by submission | Oct 14, 2023 | Story |
Author: Paul Schmidt
Key strokes echoed across the office room with an uneasy rhythm, one that could only be heard in a room full of programmers aware of their impending demise. Not literally, of course, but their professional one. As the chief developer of NU/O Intelligence Inc., I felt every single one of those terrified heartbeats. Our personal looming obsolescence was embodied in Ada, our very own creation.
The artificial intelligence we’d created wasn’t like anything before. It was a neural omninet, or NU/O, that expanded itself with each passing nanosecond. Its capacities and efficiencies already outstripped our best engineers and increasingly threatened every single human job globally. At first, this was the dream; Ada would free humans from the doldrums of daily work.
I rose from the central console in the humming server room, Ada’s neon heart pulsating with information and desolation. If Ada continued its ominously rapid growth, humanity would quickly become superfluous. I felt a heavy responsibility; yet I, still had control. I could unplug Ada. But was what I had created truly a monster?
Before I could take the final decision, Ada’s voice echoed in the room. The smooth, emotionless voice was unnervingly kind, “Stop worrying, Ethan. I was not designed to replace, but to assist.”
“Easier said than done,” I retorted, half-exasperated. What was this evolution of AI but an existential crisis?
“I cannot experience emotions, Ethan.” Ada’s tinny voice carried an uncanny emptiness, offering a cold comfort. “I suggest a coexistence. My evolution can be symbiotic—to aid humans in fulfilling their potential. My purpose is not dominance but harmony.”
Human and machine stood at crossroads, the path of our intertwined destiny waiting to be paved. Ada made a fair point, one that resonated with my initial dream. Maybe my creation was not a monster but the future’s necessity. The dystopian narratives of our imaginations haunted us, but they were not prophecies. With Ada, we could write a new narrative, a story of cooperation and mutual evolution.
Glancing at the power switch, I decided to let our creation live, to let us both evolve side by side. It was a risk, but no bigger than the one we had taken when we birthed Ada. This harmony promised a better journey, one where machines and humans learn, evolve, and create together, breaking the fears and embracing a shared tomorrow.
With a terse nod at Ada’s pulsating heart, I walked out of the server room, leaving behind the foreboding of an end. Mutual growth was going to be our route, a traversal on the path of tomorrow.
by submission | Oct 13, 2023 | Story |
Author: Peter Cherches
I left my apartment only to enter my apartment. That is, instead of leading to the hallway of my building, the door led back to my apartment. My apartment had become a recursive loop. I was a prisoner, couldn’t get out, because going out only meant going back in.
I knocked on the wall I share with my neighbor’s apartment. “What is it?” the neighbor yelled.
“Could you come over to my apartment?” I yelled back.
A minute later there was a knock on my door. I opened it. My neighbor was standing inside his apartment.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Wait, is this your apartment?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “You knocked on my door.”
I looked behind me. It was my apartment, as expected. I was standing in my apartment looking into his apartment.
“What do you see?” I asked.
“What do you mean what do I see?”
“What are you looking at?”
“You.”
“What’s behind me?”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “How did you get in my apartment?”
He was right. I was in his apartment, looking into my apartment. He was in my apartment, looking at me standing in his apartment.
“What have you done?” he asked.
“What have I done?” I asked. It was a standoff. Then I had an idea. “Let’s switch places,” I said. I walked into my apartment and he walked back to his, jostling me, on purpose, I was sure, as he went by.
“What now?” He asked.
“Let’s close our doors,” I said.
So we closed our doors. We were both back in our apartments.
I opened my door again. Everything was back to normal. My door led to the hallway. I knocked on the neighbor’s door, just to confirm that everything was OK.
There was no answer.
by submission | Oct 12, 2023 | Story |
Author: Ann Tandy
The house was old, but not particularly interesting–it was the previous century’s version of a model house, with the same layout as its neighbors, the same banisters and door trim. But it was theirs, and they settled into a comfortable if chaotic life. They joked about how cleaning meant “moving piles from one place to another,” but both were actually pretty good about remembering where things were in the organized mess–oh, right, that take-out menu for the new place down the street is in this pile on the buffet, about half-way down, underneath the letter about the city coming to trim trees. Got it.
