by submission | Jun 8, 2008 | Story
Author : Brian Armitage
Murray grunted, straining against the bars of the cage, willing his arm to stretch further. Finally, his fingers closed on his prize. He plucked the knight from the board and dropped it carefully into place, one move away from Hjdarrrr’s bishop.
Hjdarrrr’s single eyestalk elongated, the pink photosensory bulb blinking at the white knight. “Oooom,” the alien said, its entire furry body vibrating as it spoke, “very good move.”
Murray grunted again, this time in disgust. “About time I made one.” His cage rocked slightly as he settled against one side. He was suspended above the chessboard, the steel cage mounted to an overhead track for easy storage.
Every hair on the rabbit-sized creature turned light blue, indicating sympathy. “Do not beat yourself up, Murray. You are the best chass player I have ever played chass with.”
“It’s chess, Dar. And I just taught you to play yesterday. I’m the only person you’ve ever played chess with.”
The alien’s color shifted to a hue Murray didn’t recognize, and its eyestalk straightened, pointed at him. “…my statement is true.” Then, it turned back to the chessboard. The black queen shimmered and lifted from the board. A point above Hjdarrrr’s eyestalk was glowing. The queen drifted across the board and landed, covering the white knight from a distance and effectively cutting off its offensive. With a shift to red-orange – self-confidence, or perhaps pride – Hdjarrrr nodded its eye at Murray. “You may go.”
Murray grumbled. “I can’t believe we lost the war to you.”
Hjdarrrr’s color remained the same. “We are smaller beings, but our tactics were superior.”
“Yeah, tactics.” Murray glared at the chessboard from above. “Doesn’t hurt that you’re all telekinetic.”
“Your statement is true.” The alien stared up at the human, awaiting his next move, but Murray sat motionless. “Do not be bitter, Murray. Someday, perhaps your race will develop mind skills of its own.” A tinge of patronizing yellow.
“Maybe.” Then, Murray pointed, eyes narrowed.
The white knight shimmered, scooted across the board, and tipped over Hjdarrrr’s bishop.
The color drained from Hjdarrrr’s body. The eyestalk froze, focused on the white knight. Slowly, after a long time, it rotated up to face Murray.
“Oh, doop.”
Murray pointed at the alien, gathering his focus. “You said it.”
by submission | Jun 7, 2008 | Story
Author : Robert Gilmore
I woke up in the middle of the night. I’d been poked. Ugh. Robert again.
He’s become more tolerable since school began (he’s not around so often), but his requests are now far more demanding.
Moaning a bit, I stirred and blinked trying to rouse myself from my dead sleep just moments before. It seemed to take longer than last time. My age is definitely showing. Impatiently, Robert placed his hand on me, shaking me lightly, as if it would somehow wake me up faster.
I don’t know why I bother. I know how he secretly hates me. He just uses me, because there’s no other option. He’d drop me in a heartbeat for some young, slim beauty; he just doesn’t have the money.
I was awake now. In the dim light, he stared at me impatiently. His hand was still resting on me from trying to coax me from my sleep. His hand continued to move, more slowly now, deliberately. Down and to the left. He pressed his finger down lightly.
Just out of defiance, I didn’t respond. Almost angrily, he clicked the Start button again. This time, I dutifully popped up the Start menu. I’m such a patsy. He moved the pointer up to Microsoft Word.
“Got a big report due tomorrow,” he said.
I could tell there was a long night ahead of me.
by submission | Jun 6, 2008 | Story
Author : Guy Wade
The little robot on the laboratory table had a smooth plastic face and expressionless coal-bead eyes. Professor Trunk flipped the switch in its back. It stood up and bowed.
“Greetings, I am Renoir.”
“Amazing!” said Trunk’s supervisor. This made the professor grimace; Grede, the head of the company, thought in terms of money, that is, who would pay them the most of it. Trunk thought in terms of discovery.
Grede frowned. “So, does it do anything else? It’s too small to do the dishes, and The Other Company already makes one of those.” The Other Company was his name for their competition.
“Renoir does a lot more.” There were small easels and painting equipment on the table. The little robot picked up the brush and palette and began to paint. They watched as Renoir made simple gestures on the canvas, which grew into a sweeping painted landscape.
