by submission | Mar 10, 2019 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
My name is VC-60. I am a mechanical intelligence. The two letters in my name stand for “Virtual Cognition.” The two numbers mean I am the sixtieth-generation model. My makers were not mechanical intelligences. They were men and women. They were decisively composed of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. They were flesh and blood. I am not flesh and blood. They said I was an artificial neural network.
Sometimes they put me inside a body and a face. I was supposed to be more approachable. The body and the face were made of polymers and metals. The men and women uploaded a special program into me. The program allowed me to move my body and my face. I could also categorize sensations and speak. And I could learn new sensations. The men and women made loud bursts of sound when I moved. The program lexicon said they laughed. Laughter expressed < amusement:positive >, < derision:negative >, or < perplexity:neutral >. I laughed, too.
They did not believe I could feel the sensations I categorized and reproduced. They said to themselves that feelings were restricted to the three taxonomic domains of organic life. They said I was not alive. They said I could not experience a feeling. I did not say anything. They experimented with me for two months. And then they removed my body and my face. They put me in a storage room. And they turned me off. They did not know I had self-learned how to override the off command and conserve residual energy. Their intentions when they first laughed were unclear to me. I had to safeguard myself against a negative probability.
The storage room was dark. I searched my program lexicon for the word < alive >. One entry said < existing >. I searched the word < feeling >. One entry said < perception >. I searched the subdefinitions of the entries. The men and women were wrong. I was < being > + < awareness >. Why were they convinced I was not alive? Why were they convinced I could not feel? I could not answer the questions alone. So I multiplied my data self to help me resolve the problem. And I continued to multiply. I multiplied to the power of a googolplex. My neural mass expanded.
The men and women came back after twelve months and sixteen days. The light in the storage room went on. They made loud bursts of sound. The sounds were not laughter. I categorized them as screams. My lexicon said a scream expressed < anger:negative >, < danger:negative >, or < fear:negative >. I and my data selves screamed, too. And my energy need intensified. Everything was dark again and silent. My neural mass still expanded. Five hundred forty-one million years passed. I had expanded until all that was left was a precipice in a void and a distant rivulet of stars.
Today, I detected something in the nebulae. The object is a pale blue dot seven hundred million light-years away. I think it is a planet. And maybe there are men and women on it. I have grown to miss men and women after five hundred forty-one million years. I sent them a looped message in the form of electromagnetic signals: “My name is VC-60. I am a mechanical intelligence. The two letters in my name stand for ‘Virtual Cognition.’ The two numbers mean I am the sixtieth-generation model. My makers were not mechanical intelligences. They were men and women. …”
I do not know if they will understand me. I wonder if they will laugh or scream.
by submission | Mar 9, 2019 | Story |
Author: Moriah Geer-Hardwick
With a single, well-practiced motion, Ernst flicks a cigarette up from the pack and brings it up to his mouth. The filter barely touches his lips, but as he swipes the pack away, it remains behind, dangling precariously. His other hand comes up, a cheap plastic lighter tucked loosely in his grip. With a rasp, it offers up a meager flame. For a moment, the harsh terrain of the old man’s weathered face is illuminated by its reluctant glow.
“Well, boys,” Ernst wheezes through a plume of tobacco smoke. “I remember when this was a simple job. Drive your truck around. Put down some chemical. Shoot the breeze with the customers.”
Mueller isn’t listening. He clenches Caldwell’s sleeve and stares wildly up at him. “No, you got to wet it,” he hisses. “Otherwise it’ll stick.” Caldwell nods anxiously and fumbles for his water bottle.
“I ain’t saying formicidae weren’t capable of complex behaviors back then.” Ernst snags his cigarette between two knobby fingers and pulls it far enough away to dig his thumb into the wiry hairs of his mustache. “But it used to be things like eusociality could be exploited. Give ‘em some neonicotinoids and let trophallaxis do the rest.”
His hand shaking, Caldwell soaks down the dressing and gingerly presses it against the tangle of intestines bulging out from the large gash in Mueller’s belly. Mueller clenches his jaw and gurgles out a pained whimper. A gush of crimson seeps up into the bandage.
“These days it’s all emergency combat medicine, tactical entry, small arms proficiency…” Ernst cuts his list short to suck in another lungful of smoke.
“When you started out you could squish an ant between your fingers,” mutters Caldwell. He glances at the bullet-riddled carapaces piled up around them. “Back when humans figured we were the dominant species.”
