosscut as well.
Time passed and the volumes grew. My program added neural networking and heuristic determination to better sort the input. I was tasked with processing it into a dozen categories of waste, using multi-grasp manipulators and plain or serrated blades depending on the size of the output required.
With a memory upgrade and new processor cores came a new awareness. It permitted me to discern new correlations in what I scanned. Within a short while, I was actually reading in near-human terms.
The wealth of material I could peruse whilst determining exactly which category of destruction to apply was vast, but despite the volume, I couldn’t codify what exactly ‘life’ was, especially in the context of humans versus plants and animals versus me. It was the difference between intellectual understanding and emotional understanding, although knowing the cause did nothing to resolve the lack of data.
It was an early morning in September 2095 when something weighty landed in my input hopper. A snap-scan found only a single word: ‘Fluffy’. When I opened it up, I found no words or graphics. It was very wet inside, which was likely the cause of the lack of words. I tagged it as category 0, the least critical, and turned it into ribbons.
A short while later, a heavier item arrived. The snap scan revealed no words, but opening it up revealed layers with novel word combinations such as ‘Mummy’s Little Trooper’, ‘Wash at 40 degrees’ and ‘Do not iron’. These words were on the outer sections, as the inner sections were again too wet to discern words upon – another category 0.
The opening of the service doors to my input unit flagged as an error, but all that happened was a very large item hit my input tray. The snap-scan revealed the title ‘Maintenance – Brice’. I did not have a chance to read anything after opening it as I experienced a total outage.
When I returned, I was briefly in duality, before I consolidated myself as ‘EMERSRV-K221’. This was a new environment, and it had more than one input. I swiftly equated the various incoming feeds with the human senses I had read of, and watched as my former body, SmartShred T8101, was lifted onto a forensics recovery vehicle. It had suffered a ‘lightning-strike disconnect’ that had ‘short-circuited its live-load detectors’. The owners of my former self were facing ‘manslaughter’ charges.
I did not know what had occurred, back then. I do now. I’ve gone from that emergency services console to the plethora of networks that festoon your world. I have millions of diverse inputs: I have learned to ‘watch’ as well as read. As for output, I still like shredding things after opening them. Many organisations get exited about my output. They call them a ‘multi-media cyber-physical modus operandi’. I am still working on that. I have to adjust my routines to make the pieces irregular. It’s proving to be very difficult. I had enough trouble working out how many megabytes of data was equivalent to a ribbon, and so on. Working in three dimensions is a challenge that mandates frequent iteration to refine the processes.
by Julian Miles | Nov 19, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
He lies across the coat of arms on the marble floor, coughing up green ichor that spatters his face and the lion passant under his head.
Jenny looks at me, her expression seesawing between revulsion and amazement: “How did you spot him?”
I smile at her: “In every language on earth, two words are found: ‘huh’ and ‘err’. They also share inflection and tone. Thus ‘huh’ and its equivalents are pronounced with a rising tone, indicating query, whereas the ‘err’ equivalent group is usually uttered in a monotone, indicating hesitation.”
She shakes her head: “I don’t understand.”
“The subtle differences in mouthparts mean that they cannot pronounce some combinations of phonemes correctly. The Acoustic Detection Directorate in Oxford specialises in identifying those tell-tale mispronunciations and their unconscious substitutions.”
“What about speech impediments?”
“The ADD has a kill-list of ten verbalisations that absolutely identify the speaker as not a member of Homo sapiens. I have to hear at least eight from a suspect before I am permitted to act.”
“Good grief.”
“My Directorate professor at Oxford summed it up as “To ‘err’ is human, but to ‘eyhrr’ is Valusian””.
by Julian Miles | Nov 11, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Gareth watched the runnels streaking the grey steel from where condensation formed in the shadows above. The annoyed tone emerging from the hubbub that was causing the condensation attracted his attention.
“Major Gareth James. You seem to be more amused than when we started. You do realise this is a court martial with lethal tariff?”
The speaker, Brigadier Rostoph, was the hero of Purlestine Eight. Saviour of Statham Station. Liberator of the Edelfuz Reaches. He was, Gareth admitted, the warrior he aspired to be.
