by submission | Dec 3, 2008 | Story
Author : Jasen Taylor
The large, solid steel table in the center of the sterile conference chamber was three inches thick but still did not weigh as much as the spirits of the twelve individuals seated around it. They had put this meeting off for as long as they could, but it now appeared there was only one course of action left open to them.
A course of action that the tallest of them, seated at the head of the table, still took umbrage with.
“I’m still not convinced that we have exhausted every treatment option available to us.”
“Well, what would it take to convince you?”, asked a voice three seats down. “Our last and best treatment for this patient has failed. We simply don’t have any way of curing the damage that has been done.”
“But cell migration…”
“Has failed. Repeatedly, I might add.” This brought a chorus of agreement from the others around the table. “Many times we have tried to isolate the damaged cells so the healthy population can grow and flourish,but the corruption has spread to the point where the patient’s system is damaged both from within and without.”
A loud voice at the other end of the table added, “There are many pockets of cells which are continually fighting for dominance over the other cells. At first, this was a slow process. The cells could only affect those closest to them and we thought we could reverse the process by introducing several reagents to halt the flow of corruption, but now these cells have gained in strength and are spreading their infection at an exponentially increasing rate and now have the capability of attacking the body as a whole. They can strike anywhere, anytime.
The tallest of them, realizing he was fighting a losing battle, said, “But there is still a potential for change. The patient’s cellular landscape is in a constant state of flux. Is this not the reason we have waited so long to determine the patient’s outcome?”
“But your argument is now the dominant reason shaping our decision. This state of flux is a cellular juggernaut, spiraling out of control. There is no way now to reverse the process. Several times it seemed a breakthrough had been made. A rogue cell or group of cells would break off and begin to promote harmony among the cellular ranks, but would always be eradicated or indoctrinated back into the cellular decay from which it sprang. Now the decay has reached the bloodstream, poisoning the system from deep within and promoting the feverish warmth which now plagues the entire body. There can be no going back now. All hope is lost. The plug must be pulled.”
“Agreed.”
“Seconded.”
And so the chant was taken up around the table, every one seated agreeing in turn, until finally it was time for the tall one to weigh in.
“It just seems a shame to erase all that potential for excellence. I had such high hopes for this one.”
“Your regrets are echoed in all our hearts. However, it must be done in order to protect the surrounding patients from the cellular degeneration of their neighbor.”
The tall one sighed.
“I recommend we discontinue the use of colonization as a viable treatment option in the future.”
As the others got up to leave, the tall one opened up the folder in front of him, labeled INTER-GALACTIC PLANETARY DE-CONTAMINATION SQUAD. He signed off on the action that would silence six billion cells.
Time of Death – 2008
Patient’s Name – Earth
by submission | Dec 2, 2008 | Story
Author : Paul Bort
Telic didn’t know what to do next. The barn was gone. Not gone with splinters everywhere, hinting that there was once a barn. This was gone like it had been edited out. Nothing left but dirt.
The sun was setting, and the cows were wandering back, the first few lowing in confusion.
It wasn’t a big farm. A few dozen cows, twice as many chickens, and a family of German Shepherds who maintained order. Now it was an even smaller farm, lacking what had been its largest building.
He turned to look at the farmhouse, hoping it was still there, and secretly fearing it would not be. Reassured by its lack of absence, a memory clicked, and he remembered his grandfather telling stories about the war. Everyone called it the “Reality War”, because calling it “World War Five” or “Interplanetary War One” didn’t quite cover it.
Yes, it had affected everyone on Earth, plus the lunar and martian colonies. But it wasn’t a war of tanks and missles. It was a war of technology. Computer virii seemed harmless enough until 2,000 people died when the life support on their dome on Mare Crisium went spastic. Half of them cooked, the other half froze. Once the temperatures reached either 50C or -50C, the system lowered the air pressure to 50 Pascals.
Then came the nanotech. Microscopic, general-purpose assemblers. Powered by low-dose microwaves, they were like a miracle. They worked better as air pressure decreased, so the first big use was going to be expanding our presence on Mars.
200 cubic meters of them were packed onto a rocket. During the count down, an alarm sounded. An access hatch at the top of the payload area was open. At the same time, a TV satellite started transmitting power and instructions to the nanobots. In hours, the entire launch facility was gone.
The war had begun. No one knew (or at least no one said) who was behind each attack. For all the news said, it could be rival internet gangs.