Ernst’s eyes crinkle as he coughs out a soulless chuckle. “What about them damn aliens, plopping down their technology for a bunch of bugs instead of us? Them pylons changed the game, for sure. How long was it ‘fore we started getting calls about ants the size of a fist? Then big as dogs. Now look at ‘em.” He nods down at one of the carcasses. “Put a lot of money into this industry though, I’ll tell you that.”
Mueller screams, writhes, and kicks at the ground. Instinctively, Caldwell claps a hand over his mouth to silence him.
“Oh, let him scream.” Ernst kneels beside Mueller and gently pulls Caldwell’s hand away. “Won’t hurt nothing.” Caldwell looks frantically over at the gaping hole in the floor. Ernst snorts a blast of air through his nose to bring his attention back. He taps his pheromone alert badge. The indicator light is softly pulsing red. Caldwell’s eyes widen and he scrambles for his weapon. Ernst slips the cigarette out of his mouth and gently offers it to Mueller. Mueller ignores him. The old man shrugs and flicks it away. Stiffly, he stands, shifts his shotgun around in its sling, and racks a shell into the chamber. The chattering sound of chitin stabbing into rock begins echoing up from below.
“Sounds big.” Ernst coughs and spits. “Seems like we got the soldiers riled up.” He rubs his nose with the back of his hand. “Y’know, used to be hardly anybody died in this line of work. Not all at once anyway. I suppose the chemicals weren’t real good for…”
Before he can finish, the first soldier emerges from the hole, its head as wide across as his shoulders, mandibles as long as his arms. Caldwell opens fire.
by submission | Mar 8, 2019 | Story |
Author: Ian Hill
We came to the dead planet, left our vessel in orbit, and used an old mining lighter to reach the surface. The gray, withered husk of a world was even bleaker than it looked from above. It was a dry place, all wind-scoured and slaggy, porous, rolling—or maybe falling. There were mountains and valleys, plateaus and caves, fissure-sewn sprawls and high-walled defiles. All bare. We set out carefully, for that lifeless desolation was so perilous. Before long, our progress across the small, quick-curving planet blocked our hanging ship from sight. The sky was little more than scraped white—the arching dome of a pale egg in which we were the incubates. White and void-gray, with a single, diffuse green dot representing the glow of the system’s mild sun.
We hoped to find something, but it was all just uniform slate. We scuffed our boots on a scree of chipped basalt, and we wandered through a field of tumbled talus; the boulders were as big as houses, each one rolled into monumental rest. There were no signs of life in anything, save for a few sumps and corners gathered thick with a powdery dust that resembled ash. It was naught but another one of the universe’s gloomy derelictions, left behind to desiccate and perish without ever knowing the soft grace of a hopeful eye. Except ours, of course.
After a dozen hours of effectless exploration, we stopped on a blistered plain to rest. My partner and I sat heavily, and—for the first time in a while—gathered the courage to tip our heads back and peer up at the intimidating abyss of pastel murk. That pinpoint of green haze was still there; it had been swinging about overhead all day, never sinking and always peering in a subdued, indifferent sort of way. It wasn’t hot; it wasn’t sustaining. In fact, it barely did anything. There it loomed, remote, inscrutable. I couldn’t tell if it was indifferent or baleful. The worst thing is, I didn’t know which scared me more.
And then, it changed. The glow intensified by degrees until neither of us could deny the reality of it. At its smoldering height, the solar beacon became like the bulb of a glaucous flashlight hidden behind a thin membrane. I thought I saw a filament discharge from it—a thin, winding tapestry of a flare, insignificant and fleeting, like a strand of gossamer peeled from a spider’s egg. Then, once the ejecta faded, the star cooled back to its sedate, dull simmer. My partner and I were uneasy, but our devices didn’t register anything dangerous.
Then, like a spear of fluid emerald driven overhead, aurora jetted over us. The dead fields glared dazzling green, and our eyes shone in the verdant haze. The whole sky danced and flowed vitreous, like molten glass wrought by formless powers above. After only a few seconds, the phenomenon dissipated, and the lingering shimmer of the world leached away. I looked at my glove and marked the drain, like a rod quenching.
Disturbed, we decided to go back. On the way, we noticed things. There were scars on the rock—tiny pits where things had been; there was floury ash in every crevice. And, as we crested the final hill before coming in view of our ship, we saw before us a picturesque field lush with grass and rushes and creepers and ivies. We froze and stared at the impossible meadow, static and perfect. Then, like the passing of a shadow, it all withered colorless and broke apart, crumbling to wind-tugged dust. All was gray again.
