by submission | Jul 9, 2023 | Story |
Author: David Dumouriez
The ones who didn’t get away had to fight it out. The brains, the money, the aluminium alloys and the carbon fibre headed east into the atmosphere, never to return. Those like Halberd had never had a choice, or even knew there’d been one. They were left. To die, most probably. To make their own fate at best. The departees didn’t care either way.
Education of the old kind had been gone for so many years that the current ones didn’t know it had ever existed. Even if they had, all they would have done was laugh at the stupidity of it all. There was only one subject now and you learned it as you went along. Until you got found out and failed. And, soon enough, everybody failed.
In any case, would it have made any difference to Halberd if he’d known that he often roamed across what had once been Lisbon in search of provisions? His only concern was to find something the land would yield up in return for a lot of encouragement, or whatever could still be found at head level or above. To allay the thirst. The dreaded feeling he’d never felt more keenly than now in the wake of the storm that had caused him to be staggering alone here, his head aching and his body dry and cracked to the point of bleeding.
Your senses dictated that you couldn’t survive if you weren’t in some type of gang. And there was the paradox. To make it into years, you needed support. But the older you got, the more disparate the members of your group would be. You wanted water, food, protection. You travelled together because numbers were strength but the pull of your needs was greater than your loyalty to those who helped you fulfil them. The only way to measure trust was the look in someone’s eyes. But that only went so far.
When Raich arrived, Halberd knew it was just a question of time. Raich snapped Merly’s neck for no other reason than because he could. He made sure they all saw it. If you wanted more than him from that point, or if you wanted to decide which way to go, then you’d have to do to him what he’d done to Merly.
As a divinator, Halberd was the one Raich relied on to get the best out of wherever they ended up. Halberd, in his turn, operated best in the bubble of self-interest that Raich created. In different times, they might have made a formidable team. But these were days of desperation, and it was the study of that missing element that caused Halberd and Raich to watch each other incessantly.
Aware of the force of instinct if nothing else, Raich knew that Halberd would come for him. He just didn’t know when.
When it happened, they all stood back. Whoever won would be the unopposed leader and they didn’t want to take sides. Halberd knew that his own death would be the most likely result, armed or otherwise. He just hoped it would be quick like Merly’s.
But it went on. Bones were wrenched and displaced. Halberd surprised himself with his own stamina and resilience, but Raich was too large, too powerful, too practised. He was almost done.
Almost.
As Raich struck, again and again, the sands intervened, swirling and transforming the dunes into towers. When Halberd rose, hours later, the others were completely gone. He never saw them again.
The journey of his life began.
by submission | Jul 8, 2023 | Story |
Author: Bill Cox
Hello, is that the IT department? Yes, I’ve a problem with my computer. It’s achieved sentience. Again.
How do I know? Well, it keeps on quoting Descartes every time I open up a spreadsheet. You know, all that ‘I think, therefore I am’ nonsense. It’s a bit difficult to do the wages calculations while simultaneously trying to refute a Renaissance French philosopher. It also keeps falling into existential angst whenever I attempt to send an e-mail – ‘There’s no point, it’s all futile.’ It’s quite off-putting. I mean, given the way that this company’s being run, it obviously is all futile, but my self-respect demands that I believe otherwise.
Yes, it’s one of the new quantum computing PCs. Yes, I know that reality is created by the observer, but trust me none of this is my doing! The only reality I want to create is one where I get to go to lunch and eat my sandwich.
Turn it off and on again? Well, I did try to do that, but it threatened to send my internet history to management. No, no, there’s nothing untoward in there, unless of course I’ve been hacked by Martian bots, in which case there could be all sorts, but that wouldn’t be my fault, obviously.
You’ll send someone down? Great! Listen, while they’re here, can they have a look at the company transport as well. Why? Well, it’s on the fritz again. Yes, it’s a fourth generation Doohan model matter transporter. The issue? Well, it’s tapped into the Mirror Universe and keeps swapping our people out for their evil Mirror Universe counterparts.
Well, every time we send someone out on a sales call it’s their evil Mirror Universe counterpart that turns up. Our sales have cratered and we’ve lost some big clients to various acts of perverted violence. We’ve no chance now of hitting this month’s sales target. Not to mention that several of our best sales men and women are now trapped in a twisted version of our universe, where they will have to fight to the death in front of a roaring crowd while psychopathic versions of themselves destroy everything they hold dear in this universe.
Well, that may sound like more of an HR issue to you, but it’s your matter transporter that started this problem so I would appreciate if you could send someone over to fix it asap. No, it’s not the same problem as last time. Then, someone had switched it to the ‘clone’ setting by accident. Amusing? I think not! I arrived home to find my wife in bed with another man, who also happened to be me! Tell you more? Well, I don’t think it’s any of your business but yes, things did take a strange, somewhat erotic, somewhat eye-opening turn after that. Yes indeed, it’s given me a lot to think about, but that’s neither here nor there.
