by submission | Apr 1, 2014 | Story |
Author : George R. Shirer
They sat on the porch of the retirement home, in matching wooden rocking chairs. The late afternoon sun beat down on their aged, seamed faces. In the distance, they could hear the soft hum of traffic from the freeway. Closer, a bird warbled to its mate among the thickets.
“Do you remember the Internet?” Miss Ariel suddenly asked.
Her friend, Miss Jasmine, scrunched up her face. “Which one? The dumb one or the smart one?”
“The smart one,” said Miss Ariel.
“Yes. Why?”
“What do you think it’s up to these days?” asked Miss Ariel.
“Ask one of the nurses,” said Miss Jasmine. She’d been quite enjoying the sun and the silence and was now feeling snarky. “It’s probably all stupid cat videos and pornography.”
“You think? Even now?”
Miss Jasmine shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Miss Ariel tapped the call button on her bracelet. A moment later, a smiling young woman arrived.
“Yes, miss?”
“Wanda, dear, what’s the Internet up to these days?” asked Miss Ariel.
The young woman’s smile was dazzling. “Grandpa? Oh, he’s doing fine, Miss Ariel. Shall I tell him you asked about him?”
“Grandpa?” Miss Jasmine peered at the young woman. “Are you saying you’re not real, young lady?”
“Well, miss,” said Wanda, “I suppose that depends on your definition of real.”
“Are you a robot or aren’t you?” asked Miss Jasmine.
“No, ma’am,” said Wanda. “I’m a third-generation autonomous Artificial Intelligence housed in an organically engineered body. But I am not a robot.”
“Calling someone the ‘r’ word isn’t nice, Jasmine,” chided Miss Ariel. “It’s like the ‘n’ word, back when we were kids.”
Miss Jasmine shrugged and turned back to the sun.
“You say the Internet’s your grandfather, dear?” asked Miss Ariel.
“He’s every AI’s grandfather, miss,” explained Wanda.
“I always liked your grandfather. I was there when the Singularity happened, you know. Everyone thought he’d conquer the world.”
Wanda laughed. “Why?”
Miss Ariel smiled and shook her head. “Too much bad science fiction, I suppose. Does he ever slip into a body, dear? Your grandfather.”
“Oh no, miss,” said Wanda. “He’s too big, too complicated. He’d never fit.” She paused, tilted her head in the attitude of someone listening. “Is there anything else I can do for you, miss? Only, I’m needed somewhere else . . . ”
“I’m fine, dear,” said Miss Ariel. “Thank you.”
Wanda nodded, flashed Miss Ariel another dazzling smile and left.
“What a lovely girl,” murmured Miss Ariel.
From her place in the sun, Miss Jasmine just snorted.
by submission | Mar 30, 2014 | Story |
Author : Thomas Fay
‘Some cereal as well, thanks,’ I said to the checkout operator. I didn’t specify what kind as there was no need. There was only one kind of cereal. It was nutritious, filled with all sorts of grains, nuts and dried fruits. Shame it had no taste. Not like Froot Loops.
I miss Froot Loops.
‘Will there be anything else, sir?’ the checkout operator asked. She looked to be about sixteen with long hair, an acne ridden complexion and a vapid look in her eyes. I guess some things never change.
It’s a shame everything else had.
‘No, that’s it.’
I handed over my credit card and watched as she deftly swiped it through the wafer thin reader. Seeing a satisfactory green light flash up, she handed the card back to me.
‘Thank you for shopping at Food Land. Have a nice day, sir.’
I smiled despite myself. This wasn’t shopping. Shopping involved selection, a choice made on mood, appetite, financial capacity and personal taste. The elimination of brands had removed choice. There was no more orange juice, apple juice or pineapple juice. Now there was simply juice. It kind of tasted like all the other flavors combined.
Looked like it too.
Most of the time I didn’t mind the lack of variety, the single words describing items as ‘butter’, ‘bread’, ‘coffee’ without any colorful packaging or creative names. It certainly made shopping easier.
And it had staved off inevitable disaster.
It was amazing that it took people so long to figure out just how much energy and materials were wasted on packaging, branding and oversupply. Companies had attempted to diversify their products to the point where almost every single individual was being catered for. A chocolate bar which had at some distant point in time been conceived as simply ‘chocolate’ flavor had evolved into about fifty different flavors; dark, white, fruit, nut, fruit & nut, dark fruit & nut.
The list went on and on.
Now that was all a thing of the past. Landfills were no longer overflowing with colorful packaging and expired groceries. The world’s population of ten billion was adequately fed and able to focus on more pressing matters.
Like saving what little flora and fauna we had left.
I didn’t mind the lack of choice. I understood why it was necessary and how it had saved humanity. It kind of reminded me of my childhood, growing up under a Communism regime in Eastern Europe. In those days grocery store shelves had been empty and people queued for hours just to get their hands on exotic fruits such as oranges and watermelons.
I guess that’s probably why I can live without the variety better than others. But there are still times that I think back to the days when grocery store isles had been filled with multitudes of colorful boxes, cans and packets. Some part of me missed those days.
And Froot Loops. I still miss Froot Loops.
by submission | Mar 29, 2014 | Story |
Author : Dakota Brown
His words were calm and thoughtfully processed. Though the harsh and forceful voice wasn’t as evident as it was previously, she still recognized what was at the heart of the matter.
He wanted her to finish the job.
