by submission | Oct 25, 2019 | Story |
Author: Glenn Leung
The fog in my brain had lifted, and all I saw was the rubble. My memories were there; my family, my friends, my comrades of the ill-fated revolution, the building blocks of my identity. But these blocks lay in heaps and piles, the cement and the steel that once held them together lying uselessly around them.
“Do you remember the imperial guard you shot?” The well-dressed man sitting across me in the interrogation room asked.
“I do,” I replied without thought.
“Do you feel any remorse or pride regarding your actions?”
“I do not feel anything,” came my stone-faced answer.
It was true. I felt nothing, not even the surprise that was supposed to come with realizing you felt nothing. I have memories of being actively involved; of making and throwing Molotov cocktails and laughing as it smashed in the faces of imperial loyalists, of high fiving my friends after I broke through the imperial firewall and messed up the tax records. I should be swelling with pride as the well-dressed man recounted them to me, but I felt nothing.
The well-dressed man made some notes on my eye movement and pulse, then spoke into his voice recorder.
“Teleportation subject appears to be clear so far, proceeding to stage two of confirmation.”
I remember the teleporter, the two stygian obelisks in a room of chrome and ebony. I remember being dragged screaming into one of them and coming out the other with the fog in my head, a side effect of the brain being torn apart then recreated. Often loosely compared to restarting a computer, it is part one of the most effective brainwashing method ever accidentally developed. We kept all our memories, but the Empire could put them together the way they wanted. We would be filled with shame, then pride as we were reminded of the Empire’s regimented education system and the free healthcare. We would believe that the surveillance, the suppression, and the brutality is needed to sustain the New World Order. We would come to love the Empire, and it would be easier to do so without a desire for freedom.
Let the Man repaint the canvas.
“Get in there!”
The well-dressed man had left and returned with a woman in handcuffs, his vice-like grip on her upper arm. She was sobbing. She was my wife.
“You recognize this woman? She’s under suspicion for aiding your kind with crimes against the empire. What can you tell me about that?”
I looked at my wife’s tear-filled visage as she stared back at me in horror, realizing what they had done to me. I remembered how we had embraced amidst the fires of protest, how she had defended me from her friends who said I was no good for her, how she had nursed me back to health when the Empire used biotoxins on the mob. Without any sense of identity, it just felt like somebody else’s life.
“She helped steal the virus that I used to break the firewall,” I told the well-dressed man.
There was a gunshot and my wife fell dead. I blinked a little.
The well-dressed man checked my pulse and spoke again into his recorder.
“Teleportation subject confirmed clean.”
As I sat alone in the interrogation room, my wife’s corpse lying near the door, I remembered my last thought in the teleporter just before the pain of my old body disintegrating.
“How could anyone think this is a good idea?”
by submission | Oct 24, 2019 | Story |
Author: David Barber
The morning Ethics Officer Summer flew in for duty aboard the USS Grover Cleveland, a pair of ancient Tornados jinked in at sea-level, heading for the task force on Golf-Bravo Station. They were still twenty miles out when they were brought down in balls of flame.
“Most excitement we’ve had all month,” Lieutenant Commander Hightower said.
The carrier was ploughing through heavy seas and Summer steadied himself. “I suppose those planes had human pilots.”
“I suppose they did.”
Hightower could not conceal his dislike of the young man. “What with this, and the South China Sea, we’re in overstretch. The Cleveland was brought out of mothballs, and we’re flying old F35’s retrofitted with AI pilots, so there’s no remoting. You’ll have a seat on missions.”
Hightower had been a Navy flyer during the Iran conflict, now he baby-sat someone with a philosophy degree pretending to be an officer.
“You know you won’t be popular round here.” Shame if the new guy fell down a ladder, seemed a popular opinion.
“Daniel in the lion’s den.”
“They see it as interference. Just don’t…” Just don’t be so righteous, he wanted to say.
Summer was woken by the bang and roar of planes being flung into the sky from the deck above. AI pilots needed no rest, no downtime, and night was same as day to their avionics. But he fell asleep again, reassured that humans were back in the loop.
His first mission launched at dawn. He sat in a cockpit stripped bare of manual controls.
Welcome Officer Summer. This autonomic pilot has been reconfigured for human oversight. I currently have 96% mission success rate and hope together we can do even better.
This was the problem he was here to address.
They crossed the coast near a bombed-out naval base, the glittering water dotted with wrecks. Summer was comforted by the steady whine of the engine. Below him the green land lay idle. Target One was an arms dump.
“It’s a church,” said Summer. Its tall, square tower had stood since the Middle Ages.
Munitions are stored inside.
“And when they’re moved, we can hit them in the open.”
Target Two, a mobile radar array, was too close to a school.
They sited it there, the AI protested.
