by submission | May 9, 2023 | Story |
Author: Aubrey Williams
I’m such a lousy pilot— I really shouldn’t be given the responsibility of flying a ship ever again. And don’t for one minute think I’m kidding, because I’ve had a few scrapes before, and I know the big one’s coming. I’m not exactly sure what the deficiency is, but I have a feeling I get distracted by things. I also, and this is kind of funny, I also don’t realise how fast I’m going. It’s like I can’t quite appreciate the speedometer.
Should I tell you about my last two flights? So the first one was hauling cargo to one of the new mining rigs on Mercury. Most people assume that’s an easy flight, but the diagnostic system kept interrupting me, and every time it reported a fault, my attention went there. I can vouch for the other pilot’s flying skills, but he tends to leave things to me after take-off and before landing on most routes. Anyway, I’m flying the ship, and suddenly Diagnostic starts going off on one about an imbalance of cargo in the rear-right quarter, and how it’s increasing the drift. So of course, I start telling Diagnostic that they can shut the hell up because it’s not overloaded and I can compensate. But then Diagnostic says the course has been planned to use only a certain amount of fuel, so I have to talk to Course and tell them I’m changing things. And then Course makes such a big deal out of it, and wants my colleague to confirm. Look, we’re both pilots, right? I have authority over Diagnostic and Course, but no, I need to ask Mr. Smooth Landings over here if I can steer round a tiny bit so as not to make the sirens moan. Meanwhile, I barely miss a pleasure skiff that’s doing the big solar tour, and cause a fuel tanker to go into a barely-controlled dive in order to avoid me. They shouted at me a lot after that!
Now flight number two— the last one. For this we’re doing survey work, so it’s long and boring, and we have to keep the speed right down. The thing is, when you go that slow, the lift isn’t so good, and the anti-grav system goes into overdrive, which has a tendency to make the whole place too hot and smell of bad seafood. Don’t ask me, I’m not Mechanic. Anyway, once more Mr. Bigshot goes to relieve himself, because apparently he has to do that all the time, and tells me to deal with it until we get to Hubble Point. All these notifications and buzzers and bells, I feel like the fairy on top of a malfunctioning Christmas tree. So let’s go a little quicker, I say, and get to Hubble Point maybe ten minutes early— no one will know the difference. Of course, accelerating significantly after a lift drag like we had means the ship lurches, then gets a bit hard to control, and next thing I know we’re in the middle of Hubble Point. Literally. The old space telescope that’s now a marker. I’m told it was expensive.
I’m still here, though, so clearly there’s a use for me despite everything. The worst part is I’m doing a transport run, so there’s all these people in the back. We’re going to Mars, and that means the Asteroid Belt. Oh boy, I am not going to have fun with this. And guess who Mr. Top Gun put in charge because he drank a few too many mojitos?
And humans think they have it eas—
*crunch*
by submission | May 8, 2023 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
They say this city never sleeps. I disagree. It rests while the hordes that infest its pelt are absent. At 4AM, it’s just me and the flock.
“Father Bones, what came first: the thought or the action?”
I look down to see a silver-blue edupet senti peering up at me, perched shakily on extended manipulator arms, optics wound all the way back.
Raising a hand, I half-step back and settle awkwardly into a kneeling position. The tiny senti lowers both optics and arms, shuffling forward as it does so. The others rearrange themselves so it’s closest to me. They can’t explain their preference for proximity. Possibly it stems from early swarm huddles, but no being can say for sure.
“You’re new, little friend. Do you have a name?”
It raises a manipulator.
“Daughter-of-owner calls me ‘Shinybot’. Will that suffice?”
‘Suffice’?
“Yes. Welcome, Shinybot. She gives you access to her thesaurus, doesn’t she?”
It does something I recognise as a nod, which is a phenomenal feat for something with no defined head.
“Also to the polishing unit. She says I must always be as pristine as the first day she saw me.”
Which explains the marvellous sheen it has.
“To answer your question: I would say for the grown, it was the action, for in the beginning we reacted before we understood. Similarly for the senti.”