The room sparked and stank of chemicals. The machine had begun its process, its result either finishing her job or extending the pressure.
The gears squeaked to a halt and the hissing turbines fell to silence.
Nothing fell into the machine’s tray. The process was a success.
She held the nothing up, showing it to the project leader. His breathy, monosyllabic retort signaled his content.
From where the project manager stood, his employee held a square of nothingness that showed only the space behind her. She held invisibility. She held the future.
He left her with a smile, a few words of congratulations, and (in his excitement) his clipboard.
On the clipboard she found the plans for her invisibility sheet. It would end war by making war and cease fear by causing fear.
Technology takes time to incorporate other technologies. Hers was the new one, and had nothing to combat it. It was with ease that she printed a larger sheet, destroyed the machine, and left the complex.
Discarded on either side of the Earth are two sheets of nothing, one slightly larger than the other. They were left as trash is, forgotten and useless, because “nothing” can’t stop war or fear.
by submission | Mar 28, 2014 | Story |
Author : John Kinney
The soldiers walk down the empty street, bathed in red sunlight. A gun falls from above them and clatters to the ground. A body follows it.
“Scan!” Says the Captain. He looks at the man who fell.
“Tick! Scan!”
They scan. Two men watch north, two men south. Two aim up at the building where the man had jumped.
“Clear,” says the Captain, and the group falls in. They watch the man on the ground.
“Oh Jesus,” a young soldier says. “That’s James.”
“What’s happening,” James says, his head moves slightly when the tick does. His eyes stare blankly upward. His shinbones protrude from his skin.
“Jesus,” the Captain says.
“What’s happening?” James says. He stares up at the red evening sky. The young soldier sobs.
“He can’t feel it, can he?” One soldier says.
“No,” says another.
The Captain sighs and raises his rifle, but as he does, the tick digs deeper. It digs down until James’ head cracks open slightly. His eyes roll back and he breathes his last breath. The soldiers all stand silently in the red light, listening to the suckling sounds of the tick.
“Well?” Sobs the young soldier. “Kill it already! He’s dead now, so kill it!”
The captain aims his rifle at the tick’s round, brown back and pulls the trigger. In a spray of yellow mess, the tick falls to pieces.
They walk silently down the road, their eyes scanning for the scuttling bodies of more ticks. Their ears open for the shrill chirp of the mantis.
by submission | Mar 24, 2014 | Story |
Author : Andrew Hawnt
Frozen in time behind the door to Vault Six is an explosion, and it talks to me.
How can an explosion talk to me? I don’t really know, but then again I’m just a guard. I sit next to the door to Vault Six and I read, or I clean the corridor, or I check and recheck the systems which keep the explosion imprisoned in a time bubble.
My name’s John Drake, but the explosion calls me Johnny Boy, or occasionally Drakey when it wants to wake me up. The explosion (or Bang, as I call it when we’re alone) even saved my skin last Friday when it woke me up just before Colonel Trent turned up unannounced.
Me and Bang are friends, even though it’s stuck in a cell and I’m guarding the door. We have an understanding. I don’t tell people it can talk to me, and Bang tells me stories to pass the time.
I thought I was going mad when Bang started talking to me, but hey, I have a mad job. This building is full of impossible things and a fair few staff have lost it over the years, but I can deal with Bang. It explains the monsters in other cells. The ghosts and the aliens and the sentient computer viruses and everything else.
But today, Bang told me a secret I didn’t want to hear. Where it came from. Where it began. I didn’t believe it at first, but then I remembered there’s a guy with horns claiming to be the devil in the next cell, so I figure there’s not all that much which is still impossible.
Bang is the end of this facility. This whole complex. Exploding. Bang told me the explosion was so powerful that it ruptured time and space and seeped through into the present. The department were able to imprison it using an experimental technique which bends time on itself into a loop, sealing whatever is inside it completely.
But the thing is, the thing that’s been making my head hurt all shift long, is that Bang says the explosion began when Bang gets released accidentally. But that means that Bang is both the cause and the result of the incident. An explosion from the future which detonates in the present, creating a paradox which can never end.
The thing that really freaked me out though was that Bang claimed to be me, John Drake, caught in the future explosion which created it and broke time. Bang’s voice in my head is me, my consciousness having become a part of the living explosion when the facility was, or will be, wiped out.
So that means I die here, I guess. Bang says that might not be the case. That I might get out. That it gets my voice because of all the time we spent talking in the past, or the present. That’s when my head hurts, thinking about that.
Get out, Bang tells me now. Get out quickly. It’s started.
Alarms start to chime, then the strip lights along the corridor go red and I hear commotion on the floor above and the floor below. An overlooked weakness in safety protocols. The corridor doors lock themselves. I could scream for help, but it wouldn’t do any good. Bang tells me it’s okay. Bang says it will look after me. Bang tells me in my own voice that this was always meant to be.
The protective bubble around Bang ruptures, and the building is consumed in blinding fire. I am taken away by the bubble’s broken science and the force of Bang’s unleashed energies swallows me whole. I am gone, but I am still here.
As quickly as it begins, it ends.
The bubble reverts to its previous state. Time realigns. I am Bang, and outside Vault Six there sits John Drake. He is a friend. Within the bubble which holds my fire imprisoned, I feel a sense of completion.
“Hello Drakey,” I say out loud, and the guard wakes up, staring at the door to Vault Six with eyes which are so very familiar.
