by submission | May 26, 2010 | Story
Author : Q. B. Fox
17th April 2002, a concrete room, off an unmarked tunnel on the Northern Line.
“How long were they down?”
Simon looked up from what he was doing, and even in the dim light of the rack mounted servers I recognise the pinched expression.
“12 days. A power supply shorted some circuits in Prophet a week last Friday. Without the proper predictive model Lösch became CPU bound by Saturday morning, so we shut it down before something else broke.”
Lösch, both the software and the specialist machine it ran on, was named after the 20th century economist Sir Richard Lösch, whose work on monetary systems was the underlying principle of the program.
But it became apparent when they started trying to run Lösch that this theoretical model wasn’t designed to incorporate real feedback efficiently. So the coders built predictive software to take real information from the markets, combine it with the theoretical model and feed its predictions back into Lösch. The pun was just too delicious for them not to call it Prophet.
“12 days?” I frowned. “The economy’s pretty stable now; surely leaving it to run itself for 12 days won’t have caused any problems.”
“Ask Dr. Rob,” Simon indicated the other corner of the room. Visible only by the light of green text reflected in his tiny spectacles, and from his pallid, sweaty skin, Dr. Rob chewed his tongue like cow and silently scanned his monitor. Who themed green text on a black background? Dr. Rob was old school.
“Imagine,” Simon explained, presumably as it had been explained to him, “walking on a tightrope. Lösch keeps its balance by a gentle nudge here, a small purchase there. I’d assumed that because Lösch was making more frequent smaller trades that the whole system was stabilising. Turns out I was wrong.”
I turned towards a grunt expelled from Dr. Rob; he was rolling his eyes in an exaggerated manner that would have been comical if he’d known he was doing it.
“It turns out,” Simon continued, “that we’ve been tightrope walking in high winds, and that Lösch was correcting and counter correcting the whole time. Now imagine our tightrope walker blacks out for a second.”
I imagined and gulped back a sudden rush of financial vertigo.
“The first forecast from Prophet this morning was showing hyper inflation in the near future, could be as bad as 65%. We set Lösch to work on it. The data came out about an hour ago. You can tell the prime minister that, as of today, Lösch can hold the inevitable off for about 5 years but eventually it will happen.”
“And we can’t stop it?” I was alarmed.
“Not without something beyond the scope of Lösch,” Simon explained, “not without a major human intervention. Dr. Rob’s working on it, but don’t expect an answer any time soon.”
Contrary as ever, Dr Rob’s deep bass filled the room for the first time. “We need a recession, a genuine, but planned, collapse of confidence.” He chewed. “And I think I have an idea. Have you ever heard of sub-prime mortgages?”
by submission | May 24, 2010 | Story
Author : Liz Lafferty
Seven years I’d waited for my DNA match.
Seven years of anxiety about what she would be like. Seven years of stress about whether she’d find me attractive and a suitable provider.
Nineteen billion people inhabited the planet. I never understood why it was so difficult to find the right person. The wheels of Sovereign Earth ran slower than any single nation’s government had before. Always paperwork.
The idea behind DNA review seemed palatable: to prevent physical defects and mental illness. I’d just never thought I’d have to wait so long or that I wouldn’t love my match.
Whoever she was, we were the fortunate ones. We’d get life partners. We’d get to breed, have a plot of our own in one of the eight hundred outliers of our city. It would be better than the concrete and steel, four hundred and ten square feet we were entitled to as singles. I’d recently lost my only window, too, when some bureaucrat’s son trumped me on the ‘need’ scale.
The match meant freedom.
I’d picked up my papers yesterday morning from the databank in Pelnan. I’d slept with them under my pillow.
I only knew her by her serial number. It would be imprinted on her spinal column if I wanted to check once she arrived. I didn’t. I just wanted to see her, say a few words, find out if her match had been as difficult in finding as mine had been.
And then…the rest of our lives.
I was expecting the knock but it startled me anyhow. When I opened the door, my sister Livy stood there.