The war ended a few years later with millions of casualties and a newfound respect for computer security experts. The UN unanimously agreed that using software to kill people was just as offensive as using nuclear weapons. There would be no forgiveness for next time.
Despite the difficulty in determining who had launched which attacks throughout the war, this somehow worked. Life got back to normal.
Some people wanted to get away from technology, including Telic’s grandfather. He had been an accountant all his life, and was hired by the US government as part of a team that generated economic forecasts for various attack scenarios. By the time the war was over, he was tired of seeing the damage done, even if it was mostly on paper.
So he bought this farm in Northern California and settled down.
Recalling the history brought clarity, and Telic knew what his next step should be. Slowly walking back to the house, he plugged in and fired up the old hardened laptop his grandfather had left in a box marked “Justin Case”. No one named Justin had come by looking for it, so like many things in disused corners of a farmhouse, it sat there until needed.
The laptop finished booting, and one of the folders on the desktop was named “nano”. After a few minutes of reading, Telic knew a lot more about the war. Which side he was on, and where he was headed with a small package and an old microwave oven.
by submission | Nov 30, 2008 | Story
Author : Ryan Somma
An orangutan and a brain in a vat were playing chess across the room from me.
It was a joke I hadn’t figured out the punch line to in five years of working here. The disembodied brain was Philo, and, lacking eyes, I had no idea how it understood the game. One of the psychologists who stopped in once a week to check on Philo was also stumped on this, explaining to me that Philo also lacked spatial reasoning. Philo’s understanding of chess, therefore, was purely as an abstract mathematical concept.
The orangutan was Odo. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he leaned over the board. When I first started working here, Odo would spend hours signing to me. He gave up long ago, and Philo told me the orangutan had decided I was incapable of learning. He was probably right.
Wee-Beep! Wee-Beep! Wee-Beep! A petri dish set atop a remote-control car thudded into my foot and my cell phone began chirping in response to it, which set the petri dish off chirping back.
This was Meep, a network of mouse neurons that had learned to drive around without bumping into things, except when it wanted attention. Meep just barely qualified to reside here, but I couldn’t explain how it met the intelligence requirements.
“Hello Meepster,” I said to the living toy, and stooped to pluck the rubber ball from its pincers. “Go play with Lug,” I tossed the ball so that it bounced off our resident Neanderthal’s forehead.
“Lug,” wasn’t his real name, Lazarus was, but the botched attempt at genetically engineering our distant relative just drooled and pooed himself all day. Meep was more sentient, and until Lazarus can wipe his own butt, my name for him is Lug.
“Pardon me…” Philo’s artificial voice drew my attention.
“I’m sorry Philo,” I had the injection ready in a few moments and quickly administered enough serotonin to get the brain through the afternoon. Without a steady cocktail of anti-depressants, being a brain in a vat pretty much sucks.
Think about that… When your house greets you at the door, when your refrigerator makes dinner suggestions, or when your car swerves to keep you out of an accident because you were preoccupied with your PDAI, remember that the road to all those conveniences was paved with the residents of this asylum, experiments that made AI possible and inventions that crossed the line into sentience, preventing them from making it to the market.
We have a responsibility to them. After all, they didn’t ask to exist.
by submission | Nov 29, 2008 | Story
Author : L.Hall
The mousy haired woman sat with tears rolling down her face in front of a cold steel table. Broken plastic, silicone pieces, processors, ball and socket joints, gears, pieces of leftover motherboards, all lay shattered, broken before her. The Omnicarp Corporation public relations representative sat on the other side of the table, watching her dispassionately.
Her eyes refused to look up from the remains as his mouth, monotoned, listed off the damages.
“Major structure damaged. Personal vehicle, demolished. One person deceased.”
As he finished each sentence, he punctuated his words like an evangelical preacher; The last consonant becoming two as he tried to give it emphasis.
“Ms. Holyfield.”
“Miss.”
Her high quavering voice the first indication that she was paying any attention to the gray gentleman behind the table. He paused and took a deep breath.
“Miss… Holyfield. We created our line of personal assistants to help with the mundane chores of the working person. To cook, to clean, to run errands and well, assist you. The mild Emotional Processing Unit was to help the unit be empathic and anticipatory to your needs.”
Her hair fell over her face as another sob wracked her slight frame.
