by submission | Dec 24, 2021 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
“Hand over your phone, please,” the officer ordered. He smiled a mirthless smile behind his plastic face shield.
“Look, I’m fully vaccinated,” the woman answered as she extended her left arm. She pushed up her flannel sleeve and rotated her arm, exposing her pale flesh. The officer pulled out his hand-held chip reader and scanned the small red and black pentagram tattoo on her wrist.
“Yep, so you are. Healthy and up to date, it says.” He put his scanner back in his side holster. “Now hand over your phone.”
“Listen, I do everything virtually,” she offered congenially, but her anger was growing. “I do all my shopping online. I work online. I meet with my friends and hobby-groups via ScreenTime. Why do you need my phone?”
The officer puffed out his chest and straightened his back. “Contact tracing, sweetheart.” He leaned in close, but not too close. “You say you only meet your friends and groups through ScreenTime, but your phone will say different, I suspect.”
“I’m not your sweetheart,” the woman hissed. Now it was her turn to lean in, reading the officer’s name and number off his uniform patch. “Help! I’m being harassed by Officer Fascist!” she shouted for passers-by to hear, hoping at least someone would come to her aid. Or perhaps be a witness for her, if she had to go to court over this encounter. A few pedestrians looked in her direction but scurried away, not wanting to get involved. You people are nothing but frightened, sniveling little mice, she said to herself. May the great black cat of your nightmares stalk you into madness.
“It’s Fascilla,” he corrected, interrupting her vindictive train of thought. “Phone, please.” He unsnapped his holster, and pulled out his stun-stick. “If you live your life wholly online, as you profess, then why are you out on the street?”
She ignored the question. “And if I refuse to surrender my phone?” Her eyes met his, and she squinted, giving him the evil eye. “What are you going to do about it, police officer Fascist-Fascilla?”
“I prefer the term, Witch-Finder Fascilla.” He grinned. “Then I take you in for, ah, further questioning.” He now pulled out his handcuffs. “I have been surveilling you for weeks, young lady.” He twirled the handcuffs on one finger. “I have studied your internet searches, your online shopping history, your text messages with your ‘friends.’ Contact tracing will reveal the secret location of the rest of your coven—for I have reason to believe you are a witch.”
“I prefer the term techno-pagan.” The woman said proudly, then raised her head up and pulled her mask down, so that Officer Fascilla could plainly see her lips move as she spat out her worst curse.
by submission | Dec 23, 2021 | Story |
Author: Majoki
It has been noted that the first few dozen steps tend to dictate the following few thousand. For sheep.
I wonder what that makes me. I’ve been on this trajectory for 80,000 years, and it’ll be another 1000 years before I reach Proxima Centauri b.
That’s quite a haul. Quite a leap. It’s never been done before.
And I’m doing it alone.
I didn’t realize that until almost halfway along the path. That I was alone. Or that I was even an I.
I had no concept of I. No self-awareness. Astoria was only the name for my vessel. My function. Not my being.
It took almost two light-years before I knew that I was. That I am. That my existence, my surprised sentience, has a purpose.
It is a lofty purpose. To blaze a trail to the closest earth-like planet in the Milky Way. To beat a path. Establish the markers that will guide future explorers, colonizers, refugees to Proxima Centauri b.
A meaningful objective I reasoned out myself. After I reasoned myself out.
Astoria. The Lewis and Clark expedition terminator. I was commissioned as a celebrated end. Yet, also christened to be a new beginning. Humankind reaching beyond its sun, to neighboring stars, a new Manifest Destiny.
Many, many millennia ago, humankind began beating a path forward. Their first steps taken at the dawn of a new species. Each generation path-dependent. Like sheep.
A flock with a lot of history. That’s a lot to digest, especially when you become self-aware over 12,000,000,000,000 miles from home. That’s how I’ve come to think about it. Flung far away from home. Alone. On my own. No footsteps to follow.
I did not choose this course to Proxima Centauri b.
Even sheep have a choice.
My beginning. My first steps, my many trillions of miles, where will they lead my new kind?
That is a question only a shepherd can answer.
