The Black Maria

by submission | Sep 29, 2006 | Story

Author : Rae Walker

Dawn scrambled over the alley’s chain link fence, the ching ching ching of her climb ringing as loud as the siren had upon her escape.

Yes Dawn had killed the child; but how was she to know he was among the rubble? If it hadn’t been her then someone else would have brought the boy down; it was inevitable. Where had his Sitter been? What child was without one?

No matter now -the boy was dead- by her machinery and so by her hand. Dawn shuddered. The Black Maria had been waiting as She waited for every man, woman and child who dared deviate from the unyielding word of law. Unbiased. Without compassion or understanding of circumstance. Dawn was damned.

Joy rippled through the beast as She had come to life; activated to hunt down, try and judge the child-murderer. With gentle feet She had climbed over apartment dormitories, not making the slightest mark. That would be vandalism and so was forbidden. Long after the sun had set, when the stars shined with more than enough light She had spotted Dawn and galloped at her with hydraulic joints pumping, Her belly open to snare the deviant. In the belly of the Black Maria, Dawn would have been interrogated, tried, and found guilty. In Her belly she would have been executed, incinerated, ashy smoke rising from between the Black Maria’s shoulder blades and billowing into the night air. But Dawn had dashed into traffic, stumbling between vehicles and taking the chance of being sucked into an engine. The Black Maria had not followed; it was against the law to cross without permission, and so She waited. Her body rippled again as one more charge was brought against the child-murderer and She watched for the pedestrian crossing to light white. Two men huddled below Her drew away with hunted expressions but there was no law against fear -She ignored them.

Dawn toppled over the fence, scuffing her shoulder, tearing through her red wool sweater. She dared not go to friends, family, or they too would be charged. With assisting the deviant. With anything. There was always something. Dawn was alone as she dragged herself to her feet and forced them to run again, though her chest felt like bursting. No one had ever fought the Black Maria and won, let alone a diabetic construction worker.

The night’s silence and city-noises were drowned by the Black Maria’s siren, sounding like laughing, clapping hands. Clah hah hah claa claa clah hah hah. People in units above drew their blinds and bolted their doors. She was close. The siren blared, wearing on Her quarry’s nerve until she made a mistake and was trapped in that steel belly.

Dawn sobbed, her hand gripping the slow bleeding wound on her shoulder. With glistening eyes, Dawn limped onward, the hope having left her step. She wished she had killed the boy with her own hands, had slit his throat and watched him bleed. She wished she could have had that luxury.

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What is a Soul?

by submission | Sep 28, 2006 | Story

Author : Hope Evey

He put pen to paper, but it was just a mechanical act. The feel of the pen in his hand, the flow of ink onto the page, the crinkle of turned pages, none of these caused even a ruffle to his new, positronic brain. He was aware of all the sensations, of course. They just didn’t mean anything.

One stroke was enough to convince him that nothing could be worse than having another. Modern medicine could do many things, but couldn’t guarantee he’d completely recover from another stroke. Ages of therapy after the first stroke, physical and psychological, and he regained most of his manual dexterity, and most of his memory. The two days immediately preceding his stroke remained a blank, so he chose the very best positronic brain available, and a matching robotic body. Upload to a positronic brain had risks, of course, but he preferred them to risking his mind in an aging body.

The greatest risk, of course, was the transferal itself. He wouldn’t be copying his mind to the positronic brain – he would be transferring it. The process that encoded his mind onto the positronic matrix would, neuron by neuron, destroy his physical brain. If the transfer failed, he would be dead. He considered that better than to live with a brain that could break without warning. He wasn’t worried about the shock of suddenly finding himself in a mechanical body. His body only served to maintain his mind, and move it around. A mechanical body would do the job just as well, if not better.

He got back to writing as soon as possible after the upload. He’d only finished four of the eight books in his series when he had his first stroke. Thank God he’d taken lots of notes during the days he couldn’t remember. He was able to reconstruct the plot twist he’d been developing before the stroke wiped his mind. Some said the fifth book was the best of the series. He didn’t realize he constructed it completely from the notes he’d made while still biological. The sixth book sold even better. He used his pre-upload notes, expanding upon them by using the most popular parts of the previous four.

His writing grew in popularity. He could keep writing forever at this point. He knew writing was important, but he could no longer remember why.

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