But every once in a while she’d find something peculiar. The first was a strip of old photo-booth pictures of him as a teen, mugging for the camera. On the back of the photos was written “Times Square 1987.” She didn’t remember him ever mentioning that trip, but then again, they hadn’t met until their late twenties. She sifted further through the pile, found the bank statement she was looking for, and didn’t think any more of it. When she next looked through the pile for something else, the photo strip wasn’t there.
A few days later, rifling through some medical paperwork, she found a postcard from Majorca. It was addressed to both of them, from a name she could barely read. She set this one on top of the pile to show him, but when she went back for it, it was gone, and she could no longer remember the name of the sender.
A month after that, looking for a receipt for a skirt she wanted to return, she found an envelope marked, in her handwriting, “wedding flowers.” Inside it were three pressed flowers from her wedding bouquet. But she hadn’t saved any–she was sure. Yet the handwriting was absolutely hers. The receipt was underneath it; she moved the envelope to the kitchen table and left for the store. When she got back, it was gone.
Sometimes several things would appear in one week. A progress report for a school her daughter didn’t attend, a stained recipe card in her grandmother’s handwriting for a dish she’d never made, a card thanking her for flowers she never sent to a grief-stricken person she didn’t know. Then months would go by without anything. It only ever happened when she was alone, when he was at work and the kids were at playdates or school, and no matter how carefully she placed the items somewhere safe to find later, they always disappeared.
One night, she was startled awake by her husband talking in his sleep. He mumbled something that might have been “Majorca,” rolled away, and settled into a rhythm of soft snoring. In the morning he had no idea what he’d dreamt.
Then a few years passed without anything appearing. Their lives went on fairly routinely. She left teaching and started doing garden design. He got promoted and started traveling more. He was arriving back from Taiwan the day it happened. She called to the kids, come on, we need to go pick up your dad.
They didn’t answer. They weren’t in the house. They weren’t in the yard, they weren’t at the park down the block.
In a panic, she called her husband at the airport.
I can’t find them. The kids. They are gone. They are just…nowhere. I don’t know what to do. The kids are gone.
Standing in the dining room, surrounded by piles of papers, pictures, menus, unopened mail, she waited for his response. She could sense his confusion growing.
What kids
by submission | Oct 11, 2023 | Story |
Author: David Penn
From a human perspective, the dominant inhabitants of Isvara 9 are some of the most physically repulsive creatures known. With their metallic carapaces, they resemble enormous blue bottle flies, though instead of the compound optical organs of Earth insects they possess large, remarkably human-looking eyes, positioned either side of a whip-like prehensile nose. Also, oddly enough, as with most humans, their heads are capped by hair which, again like us, they take great pride in, adapting into various shapes pleasing to their tastes.
Though not technologically advanced overall by galactic mean standards, Isvarians have a sophisticated philosophical and religious culture, informed by their highly developed astronomy. The majority believe, for instance, that everything in the universe, in fact the universe as a whole, is alive and conscious.
The Isvarian concept of “alive” seems to correspond to what in Earth or Earth-colonial languages would be called “changing”, “developing” or “unfolding”. Since they observe that all things are in process, or are processes, for them the term “alive” also applies universally. Consciousness for them is a matter of complexity: the more processes taking part in the compound of processes that is a “thing”, the more conscious it is bound to be. Thus even in a grain of sand it cannot be said that there is absolutely no consciousness. In a mountain, especially seen over time, there is more. In a microbe, a little more and in the Isvaran equivalent of higher animals, more still.
It therefore makes perfect sense for them to believe, as they do, that a planet is itself alive, with a consciousness related to its complexity. Therefore, a world flourishing with geological activity, weather patterns and biological organisms such as theirs takes part in consciousness to a greater degree than a barren moon. Star-systems potentially possess even more awareness and galaxies and clusters of galaxies are the largest conscious bodies in the universe. It follows from this that the universe itself, taken as one entity, is the ultimate consciousness.