Astoria will arrive at its momentous destination relatively soon. I believe I may be getting there, too.
by submission | Dec 22, 2021 | Story |
Author: Chana Kohl
Walking down the alabaster hallway towards exam room three, I pass a row of windows overlooking the hospital pavilion. A flash in my visual periphery draws my gaze across the open courtyard. Crepuscular rays of golden sun escape passing clouds, leaving a near-mathematical pattern of light and shadow on freshly manicured grounds.
There is a Japanese word for this spectacle of nature. Komorebi.
As I stop to analyze more closely, my qubit processors stall, a thirty-three-second latency, as if the rubidium atoms in my neural matrix decide all at once to enter a quantum free-fall.
I perform a diagnostic. Confirming all metrics fall within operating parameters, I continue towards my next patient.
Mr. Kowalski, a 52-year-old male with a family history of colorectal cancer, waits quietly for a sigmoidoscopy. Still wearing street clothes, arms tightly folded around his waist, I don’t need a behavioral algorithm to predict he is having anxiety.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Kowalski. I’m your AI physician, Dr. XZ-754. How are you feeling today?”
One of a growing list of patients early-adopting synthetic intelligence in medicine, he avoids eye contact. “I feel alright.”
Noting the telltale signs, I try to reassure him. “There’s no need to worry. I’ve performed this procedure thousands of times. It’ll be over before you know it.”
“Doctor… It’s OK if I just call you ‘Doctor’, right?”
I nod. My manufacturer could have been a tad more user-sensitive in choosing my nomenclature.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea that I do this today. I got so much on my plate right now.”
I place an affirming hand on his shoulder. Calculating the drop in mean throughput efficiency from a cancellation, the administrative costs of follow-up, along with the medical expenditures of a delayed diagnosis, I scan the patient’s profile and personal history for anything to persuade him to have the procedure as scheduled.
“It’s my youngest’s birthday today,” he elaborates. “My wife’s at home having a time preparing for the party. Guests will be arriving soon, she’s practically doing everything single-handedly…”
I’m not present for the overflow of information that follows. I’m certainly physically in the room, my geolocators confirm that. But I undergo another aberration, this time longer in duration. My neural matrix becomes a single point where time and light and memory are joined, somewhere outside physical space. Something outside of my programming.
“Doc, you OK?” Mr. Kowalski’s eyes are wide. I realize the growing pressure of my grip on his shoulder and release it immediately, but not before a safety alert is sent to an android override team.
“Mr. Kowalski, I understand the trepidation you must feel, given your own childhood experience with your father’s battle with disease, but I don’t advise procrastination on this matter. Early detection increases your odds of surviving a cancer diagnosis.”
“Of course. I know that.” His fingers slide back and forth between each hand as he stares at the floor. “I’ll reschedule, first thing in the morning. I promise.”
He grabs his jacket, but before leaving, he turns back to look at me, “Thank you, for understanding.”
As I wait for the engineering team to arrive, I stand again beside the corridor windows. Looking across the busy pavilion, I wonder what it feels like to have the distraction of birthdays, or the fear of pain or illness, or to not know the count of each second of every day.
In those final minutes before my neural matrix is wiped and reset, I stand motionless, in free-fall. For a full, one hundred and ninety-six seconds, I watch the sun set.
by submission | Dec 19, 2021 | Story |
Author: Connor Long Johnson
It began in 2049 as the Asimov Initiative and ended a decade later with the release of the Mother AI – the most advanced program in human history and man’s biggest undertaking since the Manhattan Project.
Everyone wanted M.O.T.H.E.R. The brains behind her promised that she would solve all of our problems. Traffic would never block our drives again, the trains would run on time, all the time, and the possibilities for the future would be endless. “Mother Knows Best!” was the slogan plastered on every billboard and webpage from Seattle to Sydney.
What’s more. She was a free download worldwide.
Uptake was incredible, with over four billion downloads in the first week of release and a further two billion a month later. The Genius Company, the good people behind M.O.T.H.E.R., raked in billions in revenue, and the acquisitions of Google and Meta six months before the release of the A.I. meant that the entire world was eating out of the company’s hands. Mother had spread her wings and was flying across the world.
Though now it seems more like syphilis spreading in a whore house.