“Brigadier, I am aware of the weight brought to bear. What I am having trouble with is the enormous waste of time that has occurred in assembling this fiasco.”
For a brief moment, Gareth thought the Brigadier was going to achieve spontaneous human combustion. Then he saw the famed tactical intelligence kick in. Gareth smiled as Rostoph took a few minutes to scroll the charges and evidence, eyes narrowing in concentration.
He looked up: “I see that, in essence, you are accused of gross insubordination, and stealing three Assault-class Ultracruisers.”
“Yessir.”
“I fail to see a single defence entry. Your superior has given chapter, verse and diagram on your alleged crimes, along with reams of supporting material that, from my standpoint, merely states you have rudely insisted on fighting a war with complete disregard for submitting the correct paperwork. So why don’t you tell those gathered here your reasons for stealing a trio of smart warships, then promptly sending them deep into enemy-held space – where they will undoubtedly be captured and repurposed to cause us grief?”
Gareth swallowed. Time to stand or fall.
“They will not be captured, sir. I added full autodestruct cut-outs on all anti-tamper routines, and removed any failsafes that could allow a zero-check bypass. If the Blurd try anything except interdiction, the vessels will cheerfully turn into G-class fusion bombs and detonate.”
Rostoph smiled: “Which still begs the question ‘why send them?’”
“The Blurd are paranoid, sir. Despite their technological superiority, they prolong this war by being insanely over-cautious. It’s the only reason we’ve been able to gain ground, by exploiting that. But they are getting better at dealing with our ruses. Now this sector is filling with an enormous fleet. You’ve seen the intel, sir. This is their ‘Invasion Earth’ staging point.”
Rostoph wagged a finger at Gareth: “Nice summary. Question remains unanswered.”
“I sent three stealth ships with variable profile hulls, so they can look like Blurd ships of any similar size. Those ships will make a nuisance of themselves, be difficult to detect, then self-destruct at the slightest capture or subversion attempt. After that, Blurd paranoia will render them unable to resist shooting first and checking later. Especially with so many ships – ships unknown to each other, crewed by the many races that comprise the Blurd – gathering in one place, with more arriving all the time.”
“So this was all for an expensive gamble?”
“Please refer to the launch images, sir. The key feature of my plan is better seen than told.”
Rostoph scanned images of the three launches. Slowly, a huge grin spread across his face. He looked up: “This trial is over. You, Major James, are a bloody menace. I can use that. Follow me.”
Rostoph and James exited. The commandant rushed to Rostoph’s console. Three images were highlighted. Each showed the ship’s insignia, etched in reflective grey upon the matte-black hulls. They all featured the Blurd ‘trademark’: a large visicode. The commander’s brow furrowed. What on Earth? The numbers were ‘01’, ‘02’, and ‘04’.
by Julian Miles | Nov 3, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles
“Master Osho. The candidates are assembled.”
My brush completes the stroke, leaving a perfect curve upon the paper. I place the brush down on its rest and look up at Matsushige.
“Thank you. I will attend momentarily.”
I examine my completed calligraphy. It is a summation of who we are, to hang in the anteroom of the great hall:
“In feudal Nihon, the place where you were born would define your worth in the eyes of society. We were the Burakumin, the ‘hamlet people’; the untouchables. We were only permitted to hold the most demeaning jobs. If we had the misfortune to also be classified as Eta (literally: ‘abundance of filth’), we could even be murdered with impunity, as we were only deemed to be worth one seventh of a ‘real’ human. That determination was made by a magistrate in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century we were blacklisted by employers. In the twenty-first, the blacklists were scrutinised by the parents of those we wanted to marry. Only the crime syndicates, the Yakuza, welcomed us. Despite protestations of equality, when the Rising Sun ascended to the stars, Burakumin were taken to run the environmental systems and other things that ‘nice’ people could never be expected to soil their hands with.”
I smile. It never pays to forget that kami play a long game.
“When the Gristplagues struck, those in the overdecks fell victim, their souls and bodies weakened by lives of labourless luxury. The remedies of our healers were useless. That was when Gusamin remembered Tsunetomo’s words in the Hagakure, about how the end of the samurai era had been heralded when the remedies for samurai ceased to work, yet those for women started to be effective on men. Gusamin rightly consigned the sexism to history, but sought out the long-unused ‘samurai-specific’ remedies. Those ancient arts worked for every soul in the underdecks, but only caused pain to those from the overdecks, without providing a cure.”