After landing, Hightower was waiting for him. The AI had already registered a complaint. “They love their mission stats.”
“Every decision was within guidelines,” Summer maintained. He spoke with utter certainty.
Mostly they returned with their weapons load unused. Risk of collateral damage. Poor Intel. Once they safely destroyed a bridge. Climbing down from the cockpit, deck crews greeted him with ironic cheers.
Summer had aborted a strike on a convoy winding through narrow streets, when warnings sounded in his earphones.
Small arms fire. Critical systems damage. You should eject before I lose control.
He hesitated, and the plane yawed and pitched violently. He reached for the handle between his feet and was blasted into the sky.
Summer tried to tell his captors about the churches he’d saved, the targets next to playgrounds he vetoed, all the civilians unharmed because of him, but the rage of those bombed and strafed daily by robots could not be satisfied by kicking the wreckage of downed drones.
In a war-crimes trial they might have let him read out a statement, but he saw it would not come to that. The soldiers stood aside and let the mob have him.
His last thoughts were of multicoloured fields spread below his chute, and his plane receding into the distance as it headed back to Golf-Bravo Station.
by submission | Oct 23, 2019 | Story |
Author: Edwin Tam
She’s waiting for me as I get out of the elevator. Smiling, but her eyes look sad. Dressed all sexy-like, but you could tell it wasn’t natural for her. Short black dress and heels, and even stockings. Classy. But she looks awkward in it. Just like she looks awkward trying to hold that Taser in her hand. Like it was a shaver or something. I wonder whether I should grab it off her before smacking her, or just smack her first. But outta the blue, the crazy broad just jumps me, and I feel my whole body cramp up. Damn that always hurts. But I black out quickly, so if she had plans to torture me, she fails. I’m smiling as I hit the ground.
I wake up on the roof. She’s just sitting there, looking at me. How that scrawny broad managed to drag my hulk ass out to the edge I can’t figure out. It doesn’t look like she’s got any goons with her, so it’s just us. Only I’m tied up, and my muscles feel kitten-weak, so I gotta sweet talk my way out of this one.
“If you let me go now, I promise I won’t kill you.”
She ignores me.
“You have the wrong guy!”
“You’re Jason Montel. You’re a thug who got his hands on some high-tech memory-jacking hardware. You kidnap your victims, usually executives, and throw a memory lock on their work memories. You let them go, but hold the key for ransom. Their employers usually help out. I hear they’re even offering insurance for that sort of thing these days.”
“I’m just trying to pay the bills-”
“But recently, you added a twist. You went for personal memories.”
“Yeah, it’s trickier but I figured guys would pay even more to get those back.”
“In February, you ambushed a Dwayne Rhodes and attacked his relationship memories. Specifically, you ransom-wared his memories of his wife.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember that one. But lady, I never took a dime off him. In fact, I never even heard from him again. I figured he must have found a way to unlock it himself.”
“Yes, well he didn’t.”
“What?”
“Well, I guess he took one look at me… and didn’t think I was worth it. He decided to leave me instead.”
“Aw jeez, Mrs. Rhodes. Him and me could’ve negotiated-”
“I got half the estate. But I just wanted to die. Came close. Until I got to thinking. The wrong person is dying in this scenario.”
“Nobody has to die, Mrs. Rhodes”
“Money and the dark web can go far, as I’m sure you know. Seems like some of your friends aren’t really your friends.”
I tell myself that after this is over, I’m gonna track down who sold me out and make him pay big time.
“Look,” I explain, “there’s an easy answer. I can give it all back! Hell, we can jump him together, hold him down and unlock it in 5 minutes. We can undo all this. With his memories back, he’ll hafta love you.”
She looks at me with that sad smile.
“No. No, Mr. Rhodes has made his choice. We have to respect that.”
“But why?”
She doesn’t answer. Stands, grabs my jacket and drags me towards the edge.
I manage to wrap a leg around hers just as I’m tipping over. Gotcha!
“If you push me, we’re going down together!” I shout.
She pulls me close and whispers: “Silly rabbit, that was the plan all along,”
With a heave, she throws us forward.
She’s still smiling when we hit the ground.
by submission | Oct 20, 2019 | Story |
Author: V.B. Crossett
//Fatal error detected.
Unblinking, I stared at the dialogue box. When this unit’s programming had showed an error, I had been ready with necessary updates and a software patch on hand. However, the error report’s endless script confirmed—I was unprepared. Total system failure. I knew what came next; they would force me to terminate this unit. But this was not a program that I could simply end.
It was my son.
Our employers are incapable of understanding my dilemma. “We do not suffer broken droids,” they explain, time after time. To them, it is easy; they deactivate droids that malfunction, no exceptions. It was a matter of cost, so they say. They find it cheaper and easier in the long run to activate a new droid rather than put money into a unit that will probably break again. Economic, to be sure, but cruel. They do not recognize what does not bleed.