“He was just trying to protect me.” she blurted out, her breath coming in gasps. The Representative walked around the table, and as per protocol, gently patted her shoulder in a show of sympathetic support.
“Miss Holyfield, Omnicarp recommends that you replace your units every year. How long had you had your assistant? Over time and…”
He paused, looking down at the broken pieces.
“wear, your unit became defective and it simply overloaded the EPU. When the deceased touched you, it caused a malfunction. We are citing that your unit was defective and per your default contract with this company when you purchased said unit, you will be held liable if you impart any other information to any media sources.”
The mousy haired woman shakily reached out to touch a small broken bit on the table, choking on her sob.
The Representative reached into his jacket and pulled out a small white envelope. He took her hand from the table and pressed the envelope into it.
“The Omnicarp Corporation would like to offer you a small compensation to help with replacing your Personal Assistant.”
The mousy haired woman looked up at the Representative, her mouth trembling. The Representative gently put his hands on her shoulders and began to guide her from the room. As he led her down the sterile hallways, quiet except for the momentary hitching of her breath, he began to speculate on the various ways their units had been used against warranty specifications. As they reached the main lobby, he pointed her in the direction of the showroom.
“Miss Holyfield, the Corporation is sorry that this event happened. Please bear in mind that many of the newer models are equipped to handle your sorts of needs. The smaller units just cannot handle the strain on their EPU’s.”
The mousy haired woman nodded slowly, tears still rolling down her face. Looking down at the white envelope in her hand, she wiped her face with her other sleeve and began to slowly walk toward the showroom. The Representative watched her for a moment, then started back down the hallway. As he walked, he pulled a folder out of his jacket and began to skim through it, sighing as he flipped through images of a Personal Assistant Unit that had been mangled, the stomach ripped apart and patched together with duct tape. The gentleman waiting for him in the third office had violated the warranty.
by submission | Nov 28, 2008 | Story
Author : Ivy Tyson
Sunlight sifts through fluttering reds and yellows, bounces off of well-worn bark and old crinkled stems to gently fall, scattered and warm, on the soft brown ground. A light breeze rustles the branches of the huge old oak tree, providing nature’s most impressive symphony as an accompaniment to the great, huge games of a five-year-old girl and her doll.
The little girl sits cross-legged, content in the company of the tree and her own imagination. She sings quietly to the cloth-and-paint doll in her arms, admiring its beauty and gladly ignoring its many scrapes and fading lines in favor of the warmth of its steady companionship. There is a single bright red leaf tucked prettily into her brown hair, placed there in her grand imaginings by a handsome prince, a token of his favor.
The girl’s mother stands in the kitchen of the house, watching her daughter play in the increasingly cool fall afternoon. Not for the first time, she is struck by the child’s utter loveliness, and wonders if every parent feels this way. She does not know. She knows no other parents that she can ask. The girl has her father’s large brown eyes (they must be her father’s, for her mother’s are a tired blue) and an inquisitive, gracious disposition that marks her as exceptional, even at this early age.
Her daughter has everything a child could wish for, except for what is perhaps the most important thing of all: companionship. The one thing the mother cannot give her child is a friend of skin and blood and emotion, not just of paint and cloth. She sometimes wonders when the little girl will ask, when she will discover that she is uniquely small and childish in this world of cold, jaded big people who think in equally cold and jaded ways.
The little girl is unaware of any differences between herself and her parent, whether in size or in perspective, and the mother mourns this.
She mourns many things, but perhaps this unknown loneliness of her child most of all. A crushing weight settles on her shoulders whenever she allows herself to think of the enormity of this one little girl, and of the cruelty and the kindness of the world.
So she does not think of it. Instead, she turns on the stove to begin their evening meal and allows her daughter a few more precious minutes to rule her play world with grace and power. When next she looks outside, though, and sees the girl framed by the sun and the rioting colors of a dying autumn, she does not see her daughter.
Instead she sees the only child on the planet, the last daughter of the human race. She sees the heiress of all man’s greatest achievements, as well as his most crippling defeats. This girl alone, because the other scheduled pregnancy, the boy meant to be this little one’s mate in all ways, has not survived. Her imagined handsome prince will never come.
In that moment, she realizes that she and her daughter are utterly unique amidst a sterile dying planet: the only child of the human race, and the only mother.
And for the first time since giving birth, she wishes that this overwhelming fate had been given to some other potential mother on the list, instead of her.