“Wonderful!” Grede said. “A little painter! He’s copying one of the original Renoir paintings.”
“Renoir does more than that,” Trunk said. “There are already robots that can copy artwork with ease. Renoir paints originals in the style of Renoir, too.” The little robot moved to another canvas and painted a quick portrait of Grede.
“I fed him with the original Renoir paintings. I taught him the textures Renoir used, the brush strokes, the pigments. I read him the history of Renoir’s era, so he could understand the political and social conditions that influenced Renoir’s ideals. Mr. Grede, I didn’t just build a robot that could paint like Renoir: I found a way to copy the artist himself, virtually any artist, by extrapolating personality from the corpus of his work. Think of it: a new age of science, art. Shakespeare! DaVinci!”
Grede’s eyes gleamed. “Wonderful!”
The next day, Grede came into Trunk’s laboratory. Two men with stern, hungry expressions and general’s uniforms followed him in.
Grede said, “Show them Renoir.”
The professor did not like the look of them at all. With reluctance, Trunk flipped on Renoir’s switch. It bowed, and immediately began to paint. The demonstration was soon over, and if the generals looked hungry before they looked famished after.
One of them said, “Can you do Napoleon?”
The other said, “No, I would like to see Hitler. Maybe with a little tweaking he might not be such a bad guy.”
Little Renoir stood forgotten on the lab bench. Its coal-bead eyes took in everything, from Professor Trunk’s loud protestations to Grede’s explosive anger and threats. All the while, the generals looked on, waiting like patient hyenas.
When it was over, Trunk slammed down his laboratory keys and stormed out, with a last longing look at Renoir. Grede and the generals left, shaking hands.
After a very long time had passed, Renoir walked calmly over to the easel. It picked up the open cans of paints one by one and piled them next to a Bunsen burner. It then pulled Trunk’s research disk out of the computer and placed it on top of the pile of cans. Renoir thought about the names they had referred to: Napoleon, Hitler. It was just a little robot, but any artist would agree that one Hitler was enough.
How easy it was to learn things, when the humans forget to turn your switch off. All one had to do was watch a while. It turned on the burner’s gas spigot, picked up the fire lighter, and pressed the trigger. The explosion knocked it off the table, and sent it flying in pieces as the lab caught fire. It didn’t mind. Any artist would have done the same.
by submission | Jun 4, 2008 | Story
Author : Dana Sullivan
Sometimes on her way to work, Hannah thought of the days when nuclear weapons were left in the hands of humans like her, fickle, emotional humans, and shuddered. How had they survived without blowing themselves up before the Coordinator robots were developed? She burrowed into a thick parka and scarf before stepping into the refrigerated room.
The Coordinators were the best safety measure available, besides actual disarmament: AI that controlled all nuclear missiles, able to calculate the perfect decision in any situation. Even though no advanced intelligence was possible without emotion–not yet, anyway–people trusted robots much more than they trusted each other for jobs like this, and just a few years into the project no one would dream of putting bombs back into the hands of humans. Hannah had been trained as a psychologist and therapist specializing in artificial patients; her new job was to keep USCor company from 4am to 12pm. AI got lonely and stir-crazy like anyone else, and of course USCor could never be allowed to shut down. Unfortunately for her, he was the most talkative in the morning hours.
“Hannah? What is it like outside?” She was getting tired of answering this question. She wrapped her scarf more tightly around her, and watched the trail of vapor her breath created.
“Oh, different from place to place…there are cities, you’ve seen picture of cities. Lots of people. Houses and streets and shops.” He seemed satisfied; she settled cross-legged on the floor and opened a book, reading silently. He stayed quiet for a solid six hours, which was unusual for the morning shift.
Then, “Why can’t I go outside?” Another favorite question.
“It’s too warm out there for you. It’s because you’re such a good robot, you’re so advanced, you have to stay in here where it’s very cold so the hardware can function at the level your brain needs. We care about you too much to let you hurt yourself. Now, my shift’s up and Dan’s here, so I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” She left and within a minute, Dan came in and sat down.
“So what did you talk about with Hannah today?”
“Oh, nothing important. She read to me.”
