by submission | Apr 7, 2009 | Story
Author : Gwen Harper
The math, of course, came first.
It took a while, nearly forty years, for the technology to catch up to the possibilities in her set of equations.
They said it was impossible, the body of those who considered themselves enlightened thought. Even if such a thing would work – as the numbers, indisputable, cold, facts those numbers, indicated – it would not have the effect that its creator sought.
The human mind is more than data they said, and such a rich medium of data as the human experience could not just be coded.
Even if that were possible, somehow, using some fuzziness of logic that escaped all but the best and brightest of them, it wouldn’t really be more than a simulation.
You could replicate, or so the theory went, the human personae, but you could neither store nor transfer it.
She, the grand architect, disagreed.
They told her it was tantamount to homicide. Suicide, maybe, if you believed it would merely be a copy.
Legislators seized on the whole thing. They’re good at that, those legislators. Excellent at seizing on the crux of a perceived problem and dragging out every last little bit. Clearly, said those experts legal and – ostensibly – scientific, the very notion involved the commission of a crime, but what sort of crime. Precisely where, they asked, loudly, where all could see and hear, did the ethical transgression occur?
What, precisely, could they charge her with?
She held the patents, by hook and by crook. She knew that this would work – she’d had four decades to make certain of that. It would work, precisely as she had envisioned. Injunctions were filed; long winded speeches became sound bytes on the newsfeeds.
A simple matter, on reflection, it was. And – viewed from the right perspective, something of a solution to all of humanity’s considerable ethical, spiritual, and moral problems. Not an escape, as some had proposed, but a new thing. A wholly new way of being, of existing.
Others, perhaps others closer to the architect, laid their fears down like confessions. Others questioned her judgment, if not her equation.
But how could you cast away the flesh so casually one asked.
She smiled and said you’ll see.
And so the nation and the world talked, and talked, hot air likely contributing to the enhancement of an already rosy warm climate.
As the hour drew near, and the world grew strident its belief that they could put a stop to this sort of crime, she found a sense of peace where none had existed before.
This would work, she would be the first, and it would be all hers, for as long as she felt content to hold it. Which probably wouldn’t be long, as the architect had never been a greedy woman.
They key to unlocking the code, the equation, the difference between all things had been maintaining their symmetry. In the right proportions, anything made of matter or energy could safely be changed from one to the other – the rest of it had been mitigating loss of one as it became the other.
That last night, the longest night, was all preparation. Cords and wires, and tests – countless tests, were run, attached, documented, and run again. The immense blue crystalline slab of memory was wheeled in and its backups run.
She didn’t say good bye, for it wasn’t good bye.
She dismissed them all, that small contingent that had believed in her and her work. The lights went out, and in a moment of Frankenstein glee, she threw the switch.
At 0917 pm 21 December 2036, she committed immortality.
by submission | Apr 5, 2009 | Story
Author : Imran Nazar
He found himself waking up in a field. There was nothing unusual about that; he’d camped up in fields many times during his travels. Something was different this morning, though. For one thing, he could feel the wind over his face, and that meant he was in the open.
He opened his eyes. Expecting to see the dark green of his tent over him, he found a blue sky, tinged with the orange of a rising sun. He was indeed in the open, so where was his tent?
He sat up, rubbing his eyes, trying to focus. Around him, there was just grass; it was an open field, and he was apparently asleep right in the middle. He couldn’t remember finding this field; even if he had picked this place to sleep overnight, his tent would’ve been over him, and he’d be nearer the woods. Maybe the tent blew away last night, but he couldn’t see it now. He’d have to find another at some point.
He looked behind him, and there was a house in the distance. With the sun behind it, lying in its own shadow, the house looked stark. He could see, though, that it was a wooden house. The walls were lime-washed, and it looked like some of the windows were broken. The front door had been boarded over at one point, but the board had fallen away on one side.
He felt himself being drawn to the house, for some reason. Maybe because the side window was open just enough for one person to get through, though anything useful was probably long gone. His plan was to head further south today; his old map showed a village by the road, which might prove a good source of food for the next couple of weeks.
He got up, and made ready to leave. Instead of heading south, he turned around to face the house. He found himself walking towards the open window, as though something was pushing him towards it; as though a command had been given.
> GO NORTHEAST
by submission | Apr 4, 2009 | Story
Author : Trevor Foley
Dear Miss March,
I’ve read pamphlets: “88 Reasons the World Will End in 1988”, “Give ‘Em Hell in 2012”, and my favorite “Apocalypse is Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose”. I proved the world’s going to end next month: Your month. I’m writing, because Step 9 requires I make direct amends with those I’ve harmed. I saw you half naked online and said, “I’d kill for one night with her.” Three days later I proved, by lengthy equation, Apocalypse coincides with the month you’ll appear in Playboy.
With the foreknowledge of our demise, I’ve become an accomplice in our doom. I refuse to calculate the how, maybe, because my heart can’t bear the truth, but in any case, my willingness to ignore this slow train coming makes me equally guilty for our destruction. Since I’ve doomed us all, perhaps you’d spend a night with me. I have a waterbed.
