by submission | Jun 14, 2014 | Story |
Author : Gary Will Kreie
I love my new self-driving car.
My name is Leo. This is my brand new 2029 crashless car with vehicle-to-vehicle communication and GSDS, the Google Self-Driving System. I love my commute now. My car is pre-programmed to know the best way to get me downtown where I work. I turn on internet talk radio, but it’s airing another rant from an anti-tech kook, who sees networked cars as government intrusion and would blow it all up, if he had a chance. That’s not me. I love this stuff. I push the GO button on the dash. My car backs out of the garage and makes its way into the street. Here we go.
Traffic signal? No problem. My car, I call it Mr. Jeez, exchanges digital messages with the traffic light and slows a little to reach the signal just as it turns green, so we won’t have to stop. Then Mr. Jeez accelerates onto the interstate highway.
Another car with a nice looking woman enters the highway and sends Mr. Jeez a digital message asking if her car can merge into our lane. My car automatically replies with a “Yes” digital message and slows to let her merge in front of us. I have Mr. Jeez’s aggressiveness level set to “not very”.
A car behind me is closing fast. That guy must have his level set to “espresso”. His car wants to get around mine. He must be late for work. I sit back and watch what happens.
His car sends a request to Mr. Jeez to kindly move out of our lane. My car replies with a proposed price, and tells his car that we take BitPal. His car and mine negotiate quickly per my pre-programmed instructions, and now my car is moving to the next lane to let him by. And I am 96 cents richer. As he zooms by, I see that there isn’t even a driver in the car at all. Just a big metal box in back with a glowing counter. And it has a bumper sticker that reads, “That’s all, Folks.” I heard a beep, which I think means my car and this one exchanged one late message. Hmmm.
The rest of the drive on the interstate is becoming routine, so I take a nap and let Mr. Jeez finish my drive downtown. I love Mr. Jeez.
#
About an hour later.
Where are we? I wake up and my car is stopped. I should be at my building downtown where my car drops me off and then finds itself a parking space. I appear to be parked in the desert beneath a cliff.
The GSDS map shows that we are about 50 miles from the city, which is on the other side of this hill. Why would Mr. Jeez bring me here? I wonder if Mr. Jeez knows something. I wonder if Mr. Jeez monitors me. I wonder if he heard me say I love him. I wonder what other cars tell Mr. Jeez about their owners.
I turn on the radio and hear, “…and they think the robo-car could be headed directly for the center of downtown with a thermo-nucle…”
White everywhere blinds me. I open my eyes and the white starts to dim a little. I realize my car is in the shadow of the cliff, which is shielding us from the flash coming from the direction of downtown.
My car knew something. It drove me here. It protects me from crashes. It protects me from everything.
I watch the shock wave blow past us.
by submission | Jun 13, 2014 | Story |
Author : Aaron Koelker
The old man looked over his shoulder at me. His clothes, hands, and face were just as greasy as any of the parts within the dinosaur engine compartment beneath him. His arms were black with it up to the rolled sleeves clinging at his elbows.
“What is it, kid?”
My iHUD told me the man had slightly elevated arterial tension, heart rate, testosterone levels and activity in the left brain hemisphere; along with a minimal decrease in cortisol levels. He was mildly irritated. He also took note of the pause as I read the data streaming down my peripherals.
“Cut out that damn Trekkie stuff,” he said. “You know what I told you.”
The testosterone feed fluttered a bit.
“With all respect, sir,” I answered, “why are you so against it?”
“I don’t need a machine stitched into my face to know whether or not you’re bored.” He ducked his head back under the hood of the old beater. “Finish checking the rest of those spark plugs I gave you yesterday.”
“They’re too old. Just buy some new ones.”
The old man turned round again. “I’m sorry, did they force you into this internship? Because I sure as hell don’t need you here back talking me. In fact, I don’t really need you for much of anything. You’re supposed to be here to learn.”
I was tired of the old man constantly belittling me from his high horse of nostalgia and old age. “You’re just afraid of change,” I said. “And things you don’t understand.”
The old man took a rag from his back pocket and unsuccessfully tried to clean his hands. “Don’t pretend you know how any of that stuff works, kid.”
“Of course I know.”
“Then please share,” he said, unconvinced. He dropped the rag over the grill of the car and leaned against the fender, arms crossed.
“Scanners in the eye take a reading of the various chemicals in the body. Heart rate, brain activity; basic bodily functions…”
“You’re telling me what it does, not how it does it. I can tell you my eyes see the sky and tell my head it’s blue, too.”
“That’s different.”
The feed said my heart rate had increased by twelve percent.
He barked a laugh. “How? The problem with the world today is that we have all this fancy technology yet no one knows how it actually works. They know what it does and how to use it, but they have to rely on others to actually innovate. To fix it, to build it. And those people have to rely on yet more people to handle all the other things, because even they have only mastered one trade. Everyone just consumes these days. No one learns. No one can take care of themselves.”
