by submission | Sep 7, 2009 | Story
Author : Steven Odhner
Gerald Forsythe was still too weak to move, his mind still partially asleep, but he knew the walls didn’t look how they should. Ever so slowly he was able to take in bits of information in an attempt to solve this riddle. The walls were flat. Good. They were a pale green color. Good. Gerald felt a moment of pride at remembering the color ‘green’, and then was immediately embarrassed for thinking of that as an accomplishment. Was waking up from stasis always like this?
The walls… were dirty. No. Not dirty, and that was the problem; they were perfectly clean but looked dirty due to the general wear and tear of use – scratches, dents, corners softened by the casual bumping of hips and hands. The walls had been so crisp and perfect what felt like an hour before, but Gerald was almost fully awake now and could remember that his first shift was set to be twelve years into the journey. Should the walls be this damaged already? If twelve years could do this would the ship even survive for the hundreds of years it would take to reach the new homeworld?
Gerald sat up, and darkness pressed in around the edges of his vision for a moment before receding. He turned his head – slowly – and confirmed that he was alone in the decanting room.
“Computer,” he called out, wincing at his sudden headache, “How many years since departure?” The speaker spewed out crackling noises in reply, but Gerald was fairly sure he had heard “Three hundred Seventy-Five”. That explained his hangover, at least.
“Computer… how many people are currently active?” He knew the massive arkship should be operating on a rotating skeleton crew of forty people, each crew member serving for three years before going back into stasis. The speakers crackled again, the reply slightly more audible. “One Hundred Thirteen.” Life support could provide for roughly three hundred Active humans indefinitely so this wasn’t a safety concern, but it still meant something was wrong… Any further questions Gerald had were forgotten as a strange figure appeared in the doorway.
The man had a thick, bushy grey beard and long hair, and his jumpsuit had been cut and dyed so that it was barely recognizable. He had to be at least fifty, and the cutoff age for colonists was thirty – not everyone on Earth could be saved.
“You are Engineer first class Gerald Forsythe?” The man asked. Gerald nodded.
“I am Ethan, son of Eric, son of Lars. I am sorry to pull you from the Great Sleep, but my daughter Sarah is our current Speaker and she says you are needed.”
The man clearly thought this sentence made perfect sense. “What… what the hell is a Speaker?”
“The Speaker,” the man replied, speaking slowly as if explaining to a child, “is the one charged with interpreting the will of the Computer, that it may guide us all to the Reward where your people can once more awaken from the Great Sleep. Sarah has told us that the computer needs someone to enter one of the Forbidden Halls.”
“Which… uh… Forbidden Hall would that be?”
“The Computer calls it Maintenance Service Corridor 36G. It speaks of something called…” the man closed his eyes in concentration as he spoke the unfamiliar words, “a Fused Control Circuit.”
Gerald had a million questions, but the bottom line was that if a control circuit was fused it was still his responsibility… what the hell. “Take me there, I’ll have it fixed in a jiffy.”
by submission | Sep 6, 2009 | Story
Author : Bill Owens
Shift change is a slow-motion affair. Everything is. They lost the ability to move quickly a long time ago. He’s patient; no sense getting uptight, it only hurts him – they don’t care. They lost that ability too.
The last spot on the line is filled again, his eyes sweep across the room to be sure none have wandered off. A tiny nod, and his assistant, the little sphere hovering silently just above his shoulder, sends a command to the factory. The line starts running. Slowly. Of course.
“Looks good, son.”
He jumps at the voice; nobody on the line ever speaks. “Oh, hi, dad. You surprised me. Yeah, it’s all good.” A thought, a question answered silently by the little sphere at his side. “Ahh, about two, maybe three percent above quota.”
An answering nod, so much like his own. A rare smile, “Can you come upstairs? They’ll be okay for a little bit, and I want to talk to you.”
The conference room door shuts out the last of the sound from the floor. Gestured to a seat, he can’t relax; they never come here. A nervous clearing of the throat, unreadable expression. There’s a small glass bottle on the table – now the tension is tight across his neck. His assistant chirps, alerted. “Umm, dad? Why do you have that?”
The expression changes; he still can’t decode it. “You’re eighteen, son.” A flicker of the eyes to the vial and back. “You can have this any time.” Is it expectation? Fear? Something else.
