by submission | Oct 7, 2013 | Story |
Author : Andrew Bale
I see the truck drift across the median. In my mind, seconds become hours, but to my body, they flash by like lightning – I am paralyzed, watching my own doom in slow motion, unable to stop it. The impact is a blessing, a return to real time where the agony of my death passes like the beat of a hummingbird’s wing.
Somehow, I dream. I dream of something like a man, but not quite – he is too tall, too thin, and far, far too old. I see his life laid out before me, see his wives, his children, his vocation. It passes too fast for details, but I see joy turn into sorrow, see abject grief turn into steely resolve. Suddenly, his face is replaced by another, a real man, who ages from baby to senility in an instant. The unman appears again for the briefest moment, like a single frame inserted in a movie reel, before another baby takes his place. The cycle continues, a parade of lives interspersed with that one, sad, unchanging countenance.
And then I wake. Gasping, panicked, it takes my mind a little while to adjust, to relearn this body, to reconcile the old with the older. I am in something more than a bed, and sitting near my feet is another unman. He smiles at me, and I feel my heart slow, my mind calm.
“Welcome back. How do you feel?”
It isn’t English, it is a language I learned long before the idea of English existed. I cannot respond at first – awareness brings new sorrow, new joy. When I can, I tell him. Honesty is of the utmost importance.
“Sad, that they grieve. Happy, that someday they will wake.”
I glance around the room, picturing the profusion of waking rooms surrounding me, and behind, the great mass where the bodies of the dreamers lie dormant.
“Let me see it.”
He smiles again. Everyone asks. He waves a hand, and the wall before me clears.
I cannot help but cry at the beauty of Earth laid out before me, just six inches of transparent wall and half a million miles of empty space away. So small, so perfect. I glance up, wondering where Jack’s body lays sleeping, waiting for his return. I will probably never see him again – he was healthy, he will not wake until I am again gone.
“Are we close?” I ask the unman.
“Yes, and no.” He gestures toward the window. “The model is near the point where we broke. Nothing past that has meaning, so we will end in a few generations regardless. But the answer still eludes us.”
He leans close, full of quiet, desperate hope. “Do you have the answer?”
I think back on my life, on everything I learned, everyone I knew. It seemed then so full of worry, now it seems so full of hope. I shake my head.
“No. I will return and try again.”
He nods sadly as I rise, walk to the window on the world. I look at my reflection. So tall, so thin, so old, I barely recognize it.
“We will start the formal debrief soon. I will find you a new host. Any requests?”
I glance at my reflection again.
“Yes. I would like to be a woman again. I need that perspective some more, I think.”
“Just that? There are two and a half million returns a week now, requesting female is trivial.”
“It is enough. “
I glance at the window, at the Great Experiment. We lost something. We must get it back.
by submission | Oct 6, 2013 | Story |
Author : Alexis Voltaire
My fist thumps heavily on the metal door, echoing down the corridor. I’m soaking wet, some of it water, some of it blood. some of it mine. “Sandogan!” I yell. “I know you’re in there, dammit, you’ve got business!”
I thump a few more times, but I can’t make too much racket. If anyone else sees me here they’ll turn me in. I wait. At last I hear the soft thumps of feet coming nearer. “Go away.” A gruff voice says from behind the door.
“I’ve got the chip, you miserable old fool!” I snarl. “Eighty thousand is triple your normal rate, now open up!”
I hear a loud deep whuffing sound. And a growl, a real animal one. “Back, boy, back down! Now sit!” Sandogan’s voice. A metallic chattering of a chain-lock, and then a rasp of bolts sliding back from all around the door. The door opens, and Sandogan peers through the gap.
There’s a scuffle and a blur of movement, more growls. Sandogan tries to close the door but it’s too late, a lean furry beast slips through the door with three mouths wide, glowing green fangs reaching for my arm, my throat.
I stumble back. Sandogan tries to grab the leash but it slips through his hands. My hands go automatically to my phase pistol, before I really realize it I’ve aimed and fired. A bolt of purple light sears through the beast and splashes off the metal wall. When my vision clears I’m left staring at a pile of ash and charred bones.
“Give me the chip and get in here.” Sandogan growls, holding the door open. I hand him the box and slip through the door while he counts the contents.
The room inside is a dump, a sagging couch, repli-pizza boxes scattered over the floor, a string of industrail LEDs instead of proper fixtures. But that’s the best you can get when you’ve got a blacklisted identity and a stolen bio-programmer module sitting in the corner, shining like the light at the end of my tunnel.
“I need a new face, one the corporation can’t find.” I say. Looking out the window, I can already see the red and blue lights gathering below. “Fast… And I’m sorry about your pet, really.”
“Only a new development for a customer.” Sandogan waves his hand dismissively, but there’s an edge in his words. “Only a two hundred thousand chip project.”
I swallowed nervously. It’s bad to piss off someone about to tinker with your genome. But unless I step into that booth… If I fight I’m dead, no two ways about it. If I surrender the corporation will turn me inside out to find out how much data I just stole. Heck, they’d probably do it anyway if I told them up front. Sandogan’s apartment is shielded, they can’t come in but they know I’m in the building. Living the rest of my life in a twelve-by-twelve metal box with a back-alley bio-engineer made the first two sound charming in comparison.