My cortisol plummeted.
“And I suppose you’re the exception.”
“No, but I’m sure as hell more self-reliant than your sorry generation. I actually know how a combustive engine works. I can hunt my own food and properly dress it. I know the difference between a blackbird’s song and a blue jay’s and I can make a dovetail joint. I can temper a piece of iron and knit myself a shirt if it ever need be. And I can tell when a kid is embarrassed without some chip built in Taiwan.”
The feed alerted me of an adrenaline increase, as well as an isolated dilation of the blood vessels across my face. My metabolic processes slowed by twenty-two percent and my pupil diameter had increased by thirty-seven.
I quit that lousy “History of Mechanics” internship the next day.
by submission | Jun 12, 2014 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
It was a typical night in the emergency department. I’d assigned a couple of medmechs to use the tissue menders on a pair of Loraxels who’d gotten into a bar fight with a Sniddan. The brawlers had apparently forgotten that Snidd Prime has three times the gravity of Loraxel and Sniddans have a correspondingly robust musculature. The psych screener was talking to a female Qooret who was depressed and suicidal because she missed the one-day mating season of her species and the next wasn’t due for almost 200 standard years. An Esmalt had checked himself in for a simple viral infection of his spiracles. He was a “frequent flyer” who always thought he was dying.
An ambulance ship called to say they were inbound with an alien with which they were totally unfamiliar. By the time the ambulance landed, the patient had been working with the ambulance’s translation computer for over an hour, speaking the words in his language of images the computer displayed. A very rudimentary translation matrix was now available.
I looked up his species. Human. Not much in the database. Warm-blooded vertebrates from GGC 17883/3. Their star didn’t even have a name in the stellar catalog, just a number. They only recently developed interstellar flight capability. Why do the bumpkins always wait until I’m on duty to come in?
“Hello. I’m Dr. Brij’krel. It looks like you’ve got some radiation poisoning. The paramedmechs uploaded your genome, labs, and diagnostic imaging scans on the flight here and I think our pharmacy can synthesize a nanoceutical that should repair the damage.”
The alien listened to the computer translate what I’d said. It looked around, confused. Then it nodded its head, a gesture of affirmation, I assumed.
“Where am I?” it asked.
“This is the Smyrnok Emergency Medical Station. We’re in orbit around the second planet of the Kippriana star system.”
“Tau Ceti,” said the alien. The computer, having nothing to offer by way of translation, repeated the words.
“I beg your pardon?”
“That is what we call this star. Tau Ceti.”
“Ah.”
“I am Lieutenant Lee Chang of the Asian Coalition Aerospace Force. From the planet Earth.”
I nodded my head in acknowledgement, an awkward gesture, and reviewed the patient’s vital signs. Having no idea what constituted normal vascular pressure and temperature for its species, I simply input an order for a medmech to administer the radiation sickness treatment.
“I wish to speak to someone in charge,” the alien said. “I am a representative of the Asian Coalition and of the peoples and governments of Earth.”
My skin momentarily turned blue as I heard the translation. I quickly composed myself and it reverted to burnt orange. I felt sure the alien wouldn’t recognize my outward display of annoyance. Why do the rubes of the galaxy always want to turn an emergency department visit into a first contact encounter? Reminds me of that patient I saw in med school who tried to establish formal diplomatic relations for her homeworld with me while I was taking her pulse.
“The nanomachines have very nearly repaired the damage. I’ll have a medmech take care of your discharge shortly.”
“Dr. Brij’krel,” the computer said after translating what I’d told the alien, “the Loraxel patient in bed nine wants to leave against medical advice.”
My skin turned blue again and I didn’t care if it stayed that way. I started shuffling on tired tentacles toward bed nine.
“It is imperative I speak to a government representative!” said the human. “This is an historic meeting!”
“Discharge that patient,” I told a medmech.
by submission | Jun 8, 2014 | Story |
Author : Becky Kendall
The biggest disappointment for the public around the mid-21st century was when physicists conclusively disproved time travel. Scientists were taken completely by surprise when they realised how many people had believed time travel would be possible at some point in the near future, so they were unprepared for the backlash.
What they hadn’t taken into account was that for most of us – the non-scientists and non-mathematicians – belief in science was just that, a faith, something you accepted because it seemed to be a respected and popular view, but had no way of personally proving. The untrained everyman was as able to understand the theory behind most accepted physics hypotheses as she was able to walk on water. Sure, we accepted that gravity was what stopped us falling off the Earth into the sky, but observing most people try to explain why, or what gravity was, would be enough to make a physicist cry.