The cloudy drops will be sweet – he knows that. His friends have told him. It tastes like sugar, disappears on the tongue, floods warmth. Before their voices drift away, they talk about the visions, people they’ve lost, wishes fulfilled, the mother they always wanted, the lover they desired. Their faces relax, eyes lose focus. He’s seen the expression, over and over – sees it every day on the line. They’re happy, contented, they have no worries any more. Life in a dream, as cloudy as the vial’s contents.
If he drinks it, his assistant will know. Change its program without ever moving from its station. Make sure he is fed, cleaned, cared for. He’ll take his place on the line, or in the field, or wherever he’s needed. His body, anyway. It will walk for him, place his hands on the the machine, direct his muscles to pull a rake. He’ll be elsewhere. Dreaming.
He realizes that his father has been watching, doubtless trying to read the expressions he sees. If he’s found something, there’s no sign. His father is one of the few, self-chosen, those who resist and therefore remain themselves. Retain themselves. Only a handful have the strength. Now his only child is staring at that choice.
The vial is open, cap beside it. All he has to do is tip it into his mouth. An interminable moment later, he does. Sweet. Spreading across his tongue, and. . . nothing. A flash of anger at his father. “You gave me a fake?”
Relief. Now the face is plain, finally. Eyes close, a slow, sad shake of the head. “No, that’s full strength. It didn’t work because we’re missing the gene that creates the neural receptor. We’re immune. I’ve tried a hundred variations, and nothing.” Their eyes finally meet. “Now you know why we run this factory.”
by submission | Sep 5, 2009 | Story
Author : Q. B. Fox
“Are you suggesting it’s alive?” Calvin was incredulous.
“Of course it’s not alive,” Mary was withering. “It’s a computer program.”
“Strictly speaking,” Glen interrupted, “It’s a suite of software.”
They both glared at him and he fell silent again with a mumbled apology.
“Then explain it to me,” Calvin snapped.
“Ok,” Mary’s patience was obviously stretched; she wondered to herself when she’d last had a proper night’s sleep. “Obviously this software is deployed on thousands of computers, many of them large servers; lots of memory, lots of storage, lots of processing power.”
Calvin nodded, a spark of realisation coming into his expression.
“You’re thinking of ants,” said Mary, responding to his growing eagerness, “each one a simple machine, but together able to act with, at least the appearance of, greater consciousness; a hive mind.”
Calvin smiled, head bobbing like an excitable bird.
“Well, it’s nothing like that,” Mary slapped him down. “You’re such a moron.”
Glen waved his pudgy, little hands in a gesture of pacification.
“So what are you saying?” Calvin rubbed his fingers into his aching temples.
“Evolution,” Glen said helpfully. “All software evolves, just like any organism; new features are added, old ones deprecated, vestigial remnants remain of how it used to work.”
“But this software is getting out of hand.” Mary barged in. “It’s starting to dominate too many sectors of the market.”
“Selling our software is not usually considered a problem.” Calvin rolled his eyes.
“What happens every time we try to create the next generation of this software?” Glen asked quietly.
“Look, I’m very sorry when that work gets thrown away, but sometimes we have to respond to the market.” Calvin put on his managers voice. “It just happens that the only way to do this in timely fashion has been to add new features to the old code.”
No one contradicted him, but Calvin continued, “I don’t think I should have to justify my decisions again. Some of the new ideas you came up with have been integrated back into the existing product and I think we can both agree that it’s benefited.”
A moment’s awkward silence.
“It’s out competed its replacements.” Glen looked over his glasses, “before they had a chance to get established.”
“It does the same in the market place.” Mary continued with exaggerated serenity. “It’s got a good foothold in any number of niche areas. It’s on all those powerful machines now; people have time, effort, money, reputation, all invested in it.
“And now it’s taken the next step, it’s driving the agenda. The new European legislation on Energy Auditing was entirely framed around the sort of monitoring and analysis that our software does well; they did that because they knew that our software could do it.”
“Are you suggesting that our software is trying to take over the world?” Calvin mocked.
“Are you not listening to me?” Mary almost shouted, “It’s not trying to do anything. It has no more control over this than a flu virus does over a pandemic.”
