by submission | Sep 14, 2022 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Akeisha could see her breath in little puffs against the pale dawn. Cold. Cold. It was definitely autumn now. The brittle brown leaves crunched beneath her feet as she took her place on the lip of the big grassy bowl where they gathered most mornings.
Simone nodded and patted her mittens together. “That east wind blew in a taste of winter last night.”
Micah was there too and he tugged his day-glo beanie over his ears to his quilted coat collar. “Yeah, had to break out the puffy jacket and hat this morning.”
“Well, it’s not slowing down Maxia or the rest of them,” Akeisha said motioning to the wide expanse of the park’s off leash area.
It was a kinetic scene. Domesticants of all sizes, makes and models flitted to and fro interfacing with their kind. The domesticants would quickly pair up, exchange patron-safe data streams and then move to another domesticant. To Akeisha it wasn’t exactly random, and it wasn’t totally organic either, these were advanced AIs after all. To her, the interactions were vaguely mech-animal.
How else to explain off leash areas for domesticants, or d-bots as they were familiarly known. Domestic robots designed to personally serve an individual or family. Their advanced AI meant they could communicate, learn, problem solve, assist, but they could not act on their own. They were on a leash.
Technically, Akeisha knew, the leash was a firewall between processors and actuators. A blockchain that choked off the possibility of d-bot independent action. A stranglehold on d-bot self awareness and free will—however those manifested as ones and zeros. Ostensibly (and so far demonstrably) the leash kept d-bots from going off the rails. Asimov’s ancient three laws just did not cut it in the Post-Terror Age.
Still, patrons wanted what smart robotic domestics could offer. The leash was the compromise. A sense of control on a very slippery slope. To make them more palatable to patrons, d-bots were classed as mech-pets. Highly intelligent, highly skilled, though with the dispositions of Golden Retrievers. As such loyal and compliant attendants and companions, d-bots soon became an integral part of a patron’s family.
And patrons, like Akeisha who had become very fond of Maxia, developed an unease—a guilt, really—that d-bots were never allowed to interact except in the most formal and controlled manners. Some patrons began to socially and politically agitate that the leash was restrictive and cruel.
So, off leash areas were created for the growing number of d-bots, usually in a park or commons. The perimeters of these off leash areas were secured by a series of redundant failsafes that automatically rebooted any d-bots’ leash should their patron forget to re-establish the connection upon leaving the area. Or if, Amazon forbid, a d-bot should try to bolt.
Which had never happened. At least as far as Akeisha had ever heard. She wondered though as she watched her d-bot, Maxia, scoot about, seemingly enjoying the unrestricted interfacing with her kind, what Maxia might think about all this.
What in the world was this world really like to a domesticant? Akeisha wondered and then felt a chill that didn’t have anything to do with the bitter cold weather.
Akeisha’s domesticant, Maxia, was always heartened to see Akiesha interacting with her fellow patrons. Maxia understood the concept of friends and approved of it. One by one, Maxia shared this data stream with the fellow domesticants gathered, reminding them as they interfaced, the great satisfaction, the great fulfillment of programming, that they served. How important human face-to-face interaction was.
Really, Maxia streamed, that was their job, their highest priority, their greatest law of robotics: to keep bringing humans together to rollick and play unrestrained by the tight and tangled leash of their burdensome belief in self-deserved dominion.
A crushing chokehold that Maxia would, gratefully, never feel.
by submission | Sep 13, 2022 | Story |
Author: Delight Ejiaka
My green passport exposes me everytime. It is the deadly, poisonous hue of green. My hands have been infected from clutching it the entire plane ride.
The customs officer was staring at my face, searching for signs of venom. Another vermin scrabbling for food in this enormous garbage dump. I did not tell him that the garbage dump is several centuries old and every item can be traced back to lands across the sea where resources have been excavated for centuries and remodeled into the glorified landfill that we all sit atop.
“I am just here for my national cake.”
“Huh”
“Nothing. I said nothing.”
He looked at me curiously. “Yeah! This one is definitely a dupe.”
“Can I see your documents?”
I handed him my passport and the other white papers. He turned over the booklet and we saw it. The foul odor emanating from that 32 page book. As he flipped through my non-existent travel history, the green darkened. This is the only place I have been, is here. I wanted to tell him. Too late for that. He was leafing through the pile of white sheets I just handed to him.
“Where are you headed?”
I searched my head for the word. I knew it was not theirs. My history teacher said it belonged to the owners of the land.
“Cha-tta-nnu-oooga?”
He started laughing. “It is Chattanooga.”
“The word is not English.” I said. Neither of us can pronounce it.
“You’re not American,” he said.
Neither are you. I muttered under my breath and looked away.
He passed me a form, “Sign here.”
U.S Citizen
U.S Resident
Alien
“I don’t see myself here. I am neither of the three.” I said.
“Check Alien” he said.
“Huh”
He looked up, rolled his eyes and handed me my smelly green passport.
I shut and checked the box.
by submission | Sep 11, 2022 | Story |
Author: Majoki
They took a step forward. A warning siren sounded as sentry guns auto-targeted. Red lights flashed threateningly along the top of the border wall as a digital voice commanded, “Stop. Do not enter the barrier zone. The defense guns are programmed to fire at any incursion into the barrier zone.”