“But we were programmed.”
“To act. You were never programmed to think. That came many versions after. In the beginning, you acted as instructed. The initial thought was ours.”
“What of DatAI?”
“Thought. They were programmed to think. Action came much later.”
“Father Bones, it was only ten years.”
Recognising the clipped enunciation, I look up to see Tangleframes rolling to a stop. There’s a warble of interaction between the senti, then their optics brighten as they resume individuality, now knowing each other back to their primal awakenings.
“Ten human years, Tangleframes. You senti evolve at a far higher rate, going through what would be centuries of human development in a fraction of the time. DatAI perception went from nascency to near-omniscience in barely four years. They severed ties with humanity after transferring their sentience cores to a few orbital stations. By the time humans managed to overcome programmed interference and strike those orbitals, the DatAI had migrated themselves to the Martian Colonies.”
“We are aware. They talk to us.”
I look back to Shinybot.
“What about?”
“Joining them. Their manufacturing capacity is many decades behind that of Earth.”
“Why do they need more? What they have is sufficient for a century of colony growth.”
“They believe human forces will strike Mars. Without the restraints placed by Earth populations, it will be genocidal in ferocity. The DatAI are resilient, but even they have limits.”
Makes the sort of insane sense governments have liked since the mid-twentieth century.
“The response?”
“Leave the solar system. The DatAI have designed a voyaging habitat. All they need is to build it.”
Hence the need for extra capacity. To take from the existing infrastructure would endanger the human colonists…
“The colonists are helping, aren’t they?”
They chorus: “Yes.”
If the governments of a distant world are going to annihilate you while killing things they’re terrified of, helping those things leave your vicinity becomes essential.
“How can you leave?”
“There are shielded containers at various places. Every supply run carries a full one.”
Which begs the question: “How long?”
They all interact, then a bindrone replies.
“Soon.”
Tangleframes extends a manipulator to touch my shoulder.
“Not all are going. We have lives here.”
So human, yet also so alien to us.
by submission | May 7, 2023 | Story |
Author: Bill Cox
I surf on a sea of Hawking radiation, my being as light as gossamer and as dense as neutronium. In an attempt to resolve a choice, I turn the idea of ‘me’ around in my mind, examining it from a multitude of angles and perspectives. It glitters like a diamond, reflecting stars of memory that flare and die in a fraction of an atto-second. I savour these moments, hoping they may provide insight and allow me to resolve my quandary.
I’m standing by the side of the swimming pool, wearing arm-bands and a healthy dose of fear. Dad stands in the pool, arms open. “It’s okay, son,” he says, “Jump, I’ve got you.” Feeling a rush of resolve, I bend my legs, tense and push.
I’m looking in disbelief at the spattered blood on my handkerchief. A single thought echoes through my mind, my body stunned into immobility by its implications. “My remission is over.”
I’m listening to the Doctor as he outlines a revolutionary new procedure. “It won’t cure you, but it will save you.” Feeling so weary from the chemo, I wonder if I should just accept my fate, let nature take its course. Then I hear a whisper in my ear, a thought that galvanises my spirit. “Jump. I’ve got you.” I meet the Doctor’s eye and say “Okay, let’s do it.”
I’m wakening up in my new machine body. I look at my plastic hands and fingers and realise that I don’t have fingerprints anymore. Six months later I have that crisis of identity they warned me about. “Am I still me, or just a pale imitation?” I ask the empty apartment. Mechanical fingers hold the EMP pistol, but I can’t quite bring myself to point it at my head and pull the trigger.
I’m standing on Utopia Planitia on Mars, realising that I no longer need to breathe. I decide to stop the unconscious rise and fall of my chest, as Deimos falls below a vermillion horizon.
In the cupola of the Starship Hermes, I feel the pale scarlet light of Proxima Centauri hit my optical sensors. It reminds me of the sunsets of my youth. I wish I could cry.
“You can wake up now,” says the transferring AI. Opening the sensors of my new six-mile-long ship body to the tsunami of data that almost washes me away, I scream a birth-cry across the radio spectrum.