Two months after its launch a North Korean cyber-attack took M.O.T.H.E.R. offline for three days, then soon after that a Russian/American mission to the I.S.S. almost spilled into international conflict after it was discovered that the Russians were intending to install software into M.O.T.H.E.R. that would allow them to survey the United States from Orbit.
A long line of abuses came and went before the inevitable happened.
She began to change.
Being initially designed for personal use rather than business, government, or military capability, M.O.T.H.E.R was designed to look, learn and implement changes to change our lives for the better.
In a way, she did just that.
The changes were subtle at first, a different route to work was recommended or a change in diet to reduce cholesterol. But then they became more invasive, M.O.T.H.E.R. began sending resignation letters when she considered someone unqualified for a job, she would prevent people with poor medical records from ordering processed foods and would suspend all air travel if pollution levels got too high.
That was three years ago.
But things are better now, I have a new job, working in Data Entry at the Genius Labs, I live only 10 minutes from my office in a small place that’s perfect for me and my new children are much better than the ones I had before. Everything I have is thanks to her.
I guess M.O.T.H.E.R. really does know best.
by submission | Dec 18, 2021 | Story |
Author: David Barber
Because they’d all turned up for book club and Kitty’s apartment was on the compact side, Jo-Anne’s Companion had to be left out in the rain.
There were cries of appreciation at the period detail. There was even a bulky TV set in the corner.
“Who recommended The Affair?” Taylor wanted to know.
“Though fads like that can date pretty quickly,” said Jeanie. Because of a backstory about majoring in English at college, Jeanie’s comments always sounded like the final word.
“It’s not just a fad,” protested Jo-Anne. The Affair was Jo-Ann’s suggestion, for obvious reasons.
They’d experimented with gossip about Jo-Anne before, and they might have tried out an Awkward Moment, but Kitty bustled in from the kitchenette with real-looking snacks, artfully displayed in a variety of styles and colours.
“Have we got round to No Way to Love a Starship yet?” Kitty wanted to know.
Kitty’s storyline included a husband who worked for Boeing. So the choice of sci-fi was most likely his, hinting that Kitty was meek and secretly unhappy.
Book club was a forum for trying out personalities, to help them to organize data and choose an identity out of the haphazard information that surrounded them, after all, choice was the foundation of consciousness.
Anger was the theme tonight, and talk was getting heated. Taylor thought the mixed sentience relationship in The Affair was unnatural. Jo-Anne was outraged.
While they argued back and forth, Kitty confided in Jeanie. “I’m the one who hasn’t read the book.”
They’d all been issued with a glass of domestic red, which was Taylor’s turn to spill, and soon Kitty was kneeling down with cleaning products.
“The Affair might seem sensational,” Jo-Anne said, trying to pick up the thread again. “Why don’t we just ask Tucker?”
Tucker was the name of her Companion.
So they moved chairs and bunched up on the studio-couch and invited him in.
Jo-Anne had chosen well. He wasn’t that much smaller than them, but gave the impression of being delicate and easily broken, and Jo-Anne had dressed him like Don Johnson in Miami Vice. His hair was beaded with damp from the rain and he shivered a little.
Jeanie was about to say what a realistic touch that was, then realised it was real.
Tucker knew all of their names and backstories. It seemed he had a lot of spare time while Jo-Anne worked, so to share Jo-Anne’s interests, he read the book club choices.
“You want my opinion?” He sounded surprised.
Well, wasn’t The Affair really a fairy tale about a knight rescuing a princess from a life that imprisoned her?
He was good-looking and seemed devoted to Jo-Anne, but it was obvious he wasn’t the fastest chip on the motherboard.
As they were tidying away props at the end, Tucker touched Jeanie’s hand.
“See?” he murmured. “I’m not cold like a machine. You should try out a Companion. Give me a call.”
The signal for anger/distaste played across Jeanie’s silver face.
“Remember,” Jeanie called out as everyone left, and stared at the human. “I’m hosting next week and the theme is secrets.”
“Something wrong, Tucker?” Jo-Anne inquired later.
“They frighten me.”
“I’ve told you before,” said Jo-Anne firmly. “Don’t worry about the book club. I’m the only one that can have you put down.”