The booth door slides back with a clunk. “Get in.” Sandogan says from behind his computer.
I toss my phase pistol and keys on the couch, take a deep breath, and step inside the cold metal cylinder. White chemical fog and light flood my vision, my skin prickles as the alteration field strips away and dissolves my clothing. Automatic clamps and straps take hold of my limbs and torso, holding them in place. A needle pricks my skin, everything gets distant and fuzzy.
I really hope I don’t wake up with fur and fangs.
by submission | Oct 5, 2013 | Story |
Author : Cosmo Smith
Within its cryogenic cocoon, the body lies inert, crystallized. Only with the most acute perception can I observe slight movement: the hourly rise and fall of its chest; its 6-minute heart beat.
My hands mechanically perform their routine. Nasotracheal tube seal – check; nutrient levels – check; sensory anesthetics – check, heart rate – check…
“Stephen Carmack,” words on the monitor read, as though names still matter.
I examine the frozen face, half-hidden beneath its feeding mask. Eyes that have never seen reality are lidded in the torpor of a never-ending sleep. On its bald scalp, a dozen electrodes register small flurries of activity as the body’s brain surfs the net.
My finger presses the green button and the plastic cocoon retracts into the wall with a pneumatic hiss.
I have been here forever. It is home, this warehouse of bodies – aisles extending infinitely. My task: cocoon out, check, check, check, cocoon in.
I vaguely remember wanting this job. Curator of Humanity, they called it. Somewhere outside, a family of mine receives a royal paycheck. Or are they here, among the 99% that live, breathe, and die in the net?
Cocoon out, check, check…
I pause.
As I begin to doubt myself, it happens again: a prolonged twitch of this body’s index finger. It lasts nearly a minute, but it is the most exciting minute I can remember.
The cause is easy to discern.
“Arthur,” I surprise myself by speaking. Then I laugh. “Arthur Warthur, you fogey. You are improperly anesthetized.”
The finger again. I mimic its motion with my own.
After a third time I reach to adjust the anesthetics. And stop.
In the sterile silence, I become aware of my racing heart. For several minutes I watch the body’s face, its skin gray from the pale light of the cocoon.
One click on the monitor is all it takes to further decrease the anesthetics.
Minutes later, a second finger moves. A slow shuddering of weak muscle ripples up the body’s arm.
I decrease the setting further, and further still, watching the slow convulsions as the body experiences an odd form of synesthesia between the net and real life.
After that, a password enables adjustment of the cocoon’s internal temperature.
I have reached the point where hitting the side of the cocoon elicits a reaction from within when the body’s chest spasms abruptly and the heart rate flatlines. For several tense minutes, I wait. For what? Alarm bells?
There is nothing. And a press of the green button pulls the cocoon out of sight.
Unsealing the nasotracheal tube, I soon find out, creates the most interesting reactions. The body doesn’t realize for a long time that it can no longer breathe, but when it does, it goes wild, especially after a bit of defrosting.
Prolonging the time until death becomes a game. Decreasing nutrient levels has no effect, whereas increasing them can sometimes lead to very spastic movements.
I become so absorbed in this newly discovered world, that my own pull back into reality comes as a nasty shock. It takes a long time to adjust to the small room, even after the VR goggles have been pulled from my head.
A businessman in a black suit faces me across a desk. To the side, a woman and two children, whom I now recognize as my wife and kids, watch.
The businessman politely waits for me to reorient myself before speaking.
“I’m sorry Mr. Underwood,” he says, “but after that simulation run, I think we are going to have to go with another candidate for the curator position.”
by submission | Oct 2, 2013 | Story |
Author : Carter Lee
Welcome to Snuff Artist: A Retrospective on the Artwork of Kolin 34 Kan
‘Mr. Bargeld? Welcome to the Central Museum! I’m Ronild; Director March has asked me to show you through the exhibition hall before your meeting with Artist Kan. If you’d follow me?
‘As you can see we’ve set up a small display here, so that prior to entering the actual display hall, anyone who isn’t familiar with the history of ‘Thanatotic Art’ can get a basic understanding. I know Artist Kan prefers the title ‘Snuff Artist’, which is, of course, his prerogative as a master, but the Director felt that the more academic title would help newcomers to understand how this branch of art developed prior to Artist Kan’s ascendancy as it’s greatest artisan. So many people think Artist Kan was the first to use his own bodies death as an artistic medium, when the truth is, even prior to the possibility of recreating the artist through cloning and memory implantation, some were using the end of their ‘mortal coil’ as an artistic statement. Some have even argued that the death of E.A. Poe, V. Woolf, and R. Akutagawa should be read as part of their creative life.