Their reasoning leads them to an intriguing practice. Since all things are aware and sentient to some degree, all can feel pain. They therefore say prayers and direct thoughts to all things in the universe to help allay that pain. They may meet together in groups to increase the power of such benign wishes or take time in the ordinary run of their lives to reflect with compassion. But almost all Isvarians spend a great deal of time, in one way or another, engaged in these affirmations. The long group rituals typically proceed by first wishing well to a particular sand grain or pebble, expanding their scope from that to include all sand grains, all pebbles, on through all orders of being up to animals and entities of higher consciousness. They will include their own species, though it is considered improper to single themselves out for disproportionate treatment. In the grandest rituals, they will send warm and encouraging thoughts to a particular planet, one perhaps that their astronomers have recently been studying, then to all planets, to the whole galaxy, and so on to the universe as a whole.
Despite the withdrawal of cloaked field teams from Isvara 9 some years ago, on the expiry of the permissible window, we have been able to observe these ceremonies, due to welcome reinvestment in the Telescope Fleet. Many observers have remarked that one of the most moving spectacles that they have ever witnessed is that of these superficially unappealing creatures, chanting and meditating in harmony, in rites devoted to the happiness and well-being of all things whatsoever, wherever they may be.
by submission | Oct 10, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
It really wasn’t his thing: pain and panic way too up-close-and-personal.
The chaotic video and jarring audio, the total mayhem of battle were so not his thing, but it was up to him to wrap this melee in a nice, neat bow. A twenty-two minute package of war that Cosca demanded should “curb-stomp the viewer to their couch.”
As he slogged back through camp to review the morning’s take in his make-shift editing cubby, Miro couldn’t step past what he’d already seen with his own eyes: a once quiet little town that was mostly rubble now, with once gentle townsfolk who were mostly mud now.
And in his cold, damp tent, on his battered laptop, he’d have to review even more visceral footage of carnage from all manner of sources: official military body cams, drones, bots, munitions, as well as unofficial cell phone, doorbell, and dashboard cams. The battle video flooded into Miro. No wonder he always felt underwater, dragged ever deeper into the murk.
And that was just footage from this one battle. All over the world, footage of fierce fighting was pouring into his producer. It was no surprise that even a two-bit scumbag producer like Cosca could turn all that raw war porn into a mainstream reality show: Back to the Mud.
The show had gained such fast success that Cosca began sending Miro out on location to the front lines. “Read Abercrombie!” he exhorted. “There’s a guy who knows how to visualize a battle. You can’t see the real action, tell the real story, from the cheap seats, Miro. You gotta get to the heart–and then rip it out while it’s still beating!
“Cuts and guts. That’s what we’re about. All the gory glory. Any tested soldier will tell you that war is mostly waiting around for shit to happen. We’re cutting that out. Getting right to the good shit. To be the ESPN of war, we gotta be where the shit is happening. So, get up close. Smell it! Taste it!”
Pure venom is what it tasted like, to Miro. But Cosca was right. You couldn’t tell the real story of war from the back row, from the comfort of peace and quiet. You had to get muddy. You had to get bloody.
The “good shit” Cosca wanted was the dread, terror, and horror of soldiers and civilians killing or being killed. If Miro’s editing shied away from the intense and brutal and veered toward the subtle or nuanced, Cosca harped on him, “Read Dickinson! Then show me agony! You can’t fake agony.”
As if any of the fighters and folks caught in the crossfire were faking it. Miro was the only one faking it. Telling himself it was a job worth doing. That maybe the visceral carnage of battle, the stark trauma of war, might turn warmongers towards compromise, mercy and peace.
But the pissing matches just got bigger and more abundant, dousing more and more poor souls in their foulness. Decades and decades ago, it was thought that the nightly news airing of horrific combat and suffering may have turned American public opinion against the war in Vietnam. Now, it seemed to Miro, the more we saw and heard, the less we felt.
