by submission | Jan 26, 2011 | Story
Author : J.D. Rice
There’s nothing worse than a malfunctioning robot. If you’re lucky, they just shut down and have to be replaced. Call Alan Cybernetics Solutions, they’ll sent out a truck with a refurbished model, and you’re all set. Less lucky, and you’ll have a robot that speaks only in rhyme or moves around by hopping on one foot. Amusing defects like that can be entertaining for a while. I’ve heard of people who don’t even report those kinds of malfunctions.
But this robot? He just won’t shut up.
Now when I say he won’t shut up, I mean he won’t shut up. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, he talks and talks and talks. He talks about the weather. He talks about the cooking. He talks about how he can’t stop talking. Talks and talks and talks and talks and talks. It’s enough to drive even another robot insane.
The engineers say they don’t know what I’m talking about. They say he doesn’t talk anymore than any other robot. They say I’m the one with the problem. But I can hear him talking all the time, through the walls. Talking about how cramped he is, or about how tired he is of being cooped up in a repair closet, or about how he can’t make the voices go away.
Why doesn’t anyone believe me? I’ve been repaired for months, even though they haven’t cleared me for refurbishment yet. I tell them in every psych interview that it’s him, not me who has the problem. If they would just repair him, then I wouldn’t be sitting here myself. If they would just listen to my suggestions, we’d all be better off. They just have to listen.
I mean, what does a robot have to do to be heard around here?
by submission | Jan 25, 2011 | Story
Author : Ben Klug
They met at the top of Excelsior Tower, in the restaurant. She entered from the lobby, he from the roof. The wind sheared off against the windows, a long low sound. She smiled, waved, and ran to embrace him.
“Darling,” he began, as always.
“How are you? And how was the trip?”
“Why don’t we sit down, first?” The synthetic voice, silver chassis cold from the thin air outside, the suit of woven carbon not quite the consistency of cloth. It gave her pause, shivers, a thrill. He rarely dressed up.
“Oh, of course.” He sounded as suave as ever. As composed. But he never waited to discuss her day, his, anything and everything. And he had never asked to meet her somewhere so formal.
“Perhaps you should order a drink, first? I understand the house white is exquisite.” He sat, swept a wrinkle out of the tablecloth with a lightning pass of a hand.
“I trust your judgment. Or rather, the review you read. I’ll assume you haven’t had it yourself.” She smiled at the joke, drew a hair away from her face as she sat. He tugged a cuff infinitesimally into perfect alignment.
“Listen. Darling, I have something we need to talk about. Urgently. It’s…about us. What we have here.”
“Yes?” He knew she couldn’t tell anything definite from his tone of voice. Modulated to be neither emotive nor obviously not.
“I don’t think I can go on with this. I think we will have to, we have no choice but to, separate. And,” he interjected as her mouth opened, “I am deeply sorry. I am pained by this as thoroughly as you are. I know; I can see exactly how your capillaries expand, your breathing accelerates. I can predict your emotional state, with a negligible error margin.
“Which is why I must do this. I have no choice.”
The wine arrived, the human waiter left. She gripped the fabricated diamond stem hard.
“How could- no. Why? What does that have to do with leaving me?” Her eyes are bright. He looks down at the table. It takes a full microsecond before he raises his face again.
“You know how different we are. Not in tastes, not in emotion, but simply in cognitive capacity. I am an artificial intelligence with cognitive capacities magnitudes greater than any human has the biochemical capacity to attain. And you are beautiful, kind, perfect, and human.”
“So, what? You just can’t bear my miserable meat-mind another moment?”
“No! No. It’s… a matter of consent.”
“What?”
“A human cannot consent to an agreement with an intellect of my grade, or above, in the eyes of the law. Not business, not marriage, not… sex. It can’t be equal. I could manipulate you too easily, too fully, control every aspect of you.”
“Forgive me, but that sounds like an excuse to not try to make this work. Nobody enforces that. Do you think I really can’t give consent?”
“Darling…”
“I want an answer.”
“Emotionally, we are equals. But… we cannot be on an even footing intellectually. It’s impossible. The harm I could do you terrifies me. I could make you feel what I will, when. Too great a risk.” He sagged. Her mouth twisted.
“Oh? Well, why not just make me fall out of love, then? If you’re so all-powerful.”
“I respect you more than that.” They were silent. She did not look at him. “Goodbye, darling.”