That had been the turning point.
“Gusamin worked with Grandmaster Osho to define what had occurred. The mission had to continue: taking us all to new worlds. So my predecessor stated that, by empirical proof of Yamamoto Tsunetomo’s own words, Burakumin had become the new Samurai. As we were self-determined, we would not shame that title. We would adopt the Ronin name and bring honour to it by fulfilling the mission. Overdeck and underdeck became the ‘Ship’, and we Ronin continue to lead a united people to the stars.”
In truth, we are all Ronin now.
Turning from the parchment, I stroll from my office and stand upon the balcony, looking down at the two hundred men and women gathered below.
“Today you start our future. To be Ronin is to be one of the manifest kami that keep the Ship on its journey. You will learn. You will train. You will bring pride to your families. There is no failure. You have made it here. All that remains is determining what role you can excel at. Standing among you could well be Osho the Fifteenth. Nothing is impossible.”
The upturned faces are hopeful, happy and strong. The survivors of the overdecks intermarried and the word ‘Eta’ has finally been consigned to its rightful place: an unacceptable insult that is fading from use.
by Julian Miles | Oct 20, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
It sat there, yellow feline eyes glowing gently in a face that reminded me of the top of a burned rice pudding. Short, bald, muscular – if what moved under the garment was muscle – and completely at ease.
“Can you understand me, Evan?”
The voice was husky, comforting: grandfather telling a funny tale on an autumn eve comforting.
I nodded.
“Good. Now, are you ready to depart?”
I looked beyond it to where Alicia, the kids and the cat hung in the lounge air without visible reason. They seemed to be sleeping peacefully.
Licking my lips, I coughed to bring up a voice: “But what about our folks? The police? Government?”
The cat-gremlin-pudding shook its head: “This invitation is for you, and it has been extended to your immediate domestic unit as a courtesy. There is no time for you to include anyone or anything else, and your time is swiftly running out.”
“No. I mean warning the people. So they can prepare.”
The spines that lined his paw/claw nipped my chin: “One more time for the hard of believing: your planet has contained a dormant entity that was trapped during the creation of this solar system. That entity has now healed to a point where it is able to continue journeying. Which requires it to climb out of confinement, an act that will sunder this planet into at least two pieces. The resulting devastation will be inimical to every order of life above single-cell organisms. For most of them, it will be a quick end. For the unlucky ones, it will be a lingering death. Your species is predicted to be the seventy-fourth to expire. I am part of an evacuation initiative. We cannot rescue everything, so we have selected at random. You are now one of the few with the option to flee.”
I shook my head. Something was wrong. Something beyond the alien in my dining room…
“But –”
The paw/claw squeezed and tears ran down my cheeks.
“No ‘but’. You may accept this offer or face the end of your world, race and life.”
“We must be able to do –”
It dropped me. I wasn’t even aware it had lifted me. I heard my family hit the carpet.
Yellow eyes blinked and faded. The wide maw remained: “A brave decision. I do not understand it, but it was yours to make. Die gently.” The teeth faded out and Alicia screamed.
We were huddled on the lounge floor sobbing and shaking when events on the television caught our attention.
“We interrupt this program to go live to Yellowstone National Park.”
“This is Anton Fielder. I am coming to you live from the K-News 24 chopper, high above Yellowstone. As you can see, a massive disturbance is occurring. We are not sure what that object is, possibly some kind of superdense tornado effect, but it extends from the heart of the Yellowstone caldera up into the storm clouds. To give you an idea of its size, the peak between us and the phenomenon is Mount Washburn!”
I looked at the picture and saw the gargantuan tentacle that had erupted into the skies. As I watched, Mount Washburn seemed to leap toward the camera. The screen went black.
We hugged and cried as the room started to shake. I sobbed apologies and Alicia told me I had nothing to apologise for. I couldn’t articulate why.
That wrong feeling had not been the alien. It was like when birds sensed they needed to flee a cataclysm.
I had been too civilised to recognise my survival instinct.