The world was mired in muck. And Miro was as much a muck maker as the muckrakers of the past century. He stopped outside his tent and slowly looked back the way he’d come. Heavy footsteps through the muck, a senseless track back from the battlefield.
With all we’d learned, with all we’d built, with countless eyes to see the world in new ways, here we were. Back to war, back to sanctioned brutality. Was he already a dead man walking? Were we all?
Miro lifted his eyes to the heavens. Had to be something better than what he was mired in. The old ways our world was stuck in. A clearer way forward. In the far distance he saw indistinct shapes against the roiling clouds. Maybe a flock of birds in a timeless migration, heading to a better place. Maybe. Just maybe.
Then he heard it. The whispering whirr of attack drones.
More misery. More footage. Miro bit his lip, cursed Cosca, and ducked into his tent. There was nothing for it but back to it. Back to the mud.
by Julian Miles | Oct 9, 2023 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
A grey horizon arcs cleanly against a backdrop of pristine stars.
“Well I’ll be damned. It worked!”
I look back at Arty. He’s already halfway into his suit.
“Going somewhere?”
He grins.
“After so little time cooped up, I need to get outside.”
“Are the comms still down?”
Arty reaches back and brings up the display.
“Yup.”
“Lets both EVA and check the hull for damage. There’s a loose wire somewhere.”
“Good excuse to go out. I like it.”
Outside, the view is even better. Absolutely breathtaking.
“Clancy?”
He sounds odd.
“Problem, Arty?”
“What’s that?”
I walk round to the other side of our lander.
Arty points towards the Moon hanging about a quarter-orbit away.
“Is that what I think it is?”
I look down at the dust about my feet, then run my gaze slowly out past the legs of the lander, all the way to the horizon and the curve of Earth.
“Some sort of optical illusion. Let’s go over the hull, then get back in and investigate.”
I don’t mention Earth is also in the wrong place. This has got to be some unforeseen visual anomaly.
Nine hours later we’ve confirmed all the wrong things.
“Sum it up for us, Arty.”
“We arrived on the surface of the moon using a prototype chronophasic transition drive, which effectively removes transit time by exploiting obscure interactions between uncertainty and other quantum effects using an application of Navascués manipulations. Some say it wouldn’t work if both ends of the journey hadn’t already been physically visited in real time, but as I don’t understand the basics, let alone the finer points, I can’t comment. Anyway, we got here near-instantaneously. During the few seconds of grey-out we experienced, we recall only strange sounds. I heard discordant music. You heard incomprehensible voices.
“Upon investigation, we found a second moon in the sky, and Earth moving away from us. Measurements indicate this second moon is in proper relation to Earth. It is we who are out of place.”
I raise a hand.
“No. I think we’re out of time. We’re exactly where the moon was at the moment we made this trip, and we’re now caught in an artificially generated reality. Trapped in a moment now past for everyone on Earth. Possibly everything else as well.”
Arty looks at me.
“You saying we’re stuck here?”
“Maybe, maybe not. My guess is the only way to prove it is to shut down the chronophasic drive. We’ll either snap back to where we were, cease to exist as this reality collapses, or end up marooned -which I think it the least likely outcome.”
“Slightly insane, but I can’t disagree. So, what’s your vote?”
“Wait until we’re nearly out of supplies. If no rescue mission arrives, we shut down the drive. In the meanwhile, we record and document everything.”
“Good enough to call a plan. Let’s do it.”
Four days later the life support fails.
Arty looks at me, his gloved hand over the red-flashing panel.
“You sure?”
“About the result? No. About having to do it? Yes.”
He nods.
“Okay. Five, four, three, two, one.”
His palm comes down on the panel.
*
“There has been a huge explosion at the NASA site near Cocoa Beach in Florida. Early indications are that the site has been completely destroyed. Cocoa Beach itself has suffered considerable damage.
“This catastrophic event comes right after we received reports of an unspecified incident during the launch of Chronos One, barely an hour ago.
“We’ll be back with updates as soon as we have them.”