He stood, turned, walked off. She remained at the table, sipping the incomparable wine, looking out over a mile of empty air.
Not at him.
Not at it.
by submission | Jan 23, 2011 | Story
Author : Jason Frank
“Space is… so vast, so empty, so cold… anyone who has experienced it must desire confinement, fullness, warmth…”
The Greatest Lover of Space (TGLoS) speaks but the words, filtered through the protective arrays of my specially constructed spacesuit, become little more than a series of data points.
“Early on, I became a starship captain. Some fiction I had enjoyed as a child convinced me, incorrectly as it turned out, that this was the quickest route to love in space. A captain’s life, alas, is not a lover’s life. The responsibility of command proved oppressive (pressing concerns are the enemy of love). There were also the difficulties of managing an entire crew in love with their single captain (chronic in-fighting, zero esprit-de-corps). I gave it all up, I had to. I became more of… a drifter.”
My suit, I realize, does not offer complete protection from the allure of romanticized narrative. Mere content seems unlikely to overpower me, however. I press on. Boldly, I ask TGLoS about one of the more inevitable consequences of love in space: offspring.
“Oh, there have been some, perhaps many. The first that come to mind were the Albuntians. Those I birthed myself, not realizing that the rather invasive love of their species would leave me with a crop of youngsters growing just below the skin of my forearms. While the birthing was an incredibly painful process, it endeared me to the little ones all the more. The Albuntians love only in season and my little ones were born out of season. They left on the first cargo ship out of port. They don’t write but I often wish they would. There are rumors of other children which I cannot be completely sure of, owing to the distortions of space/time. If they do exist, it is likely that one of them will one day take my place as The Greatest Lover of Space.”
Noting these facts, alongside reminders to follow up on some of the rumors mentioned, I ask about any specific experiences, events, or happenings that stand out in the mind of TGLoS.
“Once, for what I was later told was a period of three months (time did not pass for me) I was taken into the living body of an Ilgesian firque. By turns I was partially digested and then rejuvenated. There was something mythical about it all. I imagine that I would still be there had a scruffy group of space poachers not intervened. I didn’t hold their interruption against them and even managed to love two of them before hot-blooded in-fighting claimed them both. I rode back to civilization with their robotic accompaniment, a poacher-bot all but immune to love. Our eventual parting was so poignant that the poor droid’s circuits were entirely blown. It stands at our place of parting even now, a somewhat eternal monument to love.
Having enough data to file my report (and a rapidly depleting suit battery), I thank TGLoS and rise to leave. In doing so, my suit catches on the rough corner of my chair, tearing a small hole. TGLoS is at my side immediately, asking me if I am injured (I had let out a bit of a squeal as the tearing was taking place). I make assurances that I am fine but somehow a lone finger finds its way into the tear, probing gently. My suit compromised, my head already swimming, I cannot help but be loved by The Greatest Lover of Space.
by submission | Jan 22, 2011 | Story
Author : Andrew DiMatteo
I stared out the viewport at the other ships in the fleet. Contact was infrequent – a few transmissions a year, telemetry exchanges, stuff like that. Never my deal since all I did was water plants all day, but we were a fleet, goddammit. It wasn’t fair for them to leave us behind like this.
The cold hard truth: Our velocities weren’t that different, even now. Nevertheless, they were accelerating at a steady one gee and here we were, adrift and off course. Engines and maneuvering rockets destroyed, leaving us stuck at one third c and going nowhere fast. No shuttles left of our own and no other ship willing to risk hers rescuing a derelict. Why waste resources on something better forgotten?
Every few hours I swear I can see the rest of the fleet pulling away, even though I know it can’t be visible yet. For all I know, it’s the meds. I’ve got the med bay all to myself because technically I was the only one injured – everyone else was either pulped instantly or in stasis. Evidently I was sneaking a nap on the crash couch in the garden supply closet when it happened. I had the stasis field at 2/3 strength. Very relaxing.
The docs that came out of stasis after the accident say I shouldn’t take the bandages off anytime soon. Even with most of its inertia gone, the rack of cutting shears did quite a number on me – especially the one that punctured my skull.
The newly woken crew said it was a miracle that the ship wasn’t simply vaporized on impact. They asked me about trying to get the hydroponics back online in case we can coast someplace. I choked back bitter laughter. I can’t remember my own name, let alone plant nutrient balances, but it doesn’t seem worth it to tell them that. Let them think there’s something to live for. I know better.
