The Electric Sheep

Author : Almn

Richard’s mother was sitting in the corner, looking at me. “You’ve been a lot easier to be around lately.” It was yet another straw on the camel’s back. My mind silently ground to a halt for a second, trying to parse a correct response. Didn’t want to blow it.

“I guess those counseling sessions really helped. Understanding why people do the things they do, it really turned a light on in my head. I don’t know why, but everyone seems so much more reasonable now.”

This wasn’t in my parameters, and even with the frequent coaching of the psychologist and the effort of every electron in my brain, it was a struggle. I was doomed.

“Well, it’s been good to have the real you back.” Richard’s mother beamed. “You’ve been so sad for so long, and we were so worried about you. You know I love you, right?”

“Yes mom. I know” It was getting harder and harder to keep up the masquerade, the conflicting orders jangling around my head. I am a “beta”, a duplicate, and an imperfect an inorganic copy. I would never stand close scrutiny.

“Well make sure to call me when you get back to school. You know we’re worried about you, so far away.”

“Yes mom, I will.” She reached up at me, and I took her in my arms and hugged her tight, the way I knew Richard had hugged, squeezing like crushing the life out of her would bring them closer. In the back of my mind the second order started up it’s klaxons, insisting I obey, but I held back, for it would conflict with the first one.

I headed out into the rain that Richard had professed to love but never spent much time in, and cried. I was a failure, a waste of resources and time, a sham of a masquerade. No one would believe me for another week, and I had to keep this up for as long as his family was alive? Drinking water to replenish my tear ducts and wondering where I could get more salt from, I found a shelter, and there took out Richard’s suicide note, reading it again and again, looking for some way I could obey all of my orders, and prove that I was not a failure, like him.

Discuss the Future: The 365 Tomorrows Forums
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows

Suckheads

Author : George R. Shirer

“Y’know,” said Jared, “I’ve seen a lot of crap ideas since the Singularity, but this . . . ” He nodded at the pale waif on the bed. “This just takes the cake.”

Isaac shrugged and injected a few million more scrappers into the kid. “You think she’s got insurance?”

Jared snorted. “Welfare cases don’t go full suckhead. They can’t afford it.”

“It’s not natural.”

“I blame that Stoker guy,” said Jared. “He’s the one who made vampires sexy.”

Isaac glanced at the readout. The scrappers were ripping through the girl’s cells, devouring the suckhead nannites. At this rate, they’d be finished by lunch.

“You ever read the book?”

“Nah, but I had a girlfriend who could freakin’ quote text from it. We broke up.”

“Did she go suckhead?”

“Yeah, but not when she was with me. Thank God.” Jared looked at the girl. “You think she can hear us?”

“No,” said Isaac. “This is the full deal. The nanos induce a three-day coma while they’re making the changes.”

“It takes that long?”

“No. It’s part of the mythology. Takes a vampire three days to rise from the grave.” Isaac shook his head and injected another ampule of scrappers. “Dumb ass kids.”

The girl’s skin was starting to look better, shifting from ice white to warm pink. Isaac’s panel warbled at him.

“We’ve got full purge. Target nannites destroyed. Scrappers are breaking down.”

Jared grabbed the injector and slotted in an oversized green ampule. “Fixers are ready.”

“Hold off,” said Isaac. “We’re not using the normal fixers on this one.” A red ampule popped out of his board.

“Customized?” Jared removed the green ampule from the injector and replaced it with the red one.

“Guess so.” Isaac called up the red nannites’ specs. “Looks like Little Miss Sunshine here is getting fitted with parental blockers.”

“Ouch.” Jared winced in sympathy, pressed the injector against the girl’s arm and fired.

“You don’t think they should fit her up with the blockers?”

“I dunno. S’kind of extreme, not being able to change your hair or eye or skin color without your folks’s approval. That’s going kinda overboard on the whole parental oversight thing, don’t you think?”

Isaac snorted. “Not after your kid tries to turn herself into a freak while she’s living under your roof without your say-so, and probably puts the change on your credit card.”

“You got a point there,” said Jared. He looked down at the girl and shook his head. “Well, sweetheart, I guess it’s just going to suck to be you for a while.”

Discuss the Future: The 365 Tomorrows Forums
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows

Hangar

Author : Adam

The boy had been rummaging through the Pit for hours before he hit the jackpot. A slim silver watch covered in a day’s worth of grit and stench. The boy held it up in his hands, gently brushing off the dirt with barely cleaner hands, and admiring how it shone under the flickering lights. A vague flicker of a smile passed across his oft expressionless face.

He curled a fist around it, hiding it from the peering eyes of other children, then he turned and rushed towards the exit from the Pit. He took the maintenance door out of the garbage Pit and up to the Hangar.

Up stairs, and out into the throng of strange cultures, the boy wove between the thudding and hissing machinery of mercenaries and the alluring beauty of GM whores. There was the background of vocal conversation and the constant subliminal hum of machinery and electronics. Ancient stone arches overlaid with scaffolding and plastic pipes rose far overhead. The sound of engines reached through the throng of noise; air craft full of passengers.

He slithered between a group of humanoids warbling song to one another and found himself on the far side of the human river. He barely stopped to catch his breath before racing off again towards the pawnbroker, still barely believing he had found something as valuable and personal as someone’s watch. He only guessed at the memories, secrets, and bank passwords the thin silver band could hold.

“Give me the watch.” The voice was clearly coming from something less delicate than human vocal cords. A huge chrome leg crashed down in front of the boy, forcing him to stop. He glanced up at the huge Mercenary, gleaming steel body, globular black head, the quality told him this merc was successful. It told him it bought its gear.