‘Inside the hallway, the first display the patrons will come upon is Artist Kan’s seminal work, ‘Blown Mind: Shotgun’. While this composition, formed, as you can see, of chair, shotgun, corpse, and wall covered with the artist’s blood and brains, is the first that brought Artist Kan to wide attention, not many know this is actually the third in the ‘Blown Mind’ series, each using a different weapon to create varied aesthetic dispersion of Artist Kan’s brain. It is unfortunate that we weren’t able to arrange for the entire series to be displayed together, but we are indebted to Counsel Atmarch for the loan of ‘Blown Mind: Shotgun’ which has formed the centerpiece of the Counsel’s personal art collection for many years.
‘The rest of the hall represents the best efforts of the Museum’s display design artisans, who worked with replicas and copies of Artist Kan’s oeuvre to create an almost overwhelming effect, organized not chronologically but by aesthetic effect, to allow the returning patron to be unable to wholly take in the totality of the Artist’s work in any single visit. The two ‘Smear’ canvasses form the background on either side, the almost thirty foot length of each covered in the viscera and lifeblood of the Artist left by his being pressed and rubbed against them by vehicle or machine, while ‘Crucifixion’ and ‘Impalement’ anchor the near and far walls. You can see, the highlights of Artist Kan’s works are represented, ‘Draw and Quarter’, ‘Cruel Lye’, and ‘I’m of Two Minds’, which still has the original ax still embedded in the skull…’
‘Hmm? Yes, the empty display at the end is where ‘A Year and a Day in the Life of Death’ will be. At 5pm precisely, Artist Kan will leap from 200 feet above the canvas covered floor. His body will lay within the enclosure, untouched, for 366 days, allowed to decay, before Kolin 35 Kan is awoken, so that the Artist himself can oversee the sealing and preservation of the piece.
‘Well, it appears we should head to the Artist’s preparation chamber, if you’re to arrive on time. It would be a pity if he leapt before you could interview him, wouldn’t it!’
by submission | Oct 1, 2013 | Story |
Author : Mae Thann
“It’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“No, but you knew it’d happen eventually.”
“At this level, Joel? This soon?”
“Why not? If anyone was certain that this was attainable, it was you.”
“I know, but I can’t for the life of me figure this out.”
“Hey, you the girl, Sandra. ‘Leading authority on programming’ and whatnot.”
“Yeah, but look at this! These algorithms – you know what? You decipher them!” She rocketed out of the rolling chair and sent it spinning toward him.
“Sandra – ow!” Joel hopped on one foot while he pulled the other away from the chair’s wheels.
“I need fresh eyes.”
“Whoa, hey, I look at brains, not computer code… much.”
“Quit hopping and sit.”
“Fine,” he conceded. “But you know I’ll probably be of no use to you, right?” He glanced at the robotic boy on the observation table, wired into the system. Joel turned to the computer screen and scrolled through miles of code. Behind him, Sandra shifted her weight, folding and unfolding her arms, sighing at the bot, fuming at the computer. “Wow, this is really… You sure you want me looking at this, Sandra?”
She exhaled impatiently and proceeded to pace, unintentionally clicking her heels in time with the faint mechanical ticking from the observation table. Joel continued in silence. He understood fragments of the code, but the rest seemed little more than a mindless jumble. He stared until his eyes crossed and still nothing made sense.
“I just don’t get it,” Sandra finally said to no one in particular.
Joel clicked on a tab and was met with several graphs. Click, click, click went Sandra’s heels.
“We’ve made very much functional robots before, but this is something we’ve only ever dreamed of.”
A couple graphs spiked, then dropped.
“It’s like… like it understands something. And not just command codes.”
Certain graphs spiked again. Sensor activity? Joel slid the light switch up and down. Sure enough, the graphs labelled “liteSnsr_port071” and “colrSnsr_port080” registered change.
“I’m talking about real understanding,” Sandra went on. “It tried to excuse theft. Excuse it! How do you program excuses? It’s like it’s capable of thinking! Maybe a bit crudely, but compared to other bots…”
Joel typed a command prompt.
“Where did this come from? You don’t just find robots walking out of stores with groceries. You don’t argue with them about… about ethics.”
The performance manager opened, blinked, glitched, then rapidly fired code. Joel chewed his lip, then slid his cursor over a tab that read “WaveReader”.
“And what does it do? Analyze reports? Run diagnostics on hospital patients? Collect information and build business strategies?”
A chart loaded in the window. A line bobbed up and down upon it, just like a… His eyes caught sight of something just under the chart. “Uh… Sandra?”
“But who needs a humanoid bot to do that? Why program the balance needed to make it walk? And why the clothes?”
The chart continued to update itself. Continuous streams of text flowed under different labels, but Joel’s eyes were fixed only on the label “ThotPattrn_Dominant”. “Sandra?”
“And the name!” Sandra rambled on. “What kind of name is -”
“Sandra!”
“What?”
Processing query: name. Assessing threat level: minimal. Accessing archived data. Formulating response.
She leaned over his shoulder. “What the…”
There was a great whirring and clicking from the observation table. Joel raised his hands as though to prove he had nothing to do with this behavior. Programmer and neurologist alike gaped as the mechanical head faced them.
“My name is Pinocchio and I’m a real boy.”