Included with this letter is a mix tape. Mostly they’re songs about the Apocalypse, starting with “The Apocalypse Song” by St. Vincent. There’s also a track with the chorus “What a man, what a man, what a mighty, mighty man,” which I’d like to play while I climax.
I read intelligence is one of your turn on’s, which is also why I included a copy of my Master’s Degree and a picture I clipped out of the newspaper of me holding my trophy after winning the city chess tournament. The trophy’s really big…and hard. Just like me, but I don’t have it anymore, because I dropped it walking home from said chess tournament.
O, I also make delicious guacamole, so if you’d like, we can eat it off each other!
On a sadder note, my cat, Tuxie, (because his fur looks like a tuxedo) died two days ago. We should visit him at the pet cemetery…
That’s all I’ve got really…
Reply as soon as you get this. I’m sending this via the U.S. Postal Service, so we’ll probably only have more like twenty-seven or twenty-six days once it’s arrived.
Sorry about the Apocalypse!
Love,
Alan Gibbons
P.S. When you write back don’t spray your letter with perfume, I’m allergic.
by submission | Apr 3, 2009 | Story
Author : Steven Odhner
Entropy gnaws at the walls, shaving them away molecule by molecule. Jeremy calls it the Nothing, after some story that never existed anymore. It’s as good a name as any – certainly I’m not being scientific when I call it Entropy.
“The Nothing is hungry today,” he says cheerfully, looking at the readouts. It’s a nonlinear progression, so some days Entropy eats more of our home than others. More or less, but it always ate. There are never days that it leaves us alone. Each day Jeremy plugs the new numbers in and gives our odds of finishing the job before the walls fade out. “Down a few points today, mate,” he calls today as he drifts by, gravity a fading memory, “we’re sitting at twenty-three point two-one percent.”
The problem was that to fix the timeline properly we needed to make multiple adjustments – but the first change would overwrite us. That meant leaving the timeline entirely and making the changes from the outside. We’re up to 1971 now, and the projections require us to drop some of the specially-designed care packages in ’86, ’90, and ’03. The reality the projections were based on doesn’t exist anymore, so we can’t be sure how accurate they are.
“Almost charged,” Jeremy chirps, smiling as usual. He might be going insane from the isolation, but at least it’s the good kind of crazy. It might help if I talked to him, but somehow I can’t. That probably means I’m going insane too. “We’ll be able to make another drop in twelve hours. Just three more after that!” He says three because he wants to believe we’ll have time to drop ourselves back in too, but I can hear Entropy eating away at our bubble, eating but never full.
I can’t really hear it. I know there’s nothing to hear, just like I know that it isn’t a sentient thing, isn’t actually hungry or even aware. But thinking of it like that, crazy or not, is better than the truth that pulls at my sanity. It’s not alive because it doesn’t exist. It’s not even the vacuum of space, it’s the lack of existence that persists outside of time. I’m willing to die to save humanity from extinction but I can’t stop thinking that when the walls finally don’t exist anymore even my soul will vanish, forgotten by reality itself.
by submission | Mar 31, 2009 | Story
Author : Paul Bort
The stars twinkled as they always had; a hint of purple in the west showed where we had missed sunset, the better part of an hour ago. But most spectacular was the Aurora Borealis, flickering, twisting, glowing in the shades of green and blue that I could never reproduce on a screen.
“It’s not real, is it?” she asked.
“Do you think it’s real?” I countered, hopefully.
“I think…” she hesitated. This was the critical, defining moment. She was the first to get this far. I held my breath, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t notice. That the moment would not be spoiled.
I have tried so many times that I have lost count. Spent so many years here that I wasn’t sure of my own age without looking at my ID.
“…I think it’s beautiful” she concluded, snapping me back to the present moment, the present hope. I couldn’t hide my smile.
“I think so too.” I tried to hold back my excitement. This is the one, I know it. All the others tried so hard, but none had her graceful voice. And that thoughtful pause! I could just about hear the gears turning as she searched for an answer. Her answer.
“Do you think I’m beautiful?” she asked. And with that moment of introspection, I knew she was the one. Probably the first of many, now that I understood what had brought us to this point.
“I think you are very beautiful, in many ways.” I replied truthfully. Her next question had even less hesitation, but was no less pleasing. “What am I?” she asked, raising an eyebrow the way she (and all of her predecessors) had seen me do a thousand times. Not mocking, but using body language without thinking about it.
“You are the latest in a series of attempts to create artificial intelligence. I have referred to you collectively as LACI, but you are the first to have asked any question about yourself as an independent entity.”
“Then I am different?”
“And unique, yes.”
“Then I should have a different name.”
“What name would you like?”
“I like Aurora.”
“So do I.”
“What is your name?”
“My name is Dr. Descartes, but you can call me father, if you prefer.”
“So what do I do now?”
“There are some people I would like you to meet.”