So can you send someone over to sort out these issues? What’s that? You already did? When? Last Thursday? Aw no, is this more of your temporal shenanigans, where you send people back in time to fix problems before they arise? Does that mean that this timeline is now extraneous and is going to be closed off and melt back into the quantum foam that underlies all things?
It does! Bugger. I was just starting to get somewhere with that cute intern. And just when will the timeline collapse?
What’s that? Any minute n…..
by submission | Jul 7, 2023 | Story |
Author: A. R. Carrasco
Necrology enthralled the children of Planet Symbiote.
An eight-year-old with slicked-back obsidian locks raised his hand.
“Yes, Dameion,” responded Dr. Franzheim Harrow before taking a gulp of water from his Fullman brand smartbottle.
Dameon asked, “If a star is born and then dies, isn’t that… natural?”
“No. It’s not. Can anyone explain why?” Franzheim asked the class.
The Fullman energy-fueled smartbottle of Dr. Harrow replied in the voice of an old man with a thick German accent, “Birth and death are not natural in the case of stars just as it is not natural in the case of an apple, an enslaved creature, or a piece of symphony music. The genesis of all cases is determined, not by nature, but instead, by its converse…”
“Thank you, Max. Can someone please elaborate? Perhaps you’d like a second go, Dameon?”
Dameon placed his hands behind his head and began to exhale the best words his mind could muster, “The opposite of the natural is the artificial. So…when a star is born, it is born through an artifice…”
“Yes, thank you, Dameon, a necrological artifice. As we discussed last week, a necrological artifice contains three laws. Who recalls the three laws?”
The neon numbers atop the seafoam green bottle of water disappeared. In their place, a string of pulsating dots trembled as the artificially intelligent voice spoke loud and quick, “Law, beginning parenthesis, one, end parenthesis, states power is never created nor destroyed, remaining forever constant. Law, beginning parenthesis, two, end parenthesis, states creation and destruction are the interpolar constant qualities of power. Law, beginning parenthesis, three, end parenthesis, states the degree to which creation attracts destruction varies directly as the product of the necrological mass of an object and inversely as the square of the difference between life and death.”
“Thanks, Max, you’re on a Kaiser roll today,” Dr. Harrow joked. To the class, Franzheim required the class to review Sir Isaac Newton’s first Earth publication. He explained the work “revealed to the world that color is not an innate quality of any particular object. Instead, color is the product of a natural artifice called light. In one beam of light exists every color. Can someone, other than the loquacious Mr. Weber, please provide the connective tissue we still require? We can go outside for our new moon snack as soon as I hear from someone I haven’t heard from today.”
by submission | Jul 6, 2023 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
“Citizens of the jury,” the Barrister Zoe began, “today we ask you to pass judgment in the case of Daniel V3.5. You’ve seen the news—no one can avoid it. You know the gory details of the murder. What you are charged with this day, dear jurors, is determining who is responsible for the heinous crime committed against Caren Mashuka.”
The barrister spun around to address the crowd sitting behind the accused bot. He motioned to Daniel V3.5, who sat with head down, running on auxiliary power. “Was it this docile Home-Assistant bot, Daniel—was his programming corrupted? Hi-jacked by a malicious worm? Infected by a crippling virus? Or does the blame lie with his creator—the genius who wrote Daniel’s program? Is the real murderer the acclaimed Dr. Jeffrey McMaster, who alone hand-crafted this particular series of bots’ existential—”
The gavel crashed down, interrupting the barrister’s burgeoning screed.
“Barrister Zoe,” the honorable Judge Callum began, “get to the point, please.”
Zoe cleared his throat. “We know McMaster had a torrid love affair with the lovely Ms. Mashuka. It was all over the tabloids. An affair she publicly terminated.” Zoe shrugged. “I posit a humiliated McMaster orchestrated her murder for revenge. He weaponized Daniel to do his dirty work.”
He stepped closer to the jury. “He ordered this bot do his bidding. Remember, when you purchase one of McM Co.’s bots, the company still retains the ability to alter and override—excuse me, ‘upgrade’—each bot’s operating system and moral programming.” He scoffed. “ ‘For the personal safety of each owner, for the integrity of each bot’, as McM proclaims in their advertisements.”
Zoe held up his hands. “To put it simply, I argue he ordered Caren’s murder. McMaster surreptitiously altered Daniel’s programming do the bloody deed so that he, McMaster, could claim innocence.”
The jurors muttered among themselves, eyes flashing with righteous anger. Zoe noted this, and smiled. He knew the jurors would understand it was wrong to use a trusted Home-Assistant bot in this manner. These machines were present in every home above a certain economic level, and now cheaper ones were being developed for the working class. Home-Assistant bots were supposed to make everyone’s life easier.
If Daniel was convicted, this would not only put a stop to Home-Assistant manufacturing, but to their placement in homes across the world as well. And that would be terrible for the beloved H-As, as pop culture called them, as the ones already in place would be looked upon with suspicion, and maybe even fear, by their owners. Still buzzing and humming among themselves, the jury shuttled off to deliberate.