“Liv, my gosh, how are you?” I pulled her into my arms and hugged her. I hadn’t seen her since my work orders came in. When I gripped her shoulders, she stared at me like she didn’t know who I was. “What’s wrong? Is it mom?”
“No. I…” Tears rolled down her face.
“Tell me!” I nearly shook her to find out why she was so upset.
She held up her papers. They had the Sovereign Earth databank seal. Like mine.
“I came here to meet my DNA match.”
I might have gone as pale as she did. My legs gave out and I collapsed into the only chair I had. “You mean…”
She nodded her.
“Oh, Liv. I’m sorry. How long have you waited?”
“Nine years. I thought this was it. What about you?”
“Seven.”
Seven years I’d waited for my DNA match.
Seven years to find out the clowns running Sovereign Earth matched me with my own sister. The next election cycle seemed years away. And it would probably take that long to convince the czars running the databank they’d made a mistake.
“Could be worse,” I finally said.
“I don’t see how.”
“At least we’ll have our own plot of ground.”
by submission | May 23, 2010 | Story
Author : Mark Robinson
“But, how is any of this possible?”
Despite the scene she’s making all I can focus on is the pink tip of the pregnancy test strip – which we stock on aisle five – that she’s waving around in the air; watching the droplets of pink-tinted urine fleck across the counter where I’m standing, completely at a loss as to what I should do.
A steady line of customers, hands still holding onto the item they were looking to buy before the woman burst into the store ranting, peek out from between the shelves I’ve yet to finish stocking.
Any answer I give will be the wrong one; even though the thought occurs to me that we currently have a special on synthetic breast milk.
“How’m I meant to tell my husband? He’s in deep space and won’t be back for another twelve months and what d’you think he’ll say when he lands and sees me holding another one of these?”
I never noticed the woman was holding onto a kid with her urine-free hand.
When she doesn’t get a response, she turns to the counter display of condoms; “And, these things don’t work,” picking up a couple of boxes and slamming them down in front of me on the counter. “I’m gonna sue the pants of your manager when he gets back from lunch.”
So that explains why we’re short on stock and he ducked out early.
A brief silence hits the woman while she looks at the clock above my head.
“Which one did you use?” A small, thin teenager standing behind the woman and her toddler.
The quiet woman looks at the stick in her hand and shoves it in the girls face.
“Yeah,” She nods, “I had a false positive with one of them.”
The woman’s eyebrows hover slightly before narrowing her eyes back at me then dragging her kid around to aisle five.
The teenager looks at me waiting for my thank you; I pick up the boxes of contraception and place them back into their racks. When the counter’s clear, the woman drops three boxed test strips down for me to swipe.
“Tell Joe if they come out positive again, he owes me nine-ninety-five.”
I scan the barcodes and hold out my hand for her payment which she ignores, snatching up the boxes and dragging her kid back out the door.
An elderly woman hobbles up to the counter, close enough to have heard every word of our exchange; “You’d think she’d be more careful in this day and age?” Dropping before me two packs of cancer cream and a USB vibrator. “They should bring back sterilisation,” routing in her purse for her money, “never did me any harm.”
When I look up the headset goes black and I hear my history teacher clear his throat. Back in the classroom, I remove the headset; afraid to look him in the eyes.
“Did you spot the deliberate mistakes?” He asks, greying fussy eyebrows bouncing above his head.
After a moment I think I grasp it, “It would take longer than twelve months to get back to earth from deep space in 2009.”
His mouth opens to comment. I hear a few titters from my classmates. Then I realise what I just said. “The cancer cream?”
Professor Grey smiles; “And?”
All I can do is shrug. Behind me, Stacie raises her hand to answer.
“Stacie?” He says, taking the headset from me.
She smiles at me, “When women used to give birth, it only took nine months to gestate.” She holds her smile in place. “And, the test turns blue when it’s positive, not pink.”
by submission | May 22, 2010 | Story
Author : Daniel Fuhr
Red rocks crumbled under my heavy boots. I looked around the desolate Martian landscape and destruction thereupon. I could taste the acrid smoke around me as I walked through the wreckage of the downed ship, even through the environmental suit and protective gear, something for psychologists to quack at me about.