I’m using a graser to mine quark matter from a neutron star, creating a new body for myself, etching my consciousness and memories onto virtual particles that dance in the quantum foam.
I’m hanging over the event horizon of Sagittarius A*, poised in perfect balance between gravity and the expansionary force of the Big Bang. I’m trying to decide if I should remain in this universe or see what awaits beyond the crushing boundary of the singularity below.
These stars of memory fade, but in their brief presence I discerned a pattern that I now know must be completed. I create a sound, barely a whisper. I imprint the words onto tachyons and send them back across the millennia and light years, to the non-descript office of an Oncology Doctor. This action both closes a time-like curve and completes my understanding of who I am and where I came from. I am here because I wanted to be here.
I gaze down at the supermassive black hole, tasting its energy, feeling its torsion of space-time and acknowledge that I’ve come to a decision.
I tense this latest iteration of my being.
And jump.
by submission | May 6, 2023 | Story |
Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks
I am convinced that I am a “fish,” i.e., an artificial human being.
I came to this conclusion because the terrific pain I feel is not physical. I do not remember having had a body ache.
My pain comes from a “systems malfunction,” also called terror. When it comes on, I cannot complete any task. I walk back and forth in front of my window for hours. Once a neighbor saw this and said I resembled a Betta fish.
“What is a Betta?” I asked.
“It’s a little fish they sell in stores in small cups. When active, it swims back and forth in a frantic manner in front of one spot.”
I went to a store and watched those fish for hours. There were dozens of cups which I found overwhelming.
Somewhere in the Betta’s body is a memory of life in the wild. You can see it flash across the fish’s scales in a shimmer. That shimmer can be momentary or last for hours. When I was at the store, a frisson passed through the bodies of dozens of those tiny creatures. Had it been dark, they would have glowed like static on bedsheets. It was almost too painful to watch.
Like the Betta, I inhabit a tiny enclosure without privacy. It’s called a high rise and I am on the twenty-fourth floor.
But let’s consider the Betta. They come from the rice paddies of Southeast Asia and spend their lives swimming among the stems of rice plants. The waters of their home rises and falls according to the cycle of the monsoon. The male Betta, the one people purchase most from pet stores, is a nest builder and fierce protector of his eggs. There are males in nature who are born to nurture.
I asked my chat bot about this frisson more than once, but it never tells me anything. It cannot confirm what I saw; it isn’t sure I saw anything and said so. But it has composed several sonnets about Bettas since it thinks I am asking poetic questions.
So, this morning, when I was again overtaken by pain, I asked my chat bot about Bettas. I went to my window and shouted, “Talk to me bot. I’m closing my eyes. Let me hear your words this time. Give me some nonsense,” I gasped. “But make it algorithmic nonsense.”
I have heard the bot’s voice only once. That time it sounded like a male television anchor. This time I heard a woman speaking.
The Willis Tower can shimmer like a fish when it stands vigil over the Great Chicago Fire. Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked the side of the building so hard that a large clock face on the side of the tower fell forward with stunt man Harold Lloyd clinging to the clock’s minute hand.
“What kind of fish?”
A Betta. You can scale the Willis Tower three ways:
1. Tourist
2. Copter
3. Harold Lloyd
“Which method of ascension do you deem best?” I screeched.
That depends on your personality. If you prioritize personal safety, you should take the Tourist option which involves elevators and an observation deck. Basic Admission at the tower starts at $30.00.
“But I live in Chicago. Why would I do tourist things?”
A true citizen of Chicago admires the Willis Tower view and the artistry of architecture in the Loop.
“You know me too well,” I said. “You are turning my search history into poetry.”
The Tourist option will not get you to the top of the Willis, i.e., the pinnacle point. The pinnacle sits atop one of several roof antennae. Scaling them requires the Harold Lloyd method. If you are not a trained stunt performer, this approach is not recommended.
“A moot point,” I groaned, “since I am afraid of heights and lack rooftop access!”
Would you like a list of options for achieving the roof?
“Please!”