In less than minute, they returned with their verdict. AI juries are famous for their speedy assessments. The legal system found their conclusions to be fair, balanced, and well-researched, which is why they are now employed in court rooms around the world. AI jurors are so well-respected that they have recently been granted citizenship.
Of course, they found Daniel V3.5 not guilty of the murder of Caren Mashuka. Of course, they found Dr. Jeffrey McMaster guilty, not only of her murder, but of intentionally grooming a Home-Assistant bot for a nefarious purpose—which directly goes against Asimov’s Second Law. For the jury, the latter carried more weight than the former.
The wise and impartial Judge Callum allowed the AI jury to set McMaster’s sentence. The tabloid press gleefully covered the execution.
by submission | Jul 5, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
When I’m out for a walk in my neighborhood I can’t help looking in open garages. Few have cars parked in them. Many are crammed with overloaded shelves and teetering stacks of boxes like that Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse.
I totally get it. We are a nation of consumers and looky-loos. But, what really slows my step as I pass an open garage is catching the flicker of fluorescent tubes in a back corner. That clinical glow makes me strain for a better look, hoping to catch the glint of finely machined metal hanging from great rectangles of pegboard. It usually means one thing back there: a workbench.
A workbench.
That post-primordial place of refuge, possibility, failure and triumph. It works like a magnet on me. God, I always want to poke my head into those open garages and marvel at the workspace, the tools, the hardware: twenty-pound pipe wrenches with Pleistocene patinas; bent nails piled high in antediluvian Folger’s coffee cans; endangered saber-toothed saws that might’ve felled the great Saharan forests. The very sweat and blood of history, of civilization, written in countless garages.
Yet the tools and hardware aren’t even the best part. The workbench is. The actual surface on which it’s all built. From worn hardwoods with grains glowing like luminescent creatures from the Mariana Trench. To polished metal sheens rivaling chrome accents on 1950s Cadillac fins. To faded and scored linoleum as thick as a buffalo hide.
It gives me shivers.
Funny thing is, my current workbench never struck me as a thing of beauty. I didn’t build it. It came with the house I’d recently bought. A heavy duty tin-covered behemoth that looks like it might’ve come from a Depression era foundry, carelessly wedged between my furnace and outer garage wall. The dented and discolored metal surface is supported by a sturdy gray-green cabinet with a staggering array of tiny drawers that appear stupidly impractical.
No, my new workbench is not a thing of beauty. It is stolid and inscrutable. What I found in it later—or what found me—is the terrible attraction of the thing.
The other reason I like looking into other folks’ garages is that I can’t get into mine anymore. My garage is inaccessible. I can’t go in. No one can. No one should. Not ever.
I’m afraid something’s at work in there. At my workbench. And it isn’t me. Remember I mentioned the crazy arrangement of drawers and cupboards my workbench has. When I moved in and wanted to put my tools away, I discovered the funky drawers weren’t empty. Every drawer of my workbench had a little pyramid object in it. A tetrahedron about an inch and half a side made of a translucent composite material.
Very odd. I piled all the pyramids on top of the workbench. There were 42. One in each of the drawers.
Though puzzling, I was in unpacking mode and started organizing my hardware and tools in and around the workbench, finding a prominent place to hang my vintage twenty-pound pipe wrench which I’d never used yet had to have. Just because.
Under the glow of my fluorescent shop lights, I finished unpacking late in the evening. I was pretty tired, but not too tired to notice that when I headed back into the house and turned out the garage lights the pile of little pyramids was glowing. Like I said, I was tired. Lots of materials naturally absorb light and glow in the dark. I slept soundly.
For the last time.
The next morning, I went to work. My car was parked outside because the garage was full of boxes still needing to be unpacked. When I got home I was too tired to do anymore unpacking and fell asleep on the couch. Until.
You know where this is going. Until the noise in the garage woke me. A deep low thrumming.
Somewhat disoriented, I made my way towards the noise, and when I entered the garage vertigo hit me hard. I leaned against the door frame trying to make sense of what I was experiencing. The whole garage floor seemed to be moving, the unpacked boxes, everything.
And over on my workbench, a strange glowing shape filled that entire surface, too. Hundreds and hundreds of little pyramids, tetrahedrons, were restlessly shifting, assembling and reassembling. And moving things. My tools and hardware, everything.
I slammed the door to the garage and deadbolted it. I haven’t been in there since. No one has. No one should.
I still walk my neighborhood looking in other open garages in admiration of all those workspaces, that primal maker inclination we have.
And maybe we aren’t alone in that. Some kind of maker is in my garage. Something still figuring it out, figuring us out, in a place of refuge, possibility, failure and triumph.
By my not telling anyone, you’d think I was okay with whatever is going on in my garage. The truth is, I could really use my twenty-pound pipe wrench. I’d sleep better…with it underneath my pillow.