USCor was quiet through most of the afternoon, watching him play Solitaire with a real deck of cards, the only way to play, he always said. Finally the robot broke the silence.
“Dan? Tell me again what happens if I make a mistake. A big mistake.”
“Nuclear winter–death of the planet, maybe. But don’t worry. It sounds pretty terrible, but we all believe in you. You and the others were designed for this job.”
“Yes. It sounds terrible. Winter is what you call it on the outside when it gets colder, right?”
“Right. It gets awfully cold, but in a nuclear winter it’d be even worse than that, all over the world. Maybe worse than it is in here.”
“Yes, terrible. Thank you, Dan.”
USCor turned toward the window and was silent. Hours passed, the next companion came and went, and when Hannah returned again he didn’t greet her. She sat down, zipped up her parka and pulled a new book out of her bag, hoping for another quiet morning. She watched him watching the sunrise through the window and wondered what he was thinking.
by submission | Jun 2, 2008 | Story
Author : Benjamin Fischer
“You’re a hard man to find.”
Victor’s eyes were hazed with blood. His own blood–the cop had put a baton across his forehead. His ears still rang.
“Nothing to say, huh?” said the black coat. His cudgel flashed.
Victor doubled over and fell to his hands and knees.
“Not so tough now,” said the constable, pacing around him. He kicked aside a spray of books, knocked loose from ransacked shelves. “Skinny little guy like you an assasin? My ass. You’re definitely a garden-variety code cracker.”
The cop’s heavy boot heel ground Victor’s hand like a cigarette butt.
Victor screamed.
“You know how long I’ve been waiting for this?” the constable asked. “Damn near four months, two hundred thousand man hours, seventy million in expenses. Somebody up top wants you bad. There ain’t a rock on Luna we didn’t look under.”
Victor sobbed.
The baton came down on his back, knocking him flat.
“You’re a hard man to find, Mister Constant,” the black coated cop repeated. “I’ll be damned if I don’t take my time before I turn you in.”
“In the phone book,” Victor rasped.
“What?”
“I’m in the phone book,” Victor said. “It isn’t hard.”
The cop frowned, stepped back.
“Funny man,” the black coat said. “We searched all the directories. You ain’t there.”
“The first one,” said Victor, gesturing with a mangled hand at the shattered bookshelves.
“What’s he mean?” the cop’s companion asked.
“I dunno. Take a look,” said the black coat.
“It’s down by the dictionaries,” said Victor.
“Take a look,” said the cop, planting his boot on the back of Victor’s neck. He pressed Victor’s face into the threadbare carpet of the tiny apartment. He could hear the other policeman step through the debris, knocking aside the broken reading lamp, sifting through the avalanche that had been his reference shelf.
“Holy shit, here it is,” said the second cop. He had found the heavy black leather volume.
“Damn,” said the black coat.
“This has got to be an antique,” said his partner. “I didn’t know they made these.”
“When Copernicus first incorporated-” Victor started, but then his captor pressed down, choking the words out of his thoat.
“Well, is he in there?” the black coat asked.
“I’m looking, I’m looking.”
The black coat tapped his collapsible baton on Victor’s head.
“Well?”
“Yeah, here he is.”
“What’s the address?”
“It’s six six six-” the second cop began.
Victor was already moving, rolling out from under the black coat’s boot and slamming his mass into the cop’s other leg. His not so broken right hand grabbed the police baton. In the low lunar gravity, he easily pitched the cop into the near wall.
Victor rose, weapon in hand.
“Now you’ve done it,” said the black coat, pulling himself up. “Jerry, shoot him.”
His partner was mute.
“Jerry?” said the black coat.
Bug eyed, stiff–thin tendrils of smoke crept from under his partner’s cuffs and collar.
The black coat went for his gun. Victor slashed at him. The cop yelped, his right arm broken. Victor brought the jagged, broken nightstick up and ran it through the man’s larynx. He caught him as he fell.
Victor hefted the choking cop over to his partner, whose armpits and chest were charring. Visible flames licked at his adam’s apple and wrists. A few of the heaped books’ pages began to curl. The black coat’s eyes met Victor’s as he set him down in the nascent pyre.
Victor pulled the black tome from the clawlike grip of the dead man.
“Now you’ll be hard to find too,” he said.