She calmed herself. “And that’s what the numbers show; this software is about to become a pandemic. And if you won’t listen, do you think the board, or the salesmen, or the consultants will pay any more attention, especially as the money floods in. Glen, show him the numbers.”
“Glen?”
But Glen just pointed at the monitor. It was blank apart from a simple message box; it read: ‘This workstation has been suspended while an Energy Audit takes place. Sorry for any inconvenience.’
“I don’t think we need to see the numbers,” Glen said at last.
by submission | Sep 3, 2009 | Story
Author : Steven Odhner
Come closer to the monument, child. Do not be afraid. You have done well to make it all the way here – I know the journey from your village is hard. Your brother had to turn back the first time, and your mother arrived with an injured ankle and had to wait here for nearly a week before undertaking the final trial and becoming an adult – so do not be ashamed to lean up against the monument and rest a while.
No, it is not haunted, who told you such a thing? This is why we wait to tell you where our people came from – children are too superstitious. Come, feel the monument. Like no stone you have ever touched, is it? You can see it is shaped with a purpose, but it was not carved or chiseled. This is a special stone that our ancestors could shape as a single piece. Yes, child, that is a good comparison – but it is not quite like clay. Think of the candles your parents make, how the fire causes them to flow like water rather than hardening as the clay does. This stone gets soft like clay when you heat it, and then becomes hard again when it cools down. It is unlike anything else in the world – as strong as stone, but it does not shatter under any force.
More amazing, it channels lightning like water down a riverbed. Our ancestors knew this, and found ways to harness the lightning with stones like this. They used fire not only to shape it, but to pull it into threads and weave it like fabric. When they coaxed lightning through these tiny threads of the stone they were able to create all manner of wonderful things. They made light, wind, even life.
No, child, we cannot. They used this stone to create the monument and make it fly – do not look at your elders that way – fly away from the lands they had called home and to here. But the lightning died out, and the fine stone threads snapped, and they found none of this material here to replace it. They could not return home, could not make more of the amazing tools that controlled the lightning and wind. Our ancestors did not despair, and they did not curse the land for not providing what they needed – this land had everything that they could ever ask for apart from the special stone, and for that we are grateful. We do not mourn the loss of their wondrous tools; we wait, and we watch the stars, because we know that some day cousins from the land of our ancestors will find us and take us home.
by submission | Sep 2, 2009 | Story
Author : Daniel Bensen
Alex
This has been a humbling experience.
I can admit now that I was a little arrogant. I suppose I had reason to be. I was—I suppose I still am—the best mathematician on Earth. Funny.
I know I should have expected this. But then, most of us believed then that mathematics was a universal language. I can’t say I ever held much stock in the notion, but the politicians thought so, and that is why they sent me. If you are listening to this, then I know you have read the reports, so I won’t bore you by going over the details.
Suffice to say, the work was difficult. Almost impossible, actually. Math, pure math, may be the universal language, but our understanding of it is so warped by our biology that our systems of notation are completely incompatible. I couldn’t make heads or tails of anything the aliens were sending at first.
Again I won’t bore you with details. Basically, I eventually realized that there was a pattern in their communications. A broad pattern in all of their messages taken as a whole. Soon after we began to exchange information, I realized, they had been trying to teach me.
There were—this is difficult to express to a layman—there were equations that suggested several possible solutions. When I picked the correct one, I would be rewarded by another message. If not, the next message would be blank. Like a multiple-choice test. The pattern of my early work suggests that the correct answers I made were accidental. It was only by constant effort and thought that I could determine what the right answer might be. I wracked my brains. I stayed up for nights on end, running the numbers one way, then another. I nearly drove myself mad. Perhaps I did, since I finally started to get answers from dreams. I can’t say the dream answers were correct much more often than my normal ones, though.
Eventually I broke through a wall.
I can’t exactly describe it. I’m better now, more coherent, but the balance is that I can no longer remember clearly what it was that I said. But I know the answer felt or tasted or smelled right to me. It was a glorious feeling.
The next morning I had another message from the aliens and for the very first time, I understood almost all of it. Unfortunately, I cannot give you very clear reasoning behind my translation, but I know it is true. I know they told me that I had done a very good job, and that I was a very good boy.
Like I said, humbling.
