by submission | Jan 4, 2019 | Story |
Author : Philip Berry
Jake, aged nine, was found with his hands deep in the inverted workings of a 3rd generation litter picker, behind a mineral refinery by outer orbital. He was a mile from home, and it was an hour before bed time. The ten-legged picker had been tipped onto its weathered, bronze carapace. Its long legs twitched with each application of the circuit tester. ‘Borrowed’ from an electrician’s toolbox, it emitted a small charge whenever Jake pressed a button on its yellow plastic handle.
The flickering, elongated shadows of the legs on the refinery’s concrete wall caught a security guard’s attention. The muted chirrup of the picker’s balance alarm confirmed that something was seriously wrong. So he called it in, and five minutes later a three-man police squad spilled from the ramp of a dust-roiling craft. Jake had no idea what was going on. The Tasers levelled at his narrow chest were not required.
His mother, Dorothy, stared through a two-way mirror. Jake sat on the other side, scared and very still. Detective Desolt, standing by Dorothy’s shoulder, whispered,
“He seems to have no understanding. Does he go to school?”
“Yes. He never misses a day.”
“Haven’t they taught him RAM principles?”
“I don’t know. We only arrived three months ago. There was no RAM law in Washington state.”
“Well, we are more progressive here. Hopefully his… ignorance… will sway the judge.”
“What could happen?”
“Maximum five months residential education.”
Dorothy sobbed. “He won’t cope with that. He won’t.”
“Follow me. Let’s see if we can’t teach him some awareness before the hearing.”
Jake smiled when Dorothy entered, but as he stood to hug her a female officer restrained him.
“Jake. I’m Detective Desolt. Tell me… do you know what torture is?”
“Causing pain… to make people say things, or do things.”
“And what were you trying to make the litter-picker do?”
“Nothing… I just wanted to know how it…”
“Jake, do you know what pain is?”
“Something that hurts?”
“That’s a tautology.”
Jake’s looked totally bewildered. “I… I don’t know.”
“Pain, Jake, is an unpleasant sensory or emotional experience associated with material injury.”
“To flesh and bone, Detective!” interrupted Dorothy.
“To all autonomous materials.”
“But the picker felt no pain. This is stupid!”
“The description I received was clear. Its legs were flailing, an alarm was sounding… which your son had attempted to muffle, and three of its bulbs were flashing. Those are all manifestations of distress.”
“Detective. They are… malfunctions…”
“Indeed!”
“No… they are reflexes. It didn’t feel anything. It didn’t suffer.”
Desolt sat on a chair next to Jake and took his hand. He then pinched the skin on the back of the boy’s hand. Jake yelped and pulled his arm away. His legs flexed at the knees.
“We do this in the classroom… in 3rd grade actually, Jake will have missed it. The reaction is typical. The same reaction we see in our mechanicals.”
Dorothy was caught between panic and anger.
“This is absurd! The whole thing is absurd! He was just experimenting! He wants to be an engineer.”
“He has broken the law. You’re not helping him.”
Jake hung his head. Dorothy raised an arm and slapped Desolt across the cheek. His head rotated by ten degrees. His cheek did not flush. Dorothy looked into his eyes and caught a metallic glint at retinal depth. Desolt stood, smiled and made his way to the door. With his finger over the lock-pad he turned and said,
“I can assure you madam, that hurt. A lot.”
by submission | Jan 2, 2019 | Story |
Author: Sam Davis
The wind swept down the valley, once dotted with trees but now covered in soot and ash, and rolled through the trench causing Elijah to pull his coat tighter around him. It didn’t help much, it really never did when winter set into southern Kansas. It was barely dusk and already the freshly churned soil next to the trench already had a light crystallized dusting accumulating atop it. There was a crisp crunch as familiar footsteps approached behind Elijah.
“Smoke, comrade?” Alexa proffered an open pouch of rolling tobacco. The pouch was nearly empty and the papers had long since disappeared, though that didn’t matter much as most of the troop preferred the dried corn husks Alexa had scrounged up as an alternative.
“God yes!” Elijah’s teeth chattered together as he spoke, giving each word a staccato clatter that was eerily reminiscent of ‘them’. As if they weren’t cold enough already, everyone froze. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just so damn cold” Elijah laughed nervously “I’m obviously not one of ‘them’ guys, don’t be crazy.”
“Ah hell, who knows,” Sasha said stirring the pot of gruel over the small fire. “Maybe the robots are our friends” With the absurdity of that statement the tension amongst the group broke. Alexa shook her head, Grigory who was ever quiet even broke a grin, and Elijah’s shoulders sagged with obvious relief. There were rumors that ‘they’ had a new model, one that looked like people, flesh and blood. Of course, that was pretty common scuttlebutt. Every few months Intelligence would send out something official that would explain how that is perfectly impossible.
“Ahck! We will kill them all. Not one of their steely hearted chassis shall survive!” Anichka spat which somehow did not disturb the smooth femininity in her voice. There were general murmurs of agreement but everyone was too cold to do much more.