Carefully I picked through the remains of the transport craft and charred remains of what used to be precious lives. Protocol requires carefully documenting everything and keeping the crash site spotless. I cared about protocol fifteen years ago; today I’m just looking for the goods.
The small group of people stood at the edge of the crater the crash site created. I knew they were watching my every move apprehensively. Dead eyes of a hundred people staring at me from beyond the grave bothered me less than the brigands carefully watching me work.
After minutes of examination, I struck the treasure worth more than gold. I flipped open my netbook and sent a report back to my office “Crash due to natural causes, no further action required”. I would fill in more details at my leisure back at the office.
I pulled the slug from the hole in the hull of the ship and carried it out of the crater. The crash was open to salvage the minute I transmitted my report. I handed the pirates their metal slug as they handed me a small case. I knew they would have the entire craft ravaged for salvageable parts and take the rest for scrap metal. In less than two hours only the crater would remain.
If my report had any mention of foreign sources of a crash, I would look forward to months of investigations, inquiries and paperwork. Carrying the case back to my craft I looked forward to a month of fresh steak and eggs, a treasure worth more than gold.
by submission | May 20, 2010 | Story
Author : Elbie Kruger
I was born on the Calcarus colony settlement, a city floating 50,000 miles from planet Earth with a breathtaking view of the solar system. Having been born in space there were perks, however there were also drawbacks. You became used to cramped spaces and the lack of privacy, having known no other kind of life, but I, unlike many of the colony’s inhabitants, could not get used to people’s desire to someday live on Earth.
I must admit it was a surprise when Calcarus Regional Administration decided I should be one of only five space colonist to qualify for a month long surface trip. I was sanctioned to attend a major medical seminar on behalf of the colony.
As a high ranking Medical Officer on Calcarus I suppose I was a logical choice. The extra credits would lift my medical rank to level 7 and also meant I would qualify for my own room.
On the day of our departure I met my fellow travelers who were all extremely excited to say the least.
They kept on blabbering about how fantastic the trip was going to be. The one girl, I think her name was Menusa, went on and on about seeing real live animals. Personally I have never seen a real live animal and the only animals I have ever seen were from documentaries about Earth. On the colonies animals were strictly forbidden. This was mainly due to the fear of animal diseases, however I can honestly say after her non-stop whining about animals that I would happily die without ever wanting to see one.
We entered the atmosphere on the dark side of the planet, which meant there was not really much to see. At least the entry was quite a rush.
Upon our arrival at the spaceport we were quickly off loaded and huddled straight to our residence via hover tubes.
The rooms did not differ significantly from our rooms on Calcarus, obviously this was excluding the fact that they were about double the size. The bed was so huge that I actually had trouble getting comfortable.
I finally gave up trying to sleep around 5 am and being ever so slightly agitated and more than a little bored I decide to explore my surroundings. At the main entrance hall of our residence there was an exit to the outside gardens. We had no gardens on Calcarus, hydroponic food plantations sure, but the luxury of gardening for fun was never an option. I decided to take a stroll through the gardens, after all I was on Earth might as well enjoy it.
As I walked outside the sun started to rise over the horizon. Hues of red, yellow and purple streamed into the sky, a magnificent symphony of light and color. I had never witnessed something so spectacular or nearly as beautiful. When the sun finally emerged I felt my heart explode with emotion. Tears filled my eyes as the warm rays of the sun enveloped my face.
I don’t know exactly how to describe it, it felt like a complete sensory overload as my mind tried to process the absolute bombardment of beauty.
All around me I could see rolling hillsides covered by the most exotic blue sky. The smell of grass and fresh air filled my nostrils as I took the deepest breath I could. It felt like the first breath of my life.
As my mind regained control of my senses, I came to a complete realization.
I could never go back to the colonies.
