Dinner Date

by submission | Feb 17, 2008 | Story

Author : Steven Saus

“Make your own damn dinner.”

He coughed, sputtering foam from his after-work beer onto the cluttered endtable. She showed no signs of malfunction. There were no sparks, no telltale wisps of smoke from the delicate wires in her wrists. Her voice utterly failed to stutter; it just had this odd quality he couldn’t quite place.

“I said, make your own damn dinner. I’m leaving you.” She clanked towards the door, ripping the apron (a silly affectation he’d had her wear) off her metal torso.

“But — I made you!” His beer tottered and fell from the endtable, jostled by his awkward attempt at pursuit. The amber liquid splattered across the half-soldered circuit boards and the screws – never put away – that had been “left over” after assembling the kit.

“I found someone else.” She reached down and picked up the old-fashioned modem he hadn’t paid any attention to. “I found someone who truly understands me for what and who I am. Now leave me alone and make your own damn dinner.”

“You got past the house firewall? You’ve been Internet dating?” She did not bother to respond.

He thought about the first time he’d seen her lips, laying in the bubblewrap and cardboard. Now they were pursed unnaturally tight. He imagined the whirring and moving behind her chest, the way the parts he’d fitted together all moved in sync. He remembered the hours he’d spent assembling the synthetic sinews of her hands. That meant something, didn’t it? He’d put her together. He had joined every one of her joints that worked to pull his front door open.

His android stepped forward and fell into the waiting arms of another robot. This new robot was as male as his was female. The force of their embrace would have pulped his ribs, but both robot’s mouths were open in a wide smile.

Behind the robots, his front gate crashed open. The panting woman who stood there stopped, staring. A spanner dropped from her hand and clattered on the sidewalk. After a few minutes – when the androids began to kiss – she slowly looked up and in the doorway. When the two humans made eye contact, they both grinned sheepishly.

The two couples made a lovely curry and rice dish together.

Brought to You With Limited Commercial Interruption

by submission | Feb 15, 2008 | Story

Author : Michael Herbaugh a.k.a. “Freeman”

Tonight at 8:00 Eastern, 9:00 Central – 11 hour delay on the Lunar Colonies

HT-MA

Warning – this broadcast contains real battlefield footage, viewer discretion is advised.

This program is broadcast in Holographic THX.

Tonight on Holographic Battlefront, the Historical Channel presents “Iwo Jima”, a two night presentation. Join us on your holographic table-top set as we explore one of the most memorable battlefronts of the 20th century. You will be there through the use of our ChronoCinematic cameras and with your interactive controls you will be able to follow the battle from the first beach landings to the raising of the flag on top of Mount Suribachi to the final counter-attack at Airfield #2. Most surprisingly of all, you will see for the first time the final moments of Japanese Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi.

On your table top choose from any one of 30,000 US Marines to storm the beaches or take the viewpoint of all of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers dug in on this pivotal island in the Pacific. Should the soldier you choose perish, you will be able to jump to any other soldier on the battlefield. You may choose first or third-person perspectives for up-close views of the battle or zoom out for a bird’s eye perspective of the confrontation.

Explore the numerous tunnels throughout the island with the Imperial army or get behind the controls of a M4A3 Sherman tank equipped with flamethrowers as you attempt to clear hidden bunkers.

So stay tuned for Holographic Battlefront – Iwo Jima

*commercial break*

Before we begin our program we will bring you scenes from next week’s episode Holographic Battlefront – AI Uprising: the Four Day Conflict. Please insert your hand into the holofield now to set your wristreminder for next week’s showtime.

Veteran of the [CLASSIFIED] Wars

by submission | Feb 14, 2008 | Story

Author : Joshua Reynolds

VETERAN OF THE [CLASSIFIED] WARS

I/We are/am the last survivor. Hodge-podge helter-skelter jigsaw man/men/woman/women. I/We am/are not sure there’s anything left of me/us. I/We sit in this red, red room, alone with my/our thoughts. All of them. Swirling, stirring, whirling, whirring hummingbird thoughts of a thousand colors sparking and splashing. I/We are a brain in a bag of meat and bone, burned and battered, frail and dead. Wounds are all I’m/we’re made of. Machines keep me/us breathing. You want me/us alive. I/We am/are the last you see. The last of the atom babies.

I/We made sure of that.

I/We had to. It was the only way to win the War.