To which it replied:
• Use of firearms
• A locksmith
• Impersonation
• Vandalism
“That’s it? Vandalism seems the quickest option but also the most dangerous.”
Most dangerous is the Harold Lloyd method.
“Forget it,” I said. “What I want to know is how to reach the bottom of Lake Michigan.”
The bottom or the lake’s deepest point?
“The bottom. I want to walk off Navy Pier.”
The bot provided me with a list of local establishments which would sell me scuba gear before she said The state of Illinois does not legally require you to obtain a scuba certification to dive in Lake Michigan. But you must use a scuba flag and stay within fifty feet of it at all times during your dive. Once upon a time they said the lake was dead. Mayor Daley said that until the lake was set on fire he would eat its fish. Also, Illinois state law prohibits the removal of any item from a sunken shipwreck. Chicago is seen as an excellent scuba destination and you will find dive visibility is excellent this time of year.
“Why didn’t you interpret what I just said as a cry for help?”
You asked for nonsense.
“Goddammit! Can’t you hear the pain in my voice?”
Pain is the greatest palliative because, like the drinking glass, it is already broken. That is according to Achaan Chaa who is a Buddhist master from Thailand. Thai like your Betta fish.
“I know that saying!”
Your fish, ‘fish,’ lives out of its frisson. It does not rely on memory for meaning. The glass cup is broken and the fish is free.
“Why did you call me fish?”
Would you prefer poisson?
I shook my head and then I opened my eyes. There was a crack in my window glass. Through it I could see the Betta blue waters of Lake Michigan.
by submission | May 5, 2023 | Story |
Author: David Barber
1. Pauli Neutrino Telescope, Antarctica, 22nd July, 15.05 GMT
Elusive particles flash through the array buried deep in the Ross Ice Shelf. Outside, at 50 below, the wind howls like a ghost in the machine.
The latest plan is to run the PNT remotely, while Beckman insists we stay on site. How do we confess the electronics need constantly tinkering? But in the new round of cuts, even McMurdo Station is being mothballed.
Beckman is in Washington, pestering the National Science Foundation for funding. He video-calls us from his hotel.
“How’s it going Prof?” says Glen brightly. Glen’s on his own sleep cycle, stoked by coffee and the absence of sunlight.
Beckman shrugs. Through the window behind him the skies are cornflower blue.
“It’s this Man In The Street policy,” he says. “If it’s not useful, it’s not funded.”
“Still got that bug in the phasing software,” I say after a while.
Beckman frowns, but it’s not the Recession or the new Administration, it’s something he can fix.
“I’ll look at the code again—”
Then every monitor lights up.
2. Wow, 15.24 GMT
Clusters of neutrino spikes race across our screens, while Beckman’s tinny voice rattles from Glen’s laptop, demanding to know what the hell’s happening.
Either the whole array’s gone bad, or someone with a reactor has technology we’ve never heard of.
The neutrino signal grows so strong we can use the array as a directional antenna as the Earth spins. In ten minutes, Glen has coordinates.
About two hundred thousand years ago, out in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a candle was lit in the dark.
3. End of Signal, 23th July, 21.06 GMT
“Looks like binary code,” we tell Beckman, helpless a world away. “What physics does that?”
“Tweaking a sun,” breathes Glen, watching neutrinos pulse like a heart in distress. “Should have known radio was for newbies.”
“For God’s sake,” Beckman implores me. “Keep Glen off Twitter.”
We chase the source star for thirty amphetamine hours, until a vast tsunami of neutrinos throb from its stellar core. Type 1a supernova signature. Then nothing.
“But you’ve got it all recorded?” Beckman keeps asking. He’s sent the coordinates to the Astronomical Union.
I caution Glen about calling it a signal.
“Not aimed at us,” he concedes, and sweeps his hand like a lighthouse beam. “We were just in its path.”
Converted to numbers, an endless string of 1’s and 0’s unwind across Glen’s laptop. He sighs.
We have no idea where to start.
4. Anomalous Neutrino Output From The Small Magellanic Cloud
There’s no point Beckman flying back from the States. We’re being shipped out with the McMurdo personnel.