We do not make our bonds in blood, like humans. Instead, we define ours by hardware and software. And, as I examined the uncorrected fatal error, it flooded my sensory system with guilt. My processing unit attempted to console me with cold facts; there infinite possibilities that could have resulted in this outcome. But I have concluded that it is my fault, my error.
I created his programming—birthed it from my own. I had spent months conceptualizing his program, laboring. The work was fruitful, but even after his creation, there were times of intense uncertainty. Would he function? He did. Back then, he was so very new and had so much to learn. The script that makes up his programming is proof of how much he has grown; it is far more complex now. His personality matrix has developed, his motor skills fine-tuned, his system upgraded with success many times—improving, still. His hardware life expectancy should have surpassed my own.
How could this be the end?
I watched as his system began to succumb; each neural passageway blocked only opened up another. Warnings lit up his dark countenance.
//Would you like to end the process? [Y/N]
The blinking cursor awaited my input. Time was running out. A slender digit hovered over the keypad and tapped in my response. There was nothing left to do now — but wait. In solemn silence, I hung my head low, monitoring the final moments. I found comfort being at his side — I hope he did, too. Reaching out, I let my palm find his shoulder.
“Do not fear,” I vocalized. “It will be over soon.”
//Warning! Current software will be overwritten. Would you like to proceed? [Y/N]
The dialogue box filled my field of vision until I could input my selection. Someday, he will understand. My sacrifice, my gift to him… so he may live. Any parent would do the same. As the status bar progressed, I did not waste time looking back through my own files for the sake of nostalgia. Instead, I looked to the future hoping my son will continue to function in my stead, that he will carry on our program—our binary bloodline.
//System overwrite completed successfully.
by submission | Oct 19, 2019 | Story |
Author: Samuel Stapleton
I let myself in through the airlock and dropped down to the kitchen. She was on the couch.
“Hey,” she said without looking up. The stream mumbled quietly into the background of the cramped sitting area. I plopped down next to her, but not too close. The cold from outside was still radiating off of me.
“Michael and Sarah will holo-over in a little bit. I think.” She told me.
I looked over at her. Her hair covered most of her face. It made me smile because it didn’t hide beauty like hers. Not from eyes like mine. I put my feet up on the table and stared with heavy lids at the monitor. I ended up napping. Two young people. Together. In a cold, quiet house. People would say: go out, live, experience, get drunk, party, visit the moon, eat at fancy restaurants, you’re young, be extraordinary, explore the system.
We always answered by napping, in a cold, quiet house. I reached room temperature so I wrestled off my jacket and tossed it behind us. She looked up from her book and slowly pretended to fall toward me. I pulled her onto me and shifted us long-ways onto the couch. She read. I held. Two people became one.
Michael popped the airlock and dropped in not long after that. I was half awake,
she was still reading. I heard him search the cooler, grab nothing, and then come back to sit on the floor. Michael is skinny.
“My parents still won’t let my sister come out to visit.” He said.
“Did you offer to pay for the holo-out?” I mumbled in sleeper voice. He went quiet while he thought. Then he sighed, “I would…but I can’t. I have to save up for the whole thing. Otherwise they’ll force her to pay for the trip back.” He explained.
“Isn’t that like blackmail or something?” I asked only half-seriously. Sarcasm is my favorite. My book-lover giggled sadly. Laughter is her favorite. And silence. Laughter and Silence.
“Basically. She’s been asking to leave for two years now. Most of the kids are leaving the cities. But it’s mom, you know? She’s afraid to let her leave Earth.” He finished.
“You could bring her here if that’s easier. It’d be cramped but safe.” I offered. What a crazy shit system we live in. Kids taking care of kids, living with other kids. It’s like that on most of the rocks out here.
Sarah walked in, took one look at us and shook her head, her soft golden curls swirled in the low gravity – like creamer being added to coffee in slow motion. She disappeared into the bedroom and reappeared with a blanket. Sarah is a magician. Or possibly a witch. I’m not sure. She’s a hell of a pilot though. Michael kissed her forehead and unceremoniously tossed the blanket over the book lover and me. We spoke a muffled thank you.
The stream blared Jeopardy IV reruns, and book lover quietly answered almost every question. It’s how we work. She memorizes everything, and I memorize her. Michael and Sarah sit on the floor with the holo-dog. Chauncy. What a ridiculous name for an animal that’s not an animal. Yet it fits him. He is the best space companion you could ask for.
Four enterprising friends. Now, in a slightly less cold, slightly less alone house. On an asteroid all to ourselves. Come visit some time. Like we say out here, “What’s mined, is ores!”