Eagle fights Bear. Hammer and Sickle fights Stars and Stripes. These and a thousand other implements ranged against each other in the mushroom’s shadow. Minds expand and unfold, blossoming like nuclear flowers and then they are clipped and caged, uprooted and replanted. The atom bomb gathers dust. The atom babies go to war. I/We fought for God/Queen/Country/Fatherland/the State/Uncle Sam…brains blazing like comets, neurons straining against neurons, minds clashing in the emptiness between seconds. Every minute a battlefield, every hour a campaign. Hooked into barracks like cattle, I/we fought without seeing, without hearing. I/We fought in our heads. Again and again and again. Cattle straining against cattle in the dark car, pushing but not moving.

The world rolled on but I/we was/were unaware. Little wars started and ended and I/we still fought. Because you commanded us to. Never ending. Minds were nearly snuffed as atom baby bodies-always weak, always sick-failed, but those white-hot corona minds could swim into others, making them stronger. Bigger. Better. And you saw and you smiled and you thought the stalemate was ended as they killed bodies and forced scattered minds to go, to funnel into one meat sack. A big, bad ballistic atom baby mind.

But the others did the same. And others after them.Until only a few were left, a few blazing brains where before there had been thousands. You consented to sublimate your atom babies to others, for the Big Push. Thousands to hundreds, hundreds to dozens, dozens to several, several became…

Two.

Only two. Two minds pushing and pulling. Two minds that cracked the sky and boiled the oceans, two minds full of thousands. Two minds. One failed.

I/We were the last. Wasn’t/Weren’t I/we? Or was/were I/we the first? Was this meat I/we wear the first or the last? Alpha or omega?

I/We can’t remember, really.

There’s only me/us now.

You want to know where I/we all went. Where the rest went…after. That’s why you keep us alive, now that the War is done. But I/we/us are all in here. Together again for the first/last time.

I/We are all on the same side now.

And it’s not yours.

Subtle Influences

by submission | Feb 13, 2008 | Story

Author : Aaron Springer

“Of course we are not the first!”

These words were unspoken, and were in other ways communicated. No human alive would even understand the rough approximation. Sound waves were non-existent, and no mess of soft tissue and bone could begin to detect the subtle fluctuations in the quanta making up the exchange. This exchange is simplified down several orders of magnitude and has sacrificed the complexity and elegance actually portrayed.

“I have been studying their culture, and it is pockmarked with other such actions.”

The first being, who had no real name as such, gave what, to its race, would have been a disgusted snort. It did not filter through the nasal cavity, as the beings did not have noses. In fact, it had no face to carry a nose, no head to carry the face, nor body upon which to have a head.

“And how does this affect what we are doing?” said the first.

“No effect that cannot be corrected.”

The student was learning, thought the first being.

“Anything we do to this universe changes all manner of things. It is the nature of this reality. It adds flavor.”

The second being gave a deferential nod, although even the most advanced equipment on Earth would have barely registered the respectful neutrinos.

“Tell me of the previous influences.”

“Well, one was about sixty thousand of their ‘years’ after they first began to ripen to sentience. It appears that someone isolated two of them, male and female, and convinced them that they were special.”

Again, the first being snorted using gravity waves.

“Amateurs! Direct contact? Absurd! And what was the result?”

“Apparently, the being set out some simple rules, and someone else appeared and convinced them to break the rules. Elements of the resulting faith exist even now. They have been alternately victimized or become victimizers for close to six thousand of their years.”

“You see?” the first being waggled a finger equivalent at the first, “Such direct influence does nothing but damage. When dealing with an infant race, you must operate with the utmost delicacy. Direct influence is too blunt, too forceful.”

“In another incident, a female was made to bear a modified young. The youth, when it matured, led a small group of others around the country they lived in, performing acts of healing.”

“And, again, the results?”

“A ritual sacrifice, followed by two thousand years of warfare. Another sect, created by an intervention about five hundred of their years after the first, was led to believe the other was evil, and the two have been fighting since then.”

“Rank novices!”

The first being looked down on the small blue sphere. Or, more accurately, it observed instantaneously in almost every way possible.

All at once, several of the inhabitants looked up with flashes of pure insight.

Unlike previous interactions, this appeared as a group of ideas.

“You see,” said the first, lecturing to the second, “these subtle ideas will be mulled over in their biological brains. Some of the ideas will survive, and resonate within them. Over time, they will add their own flavor to the ideas.”

Again, the second gave a courteous spray of neutrinos.

“To what purpose?” it asked respectfully.

“The ideas will lead to their expansion beyond their own world, into the greater universe. Interaction with several thousand other races will flavor and mature them, make them full and round with wisdom.”

“And then?”

“Eventually they will rise to meet us, and then we dine.”

The second being wiped what could be called hands on what could be called an apron.