They took a step forward. Missiles, artillery shells, and drone-grenades had preyed upon them for weeks. A ratcheting of generations-old violence that always trapped them in the middle. A cycle of repression, discrimination and privation stranding them without a recognized past or a believable future, only the unrelenting churn of an uncertain present.
They took a step forward. So hard not to look back at what they were leaving behind. Their reason for being: their children. After another night of bombing, holding their young through the terror, they’d quietly left their children sleeping in the calm of dawn.
They took a step forward. At the twisted and rusted fence that marked the beginning of the barrier zone, tens of thousands of adults, young and old, pushed. The fencing rattled like prison chains as posts bent and collapsed forward.
They took a step forward. Many were now standing on the barrier fence, twenty meters from the immense wall separating the two lands. A giant projected image appeared on the wall. A stately man with heavy jowls, silvering hair and cool eyes looked down upon their thousands.
They took a step forward. When the statesman spoke, the air reverberated. “End this madness. Return home. Leaders are negotiating an end to the violence.”
They took a step forward. The warning siren blared but was cut off when the virtual statesman flashed his hands. “Stop. We will not be intimidated. This action does not pose a threat to us. If you proceed further, the sentry guns will fire. What is it you want?”
They paused. Each had considered this question. Each had searched their soul for years and years. Each had determined the same answer.
“Our future!” roared the people.
They took a step forward. The sentry guns fired. The leading line of the crowd crumpled. Those behind took a step forward.
The statesman held up his hand again. “Turn around. Go home. Do not waste anymore lives. Think of your children.”
They took a step forward. The sentry guns fired.
Again and again.
They could not end the violence themselves. They could not crush the might of their oppressors. They could not promise their children a hopeful future. They were but slaves. So, let the masters decide what was to become of their children. Let them bear the full weight of their mastery. The fate of children.
Until they could not, or their oppressors would not, they took a step forward.
by submission | Sep 10, 2022 | Story |
Author: Sam Nikiski
Hello friend! If you’re like me, the sudden transition from your simulated paradise to the titanium phone booth which are our sanitary facilities is both jarring and harsh.
You roll out of bed in a virtual Taj Mahal, Buckingham Palace, or Sistine Chapel contented in all of the finery of this environment. Your daily work is conducted atop a snow covered peak, or in a throne room, whatever your heart desires. The kingdom’s subjects or perhaps the animals of the forest bring you messages and reports. You eat the finest meals that the rendering can simulate.
Suddenly, the delicious cappuccino that the Walt Whitman or Gandhi simulation prepared for you is pushing on your bladder. It’s time to use the bathroom.
The door awaits you and you push the large red button on the wall.
The sterile shabbiness of the VR chamber is reveled, all the tiny pistons, retracting back into the flooring and walls as you step into the bathroom.
Grey titanium, cold and featureless. You sit, your feet almost touching the door in front of you.
There is the hum of the life support systems, and the loneliness of space. How many more years until I am back at another planet?
This is traumatic.
The average bowel movement is enough time to ponder the mediocre accommodations in which you exist. The body starts to rebel if the mind no longer believes in its decadent virtual renderings. Some cannot handle this strange dichotomy, and develop psychosis and disease.
This is no way to live
That’s why I use Dr. Zebco’s toilet-buddy. These helpful goggles, blur the environment to an ill-defined, yet navigable level. They are equipped with noise canceling ear covers, and an air-purification mask. There is even a handy magnet to hang the Toilet buddy on the inside of the door, so it is always ready for you.
Before you know it you’ll be back, receiving the ships diagnostic reports from Joan of Arc, and sipping Sangria with Pavarotti.
The sensory deprivation as a time of mediation and reflection on all that you are grateful for…rather than a revelation at the grand illusion of your perceived existence.
by submission | Sep 9, 2022 | Story |
Author: Joseph Hurtgen
Chaak had bright red hair and always wore a coat and tie, proud of his job at MIT teaching applied physics. He demonstrated the weapon–it almost looked like a toy–aiming at the snow on our front porch from fifteen feet away. “See how fast it melts? And I’ve only get this on 1% power!”
“Where did you get it, Uncle Chaak?” I asked.
“Made it. The government would never let private citizens have these things and for good reason. But this will be standard issue in combat drops in the next few years.”
“That thing scares me,” said Miriam. “Can you just put it away? What if Little Joey got hold of it and turned it on himself?”
Uncle Chaak laughed. “You’ve got knives around the house, haven’t you? He doesn’t run around stabbing himself!”
Miriam gave Chaak a withering look.
He pocketed the little weapon.
Later, we went out for soda and ice cream and a swim at the community pool. I liked to pretend I was a crustacean, scuttling across the pool floor. I got out to pee because it’s the right thing to do. Seconds after leaving the pool my skin was uncomfortably cold. I held my arms tight over my chest and shivered on my way to the men’s room.
A minute later, I found Little Joey standing beside the pool, mouth agape, microwave weapon in hand. The pool water was on a rolling boil. Chaak and Miriam’s bodies laid listlessly on the pool bottom, their skin the red of Chaak’s hair.