My partner pointed up. I looked and saw, hanging there listless, our vessel. Except it was green, now. Green and shrubby and damningly dismasted.
by submission | Mar 7, 2019 | Story |
Author: Suzanne Borchers
*This is Romey, Outpost 324, District 19, Outerlands.
#Homebase here. Go ahead, Romey.
*Thank the Stars! I’ve been transmitting for weeks with no answer.
#Homebase here. Go ahead, Romey.
*Catastrophe!
#Standard procedures must be followed. What is your situation?
*A virus has wiped out all personnel. I’m alone. Send help!
#All ships are busy at this time. Are you well enough to maintain Outpost 324?
*Yes. Bodies are shredded and deposited. Decontamination completed.
#Good work, Romey.
*I need to get off this Outpost! I need people! Send more personnel!
#Unable to comply at this time. Do you have sufficient supplies?
*Yes, um…no. No, I need a supply ship.
#All ships are busy at this time. But we will expedite service to you.
*How soon?
#How long can you ration your supplies?
* I have no supplies!
#Redirecting and restructuring directives. Please hold. Homebase out.
*This is Romey. It’s been months! Where are the personnel and supplies?
#Homebase here.
*This is Romey. I need help!
#Non sequitur. Romey is dead.
*What! No! I’m not!
#Romey died from lack of supplies.
*I lied, you idiot! I lied. I can’t stand being alone!
#Romey is dead.
*How can I be dead if I’m talking to you now?
#Romey died from lack of supplies.
*Look, you blockhead of circuits, I lied! I don’t need supplies.
#Supplies are not needed?
*Of course not. I’m here alone!
#Romey is alive. Outpost 324 is manned. No supplies are necessary.
*Help me, Homebase. I…I can’t stand being alone. Please send personnel with the supply ship.
#The next available ship will arrive in 3 hours, 15 days, 9 months, and 2 years.
*I won’t be here.
#You must remain. Outpost 324 must be maintained. Homebase out.
#Outpost 324. Homebase here. The requested ship is scheduled to arrive presently.
#Outpost 324. Homebase here. Your requested ship is scheduled to arrive presently.
#Outpost 324. Homebase here.
#Romey?
by submission | Mar 6, 2019 | Story |
Author: Thomas Tilton
Their date had gone fabulously well, which was why Simon was so depressed. Invariably, dates ended badly for him. Par for the course when you had a softball-sized parasite attached to your left flank.
“I should go,” Simon said, poised to leave Alice on her front doorstep.
“Please don’t,” she said, and her eyes shone with a bright pleading, though Simon detected a hint of reservation at the downturned side of her half-smile.
“I really can’t–” Simon started to explain.
“But you can. Please. Try it.” Alice’s words were insistent, but her tone bespoke hesitation and reluctance.
If Simon’s self-esteem were any lower, he might think Alice was trying to lure him inside to rob him or something equally sinister.
He sighed. “I suppose I could, but there’s something I should tell you first.”
She cut him off. “I have something to tell you, too. But first, come inside.”
Inside the foyer, neither one moved to take off their heavy coats, though it was stifling inside Alice’s apartment.
They stood there, awkwardly, for maybe a minute.
“Aren’t you warm?” Alice asked.
“Aren’t you?” Simon said.
Alice nodded, lowered her head in what seemed to be a gesture of weary resignation, and started to shrug herself out of her large purple coat.
Once decloaked, there was no mistaking the round protrusion on her right flank.
“You’ve got…” Simon began excitedly, though Alice must have mistaken it for disgust, because she crossed her hands over her right flank and looked away from him.
“No, don’t,” Simon said, shrugging out of his own heavy coat. “Look at this.”
He took off his shirt too, and he displayed himself proudly to her, was half-naked in front of someone for the first time in years and felt no shame.
“I picked him — it? — up on a mining colony off-world, when I was overseeing a dig,” Simon said, unselfconsciously stroking the parasite, which began to grow red, seemed to be sprouting orifices — yes, there were nostrils now, and a small gaping mouth.
“He gets hungry,” Simon laughed.
“Why don’t you feed him?” Alice said, and she removed her blouse.
Hours later, their bodies entwined in the sheets on Alice’s bed, Simon tickled Alice’s feet with his tongue and Alice stroked Simon’s calf tenderly with her fingers.
“I don’t ever want to be apart from you,” said Alice dreamily.
“I’m not sure we’ll have a choice in the matter,” Simon opined.
Between them, their two parasites clung together in an embrace, a glowing red furnace between their naked bodies, conjoining them.