What they failed to understand was that science was viewed as no different to magic by most. This was despite it increasing in popularity throughout the first half of the 21st century, or maybe because of it. We accepted levitating frogs and space travel, images beamed from satellites, mobile technology and computer chips able to process information faster then the human brain. But we didn’t really know how they worked, we just believed that they did. Bits of data that travel through the air from my computer to yours on the other side of the world. OK, if you say so.
As science and technology breakthroughs became every day news, we saw image mapping of the brain become much more common. The detail of the images was breathtaking, beautiful, magical. So that’s what my brain looks like when I think of playing tennis, tell a lie, fall in love? Wow.
When this technology became affordable to large organisations, it breathed life into the failing advertising industry. Once it became mobile, it really took off, and suddenly the dream of an open and honest society looked achievable. You can’t lie to me if I know what you’re thinking. By this time, almost everyone on the planet had long given up conventional ideas of privacy, so they shared their brain mapped data with the world at large.
It was just like being psychic.
Scientists had become popular, mainstream, and public funding for scientific experiments had massively increased. The public was fully behind these far-reaching dreams of a future enhanced by all kinds of exotic improvements they couldn’t even imagine, but couldn’t live without. Scientists mistakenly believed that this meant people understood what it was that they did. They didn’t.
The PR agent used by most of the public-facing physicists hastily tried to put together a series of public events that would highlight achievements over the past 100 years, and there were many of them. But it was too late. Our mystical gurus had let us down. What do you mean, time travel isn’t just around the corner?
Faith wained, physicist became a dirty word. Their image was tarnished beyond repair. Sure, they still had hardcore disciples who would preach to you about E=mc2, but no one listened.
Some physicists dabbled with ecology, with genetic engineering and DNA research. Eager to please a sceptical public, some moved into the social sciences.
But the herd had moved on, restless and overfed. Impatiently waiting for the next miracle.
by submission | Jun 7, 2014 | Story |
Author : Paul Cosca
The sedatives were beginning to wear off. She breathed in deeply and was met with the smell of sawdust. It triggered a memory (playground?), but it was just a flash. Immediately, she felt a *click* in her head, and her thoughts were back to neutral.
It was dark. She felt the sawdust all around her. Was she packed in? A sharp note of fear rose in her mind, and instantly there was another *click*. Her muscles relaxed. She was packed in. But that was okay. There wasn’t anything wrong with that.
There were voices, muffled and distant at first, but getting closer.
“How long were you going to keep her in this goddamn box?” the male voice (father?) said. There was a strong *click*, and she was confused at the tears running down her cheeks.
“I wanted you here. Besides, she’s fine in there,” the female voice (NO) said. Another *click* and her fists unclenched.
“This doesn’t bother you?” The male voice was angry.
“I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that at all. You’re putting words in my mouth and I don’t appreciate it. Of course this bothers me. Of course. But this is a solution.” *click* “We agreed on that.”
She heard the fingers running against the box. “What will she be like now?”
The female voice was bright and crisp. “She’ll be just like she was in the good times. Like we always wanted her to be.”
“I just want her to be my daughter.”
“She is. Why are you talking like this? You’re talking like a crazy person.”
“Our daughter was a person. You don’t pack people in boxes. You don’t—”
“That was for her own protection. She had a long journey, poor thing. And I’m sure she’d like to come out now. Wouldn’t you like to see her?” The female voice was high, almost (mocking?) *click*. Even with her eyes closed, she could see spots of darkness blooming and fading. Her head hurt. The voices dropped to a low murmur and she retreated back into her own head.
There was a memory, something small and emotionless. She’d been young (she remembered yellow shoes that lit up and *click*) and she’d walked by a house on her way home from school. In the front yard was a small dog, a yappy thing with white spots. He had a long leash tied to the branch of a tree. And even though he had all that room to run, he ran full speed again and again to the end of the line, and every time he hit the end, his head snapped back and he made a strangled, screaming noise. And that dog did it over and over and over and she knew that she was just like that, straining at the edge and being strangled again and again and
*CLICK* She gasped. The pain was intense, but momentary. She felt her pulse pounding in her ears, but it was slowing now. What had made her so upset? The muffled sound of her own crying was strange to her ears.
“You calm now?” the female voice asked.
“I’m calm. Do we just…undo the straps?”
“That’s what they said. There’s going to be a bit of a mess with the sawdust.”
“Sawdust. Jesus Christ. What the hell is—”
“You said you were calm.”
“I’m…” the male voice sighed. “I’m calm. I guess. What the hell is in there?”
“It’s the same beautiful girl that left us. Only she’s better now.”
“Better. God, Samantha. I’m so sorry.” *click*
There were sounds of scraping against the box, and she felt the sawdust shift. The front of the box fell away, and light came streaming into the darkness. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. In the end, she did nothing. And that was okay.