Sasha rummaged in her pack and paused for just a moment before pulling out a can of beans. “I had been saving this for a special occasion but what is more special than another night on this godforsaken tundra, eh?” With a practiced flip of her wrist, the can was open and its contents poured into the pot.
A slow hour passed as each of them eagerly waited for their dinner to finally be ready. Soon they were shoveling the best meal they had had in months down their throats. The only sound was the clink of metal on metal as spoons searched the bottoms of bowls for the last morsels.
Elijah sighed happily, closed his eyes, and died. Suddenly three sets of eyes fell upon Sasha, accompanied by three red dots that danced across her chest. Unperturbed she continued cleaning her bowl. “Huh, ya know, I guess Elijah was right, comrades. He really wasn’t one of ‘them’. I did expect there to be a few more though.”
Anichka was the first to speak. “You were right as well. Robots are our friends.”
by submission | Dec 30, 2018 | Story |
Author: KevS
I sit nursing the beer, the bar noise a background thrum. The place is full of tech voyeurs. My Fingers absentmindedly circling the jack at the back of my skull.
I used to grow my hair to cover it, now, well now I simply don’t give a fuck.
I’m a remnant of another time, a goddamn relic.
Take Billy, the snot-nosed punk who shot his mouth off today.
Came into my bar, telling everyone he is hot shit, the future, that my stable ain’t worth their time.
Most ignored him, they know they get a job done, at a price they can pay. But this motormouth tells them he’s better, smarter, quicker, that I’m slacking, that jobs are going unfilled.
It’s bollocks, all talk, but it smarts a little. Advertising his shit in my bar.
I was quiet, I tell him to leave, take his pretty neural rig and fuck off, before it becomes a 10 million yen suppository.
That got a laugh.
Then the stupid punk made it personal.
So here I am nursing a beer, waiting till 12, the punks got show, I’ll give him that. Laying the challenge, setting a time, cute.
My watch beeps, and on cue, he walks in. Looking clean, neat. I gesture to the booth, and he sets out his kit, twin decks, with suited gloves, myomi neural rig, this kid has spent a shitload, and it’s well spent. I slide into the seat, all I got is me, this wet-wired jack, and a skull full of circuitry.
He fires twin shots of stim into his nostrils and I slide the jack home, blinking as the net takes shape.
I’ll be damned if he doesn’t look like an avenging angel, all bright light and huge. Me, I’m pretty much me, younger maybe and in fatigues but, it’s me.
He races towards the hub. Straight for the goal, and blisteringly fast.
I wait, weigh it up, then I wall him. Gentle, safe, the bright light closed on all sides, he’s going nowhere.
I trace up the wire, about the pull the jack, when I hear the fsst of more stim shots.
Dumbass kid, the cube starts to show light at the edges then the walls explode out and he’s there, 4 or 5 times bigger and strobing like a badass fucker. How much stim has he shot up?
I don’t want this, I know how this is going to pan out.
I think of just holding still, maybe it’s time, maybe just bow out. Then I hear his mouth running, stupid punk don’t know when to quit, don’t recognise the out I offered.
I watch him twitch, then his hand moves, mine matches, reflex, my shot maybe a few milliseconds faster, but it’s enough, it’s always enough.
I slump back, pull the jack, and watch the kid convulse in his chair. The neural rig, pulsing red, the decks dead, a thin line of blood trickling from his ear.
I fight the rising bile, shirk free of the back slaps, the congratulatory murmur, hating it all right now.
Stepping into the street, I breathe a lungful of the fetid air and walk through the crowds. Lifting my head, the neon bar sign reflected, “larroC KO”. For now, I want to escape, get wasted, maybe tomorrow I’ll head back. Maybe I won’t, there’s always a new punk, someone wanting to show how quick they are. How old I am. For them it’s pride. For me, for us, it’s what we were made for. The first and the last digital grunts.
by submission | Dec 29, 2018 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
Joshua Vergiften shuddered, strapped within his tired, bruised ship plummeting through heavy cloud cover over colony UW26, an indistinct recent colonial outreach from Earth’s solar system. His goal: fresh provisions and clean water from a source he had never strategically poisoned–his primary assignment. Most of his water source contamination on less inhabited spheres occurred remotely by drone missile strikes from low orbit. He’d lost tolerance for monitoring alien life collapsing near his defensive strike zones.
GERD retreated down his esophagus, stopping burning in his mouth and nasal passages. His waste leaked into his suit, reminding him to hit sonic showers before disembarking among people probably intolerant of his solitary traveling habits. Reentries were messy, especially after a long haul outside planetary gravity.
“Bring me something strong, whatever you have local.” Joshua let his credits scan under fluorescence reader lights striking his ‘visiting’ clothes in a crowded bar full of tired farmers, miners and several techies out whore hunting.
“All we got–UW ale. Makes you batshit crazy, stranger, like all of us.” His shabby bartender turned to retrieve brew, dragging his ragged sleeves over concrete surfaces decorated from knife fights and broken nose stains.