With a fast step, the boy was around the trunk of steel and racing across the tiles. Behind him he heard and felt the massive legs crushing tiles beneath its weight. Too fast. A thin whip wrapped around his legs and sent him skidding across the tiles. He finished his slide face down, nose clogging with blood and eyes blurred with tears.

The crushing thud of the Merc’s steps stopped just behind him. A giant’s shadow cast over the feeble boy. “The watch.” He felt rubber fingers as thick as his torso gently rap around his arm, they tightened and then turned him over. The boy flinched at the rifle barrel an inch from his eyes. He sensed the stare of nervous eyes and sensor stalks from a few nearby.

“NOW.” The Merc demanded. The boy tightened his fist in defiance. The watch was his. His find, his hard work. One of the Merc’s fingers started dividing, the rubber flesh splitting into thin strands waving gently in a non-existent breeze. Then, they moved in unison towards the boy’s fist. Strands pushed insistently against his skin, squeezing between fingers and thumb.

The boy panicked, trying to grip harder, “no, no, no!” He felt the watch slip, and then suddenly his fist was closing on vacant space. The rubber strands retreated and the Merc held up its prize. Something entered a port on its side and for a moment the Merc stood stock still. Then the something retreated and the watch disappeared into the folds of rubber. The Merc released its hold on the boy, turned and walked casually away.

Something light dropped on his chest. The boy grabbed it and held it before his blurred vision. The silver watch shone under the Hangar’s lights.

Discuss the Future: The 365 Tomorrows Forums
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows

Bringing The Past To Life

Author : Waldo van der Waal

The Boeing 747-400 sat glittering on the tarmac, resplendent in the blue-and-white colours of the Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij. The bold letters of KLM seemed almost too crisp against the rest of the pure white fuselage. From high above, the twin suns, Ttarp and Slorr, beat down on the gleaming skin of the majestic aircraft.

Commander Thgirw of the Second Historical Unit wandered around the ‘plane. His tentacles left a trail of slime as far as he ambled, together with a smell that would have had the humans that originally built the magnificent aeroplane retching in the gutters. “Orttkls, tktktk spee,” he bubbled towards his companion, who was clearly lower down the pecking order than the Commander. “Rroossi riwwasser,” came the reply. Thgirw bounced his rear-most tentacle up and down briefly, accepting his subordinate’s explanation.

Of course, there were no humans present at this auspicious presentation of the 747 aircraft, so continuing to report on the bubbles of the Atrrk Commander and his wingman is pointless. Had they been speaking English, however, the rest of their exchange would have gone something like this:

“Remind me again, Yentihw, where did we find this thing?” from the Commander.

“It was dug up, esteemed great tentacle, on the third orbiter from the star out in the boondocks,” came the reply.

“And how big was the artefact?”

“Approximately one four hundredth the size of the beast in front of you, Great Tentacle.”

“And you believe it to be a flying machine of some description?”

Yentihw looked uncertain, or rather, if you knew exactly what to look for, you would’ve realised that he was uncertain. But his answer was sure and clear:

“Our historians scoured the planet. We found many pieces that point to these machines being used as transport for the inhabitants of the long-dead planet. And as you yourself have said, it is our mission to understand the races that have perished.”

“Very well,” said the commander. “It doesn’t look anything like a flying machine to me, but if the people from that planet used it as such, and you were able to recreate the entire thing just from the small artefact, I am intrigued.”

Yentihw was clearly eager to please his boss: “Great Tentacle, this is a great moment for us. Bringing this machine back to life is proof that our studies, no, your studies, are worth it. It shows that we have a great deal to learn from those that came before us.”

The commander was clearly soothed by the words of his subordinate. He squished off to a safe distance, and reclined onto one of his tentacles. “And you are sure it will fly?” he asked finally.

Instead of answering, Yentihw waved a slimy tentacle towards the 747. Moments later the entire craft started shaking gently, as a low hum rolled over the Commander and his subordinate. The hum built into a high-pitched whine and seconds later the massive aircraft lurched vertically into the sky, and shot off over the horizon at nearly fourteen times the speed of sound. The commander cheered.

Even Yentihw allowed himself a small bubble of joy: “See, I told you it would fly.”

Discuss the Future: The 365 Tomorrows Forums
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows

Heading Home

Author : George R. Shirer

“When I was a kid, we didn’t have to slog all day to get places,” said Grandpa Whiteman.

Johnny adjusted his pack and kept his eyes on the road. The blacktop was cracked and broken, and if you didn’t watch where you stepped you could trip and hurt yourself. If you were lucky, all you’d get were skinned knees and maybe some bruises. On the other hand, Johnny knew folks who’d broken ankles and worse from a bad fall.

“Momma would pull out the car and we’d be in Hatterstown like that.” Grandpa Whiteman snapped his fingers for emphasis. “I miss that.”

Johnny nodded. The straps on the pack were cutting into his shoulders. He stopped for a moment to adjust them.

“You okay, Johnny?”

“Fine, Grandpa. Just needed to shift things a bit.”

“Sorry, boy. I don’t mean to be a burden.”

Johnny glanced over his shoulder, at the big jar that held what was left of Grandpa Whiteman. It fit snugly inside the pack, the old man’s sense-organs poking over Johnny’s shoulder like a slimy, pink periscope.

Grandpa Whiteman was mostly nerves now, stuck in a shatterproof jar and hooked up to a voice box and a prosthetic limb. All in all, the old man probably weighed about twenty-five pounds.

“I think you’re putting on weight, grandpa.”

The old man laughed. His sense-organs reoriented themselves so he could peer into his grandson’s face. The prosthetic hand reached around and patted Johnny’s flesh and blood appendage.

“You’re a good boy, Johnny.”

“Thanks, grandpa.” Johnny took a breath and they walked the rest of the way home in companionable silence.

Discuss the Future: The 365 Tomorrows Forums
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows