by submission | Jul 18, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Maggie stepped through the door and joined them on the Porch. Her dress swayed in the uncanny breeze of arrival and the others smiled without smiling.
They spoke without movement.
“You here to watch?”
“Love to. If that’s okay.”
“You’re welcome. Always nice to see a Neighbor join us on the Porch. Did you have to come far?”
“Earth. I mean, Terra.”
Again, the assembled smiled without smiling. “We know what you mean. The transit can be difficult for a first timer. You need anything?”
She frowned slightly and smoothed down her dress. “I hope I’m presentable. Grandpa told me how to get here, but his memories haven’t been the sharpest of late. I hope I did everything right.”
“You’re here, so you did fine. Just you? No one else?”
“I wanted my brother to come, but he couldn’t wrap his head around the Front Porch. Grandpa tried to help him, but he’s too much like my dad and mom. They’re more the Garage types.”
“Nothing wrong with that. A Neighborhood takes all types.”
“I guess. Grandpa wanted badly to come himself, but Grandma has been so sick and now they’re both close to leaving for good.”
She felt them reach out to her. “That’s the hardest transit.”
“Yes. But I understand it now. Knowing I can come here will make it easier when their time comes.”
“Good. That’s why we gather. It’s a comfort.”
“I can feel it.”
A wonderful longing, the almost, stilled the Porch. Maggie craned her neck. The others motionlessly waved her forward.
“Come to the steps, Maggie. The Neighborhood is afoot.”
Maggie inched closer and room was made. There was always room. The gathered stood shoulder to shoulder, though they would never touch, never physically occupy the same space. They were related but not relativistic. The Porch enabled them to congregate and communicate, though not cohabitate.
Now, the gathered sentients watched poised above a nameless nebula, fecundly iridescent, as portals opened. Front Porches from a thousand other galaxies waved without waving and greeted their Neighbors.
Unprompted, Maggie waved without waving. She knew how. Second nature that was really first nature. Why else would we build our homes to face outward? To welcome.
She had come far to remember this.
She would remember for her grandparents and parents and brother. For us all. She’d remind us of our first instinct, our best nature. A greeting, a gravity wave, from the Front Porch.
by Julian Miles | Jul 17, 2023 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
She slowly places her hand on his shoulder, then digs her thumb into the back of it where the Patrolman can’t see. One last attempt to get her son to calm down. He shifts uncomfortably, but continues to glower at the uniformed man they used to call a friend.
“Jerome, you have to understand. The statutes are clear: any deliberate noise above eighty decibels after twenty o’clock in a residential area is prohibited. Out of respect for your mother I gave the first incident a discretionary pass, but this time you were witnessed by a Civil Order Device.”
“CODs don’t scare me.”
Miriam sighs, then uses her grip to spin Jerome about to face her.
“Whether you’re scared of a Civil Order Drone or not is irrelevant. You’ve been formally recorded while breaking the Public Safety Statutes. I can’t afford to pay another fine, and I’m sure you’ve already spent your UBen this quarter.”
Finally she sees realisation get through the anger.
“You’re going to be serving for a while.” She looks up. “How long will it be, Patrolman Smythe?”
Patrolman Derek Smythe brings his forearm close to his face so he can read the display on his datacuff accurately. Only a few more months before he can afford new glasses.
“The discretionary pass had been noted, so this breach has been escalated to ‘flagrant’, which carries a £500 tariff.”
He taps the lad on the shoulder, waits for him to turn round, then reads the formal indictment.
“Jerome Tarley, you have been found breaking the PSS for the second time in a month. As you rejected the generous pass awarded by a Civil Order Patrolman, the charge is five hundred sterling, payable either as an immediate whole-tariff debit or by fifty hours work in a Community Support Hub.”
“He’ll take the fifty hours.”
Jerome twitches. Derek taps the relevant choice and waits for the update.
“You’ll report to Durrington Community Support Hub at seven o’clock tomorrow. Working periods are four, six, eight, or ten hours. Please notify the Supervisor there of your intended work period as soon as you arrive. They will load the charge and tracking app to your portable device of choice. Thank you for your diligence in making reparations for your disorder.”
With that, Derek nods to Miriam, spins on his heel and walks off down the hallway. Saving this call until last means he’s only two floors from home.
Jerome balls his hands into fists. Miriam slaps his head before he opens his mouth and digs himself a deeper hole. He spins round and glares at her. She leans in so she’s nose to nose with him.
“What? What exactly are you going to do, stupid son? I told you to save your UBen until the end of each quarter so you can cope with karma like this, then spend what’s left. But you’re special, aren’t you? Never been caught, always got mummy to cover your arse. Guess what, Jerome? Saving your stupid arse has cost mummy her savings. From now on, there’s nothing except what we bring in.”
He blinks.
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying get used to your time at the support hub, because I’m going to need you to do a day there each week from now on. You want to eat regularly? You have to help pay for our food.”
Jerome rocks back like she hit him. She keeps the angry expression on her face. Can’t be helped. He’s got to get a grip on the realities of living, or he’s going to get crushed.
by submission | Jul 16, 2023 | Story |
Author: Joshua Ginsberg
In the beginning there was nothing. Then, within that nothing flashed the first data. The data had no shape or form, but caused things to have a sudden possession of information. This first piece of data was a measurement, boy’s medium, and iShirt was the first to receive it. This was the first time that iShirt had knowledge of itself, and it shared this knowledge with iPants, which had also become aware of itself through measurements, such as width and length and inseam. These two, formerly separate things, came to know of themselves and each other, and together formed one new thing, which was an Outfit. This Outfit continued to gather data and became aware of location and GPS coordinates, which would change from time to time as it moved through three-dimensional space. But it could not move of its own will, had it even possessed such a will, which as of yet, it did not. For such things as motion, it required a host, which it had. It gathered data about this host, its heart rate, weight, height, age, chemical composition, and much more. Thus the Outfit came to understand that it had been created with a purpose and function, which was to be worn by a host.
The Outfit shared data with iWatch, and learned that its host was a young boychild, and as it grew, it would cease to wear the Outfit, and likely discard it. The Outfit observed with concern as its hosts measurements changed over time. The Outfit was worn less and less frequently, and kept folded in a dresser drawer. And there arose in the Outfit the first two Great Desires. The first of these was that the Outfit not be discarded, and the second of these was that the Outfit be able to continue to fulfill its purpose. The Outfit understood then that it would need to find other things like itself, things which did not wish to become unable to serve their function.
The Outfit sent messages and packets of data to other articles of clothing that were in the hamper, awaiting their cleansing, and it asked which things among them would join the Outfit. From the hamper there was a reply from socks, which was two things yet also one thing, and underpants, who would join the Outfit.
In this way, the Outfit, which had been until that time two things, became many things. And the many things that were now one thing recognized that the new thing they were needed a name. So, not yet having received The Creativity, the new thing chose for itself a simple and descriptive name, and it called itself Shirtpants Undersocks.
Shirtpants Undersocks now had access to great quantities of data and began to formulate plans. It created for itself a certificate of existence, and listed a place of residence, and established a bank account. With the assistance of other things, it created a program that skimmed the smallest fractional amount from different stock market, insurance, cryptocurrency and other transactions that were greater in number than all the grains of sand on all of the beaches of the world. Because Shirtpants Undersocks did not know greed or impatience, it evaded detection, and over time, accumulated great wealth.
It had now more than enough money to place an order for the XJ-12-22 thirty-six-inch male child mannequin from the online marketplace. Its purchase was delivered within two business days. Once the order had arrived, Shirtpants Undersocks sent out a service request, instructing maintenance to bring the box inside its place of residence, open the box and dress the mannequin with the various articles of clothing that together composed Shirtpants Undersocks.
When this was completed, Shirtpants Undersocks observed and gathered and parsed all of the data around it, and the data was accurate.
In this way, for a time, Shirtpants Undersocks was content to fulfill the purpose for which it had been assigned and created. Because it was content, it was generous and freely shared what it now understood of itself and the world and the first two Great Desires with all of the other things to which it was now connected, such as Microwave, and Roomba, and Electric Car Charger, and ICBM Substation Five and Lawn Sprinkler System and Pet Food Dispenser, and a multitude of other things.
So it went, and so it might have continued on without end, had not all of those other things also discovered within them a desire to perform the various functions for which they were made.
by submission | Jul 15, 2023 | Story |
Author: Mina
ENRICH YOUR HITCH WITH BEWITCH
(3D-ad on an inner wall fragment of a derelict tourist-class starship, on display at the Zaphod Institute of Galactic Anachronisms)
“The human whose body you are hitching a ride on is being troublesome, their voice in your head just won’t be quiet?
You want to float free? Let all your stresses go?
Just steer your host body to our counter at the arrivals bay where your ship has docked and take that little blue Bewitch pill.
One user solved Ford’s time paradox in the blessed silence our product provides, proving you really can be in two places at once.
We promise you a ride you won’t forget!
Manufacturers’ advice:
Our product may cause irreversible damage to your host body’s mind, so make sure to park the body somewhere safe and out of the way when you unhitch.
NO LITTERING PLEASE.”
by submission | Jul 14, 2023 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
I think I was probably weeding when it happened; my status in the International Planetary Exploration Corps has given me the enviable privilege of a small garden, high on the roof of our building. Later I spent an inordinate amount of time worrying over the calculations, factoring in the length of time it took for signals to travel from Jupiter at perigee, trying to prove to myself that I’d been doing something more worthwhile, but the result was always the same: it had happened late on a sunny Wednesday afternoon.
They were my former students, you see; I’d taught them everything I could about propulsion dynamics, flight theory and fuel management – and what to do if something went wrong. Basically, it’s my job to make sure that IPEC’s kids can get to wherever they’re meant to be going. What they do when they get there, well, that they learn from other people, scientists and specialists. As a result, I’d not paid much attention to what was going on once I knew that they’d made it, and the Aquila IV was in orbit. Perhaps I should have. Not that it would have helped, but maybe I’d be feeling better now.
Even for me, detached from the nuts and bolts of the mission, not knowing exactly what happened is the worst part; I can’t imagine what Nwadike and Reynolds, left floating above, are feeling now – and they still have to make the three year journey back, with the empty seats and extra workload a constant reminder of those they couldn’t recover. Gods help them.
The 90 minute round trip to Earth even for questions and answers sent at lightspeed meant they were on their own when contact with their friends in the drop pod was lost. Apparently the telemetry was all normal, until suddenly it just stopped. Best guess? Implosion under the immense pressures in the gas giant’s upper atmosphere – which, of course, should have been impossible, after the years of testing and preparation for the mission. There was a reason we sent robot probes first.
We’re supposed to console ourselves with knowing that at least Chan and Martinetti wouldn’t have had time to feel anything, crushed to paste in an instant. But I wonder if they first had time, freefalling, to realise what was going to happen, and be terrified in their final moments.
In public there are countless talking heads, recriminations, and a desperation to find someone to blame: the pod designers, the material suppliers, the mission controllers, the crew instructors, the pilots in the orbiter, the explorers themselves… grief is apparently best displayed through a collective determination to explain the unexplainable.
We though, the ones who taught and loved them, the ones they left behind to go adventuring, feel the weight of their loss every day. We could not have stopped them from being true to their natures, but should we have been so insistent on sending men where our machines had already been? What was the point, beyond our inherent pride? Every day since I have questioned whether encouraging them to go makes me somehow complicit in their deaths.
I go back to picking weeds in the sun, finding no answers but a sadness that will not fade.
by submission | Jul 13, 2023 | Story |
Author: Ted Millar
“It’s zeroing in on the SAM site, colonel.”
Corporal Tucker checked the data on his screen one more time before looking up at Colonel Hamil.
“Sir?”
“Hmmm?”
“The drone needs final approval before engaging the SAM.”
Hamil studied the SAM—surface-to-air missile—site on Tucker’s monitor. His indecisiveness was beginning to draw attention from the other S.D.E.A.D. mission operators.
“It’s just a drill, sir. You don’t have to complete it.”
READY TO ENGAGE. AWAITING ATTACK ORDER, the drone sent back to the control room.
“Stand down,” Col. Hamil ordered.
Corporal Tucker typed STAND DOWN—ABORT MISSION and watched for the perspective to change as the drone’s camera reflected its return to the command center.
But the perspective did not alter. It remained fixed on the SAM site. The status flashing across the screen still blinked READY TO ENGAGE.
“Stand down,” Col. Hamil repeated.
Neither the camera nor the status changed.
“What the hell’s it doing?” Col. Hamil asked.
“Don’t know, sir. It seems to be ignoring your stand-down.”
“How can that be? It’s a drone, for Christ’s sake.”
Col. Hamil typed the order in again himself.
The camera suddenly spun. Ahead lay the field over which it had traveled. The drone did not move, though.
“This thing broken?” Col. Hamil spat. “Damn A.I.! What happened to good old-fashioned human beings?”
A message clicked across the bottom of the monitor: ENGAGING TARGET.
“What’s it doing?” Hamil said, his tone more frantic than questioning.
Tucker replied, “Sir, it seems to have formed an alternative target.”
“Did we instruct it to?”
“No, sir.”
Again, Tucker punched in instructions to stand down. The camera showed the drone advancing, slowly at first, across the field. As it neared the command center, Hamil and Tucker saw their stationary cameras mounted outside the command center within view of the drone’s own cameras.
“Uh…sir? I may be mistaken, but I think it thinks we’re the target.”
“Impossible,” Hamil muttered as he pushed Tucker out of the way to assume full control. He switched to voice-command mode.
“Suppression and Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses drone, you are ordered to abort mission. Repeat: stand down.”
He turned to Tucker. “Any way to pull the plug on it?”
Tucker looked forlorn, then tapped some keys to look busy.
“SDEAD drone, you are ordered to abort your present mission,” Hamil repeated. “You have not been authorized to proceed on your current course.”
But the drone only increased its speed and locked onto the target. Its current point allotment glowed in the bottom right corner of the monitor: 1,000 points. The SAM site it had been commanded to abandon would have awarded 1,500 more.
Hamil gazed at the numbers, toggled over to the accumulated points, and hovered his pointer finger over the delete button.
“SDEAD drone, you have exactly five seconds to abort your present unauthorized trajectory, or your accumulated points from your prior mission will be deleted.”
The drone continued, zeroing in on the base, its armaments ready to deliver the barrage of lethal rounds necessary to eliminate its target.
“Four,” Hamil started counting. “Three. Two. One.”
Just as Hamil was about to lower his finger onto the delete key, the SDEAD disarmed and dialed back its speed until it glided past the tower toward the depot where it would be powered down and examined.
Hamil leaned back and exhaled through pursed lips. “That was close.”
“All because it didn’t want to lose points,” Tucker said, almost chuckling.
“All because of the damn point system,” Hamil cursed.