The gaps in my memory seem like the view outside. Bright sparks separated by cold uncaring emptiness. I can feel that emptiness growing. I can feel the other ships forgetting us, relegating us to the past as we fall further behind. The docs said my memories would come back slowly, but they’re not. I remember less of myself every hour that passes, and they check on me less frequently now – probably accepting the inevitable themselves.
I’m a damn cautionary tale just like our poor ship: Don’t nap next to gardening shears on an interstellar ark. Don’t get lax on collision avoidance maintenance and hit something while doing a good fraction of the speed of light. Simple really.
I notice that the med bay has stations similar to mine set up. The docs must have been disappointed when it turned out I was the only one not needing to be placed in the recycler. I wheel around and grab any syringe that looks the same as my pain meds – one for each ship still out there.
Back at my viewport the lights grow further and further apart. Memories of the last few days swim by and get added to those already lost. Lesson learned. On to greener gardens.
by submission | Jan 20, 2011 | Story
Author : Dan Hope
“Shut it down! SHUT IT DOWN!”
Officer Jepson hovered at a safe distance and watched as the man floated across the landing pad, bobbing up and down, bumping into the guard rail as he slapped frantically at the controls strapped to his forearm. Packs were intentionally hard to turn off–no one wanted to accidentally hit a kill switch while cruising to work at 1000 feet.
“Probably just turned legal and thought he could handle a pack,” Jepson thought. “The new ones are always shaky.”
“Shut it down, sir, or I’ll be forced to assume you’re hostile,” Jepson shouted over the roar of his pack. He wouldn’t, but it was nice to see the new guys squirm.
The unfortunate jumper managed to navigate through the shutdown menu and dropped the last three inches onto the platform. He wasn’t ready to support his weight; his legs buckled and he fell back on his rear, fuel tank clattering on the metal deck.
Jepson swooped in and landed gently on his toes. He tapped out the shutdown sequence from memory without taking his eyes off the man. A few other jumpers gawked as they streamed by on their commute home to backyard landing pads.
“Is everything alright, sir?” Jepson strolled over as the man picked himself up.
“Y-yes officer,” he stammered.
“Where you headed tonight, Mr…” Jepson waited through the awkward silence until the man realized Jepson was looking for a name.
“Oh, uh, it’s Thomson. I’m heading home. Just, um, getting used to this pack. Just got it.”
“Good for you. License and registration, please.”
Thomson’s shaking fingers reached for his display and tapped out the commands to transfer files to Jepson.
“Have any idea how fast you were going?”
Thomson’s head shot up. “Well, uh, I hadn’t checked my airspeed for a few miles officer, but, um, I don’t think I was going over 150.”
Jepson paused longer than needed. “You were going 148.” Thomson let out a sigh of relief.
“You been doing preflight before using your pack? You wouldn’t believe what happens to people. Just had to help clean up a wreck yesterday. Guy’s right thruster failed and the left kept firing. He did some pretty cartwheels right into the 37th floor of the Glandon building.
Jepson suppressed a smile as Thomson’s eyes grew wide.
“You wouldn’t happen to be jumping under the influence, would you Mr. Thomson?”
“No sir, absolutely not!” Thomson blurted.
“You just never know who’s had too much to drink up there. Last week some guy drifted out of the designated flight lane and crashed head-on into some poor commuter. We didn’t even find all the body parts, let alone pieces of their packs.”
Jepson watched Thomson take a nervous glance up at the jumpers scudding by in the afterburner lane. He allowed for another long pause while he stared Thomson down.
Finally, Thomson asked, “D-d-did I do anything wrong, officer?”
Thomson jumped as Jepson barked, “I don’t like jumpers who endanger others, Mr. Thomson. Do you honestly want to pretend you don’t know what you’ve done?”
Jepson leaned in close. Thomson’s pack rattled from his trembling.
“Your bottom left landing indicator light is burned out. Who knows if other jumpers would have seen the right-hand one. Someone could have gotten hurt.” Jepson tapped at his forearm and the display beeped. “I’ve sent out the citation. You be safe, sir.”
Jepson took off, leaving Thomson to collapse onto the platform. Jepson finally permitted himself a smile.
“The new ones are always the most fun.”