“And who is that thing?” Joshua asked, looking at the hind parts of a woman of some kind, kneeling, covered in dowdy rags, with her brown hair pulled up away from her shoulders into a bun so the frazzled ends wouldn’t reach the scouring she gave the bar floor, or from falling into her scrubbing bucket.
“Ah,” replied the barkeep, returning with brown fluids spewing foam over a metal cup. “That’s one we ignore. She cleans the place up and stays to herself. Her folks didn’t make it through the landings; lost quite a few, years back. She’s nothing special, trust me, but we were ordered to tolerate her and leave her be. Never found much useful work for her.”
When the woman turned, Josh skipped a breath, almost forgetting how horrible his drink tasted. Whatever he felt, she did too. She dropped her scrub brush and stared at him, mouth agape. Josh rose from his stool, walking swiftly to the kneeling woman’s side, lifting her small, fragile frame nearly off her feet.
“I can’t believe it.” He paused, carefully thinking of what to say. “Don’t be afraid, but in my lonely travels through this region, I have dreamed of you…exactly you…those dark eyes and upturned nose. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to…”
“No,” she interrupted. “I’m not frightened. I’ve waited for you since I was a child. I could see you, in the stars, alone. It helped me through my isolation. You’re the well poisoner–protector from alien invasions. You destroy their water. Humans need your protection but they fear you. I don’t fear you. I’m modified to protect this colony. I carry diseases that kill only aliens, but these colonists don’t know, except for the elite. Let’s leave this place, this planet, please.”
There was no hesitation…no wondering. As they exited the bar door, into darkness, he introduced himself. “I’m Josh. And you?”
“They call me Mary.”
by submission | Dec 28, 2018 | Story |
Author: Richard M. O’Donnell, Sr.
Frank Blair woke up confused, but that was okay. Confusion in the morning was normal, a challenge. His caseworker used that word a lot. “Frank, you have challenges and that’s a good thing.” So when the robot woke him from his night-night tube and asked him what his job was aboard the colonial starship, Esperanza, he answered, “I meet challenges.”
“But what is your job, specifically?”
Frank did not like the robot’s three eyes. His mother had one eye, but she still had two eyes sockets. She wore a patch.
“I miss Mother.”
“I don’t think you understand. I am the ship’s encyclopedia, Librarian-Prime. A meteor storm wiped out the mainframe and damaged the ship. I am responsible for retrieving as much of human history as possible to rebuild the library. Do you understand?”
“No, but that’s okay.”
The robot made a sound much like a sigh.
“I have interviewed 1,402,623 survivors for one week each over the last 26,899 years. I started with the human with the highest IQ and worked my way down to you. You are my last interview. In seven days, I will have recompiled as much human knowledge as is possible.”
“Mother would be proud of you.”
“Thank you, but human validation is unnecessary to complete my primary directive. Let’s start again. When you were on earth, did you work?”
“I folded pizza boxes at Larry’s Pizzeria in Farr Creek, Ohio.”
“Good, describe exactly how you folded a pizza box.”
Over the following week, Librarian-Prime grilled Frank on every aspect of his life on earth. Frank tried hard to listen, but it was…a challenge. The food didn’t help. The robot called it space oatmeal, but it tasted like paste. It reminded him of eating Elmer’s glue as a boy. This made him think of his mother. Most things made him think of her. She studied bugs. Frank liked bugs. Bugs tasted better than the space oatmeal.
At the end of the week, Librarian-Prime flew Frank in a shuttle to New Earth. Frank had seen the Esperanza from space when he boarded. It had looked like a city among the stars. Now the spaceliner looked more like a broken Lego castle.
“Ruined,” he said.
“Almost, the meteor shower wreaked havoc on most of the systems. Only my primary directive, to save the human culture, forced me to direct the repair and maintenance of the ship. I am programmed to improvise, adapt and overcome.”
“Meet challenges,” said Frank.
“Exactly.”
Dropping through white swirling clouds, the world below was a green forest dotted with shimmering lakes. As they neared his new home, Frank saw that the construction bots had cut a swath from the primeval woods along the shore of a blue lake. In the nearby fields, the ag-bots were busy bringing in the first harvest. They landed between a gigantic concrete building and a single log cabin.
“The cabin is all yours,” said Librarian-Prime. “The service-bots will meet your every need for long as you live. Best of all, I’ve transcribed human knowledge onto parchment and filled the library to the brim. Long after our power cells fail, the wealth of human knowledge will survive.”
Frank stepped into the cabin and frowned. Nobody was there. He looked outside the window. There were only three-eyed bots.
“I miss Mother.”
“I recorded her interview. You can view it anytime.”
“Where is she?”
“Gone.”
“Gone?”
“To fulfill my prime directive I invented space oatmeal.”
“I’m confused, but that’s okay.”
“It’s simple. To feed the interviewee, I fed them with the previous one. I improvised, adapted and overcame. The library is saved.”