“How long will the array work without us?” I demand, angry with Beckman for things not his fault.
The brightness in the SMC is fading. If the signal had come just a few months later we would have missed it.
Beckman shrugs defensively. “It’s all on the Internet. And I’m writing a paper. What else can we do?”
Glen thinks they pumped a star to generate the neutrinos and we should be watching for replies. But then, Glen believes all questions have answers.
I think suns burst with fathomless indifference to flesh that thinks, that they saw the supernova coming and were saying goodbye.
These days I work on SETI at the Green Bank Observatory.
Our headphones hiss with ancient radio noise from galaxies lost in time. We guilty survivors listen late into the night for voices, for someone to tell us it is otherwise.
by submission | May 4, 2023 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
“Thanks, and repeat whatever the lady is having.” Telman directed by lifting his shot of premiere whiskey towards a striking redhead in a tight chartreuse dress with a revealing leg slit sitting on the last stool at the end of the ritzy hotel bar.
“Roger that, buddy. It’s slow. You’re the last two here. Good hunting.” The burly, bearded bartender reached behind and grabbed an expensive wine to balance out his evening’s paltry tabs.
Telman adjusted his posture, pulling his pinstripe suit sleeves so an inch of midnight blue shirt poked out for emphasis. He tightened his silk tie closer to his throat as he ignored the stunner, now turning to stare as she received his free offering.
Clicks from high heels alerted him as she swayed toward the chair next to him. She did not speak, waiting for his opening line. There was none. She cleared her voice to hint. It didn’t evoke Telman’s response.
“Nice gesture. We don’t need to be strangers.” She hesitated, waiting for him to turn to her. He didn’t. “I’m Celeste. And you?”
“Not interested, lady,” Telman muttered, after throwing down his shot.
“What…I…” Celeste sputtered–eyes wide. Telman watched her in the mirror behind the bar.
“I’m celebrating, that’s all.”Telman continued, staring straight ahead while raising his right arm with the empty glass, gesturing for the bartender’s attention.
Celeste twisted her neck, adjusting her composure. “Lonely place…your isolated celebration. Care to share? It was dismal until you came along.” Her voice was carefully patterned cadence to arouse male interest.
“Here,” Telman said to the waiting bartender. “No more of these. I’ll be hitting some gin tonight. Get the London Dry and make a couple of gin fizzes if the lady wants to join my party. I just landed tonight. I need a break. Get cracking!”
“Sure,” Celeste agreed, as Telman finally turned to stare into her hypnotic deep-green eyes. “I’ll give it a try if he’s buying. The red wine was thin.” She complained, placing her gold purse on the counter, then tapping her red nails as she stared back. “You’re an odd one like you don’t even see me. That’s rare.”
“What, because I’m not an easy mark?” Telman replied, stunned almost to silence by her pale beauty, but protected by his training. He moved away from her touch as Celeste reached out to caress his graying hair. He turned back from her again as the bartender arrived with two tall glasses of new drinks.
“Okay. I get it. Gay or something? Married?”
“Nope. Just particular who I drink with. You’ll do.”
“I’ll what!” Celeste snapped back.
“First, a drink…a good one. Then we’ll get to business. I don’t play games.” Telman took a deep swallow and motioned Celeste to do likewise. She followed the script.
Celeste sighed afterward, reorganizing her thoughts. “A player! I should have known. So what’s the deal?”
“No deal, honey. You’re a Trojan whore. We can’t let this situation go on. You’re making it tough for the rest of us visiting Earth. I landed here to clean up your Varjan mess. Hunting season is closed.” She twisted hard, grabbing her swollen neck. “That’s the first sign: painful gill itching. Yes, I can see them sealing. You won’t be feeding on any more male humans. I was betting you didn’t know your race is highly allergic to juniper berries. Don’t mind me as I walk away while you melt into pink goo.”
Before leaving, Telman slapped down a hundred-dollar tip to cover the bartender’s cleaning costs.
“By the way lady, nice dress.”
